Thank you for the post Dog’s Breakfast. I normally get this type of reply to my opinion that corruption in China/Asia is worse than in the west but it’s normally not presented as well. To be honest it is just an opinion of mine which hasn’t been properly and rigorously thought out. I don’t have time to reply right now as family beckons but hopefully fellow forumosans can weigh in on the issue.
Got the pitchfork out did we now? You do realize that if we had allowed the whole financial system to fail, which is what you are suggesting things would have been much worse. Also, most money committed to the TARP were recovered. They were guarantees.
Also, unlike the rampant corruption in Taiwan and more or less all other Chinese-dominated societies, we are talking about an actual law, passed by the legislature, not some corrupt politician receiving a hongbao for signing off illegal changes to a project.
[quote=“Dog’s_Breakfast”]
2) Lobbying of the US Congress. Basically, lobbyists in Washington, DC and the state capitals write legislation and get their bribed legislators to pass it. Ever since the “Citizens United” decision by the US Supreme Court, corporations are free to bribe with no dollar limits and no need to report publicly how much they are “donating” to politicians’ campaigns. This is so blatent, and yet barely anyone in the USA even notices. While such things may go on in Taiwan, it would provoke a shitstorm if anything so obvious as what goes on in the USA was attempted here.[/quote]
Lobbying is not corruption per se. You may think what you want, however legislators must be accessible. I know that it’s worse in the US than it is in say Northern Europe, however lobbying here in Taiwan is not above the table donations, it basically goes into slush funds. What the corporations here pay for? Things not even the biggest donator in the US would get away with.
[quote=“Dog’s_Breakfast”] 3) The revolving door. Once upon a time, the head of the EPA or SEC or FDA would take his/her job seriously. Nowadays, they resign and the next day go to work for the same companies that they were supposedly regulating, for a big fat salary in the millions of US dollars to do essentially nothing but “consulting,” otherwise known as “picking lint out of your bellybutton.” It’s also a common practice to hand out plumb jobs to relatives of politicians - I couldn’t stop laughing when “liberal” Bill Clinton deregulated Wall Street (look up repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act) and then daughter Chelsea went to work for a Wall Street hedge fund. Of course, Republicans don’t even try to hide it - meet Senator Phil Gramms’ wife, Wendy:
nytimes.com/2002/01/17/opini … ramms.html
motherjones.com/politics/200 … osure-phil.[/quote]
Here in Taiwan, the politicians do not go to work for hedge funds - they go work for the mafia. If the politicans are not mafiosi on secondment to the legislature. No, I am not making this up, Yan Jingbiao, Luo Fuzhu would be but 2 legislators who have careers with pollutors of the countryside. Not by leading out untreated wastage(they might do that too though), but by leading out lead-ridden bodies and in general intimidate people to keep quiet about teir money-making schemes.
[quote=“Dog’s_Breakfast”]
- Speaking circuit. Practically every politician retires and pursues a lucrative career giving speeches. I remember when Ronald Reagan got paid US$2 million for a single 8-day speaking tour in Japan shortly after he retired (after opening up the US market to nearly tariff-free Japanese imports). Nice work if you can get it. Who (but a grateful corporation) would pay even $1 to hear babble from a retired Bill Clinton or George Bush? You’d have to pay me to attend.
people.com/people/archive/ar … 79,00.html
news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/geor … 57129.html.[/quote]
A lot of people want to har Bill Clinton speak, the price for that is decided on a supply and demand situation.
I do not see why you mention Ronald Regan and Japan - surely free trade is a good thing? I would have paid a lot for listening to hm in real life.
OK, so far you have pointed out some unrelated possible ailments of the US political system and then decided to label that “corruption”.
What you see here in Taiwan is a construction/mafia state which is running things in a much murkier way than what you would ever see in any western country.
The amont of scandals here on a regular basis is astounding - I come from a place where a politician gets in deep shit for accepting a free suit. I am sure the author of the dog’s breakfast above would find that worse than what we see here in Taiwan.
And yes, check transparency international and their rankings.
[quote=“Mr He”]
Got the pitchfork out did we now? You do realize that…[/quote]
Gosh, I’m all choked up by your irrefutable logic. You’re right, America is the greatest nation on Earth! How could I not see that what’s good for the ultra-wealthy is good for the USA. And American prisons - hey, we’re Number One! Take that, China!
I’m going to spend the rest of the week replaying this Youtube video constantly to repent for my misguided thoughts.
How you run your society in the US is your problem, I am not American, i have only been 4 times, and I would not go and live there, unless you paid me well.
That said, that you can even entertain the notion that the US is overall more corrupt than Taiwan is laughable, at best.
I as a Northern European do not get why you in general post utter drivel like “Taiwan is not more corruct that everybody else”. I see that as a personal insult, given that the country I am from usually vies with New Zealand for the spot as the least corrupt country in the world.
Perhaps, it’s because your world only contains Taiwan and the US, and that’s it. There are places significantly better than the US, and you will find that several posters here hail from those places.
Please point out to me where I ever said that.
Yeah, I’ve only been to about 50 countries. But I am in awe of your worldly knowledge. And also wondering why you stay here in this miserable corrupt country that is so inferior to yours. Are you here to teach us savages how to behave civilized?
I’ve got to agree with Mr. He here, assuming that the definition of corruption means flouting established laws and customs for personal gain. If in fact we are on the same page here, we’re not talking about politicians doing what’s morally right or ethically acceptable or even what’s fair; rather we are simply asking them to obey the laws of the land. I would go out on a limb and say that most US politicians follow most laws, whereas I don’t think the same is true in Taiwan, especially at local levels.
America has just learned how to make corruption legal through lobbying etc. It’s more or less the legal form of a red envelope full of cash.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]
I’ve got to agree with Mr. He here, assuming that the definition of corruption means flouting established laws and customs for personal gain…I would go out on a limb and say that most US politicians follow most laws, whereas I don’t think the same is true in Taiwan, especially at local levels.[/quote]
Corruption works a little differently in Taiwan that it does in the USA. In America, most of the corruption is technically within the law. You bribe Congressman Scumbucket with a $100,000 campaign contribution to pass legislation your company wrote. If you’re operating a hedge fund that has been marketing fraudulant worthless paper like credit default swaps, you make sure to give a $50,000/year “job” to the daughter of the attorney-general, plus give him a job offer at $2 million/year as a “consultant” as soon as he retires. If you go broke, you get the bought-and-paid-for head of the Federal Reserve to lobby the Secretary of the Treasury to decide to purchase your company’s worthless credit default swaps at their full face value (even though they are only worth pennies on the dollar in the market) - this is hailed as a shrewd move even though it’s going to bankrupt the Social Security fund eventually.
All of the above is perfectly legal. It goes on constantly. But since it’s legal, it’s not “corruption.”
Taiwanese politicians could learn from studying how American politicians do corruption. Let’s hope they don’t though.
That’s my point, though. How do you define corruption? I could argue that Obamacare is corrupt simply because it puts aspects of my individual freedom of choice into the government’s hands. I could argue that taxation is corrupt because the government is taking my hard-earned money and putting it into programs I voted against. Before we can rank countries based on the level of corruption, we need to come up with a consensus on what the term even means.
That’s my point, though. How do you define corruption? I could argue that Obamacare is corrupt simply because it puts aspects of my individual freedom of choice into the government’s hands. I could argue that taxation is corrupt because the government is taking my hard-earned money and putting it into programs I voted against. Before we can rank countries based on the level of corruption, we need to come up with a consensus on what the term even means.[/quote]
I get your point. But in my simple-minded analysis of the situation, I would say that giving a $100,000 bribe (erh, campaign contribution) to my congresspimp in return for $100 million worth of tax breaks is corruption. Throwing a few million in “contributions” at a political party in return for a one billion dollar bailout seems like a fantastic return on my investment - all strictly legal.
Meanwhile, some poor slob gets thrown in jail for a year for “vagrancy” (ie homeless person illegally camping), and becomes a worker in my company’s privatized prison, for which I pay him $1.40/day while taxpayers pay me $100/day for his incarceration. And I only got to operate that privatized prison thanks to my bribes (erh, contributions). The taxpayers subsidize my prison. But tell me, who is the real criminal here, the “vagrant” or me? Or the corrupt officials who gladly took my money?
Of course, in real life, it’s not me. I’m more likely to wind up as that vagrant, rather than CEO of Megacorp, Inc. I suspect, Hokwongwei, that you too would be unlikely to become that CEO, and have a lot more in common with that vagrant had you not escaped to Taiwan (I’m making an assumption here that you’re not Taiwanese, forgive me if I’m wrong).
No, your points are valid. I just wouldn’t paint the US corrupt. It’s filled to the brim with societal and legal problems (let’s start by talking about our tax code and police violence) but I would take an ethically questionable rule-of-law society over a morally upstanding society without rule of law. At least when you can rely on laws, there are ways to make changes, and the institutions themselves are intact even if the people who are in and on top of them are, for lack of a better word, jerks.
I suspect you might rethink that if you ever had to face sharia law.
Being whipped 1000 times, in 20 installments of 50 lashes each: after all, running an internet forum where critical discussion of religion occurs - is ILLEGAL in Saudi Arabia
I suspect you might rethink that if you ever had to face sharia law.
Being whipped 1000 times, in 20 installments of 50 lashes each: after all, running an internet forum where critical discussion of religion occurs - is ILLEGAL in Saudi Arabia
[/quote]
Well, people can’t peacefully decide to change the sharia or most religious laws. Hok is referring to the any law system based on a common law.
“Corruption” is relative, but I will compare Taiwan to the USA. I think that the USA is more corrupt. When I say that, most people fall out of their seat. I maintain that it is true. Let us just take a few examples:
- Bailouts. Specifically, bailouts of rich people. Companies like AIT and Goldman-Sachs. Supposed liberal left-leaning anti-business Obama has thrown literally trillions of dollars of bailouts at Wall Street banks that by any reasonable should have been allowed to fail. When you add in the “secret bailouts,” the amount given away technically exceeds the size of the US economy, and the USA is only allowed to get away with it thanks to the fact that the US dollar is world’s reserve currency. If Greece, Spain or Taiwan tried to pull such a trick, they’d be bankrupt. I do genuinely believe that if you had banksters in Taiwan who were as corrupt as they are in America, those banksters would be in jail, the banks in question would be taken over by the government.
sott.net/article/250592-Audi … t-Bailouts
-
Lobbying of the US Congress. Basically, lobbyists in Washington, DC and the state capitals write legislation and get their bribed legislators to pass it. Ever since the “Citizens United” decision by the US Supreme Court, corporations are free to bribe with no dollar limits and no need to report publicly how much they are “donating” to politicians’ campaigns. This is so blatent, and yet barely anyone in the USA even notices. While such things may go on in Taiwan, it would provoke a shitstorm if anything so obvious as what goes on in the USA was attempted here.
-
The revolving door. Once upon a time, the head of the EPA or SEC or FDA would take his/her job seriously. Nowadays, they resign and the next day go to work for the same companies that they were supposedly regulating, for a big fat salary in the millions of US dollars to do essentially nothing but “consulting,” otherwise known as “picking lint out of your bellybutton.” It’s also a common practice to hand out plumb jobs to relatives of politicians - I couldn’t stop laughing when “liberal” Bill Clinton deregulated Wall Street (look up repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act) and then daughter Chelsea went to work for a Wall Street hedge fund. Of course, Republicans don’t even try to hide it - meet Senator Phil Gramms’ wife, Wendy:
nytimes.com/2002/01/17/opini … ramms.html
motherjones.com/politics/200 … osure-phil
- Speaking circuit. Practically every politician retires and pursues a lucrative career giving speeches. I remember when Ronald Reagan got paid US$2 million for a single 8-day speaking tour in Japan shortly after he retired (after opening up the US market to nearly tariff-free Japanese imports). Nice work if you can get it. Who (but a grateful corporation) would pay even $1 to hear babble from a retired Bill Clinton or George Bush? You’d have to pay me to attend.
people.com/people/archive/ar … 79,00.html
news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/geor … 57129.html
- Civil forfeiture. So outrageous that even in banana republics like Guatemala or Bangladesh (where it might cost you $10), you have far less to fear from a police stop than you do in the USA:
newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken
- Privatized prisons. I can remember a time when the USA routinely complained about how Chinese prisoners were being used to manufacture the goods in Wal-Mart. Like the USA is in a position to complain:
salon.com/2013/09/23/6_shock … y_partner/
There are more people in prison in the USA than in China, by both actual numbers and percentage of the population. And this gulag (larger than Stalin’s) is in the self-proclaimed “land of the free.” Could you imagine such a prison society in Taiwan? I can’t.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/u … 2page1.stm
- Retaliation against whistleblowers. I guess you’ve all heard of the NSA by now. Less publicized is how much of the secret data they collect is used to retaliate against whistleblowers:
pogo.org/blog/2014/02/fda-su … owers.html
huffingtonpost.com/jason-dit … 88818.html
===============
Americans don’t seem to notice the corruption that plagues their society. What they do notice is that their standard of living is dropping. Out-of-control corruption eventually erodes a nation’s economy, and it’s not a coincidence that the poorest nations in the world are among the most corrupt. In what is supposed to be the richest country in the world, many former members of the middle class in the USA wind up homeless, living in a car, saddled with insane medical bills for minor illnesses, or sent to prison for trivial offenses. And then in desperation, they come to Taiwan to look for work (as an English teacher - sounds familiar?), all the while denouncing this “horrible place” because it’s so corrupt.[/quote]
Yes, yes, yes, …
Really, every time I turn on the Daily Show I am blown away at how corrupt the US is. I just watched a recent episode in which they discussed how Gov. Christie signed a New Jersey executive order allowing the governor of the state (just happens to be him, of course!) to accept gifts and special treatment from foreign dignitaries…and then he was put up in $30,000/night hotel stays and received other special treatment from foreign leaders as he traveled in the US. Stuff like that goes on constantly in the States.
[quote=“Taiwanguy”]Yes, yes, yes, …
Really, every time I turn on the Daily Show I am blown away at how corrupt the US is. I just watched a recent episode in which they discussed how Gov. Christie signed a New Jersey executive order allowing the governor of the state (just happens to be him, of course!) to accept gifts and special treatment from foreign dignitaries…and then he was put up in $30,000/night hotel stays and received other special treatment from foreign leaders as he traveled in the US. Stuff like that goes on constantly in the States.[/quote]
That’ sounds bad, but I think he and Taft deserve special treatments.
[quote=“Taiwanguy”]Yes, yes, yes, …
Really, every time I turn on the Daily Show I am blown away at how corrupt the US is. I just watched a recent episode in which they discussed how Gov. Christie signed a New Jersey executive order allowing the governor of the state (just happens to be him, of course!) to accept gifts and special treatment from foreign dignitaries…and then he was put up in $30,000/night hotel stays and received other special treatment from foreign leaders as he traveled in the US. Stuff like that goes on constantly in the States.[/quote]
I’m not gonna lie, I had you pinned for a steak-and-potatoes republican.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”][quote=“Taiwanguy”]Yes, yes, yes, …
Really, every time I turn on the Daily Show I am blown away at how corrupt the US is. I just watched a recent episode in which they discussed how Gov. Christie signed a New Jersey executive order allowing the governor of the state (just happens to be him, of course!) to accept gifts and special treatment from foreign dignitaries…and then he was put up in $30,000/night hotel stays and received other special treatment from foreign leaders as he traveled in the US. Stuff like that goes on constantly in the States.[/quote]
I’m not gonna lie, I had you pinned for a steak-and-potatoes republican.[/quote]
Really? You must have not read my posts in the Michael Brown thread.
I wouldn’t touch that thread with a ten-foot pole.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]
I’m not gonna lie, I had you pinned for a steak-and-potatoes republican.[/quote]
Hi Hokwongwei. I’m just curious where you think I stand in the Dem/Repub culture war. I’ll be glad to tell you, but please, first go ahead and take a guess. This is just for fun, and I won’t get mad if you guess wrong.
cheers,
DB
I also have you pegged as a Republican. I come from a staunchly Republican family so, while many on the Internet would take that as a personal insult, I certainly don’t mean it as one. (I myself have no party affiliation – and have voted for presidents from three different parties over the past three general elections!)