Article

2007-09-27 Israel-Palestine-Jordan

'150 countries more corrupt than Israel'

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Posted by Fred 2007-09-27 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

#1 SIMPSONS > "OLD GUY" Character - "150! You better believe they need a paddlin'".

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-09-27 00:56|| 2007-09-27 00:56|| Front Page Top

#2 For your enjoyment, I have extracted a visual aid and list from Transparency International that illustrates Israel's relative position within the global andespeciallythe Middle East. The following list has been highlighted in order to more easily visualize how endemic corruption is in Muslim majority countries.

Nations that sponsor terrorism are shown in bolded red case.

Nations of interest for comparison's sake are shown in bolded case.

The following map makes clear just how severe the issue of corruption is around this entire world. Please note how the list shows that only the United Arab Emirates (#31) and Qatar (#32) rank above Israel in terms of lower corruption indicies. This standing is somewhat mitigated by how their scores rely upon only five surveys as opposed to the seven that were used to profile Israel.

It is more than a little telling that Saudi Arabia is ranked with typically hyper-corrupt nations like Mexico and China. Of little surprise is cellar-dweller Pakistan at position #142. Nor is it a shock to see such major terrorism players as Iran at #105 and Indonesia at #130 out of a scale of 163 total positions. As an aside, note how Russia is ranked at a dismal #121, bracketing it firmly among other major sponsors of terrorism. Again, no sort of surprise there, either. Significant in its absence, the Palestinian Authority ranked as #107 our of 158 total positions in the 2005 Transparency International list. For comparison's sake, Russiain 2005was #126.

Terrorism and corruption go hand-in-hand. I would even more strongly maintain that Islam and corruption are inseparably wed to each other. Shari'a law breeds up totalitarianism of the worst and absolutely most venal sort. Pour in untold billions of petro-dollars and it is a recipe for disaster.

Anyone who is concerned over America's place at #20 should remind themselve of how a disproportionate amount of this world's wealth is concentrated on our shores. Thisin and of itselfis an invitation to corruption. More than anything, please note how America is one of the largest and least corrupt nations on earth. Especially disturbing is how the vast majority of this planet is submerged in devastating levels of corruption.

Again, I will state that targetted assassinations of Islam's clerical, academic and financial aristocracy would go a long way towards abating global corruption and terrorism alike. Such a campaign cannot begin too soon.

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Rank Country 2006 CPI Score
1 Finland 9.6
1 Iceland 9.6
1 New Zealand 9.6
4 Denmark 9.5
5 Singapore 9.4
6 Sweden 9.2
7 Switzerland 9.1
8 Norway 8.8
9 Australia 8.7
9 Netherlands 8.7
11 Austria 8.6
11 Luxembourg 8.6
11 United Kingdom 8.6
14 Canada 8.5
15 Hong Kong 8.3
16 Germany 8.0
17 Japan 7.6
18 France 7.4
18 Ireland 7.4
20 Belgium 7.3
20 Chile 7.3
20 USA 7.3 8
23 Spain 6.8 7
24 Barbados 6.7
24 Estonia 6.7
26 Macao 6.6
26 Portugal 6.6
28 Malta 6.4
28 Slovenia 6.4
28 Uruguay 6.4
31 United Arab Emirates 6.2
32 Bhutan 6.0
32 Qatar 6.0
34 Israel 5.9
34 Taiwan 5.9
36 Bahrain 5.7
37 Botswana 5.6
37 Cyprus 5.6
39 Oman 5.4
40 Jordan 5.3
41 Hungary 5.2
42 Mauritius 5.1
42 South Korea 5.1
44 Malaysia 5.0
45 Italy 4.9
46 Czech Republic 4.8
46 Kuwait 4.8
46 Lithuania 4.8
49 Latvia 4.7
49 Slovakia 4.7
51 South Africa 4.6
51 Tunisia 4.6
53 Dominica 4.5
54 Greece 4.4
55 Costa Rica 4.1
55 Namibia 4.1
57 Bulgaria 4.0
57 El Salvador 4.0
59 Colombia 3.9
60 Turkey 3.8
61 Jamaica 3.7
61 Poland 3.7
63 Lebanon 3.6
63 Seychelles 3.6
63 Thailand 3.6
66 Belize 3.5
66 Cuba 3.5
66 Grenada 3.5
69 Croatia 3.4
70 Brazil 3.3
70 China 3.3
70 Egypt 3.3
70 Ghana 3.3
70 India 3.3
70 Mexico 3.3
70 Peru 3.3
70 Saudi Arabia 3.3
70 Senegal 3.3
79 Burkina Faso 3.2
79 Lesotho 3.2
79 Moldova 3.2
79 Morocco 3.2
79 Trinidad and Tobago 3.2
84 Algeria 3.1
84 Madagascar 3.1
84 Mauritania 3.1
84 Panama 3.1
84 Romania 3.1
84 Sri Lanka 3.1
90 Gabon 3.0
90 Serbia 3.0
90 Suriname 3.0
93 Argentina 2.9
93 Armenia 2.9
93 Bosnia and Herzgegovina 2.9
93 Eritrea 2.9
93 Syria 2.9
93 Tanzania 2.9
99 Dominican Republic 2.8
99 Georgia 2.8
99 Mali 2.8
99 Mongolia 2.8
99 Mozambique 2.8
99 Ukraine 2.8
105 Bolivia 2.7
105 Iran 2.7
105 Libya 2.7
105 Macedonia 2.7
105 Malawi 2.7
105 Uganda 2.7
111 Albania 2.6
111 Guatemala 2.6
111 Kazakhstan 2.6
111 Laos 2.6
111 Nicaragua 2.6
111 Paraguay 2.6
111 Timor-Leste 2.6
111 Viet Nam 2.6
111 Yemen 2.6
111 Zambia 2.6
121 Benin 2.5
121 Gambia 2.5
121 Guyana 2.5
121 Honduras 2.5
121 Nepal 2.5
121 Phillipines 2.5
121 Russia 2.5
121 Rwanda 2.5
121 Swaziland 2.5
130 Azerbaijan 2.4
130 Burundi 2.4
130 Central African Republic 2.4
130 Ethiopia 2.4
130 Indonesia 2.4
130 Papua New Guinea 2.4
130 Togo 2.4
130 Zimbabwe 2.4
138 Cameroon 2.3
138 Ecuador 2.3
138 Niger 2.3
138 Venezuela 2.3
142 Angola 2.2
142 Congo, Republic 2.2
142 Kenya 2.2 7 2.0
142 Kyrgyzstan 2.2
142 Nigeria 2.2
142 Pakistan 2.2
142 Sierra Leone 2.2
142 Tajikistan 2.2
142 Turkmenistan 2.2
151 Belarus 2.1
151 Cambodia 2.1
151 Côte d´Ivoire 2.1
151 Equatorial Guinea 2.1
151 Uzbekistan 2.1
156 Bangladesh 2.0
156 Chad 2.0
156 Congo, Democratic Republic 2.0
156 Sudan 2.0
160 Guinea 1.9
160 Iraq 1.9
160 Myanmar 1.9
163 Haiti 1.8

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-09-27 03:03|| 2007-09-27 03:03|| Front Page Top

#3 I would even more strongly maintain that Islam and corruption are inseparably wed to each other

I'm told Islam is also inseparably wed to transfats in fast food, offshore manufacturing, dental caries and ring around the collar. Those bastards!

Posted by SnuggleUprgus9045 2007-09-27 05:33|| 2007-09-27 05:33|| Front Page Top

#4 I'm told Islam is also inseparably wed to transfats in fast food, offshore manufacturing, dental caries and ring around the collar.

I look forward to seeing the corroborating evidence that backs your assertions.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-09-27 05:43|| 2007-09-27 05:43|| Front Page Top

#5 I'm told Islam is also inseparably wed to transfats in fast food, offshore manufacturing, dental caries and ring around the collar.

Because we all know that those are sooo much worse than living under true corruption where you can be locked away, tortured and murdered on the whim of tyrants.

Posted by Unutle McGurque8861 2007-09-27 07:39|| 2007-09-27 07:39|| Front Page Top

#6 Could somebody rescore the US and Massachusetts separately? I think they are dragging us down. It might make Russia look better as well.

Posted by Super Hose 2007-09-27 07:56|| 2007-09-27 07:56|| Front Page Top

#7 Correlation isn't causation. Hard to tell from that list whether the reported corruption is due to Islam or to tribal culture combined with degree of modernization in the economies.

No doubt but that Israel is far less corrupt than many countries, tho.

Posted by lotp 2007-09-27 08:00|| 2007-09-27 08:00|| Front Page Top

#8 America is one of the largest and least corrupt nations on earth.

You could say that. Or you could say that America is the most corrupt member of the Anglosphere. How did that happen?

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-09-27 09:06|| 2007-09-27 09:06|| Front Page Top

#9 You've got to play hard and fast to knock Haiti off their pole position. Some people just do some things well.

Posted by wxjames 2007-09-27 11:07|| 2007-09-27 11:07|| Front Page Top

#10 "The report is based on the degree to which corruption is perceived among public officials and politicians."

In other words. Another Bullshit report based on perceptions rather then facts.

Posted by DepotGuy 2007-09-27 11:20|| 2007-09-27 11:20|| Front Page Top

#11 In other words. Another Bullshit report based on perceptions rather then facts.

DepotGuy, permit me to suggest that data regarding bribery is pretty closely held by corporate and government officials alike. Digging out this information is hardly an easy task. If you examine the 2002 BPI (Bribe Payers Index), you'll find little to no America bashing and, instead, some pretty straight-forward reporting on international bribery.

[emphasis added]

14 May 2002 --- Transparency International (TI), the global anti-corruption organisation, today released its Bribe Payers Index (BPI) 2002, showing very high levels of bribery in developing countries by corporations from Russia, China, Taiwan and South Korea, as well as numerous leading industrial nations, all of which now have laws making corrupt payments to foreign officials a crime. The laws are not being properly enforced. Our new survey leaves no doubt that large numbers of multinational corporations from the richest nations are pursuing a criminal course to win contracts in the leading emerging market economies of the world, said TI Chairman Peter Eigen.

Speaking in Paris today, on the eve of this years Ministerial meeting of OECD member countries, Eigen added: Politicians and public officials from the worlds leading industrial countries are ignoring the rot in their own backyards and the criminal bribe-paying activities of multinational firms headquartered in their countries, while increasingly focusing on the high level of corruption in developing countries. The governments of the richest nations continue to fail to recognise the rampant undermining of fair global trade by bribe-paying multinational enterprises.

He said: The meeting in the coming days of ministers at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and then the G8 Summit provide the leaders of the industrial world with an opportunity to confront this critical situation.1

The TI Chairman stressed that todays BPI shows that companies from Russia and China, which are increasingly exporting to other emerging market countries, are using bribes on an exceptional and intolerable scale. The extent to which companies from Taiwan and South Korea use bribes abroad is only marginally less. The authorities of all of these countries need to do more to prevent bribery by their firms abroad.

TIs BPI is based on surveys conducted in 15 emerging market economies by Gallup International Association.

The BPI shows that US multinational corporations, which have faced the risk of criminal prosecution since 1977 under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, have a high propensity to pay bribes to foreign government officials. The US score of 5.3 out of a best possible clean 10 is matched by Japanese companies and is worse than the scores for corporations from France, Spain, Germany, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The highest scores, indicating the lowest propensity to bribe abroad, were for companies from Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The TI Bribe Payers survey is the most comprehensive set of opinion polls on perceptions of the sources of corruption that has ever been undertaken and expands on the first TI BPI in 1999. Todays results provide detailed reports on the propensity of multinational corporations to bribe; the business sectors most contaminated by bribery; the extent to which executives of major corporations overseas are even aware of the landmark OECD Anti-Bribery Convention that outlawed bribery of foreign public officials; the degree to which these firms are enforcing compliance with the Convention; and perceptions of unfair business practices apart from bribery used by firms to gain contracts.

The BPI was conducted in 15 emerging market economies: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand, which are among the very largest such countries involved in trade and investment with multinational firms. A total of 835 interviews were carried out between December 2001 and March 2002, principally with senior executives of domestic and foreign companies, but also with executives at chartered accountancies, binational chambers of commerce, national and foreign commercial banks and commercial law firms. The survey questions related to perceptions about multinational firms from 21 countries.

The results reflect the views of expert business leaders, who are best positioned to have significant insights into issues of grand corruption and the bribery of government officials in developing countries, said TI Head of Research Fredrik Galtung.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-09-27 12:25|| 2007-09-27 12:25|| Front Page Top

#12 Or you could say that America is the most corrupt member of the Anglosphere. How did that happen?

Someone else can crunch the numbers but I'd wager that America's GDP is as large or bigger than the Anglosphere's combined GDP. With the gazillions of dollars flowing through this country, there simply are more opportunities for corruption.

Make no mistakeas many people frequently doin thinking that capitalism is inherently corrupt. Nothing is farther from the truth. It's just that there're far more opportunities for bad players to get into the game. Especially so for the extensive history of export and large-scale overseas development that America engages in. The BPI report above rather fairly notes that America has had anti-bribery laws on the books since 1977.

Combine that with our own greater degree of legal transparencythe Freedom of Information Act springs to mindand it becomes likely that America may well have some of the better tools for internally reporting and exposing such activities. This would inadvertently work against our own favor in such reporting.

I welcome any proper refutation of these assertions. They are not researched facts but I'll still stand by them at present.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-09-27 12:36|| 2007-09-27 12:36|| Front Page Top

#13 Nice perspective, Zenster. Thanks!

Posted by trailing wife 2007-09-27 12:53|| 2007-09-27 12:53|| Front Page Top

#14 Did they count the lobby groups in Washington as a form of corruption?

Posted by Snakes Flaviper7821 2007-09-27 12:56|| 2007-09-27 12:56|| Front Page Top

#15 Zen is right that the the size of the pool will determine the number of folks that want to go swimming.

This is one of the reasons for increasing corruption in DC. The more power / money that moves under the Federal Gov't. the bigger the rewards that make it worth the risk.

Posted by AlanC 2007-09-27 13:00|| 2007-09-27 13:00|| Front Page Top

#16 I would like to see Massachusetts, Washington D.C. and California removed from the calculations. Maybe consider removing the blue states too. Interesting to note that Venezuela and Hugo's communist wet dream falls in at 138.

Posted by JohnQC 2007-09-27 13:25|| 2007-09-27 13:25|| Front Page Top

#17 I would like to see Massachusetts, Washington D.C. and California removed from the calculations.

Do so and America's GDP numbers might shrink significantly, considering that California is the most populous and wealthy state in the Union. Currently, it ranks as the tenth global economy in terms of GDP and has previously been at the number eight slot. I'm obliged to wonder how many red states survive exclusively upon California's largesse.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-09-27 13:46|| 2007-09-27 13:46|| Front Page Top

#18 The data clearly indicate that the US is the most corrupt nation in the developed world with the exceptions of Italy and Greece.

For the top 20 nations, the coefficient of correlation of GDP and CPI is -0.47, statistically undermining an argument for which there is little logical appeal that our size contributes to our corruption.

Instead, I suspect that our federal system and heterogeneity contribute to our higher levels of corruption.

The higher in the federal hierarchy one goes, the less likely one is to find corruption, although any specific instance of corruption discovered is likely to be greater. This is true because bigger numbers are involved so there is greater scrutiny from political opponents who are more powerful, the media, and transparencies such as FOIA.

I also suspect that the people working for the federal government are better on just about every dimension than the people working for the state who are better than the people working for the county who are better than the people working for the municipalities.

Think about locating a plant in the US. What is the chance the Feds ask for a bribe? (And what will they be bribed for?) What are the chances the (red/blue) state economic development people offer you a better tax deferral deal if you put a little money in their pockets? And what are the chances the virtually uncontested local zoning board will shake you down for every variance they grant?

Our heterogeneity is also a source of heightened corruption. As each succeeding immigrant group seizes the reins of power in a municipality, it is time for them to get their piece of the pie through a variety of corrupt practices from nepotism to outright bribery honed and honored by years of practice by predecessors. It's the American Way. And it's how places like Meigs Field are put to their highest and best use.

Prove it? This is a subject about which it is difficult to prove anything, particularly as more and more normal transactions are made illegal.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-09-27 14:15|| 2007-09-27 14:15|| Front Page Top

#19 Zen, can you say ethanol subsidies?

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2007-09-27 14:19|| 2007-09-27 14:19|| Front Page Top

#20 Where would New Orleans rank?

Posted by Cheaderhead 2007-09-27 14:57|| 2007-09-27 14:57|| Front Page Top

#21 Zen, can you say ethanol subsidies?

You'd think IowaAmerica's largest corn growerwould be first in line. I'll still take California any day. The combination of economic opportunity, cultural diversity, agricultural abundance, incredible scenic beauty, fabulous Mediterranean climate, outstanding aquaculture, world-class dining establishments, superb universities, excellent museums and an exceptional freeway system make California one of the most desirable places to live on this entire planet.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-09-27 15:11|| 2007-09-27 15:11|| Front Page Top

#22 "Or you could say that America is the most corrupt member of the Anglosphere. How did that happen?"

Illegal immigration.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2007-09-27 16:49|| 2007-09-27 16:49|| Front Page Top

#23 Cheaderhead, New Orleans has a relatively high Haitian population - not quite Miami, but working on it, and they've been here a lot longer. We have adopted the Haitian model for corruption.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2007-09-27 16:51|| 2007-09-27 16:51|| Front Page Top

#24 Our [US] heterogeneity is also a source of heightened corruption

I think there may be something to this. I have a feeling that the bell curve of corruption is quite wide in this country (from very corrupt to very uncorruptable) -- more so than in many others. The distribution may even be bimodal. So it may be that a set of subgroups within our culture as a whole are "skewing the curve" so to speak.

Posted by PlanetDan 2007-09-27 18:48|| 2007-09-27 18:48|| Front Page Top

#25 Currently, it ranks as the tenth global economy in terms of GDP and has previously been at the number eight slot. I'm obliged to wonder how many red states survive exclusively upon California's largesse.

Lol! Mask down.

Posted by HalfEmpty 2007-09-27 19:59|| 2007-09-27 19:59|| Front Page Top

#26 Mask down.

And what mask would that be, HalfEmpty? Do you deny that California's contribution to the federal budget supports the equivalent of several rust belt states?

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-09-27 20:49|| 2007-09-27 20:49|| Front Page Top

23:54 OldSpook
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