Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zero Rupee Note

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 241 posts

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#41

Post by sgustard »

oconnor663 wrote: post #32

I wonder how similar bribery culture is to tip culture. In the US where we tip restaurant workers, restaurant wages are often much lower than comparable positions in industries that don't have tipping, so much so that the difference is often explicitly included in minimum wage laws. Do countries with more bribery experience a similar effect, where the wages of police officers and other bribery-prone worker are much l…

"Indian citizens pay approximately £3 billion (about $4.9 billion) in bribes each year." So with a million government/bribe-able officials in the country, that's $4900 a person, easily a doubling of salary.

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#42

Post by kissickas »

dRaBoQ wrote: post #18
aaronharnly wrote: post #3

Zero-currency notes have been generated for most of the world: http://zerocurrency.org/

The Egyptian note has the number zero, but the writing still says Fifty Pounds.

Same with Saudi (it says five riyals). Bahrain has the numeral and words for one!

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#43

Post by travisjungroth »

bubblethink wrote: post #29
travisjungroth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s also a strong statement of your position when it comes to bribes. A shakedown for a bribe is a negotiation. If a person is told “pay this $100 fee right now or I’ll have to take you in” and says “no”, the cop may lower the price, raise the price, threaten more, or follow through on the threat to try to get the person to pay up. But if you have a piece of paper that says “I am so against bribery that I ca…

>why bother with the work of arresting them? Sport, ego, anger, setting precedent, higher payout after arresting etc. Any number of reasons. It's all fun and games to give 0 rupee notes, until you are locked up. And then your bribe to get out has gone up manifold, unless you are willing to fight it out in a court (which you aren't).

Good point. I really was drawing out the best use case for this note. It could certainly go wrong.

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#44

Post by geomark »

vbezhenar wrote: post #36
oconnor663 wrote: post #32

I wonder how similar bribery culture is to tip culture. In the US where we tip restaurant workers, restaurant wages are often much lower than comparable positions in industries that don't have tipping, so much so that the difference is often explicitly included in minimum wage laws. Do countries with more bribery experience a similar effect, where the wages of police officers and other bribery-prone worker are much l…

Yes. Policemen are getting pretty low wages. But there are always a lot of people who want to work there, because they can get bribes. And they actually paying percentage of those bribes to their higher-ups and so on, so it's like a pyramid. And a lot of people want things to stay that way. Policemen are getting good income. Their masters are getting huge income. Ordinary people can pay much less to policeman, than t…

That's a very accurate description of how it is where I live. But at the end you call it a terrible win-win for everyone. If it's a win-win for everyone how can it also be terrible?

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#45

Post by inflatableDodo »

bubblethink wrote: post #29
travisjungroth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s also a strong statement of your position when it comes to bribes. A shakedown for a bribe is a negotiation. If a person is told “pay this $100 fee right now or I’ll have to take you in” and says “no”, the cop may lower the price, raise the price, threaten more, or follow through on the threat to try to get the person to pay up. But if you have a piece of paper that says “I am so against bribery that I ca…

>why bother with the work of arresting them? Sport, ego, anger, setting precedent, higher payout after arresting etc. Any number of reasons. It's all fun and games to give 0 rupee notes, until you are locked up. And then your bribe to get out has gone up manifold, unless you are willing to fight it out in a court (which you aren't).

I'd get rum, cushions and a book delivered under the guise of someone claiming to be fetching money.

edit - and a bundle of zero rupee notes to distribute round the jail, along with half the rum and a promise to send more rum, the quicker I get out.

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#46

Post by thtthings »

I don't think people actually use the note though. I don't see anyone having guts to give that note to policemen or government officials in India.

Everyone in India just like the US is scared of the Police and know not to mess with them.

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#48

Post by Phrodo_00 »

geomark wrote: post #44
vbezhenar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Policemen are getting pretty low wages. But there are always a lot of people who want to work there, because they can get bribes. And they actually paying percentage of those bribes to their higher-ups and so on, so it's like a pyramid. And a lot of people want things to stay that way. Policemen are getting good income. Their masters are getting huge income. Ordinary people can pay much less to policeman, than t…

That's a very accurate description of how it is where I live. But at the end you call it a terrible win-win for everyone. If it's a win-win for everyone how can it also be terrible?

Because people are getting away with ignoring the law, and in turn that makes bad laws more transparent, which in turn give people even more incentives to bribe their way out of situations.

Bribes are also tax-exempt.

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#49

Post by Gibbon1 »

oconnor663 wrote: post #32

I wonder how similar bribery culture is to tip culture. In the US where we tip restaurant workers, restaurant wages are often much lower than comparable positions in industries that don't have tipping, so much so that the difference is often explicitly included in minimum wage laws. Do countries with more bribery experience a similar effect, where the wages of police officers and other bribery-prone worker are much l…

I've no way of validating this but I've read that tipping in the US was originally a way for patrons to make sure that the server got paid. During the great depression people were often so desperate for work they would be willing to work for free in the hopes that employers would hire them. (This is still a thing in Journalism). Employers would exploit that. Patrons fought back by tipping workers directly.

In the US bribery was fought by unionizing police officers and paying them more. I think low pay is behind bribery in a lot of countries.

Amusing story from an old gay dude I met at a party. In the sixties he rented an apartment on the fifth floor of a building in New York. About a month after he moved in the fire house held a 'charity drive' and the firemen essentially mugged him to put $20 in the bucket. Couple month later he locked himself out of his apartment and the firemen used a hook and ladder truck to get into his apartment and unlock the door.

Re: Zero Rupee Note

#50

Post by oconnor663 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #36
oconnor663 wrote: post #32

I wonder how similar bribery culture is to tip culture. In the US where we tip restaurant workers, restaurant wages are often much lower than comparable positions in industries that don't have tipping, so much so that the difference is often explicitly included in minimum wage laws. Do countries with more bribery experience a similar effect, where the wages of police officers and other bribery-prone worker are much l…

Yes. Policemen are getting pretty low wages. But there are always a lot of people who want to work there, because they can get bribes. And they actually paying percentage of those bribes to their higher-ups and so on, so it's like a pyramid. And a lot of people want things to stay that way. Policemen are getting good income. Their masters are getting huge income. Ordinary people can pay much less to policeman, than t…

> It's that terrible win-win to everyone situation and that makes it very hard to destroy.

It does make it sound like there's a bribery-free equilibrium really close by though. Like imagine all of these things happened as part of a single reform:

- Policeman and management salaries go up.

- Fines go down.

- Taxes go up.

- Anti-bribery enforcement goes way up.

The idea would be to acknowledge that regardless of the bribery culture, the typical policeman might be doing a decent job and doesn't necessarily deserve an effective pay cut. The amount of money they're getting today is in some sense their "market rate", and the goal is to improve the efficiency and transparency of the system in other ways without shifting that market rate. Likewise the goal would be that the tax increases for citizens would be designed to match what they're paying in bribes and fines today, so they wouldn't actually end up paying more.

I assume the hard part is that each of these things by itself might make the problem worse, and it's only if they all change at the same time that you get a coherent result that's "good for everyone". And there are probably a ton of other factors to add to the list. (Like tax enforcement. Is it even possible to raise taxes to accommodate salary increases and fee decreases? If the tax code needs to be reformed before people will accept stricter enforcement of it, what are those reforms, and who would fight them?)

Post reply on HN