Britain is not London.
Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
91–100 of 173 posts
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#92Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
It's kind of sad that this law can now be applied to hacker news. :/
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#93The depressing thing about this is that us UK lefties have screaming about this years and years. I know a man who works in politics that is convinced that the Tory party is not privatising the NHS because they Tory party put elections above all else.
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#94Britain is not London.
When it comes to finance it is.
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
The London figure is always trotted out. All accounting is done through London. Also counting money like this doesn't count "wealth". A bunch of people creating new money as credit actually soaks up wealth as the rest of the UK is forced to exchange actual labour and products for fiat money against ever increasing land prices. Tax havens aren't bastions of freedom. Load of rubbish. They are allowing massive inequalit…
If a trafficker uses a mule to carry opium across the mountains, then sells the drugs and then sells the mule, is the new owner of the mule responsible for drug trafficking? Abramovich is Russian and the responsibility of the people running Russia. Likewise if the Maffia recycles money into legitimate assets in Italy then trades those assets in London, it's pretty rich for an Italian to try to pin that on London. The…
"Britain's responsibility to protect the independence of these territories"
Would this mean that the independence of "these territories" is dependent on Britain somehow? Quite an independence, heh? And now, Britain, the ultimate power that backs up the laws of the said territories can at the same claim to be absolved of whatever is happening under its protected domains? Astonishing, isn't it?
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#96Why do we not have the tools for tracing money the way we do for phone calls or data packets? We can argue about how governments should choose to use this data to prosecute crimes, but it seems mad that banks do not have to know where money comes from.
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are some examples of democratic countries where corruption is low? Ask yourself why so many cabinet ministers retire and end up on the boards of large conglomerates that specialise in bidding for government outsourcing contracts, or why so many long-term viable agencies of government Doesn't this happen elsewhere too? Example - revolving door in financial institutions
Singapore seems pretty low corruption. MPs get paid a ton here too.
Singapore is a oligarchic dictatorship and so corruption is somewhat irrelevant there. You have the most important institutions controlled by the Lee family, who's cult of personality remains unquestioned by those in outside Singapore, I mean did Lee Hsien Loong really deserve to be senior wrangler at Cambridge or is that just PR?
Yes, public sector competence is very high but that's not exactly difficult in an authoritarian and highly educated city state.
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was genuinely surprised that they use that phrase - what does socialism mean in that context? The NHS, opposition to zero hour contracts, basic human decency?
Pretty sure in this context it's the redistribution of wealth part they're not keen on.
I think they're very much in favor of redistributing wealth. It's just the socialists' preferred direction of the redistribution that they don't agree with.
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#99The article (and the "Mafia Expert" it's about) are both idiotic. The premise is that because corruption involves money and money involves banks and London has lots of banks, transitively, London is very corrupt. It then tries to equate Mafia violence with financial firms refusing to hire 'whistleblowers', as if having your legs chopped off is in any way comparable to having a career issue. By similar logic, I could…
The "Mafia Expert" (sic) is an investigative journalist and writer, fairly famous in Italy, which for his work has received enough death threats that he will probably have to live under police protection the rest of his life...
Re: Britain is the most corrupt country in the world?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Hint: corruption isn't just about simple bribery and envelopes full of banknotes passing hand. While I agree with you, I find the bare-faced cheek of publicly-advertised "donor clubs" that promise access to the Prime Minister for a mere £50k/year absolutely sickening: https://www.conservatives.com/donate/Donor-Clubs
Blimey, that's a fascinating link to be so public and explicit. They boast about not being funded by Trade Unions, and then invite big business to donate £50K so they can have lunch with the PM to "defeat the rise of socialism".
What's even more amazing, the text right under that header:
> Labour has said that they would turn their backs on our nuclear deterrent, abolish our armed forces and has openly sympathised with terrorist groups who seek to destroy our way of life. Their policies for the continued economic recovery of our great nation should make alarm bells ring.
> Labour are steadily building an army of far left-wing supporters and we should ignore this at our peril.
What the actual? These people are bats.