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Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

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Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#221

Post by jariel »

perl4ever wrote: post #198
D_Alex wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Somehow, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton, and many other massive industrials have survived so far >Somehow At least in cases of SNC and Halliburton, "somehow" was by doing the illegal thing.

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that because some companies were prosecuted under the statute(s) that they, or industry in general, engage in just as much activity as they would have unregulated.

Yes it is.

It's a very natural thing for someone who has status to think that they should be able to cash in on that power.

Everyone with responsibility is looking at a pile of money every day, all they have to do is reach out and grab some. And after all, they 'work hard' so why shouldn't they? (Is the internal logic they might use).

Most businesses are commodities, it's hard to compete on price or anything else. It makes much more sense to compete on some other basis.

In 2020 most industries continue to run on soft grease. The next time you go to a sporting event, look at the Box Seats and consider that 100% of them are business write-offs, used to 'entertain' i.e. to 'give a gift' to someone in business they are not otherwise allowed to do.

There is no such thing as a Free Lunch

Some might even argue that while it might be unethical to bribe a judge, it's altogether different for commercial kickbacks. Why should an exec who has toiled all of his life leave the profits to the considerably more corrupt owners? ... is the internal logic they might use.

When you think about the nature of power and influence - such activities are the natural course of action, and it takes a pretty strong, moral social organization + strong laws to overcome it.

I guess it's a good thing that most regular people in the West think bribery is bad, and that at least it's not something they should do. That probably took a few hundred years of indoctrination at least.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#222

Post by rocqua »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #214
rocqua wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure how you even could remove lobbying from the political process. So you get a group of interested citizens together, you write to politicians, you tell them your point of view. Nothing wrong here yet. Then some of those politicians then agree with your group. You like that! So you start raising funds to get them re-elected. At face value, nothing here is wrong. Except that you just used your money as an…

> How to solve this? Limit political spending to natural persons, and limit their contributions. I think this would prove to be exceedingly difficult in practice. In fact, this kind of is the system we live under, and it doesn't work. Sure, you could argue for changes in the amounts, and who can donate to what, but consider this: I believe Obama's biggest corporate donor in 2008 was Goldman Sachs, and the value of th…

PACs. They are not direct campaign contributions, (the candidate does not get to direct how the contributions are spent). But they are money spent on re-election anyway.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#223

Post by closeparen »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #172
gizmo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbyist help politicians accomplish what they already wanted to do. Whenever politicians enact policy some interests inevitably benefit from it, and other interest's goals are frustrated by it. So of course there are going to be lobbyists (or activists) who want to argue their case on both sides, and good lobbyists are very well prepared and very persuasive. It's soft influence, and no quid pro quo is necessary for…

It's pretty obvious there is quid pro quo in many cases. A strong society should have regulated channels for lobbying and ban any contact between lobbyists/industry and politicians outside of those channels, including after office.

Depending on the state, lobbyists generally have to be licensed/registered and report all their contacts [0]. I have a family member who's a registered lobbyist: as a lawyer for a regulatory agency, she sometimes represents its interests in dealing with the legislature that authorizes it.

[0] https://www.ncsl.org/research/ethics/50-state-chart-lobbyist...

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#224

Post by closeparen »

grecy wrote: post #78
paranoidrobot wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you're saying it's 100%, without a doubt bribery, but we're just going to use some tricky language so it doesn't sound like that. Possibly, but it'll depend on your POV and where you draw the line on what's bribery. Scenario 1: I represent a mega-corporation and I want legislation changed to make it easier for my factories to comply with pollution laws by changing the definition of pollution. Is it bribery to sa…

Nobody should be giving any money to politicians, or their campaigns, for any reason what-so-ever. I realize it's fundamental to American politics now, but that doesn't make it fundamentally wrong.

It's not done by giving money to politicians or their campaigns. This is extremely regulated and the dollar amounts permitted are trivial.

It's done by independently advocating for the candidate. And it's pretty hard to tell people they can't do that. Should you need to fill out a financial disclosure form to be allowed to write a positive comment about Bernie Sanders on Reddit?

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#225

Post by closeparen »

spenczar5 wrote: post #45
yalogin wrote: post #22

Every company doles out bribes. In many countries bribery is the way to go. Things don’t happen without it. They just find creative ways to make it legal that’s all.

“Every company” is obviously hyperbole. My local deli doesn’t bribe anybody. What do you really mean - every $1bn+ revenue aerospace firm?

Your local deli needs its location zoned for commercial use. Delis don't make that much money, so if it's sitting on prime real estate, it needs a narrow enough zoning category to prevent a higher value business from scooping up the lease.

It needs approval from the building inspector, the fire marshal, and the health department. Unless there's a yellow curb or a loading dock, it needs the police to look the other way while its suppliers' trucks park illegally during unloading.

There are many politicians and bureaucrats with discretion over whether it gets to exist. Most of the time, those people probably act in good faith. But they absolutely could shake down the owner if they wanted to, or accept a bribe for lax enforcement. Or the departments could be so short-staffed that it'll be years for an approval unless an interested politician escalates on your behalf.

Good luck running a small business in Chicago while not on friendly terms with your alderman.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#226

Post by mdorazio »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #170
mdorazio wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t explained why lobbyists are necessary, or even a good thing. Why is a system allowing lobbying better than one that bans it in favor of politicians independently making decisions based on the will expressed by and likely benefits for their constituents? And please don’t say it’s hard for them to understand all the issues. That’s literally their job and the reason they have a staff.

> Why is a system allowing lobbying better than one that bans it in favor of politicians independently making decisions based on the will expressed by and likely benefits for their constituents? Because in many situations there's a very fine line between "lobbying" and "making decisions based on the will expressed by constituents". An organized group of concerned citizens is a lobby . When it comes to outright bribin…

Notice how you said a group of concerned citizens is a lobby, not a lobbyist. The line gets crossed when you go from a group of actual human constituents collectively asking a representative for something to either a corporation asking a representative for something or a group retaining the services of a professional individual whose job it is to convince politicians of something. Lobbies are mostly ok. Lobbyists and corporations have no defensible place in politics.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#227

Post by jariel »

gdy wrote: post #128
jariel wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there’s only two participants in this prisoners‘ dilemma, and they are both, theoretically, under the purview of rigorous enforcement in countries governed by law." What? No. There are 1000's of participants, and few of them are under the purview of the law. 1. Someone wants access to a Malaysian Air exec at some hotel event. Bribe someone for info. 2. Someone is overseeing the aircraft regulatory body, their findin…

"If you're IKEA and want to open a store in Moscow, you will pay x% of your revenue to a local 'businessman/thug'. If not - no store! So you wait a decade and realize you have no choice, and so you just pay the appropriate tributes." A link to the source would be appropriate.

There is a lot of public information about IKEA's woes in Russia, it's just the tip of the iceberg [1]

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/world/corruption-halts-ikea-in-russia...

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#228

Post by m463 »

mdorazio wrote: post #167
gizmo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbyist help politicians accomplish what they already wanted to do. Whenever politicians enact policy some interests inevitably benefit from it, and other interest's goals are frustrated by it. So of course there are going to be lobbyists (or activists) who want to argue their case on both sides, and good lobbyists are very well prepared and very persuasive. It's soft influence, and no quid pro quo is necessary for…

You haven’t explained why lobbyists are necessary, or even a good thing. Why is a system allowing lobbying better than one that bans it in favor of politicians independently making decisions based on the will expressed by and likely benefits for their constituents? And please don’t say it’s hard for them to understand all the issues. That’s literally their job and the reason they have a staff.

If it was banned, it would still happen, but not in the public eye.

A relative of a friend was a politician. He used lobbyists indirectly to work on issues. Say he needed help understanding a school textbook issue. He would call up his oil lobbyist, whose job it was to make him happy. It was definitely not his job to piss him off. He would quickly get a report on the textbook issue, probably written by the expert in the field.

Re: Airbus ran ‘massive’ bribery scheme to win orders

#229

Post by Iv »

Findeton wrote: post #124
Iv wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of an old story: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2003/06/12/airbuss-... Maybe people here have never heard the EU point of view on it, so let me sum it up: Airbus bribed Saudi officials in the 90s to get a 6 billion contracts. It was "whistleblowed" by this then little-known agency: NSA and in the end Boeing got the contract. It triggered a EU investigation in what was then called ECHELON. A Cold-…

I agree with all you've said, including that probably the US bribes (or threatens) as much or more than the EU. But being even more cynical about it, this is just the way the free market sneaks in, including these big government deals: one party has money, the other party has power. Say Airbus bribes Saudi Arabia Officials. The officials don't have that much money, but they surely have power, and Airbus doesn't have…

Corruption is not how free markets sneak in, that's how they die.

Free markets don't exist in a vacuum. They rely on governments to maintain a state of fair competition. Corruption does not lead to free markets, it leads to monopolies and oligopolies.

It is true, however, that unchecked free markets often lead to this state.

Free markets rely on fair competition: you want companies to compete on quality and price and remove all the other factors, like nepotism, entryism or corruption. There is a competition in corruption, but a competition that is not in the public interest.

The company getting the big plane contract in country X should be the company with the best/cheapest planes, not the one able to send the hottest hookers to the crucial decision makers.

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