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~ Free Thinker.

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Category Archives: Corruption.

THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE ROLE OF MONEY IN POLOTICS.

05 Friday Nov 2021

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in 2021. The year for change., Algorithms., Big Data., Corruption., Democracy, Digital age., Emergency powers., Facebook, First past the post., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., Modern Day Democracy., Money in Politics., Political Trust, Politics., Post - truth politics., Reality., Robot citizenship., Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Truth, Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS MONEY?, What Needs to change in the World

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE LOOKS AT THE ROLE OF MONEY IN POLOTICS.

Tags

Big Data, Dark money., Lobbyists., Money and power., Money in Politics., Political financing., When Money Talks

(Eighteen-minute read) 

First, money is a medium of exchange that lets us earn, buy, and sell completely different things in the same units.

On top of this, money is also a unit of account—i.e. it lets us put the prices of very different things in the same terms.

This is why private wealth impacts public life, with the world of politics full of lobbyists. 

Money has always shaped the process of political competition and influences policymaking but most of us are unaware of how money works, behind the scenes in the political theater, it is a year-round issue that dictates the daily life of the nation.

Money finds its way into politics in myriad ways — 

Any political campaign lives or dies by its funding and for a long time, there has been a popular myth about how everyday voters who outnumber the wealthy will collectively donate more money than the few donations of the wealthy.

The influence of cash within politics could be called dark money.

It turns politicians’ existence into serving their donors instead of their voters, which affects the policies they support, how they allocate government spending, and their expressed values.

Regardless of our personal feelings, money makes the world (and democracy) go round.

It seems unfathomable that these external entities have such leverage in our election process.

Whether elected officeholders betray their voters, prioritizing interest groups or single campaign donors, remains a question to be answered in the public sphere. 

The super-wealthy class is almost single-handedly funding elections, which impacts our government’s overall functionality and integrity, meaning the power lies in the hands of few.

Cash has become a determining factor for who wins the most crucial elections like the president of the USA. 

most expensive presidential campaign

 

Since 1980 if you add it all up it comes to $ 105 billion 349 million.   

There’s way way way too much money in politics and most of it is having a corrupting, undue influence and locking out the voices that count.

For too long, money has been the one thing that has reigned supreme in a democracy.  

The influx of cash from corporations and interest groups sways the ways our political leaders pass legislation that supports these entities, regardless of the public’s best interest.

It allows corporations to buy leverage that alters the fabric of our economy.

                              ———————————

Fighting undue influence and corruption from political financing requires a clear understanding of the difference between unlawful influence on public administration and behavior and breach of trust of voters.

The former requires precise regulation of those sectors of administration that usually lend themselves to compensate campaign donors.

The potential entry point in the public sector can vary along with several channels of influence.

Beyond political advertising and election contributions, cash is influential in the lobbying industry. 

A ridiculous game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak. Allowing people and corporate interest groups and others to spend an unlimited amount of unidentified money has enabled certain individuals to swing any and all elections.  Donal Trump and referendums like Brexit.

While banning all campaign donations is an option, a comprehensive approach will take into account private agents who can resort to lobbying, personal networks, or corruption.

The truth requires that we call the corrosion of money in politics what it is – it is a form of corruption and it muzzles more of us than it empowers, and it is an imbalance that the world has taught us can only sow the seeds of unrest.

                                               —————

Money cannot always buy the best election results – Trump – Robert Mugabe – Crown Prince Abdullah – Kim Jong-un – Bashar al-Assad –Saparmurat Niyazov –  Putin – Idi Amin Saddam Hussein – Mengistu Haile Mariam – Augusto Pinochet – Pol Pot – Charles Taylor – Suharto – Mobutu Seko to name just a few dead and alive.

As of today, there are 50 dictatorships in the world.

But the millionaire class and the billionaire class increasingly own the political process, and they own the politicians that go to them for money.

It’s time to get big money out of politics., and have a system of scrutiny to ensure that no special access or call time with rich donors or big-dollar fundraisers to permanently eliminate big money from our politics and return it to the people.

                                —————-

Our democracy shouldn’t be bought and paid for by the wealthy and powerful.

It belongs to all of us or does it with the arrival of Big data the next currency of politics now being used to directly influence our decisions.

Data brings change to much more than just the commercial side of our lives.

We have to acknowledge that our data has much more than just a “one-shot” value.

The fact that Facebook and other social networks collect data on us is presented as something outrageous but not in the political world.  

Putting you into an “opinion bubble” by better targeting political ads and thus motivating you to actually go and vote, and become (unknowingly) an ambassador for the power that has you in its aim, exists. 

Data as a Political Asset: valuable stores of existing data on potential voters exchanged between political candidates, acquired from national repositories, or sold or exposed to those who want to leverage them

Data as Political Intelligence: data that is accumulated and interpreted by political campaigns to learn about voters’ political preferences and to inform campaign strategies and priorities, including creating voter profiles and testing campaign messaging.

Data as Political Influence: data that is collected, analyzed, and used to target and reach potential voters with the aim of influencing or manipulating their views or votes.

In reality, the same problems with money and now data have existed for years, with huge amounts of personal data being sold to corporate clients. And yet, we only start panicking when we see how the illegal, or barely legal trade of our life patterns collected by social networks impacts our political choices.

Knowing where we spend our time, what media we watch, what books we read, what food we prefer, and what words are we most likely to use in our tweets makes the difference.

But what is it that makes the politicians “addicted to big data like it’s campaign cash”,

Unfortunately, this “addiction” to data has induced politicians and their campaign managers into the same illusion that businesses are struggling with right now:

Big data allows reliable prediction and, obviously, politics, as the very structure of societal governance, is heavily impacted.

It is, indeed, a problem.

The amount of information that companies have about who we are and what we are as social units is so huge, that it is this data reshaping the very fabric of our societies.

Most people believe — because of huge public buzz scandals like the one of Cambridge Analytica — that big data in politics serves the goals of better manipulation.

The issue of data collection in the interest of the political actors must not be reduced to just cynical Frank Underwood-style power brokers buying data on where we eat and what we watch on Netflix and who our friends are to better sell us their quotes about how they are gonna make our lives better.

The overwhelming power of the big brother that tracks our every step raises the question.  If societies value equality of information, open debate, and transparency, these trends should be of concern?

One thing we know for sure is that the clear trend of getting more and more data involved in political campaigning and decision-making is there.

Without considering these questions, there is a danger that any response may have unintended consequences and fail to advance the principles we want to uphold.

Bribery is human nature and the only way to expose it is with transparency requirements that enable the media, public interest groups, and parties to engage in this debate.

The manipulation of the future political result, by algorithms is only a click away.

We will still need (yes, NEED) tons of “money in politics.”

Without big donors, how many Independent candidates will be able to go up against the dark money and deep, oligarch pockets?

Ok, let’s figure out where that money goes. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

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THE BEADY EYE ( PART FOUR) ASK’S WHY IS THE WORLD LIKE THIS.

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Climate Change., Corruption., Humanity., Life., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Paris terrorist attack., The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., Where's the Global Outrage., World Organisations.

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Capitalism and Greed, Distribution of wealth, Extinction, Global warming, Globalization, Inequility, The Future of Mankind, World aid commission

Our painting now has a wash of money, a random application of religion and the Gun with a transparent over wash of humanity.Afficher l'image d'origine

I think it would be a grave injustice to speak of the human species ( Other than ISIS and their like) as in some sense evil, even though we are destroying the environment so efficiently at the present time.

The nature of humankind is to expand its population, to gain security, to control, to alter. For millions of years that paid off without undue damage.

But then what happened was, as we developed a modern industrial capacity, and then the techno scientific capacity to eliminate entire habitats quickly and efficiently, we succeeded too well and at long last we broke nature. And now, almost too late, we are waking up to the fact that we have overdone it and that we are destroying the very foundation of the environment on which humanity was built.

Its time to add a healthy dollop of Earth to our canvas.

One frequently quoted piece of evidence against a Christian green ethic is the command to our first parents to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:28).

How should we interpret this?

Does this mean we should be thrilled at increasing populations?

Well, to start with, ‘filling’ is not the same as over-filling. We should also remember that it is only in the last 100 years, that over-populating the world has become a real prospect.

In giving us “dominion”, God appointed us as His stewards or care-takers, and will hold us accountable for the way we discharge our responsibility, just like the husband-men and talent-holders in Jesus’ parables (Mat. 25:14-30, Luke. 20:9-16).

It does not matter whether you are a believer or not the ‘State of the Planet’ makes clear that we are unique in terms of our destructive potential, and we alone must change our behavior in response to moral beliefs and challenges.

People with or without religious belief can (and do) recognise and accept that we have a role as Stewards. It is agreed by ALL RELIGIONS that humans are not simply answerable to future generations for their management of nature, but that they are answerable to the one God who created them in his image so that they would manage the earth on his behalf.

The key or ethical argument – an argument of stewardship, an argument of handing on a world as rich as the one we inherited does not need any religious belief.

The rate at which species are becoming extinct as a consequence of human activity is staggering.

The problem is all around us and we are all part of the problem.

The problem now is recognising this fact. It can be the first step in becoming an active part in the solution

Human beings have created derelict industrial sites, open-cast mines, scrap yards and polluted rivers and beaches. Our current actions are producing greater and more rapid changes than ever before.

There is some pallet of colors to pick from. Soil erosion and loss of fertility. Deforestation Water-quality pollution Waste. Generation and global toxification. Human and cultural degradation.  Alterations of earth’s energy exchange with the sun – green house gasses keep in too much heat resulting in global warming.

Our life-styles tend to keep us isolated from the awesome power and beauty of creation. Consequently we loose sight of its wonder, and as a result, we have a poorer understanding of the mess we ARE ALL IN.

Most of us are disconnected from our actions and their environmental effects.

We seldom if ever see our food growing, because it comes from shops. Few people who buy petrol from garages have ever seen an oil production platform or refinery. We may claim to deplore environmental damage, but by acquiescing in the system makes us accomplices in the crime.

We can just continue with the inevitable consequences of ignorance and greed, thoughtlessly bending the world to creating more bits of garbage to amuse ourselves…

No matter which course we take knowledge does not lead automatically to action.

The time has come… to destroy those who destroy the earth.

Why is it that the activities of our one species, aiming at no more than living in reasonable comfort and avoiding hunger, should cause such devastation on the rest of the natural world?

The answer is in our back ground wash, and how it has being applied with greed and corruption of power by all societies.

By now we  should understand which of humanity’s activities inflict the greatest damage on the diversity of animal and plants of this planet.

But the problem is we are self centered and look like remaining so.

Afficher l'image d'origine

Afficher l'image d'origine

The average American consumes 40 times as much energy as the typical third-world inhabitant and the average European some 20 times as much.

One European uses as much energy as 20 Bangladeshis.

In short, a change to our societies, our economics, and our politics and our world organisations is needed.

Here is a snap shot of what the Paris Climate Change Conference 2015 is up against.

Qatar :

Qatar’s carbon emissions per capita are the highest in the world and three times as high as the United States’. Qatar, gas prices in Kuwait are among the lowest in the world, while GDP is among the highest. This, coupled with a lack of public transit infrastructure, makes road travel the sole means of mobility for both citizens and businesses moving goods. According to the Global Footprint Network, the average Kuwaiti uses 22 times more resources than the country provides per person.

Ireland:

A fuel farm on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland, grows rapeseed (canola) plants to ultimately make biofuel.

In 2008, however, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions per capita were the second highest in the European Union.

Agriculture is the largest source of emissions, but emissions from vehicles have more than doubled since 1998.

However, there have been improvements in recent years: 2009 was the second year in a row in which transport emissions declined, and an increase in renewable sources of energy in the early 2000s reduced emissions from the energy sector by 10 percent in 2009.

The United Arab Emirates:

Despite being the world’s fourth largest oil exporter (behind Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran), the United Arab Emirates has publicly pushed for a renewal of the Kyoto protocol (the agreement among industrialized nations to cap emissions), announced a plan to increase renewable energy production, and even launched a 1-gigawatt concentrated solar generation project.

Yet Dubai, a city of 1.5 million people (many of whom are immigrants seeking their fortunes, like the workers pictured above), the world’s largest shopping mall, and an indoor ski resort, currently gets all its energy needs from the burning of natural gas, which is why it ranks third on Global Footprint’s list.

Denmark :

A Danish farmer surveys his Christmas trees shortly before they are sold in December 2008.

Denmark’s carbon emissions are half that of the United States’, but its cropland (the amount of viable land that can be used to produce crops)  requirements are much higher. Because so much meat is eaten per capita in Denmark, the country must import a large amount of grain—so much that it would take up 215,000 square feet (2 hectares) of land per person, or 2.5 times more land than the country has.

United States :

New York City twinkles at night, with Fifth Avenue and Broadway clogged with cars.

If everyone lived like the average American, the Earth’s annual production of resources would be depleted by the end of March, the Global Footprint Network’s report said.

Americans’ love of road trips, suspicion of public transit, and growing energy demands fuel the country’s high per-capita carbon emissions.

Belgium :

A Belgian farmer drives his tractor in this undated photo.

Belgium’s biocapacity of cropland is extremely low, so much of its food must be imported. This begins to explain Belgium’s high ranking on Global Footprint’s list.

Australia :

A lumberman cuts down a karri tree, a type of eucalyptus, in Western Australia.

Australians emit 28.1 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person, one of the highest per-capita rates in the world. In addition, the country’s demand for wood, food, and pasture uses the equivalent of 753,000 square feet (7 hectares) of land per person, nearly four times greater than what is available on average around the world.

Canada :

Canada’s biocapacity is 14.92 hectares per capita, 5.5 times average global consumption. So if the world’s resources were as abundant everywhere as in Canada, we’d have more than enough to go around.

Even so, Canada’s cities are energy hogs. The country has the seventh highest rate of carbon dioxide emissions per capita. Total greenhouse gas emissions in Canada rose 24 percent between 1990 and 2008.

The Netherlands :

Sheep near a village in the Netherlands will go toward feeding Dutch citizens, yes, but for the most part, the Dutch consume more than they produce.

The small country, with its high population density and relatively little land area for crops and pasture, consumes six times more resources (energy, food, and more) than it is able to produce, and about three times more than the Earth overall is able to sustain.

God only know what China, India, and Russia and the rest of the world would add.

What ever it is we must spread the riches of World more evenly.

This can only be achieved by making Profit for profit sake create a World Aid Fund ( see previous posts) to tackle the Inequalities, Correct the damage to the climate, and protect what is left.Afficher l'image d'origineAfficher l'image d'origine

We all know that there is little point to any thing if we are not alive.

Its time to change from selfie square heads, and like button pressers to searchers.

Where there is poverty we must find it. Where there is pain we must find it. Where there is abuse we must find it. Where there is modern day slavery we must find it. Where there is inequality we must find it. Where there is pollution we must find it.

In fact its time to find what is of value to us all.     

Don’t be a square head contribute. All comments are valued.

http://go.ted.com/CjNh

http://go.ted.com/CjNk

http://go.ted.com/CjNs

http://go.ted.com/CjN3

You might think our canvas is now completed but you be wrong. There is one more color to add and that is Woman.

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The Beady Eye looks at Modern Day Human Trafficking.

25 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Corruption., Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Comments Off on The Beady Eye looks at Modern Day Human Trafficking.

Tags

Human trafficking, Modern day Slavery

I start this post with the below link which I must warn you has horrific footage of the sickening reality of human trafficking.

I also urge you if you are not willing to live in a world where every year, millions of people are trafficked into the modern-day equivalent of slavery to download THE FREEDOM APP.

It is a problem in virtually every region of the globe and will probably always be a problem in our world consumer Societies.

There is no need for me to point out that the Planet has plenty of problems but this is a human crime so monstrous we can no longer say we had no idea that millions of already desperately poor men, women, and children are being subjected to the further indignity of being sold against their will for labor and sex.

Ask yourself what good is all our technology our intellectual power or political power, our Criminal Justice Systems when they are only two countries where there is no Slavery, Greenland and Iceland.

There are now double the amount of slaves that came out of Africa -27 million. 22% are in forced Prostitution, 10% in imposed state labor, 68% in forces exploitation creating the goods and delivering the services we all rely on every day.

At this moment, men, women and children are being trafficked and exploited all over the world.

Human trafficking is the third most profitable crime, after drug and arms dealing. Due to the nature of the industry, it makes it impossible to know the exact value generated, but estimates of worldwide forced labor and sex trafficking profits are as high as $200 billion annually.

It is an Industry that is engaging in behavior that goes against our morals, values, or fundamental beliefs about what is right and wrong, and what is a sin or a necessary evil.

Slaves carry bricks into waiting trucks in 18-hour stretches, at a kiln in Nepal. Photo: Lisa Kristine, Lisa Kristine ©

It is an Industry that created the wealth behind a many a family fortune during 1865 and there after by abolishment compensation payments. For example Gladstone the Prime Minister of England.

In the United States is has been 148 years (and 43 days) since former President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, about 145 since Congress made it official with the 13th amendment, and we still have slavery rampant throughout its dream of Freedom.

Exploitation can take many forms including sex trafficking, forced labor, domestic servitude, and trafficking of children pornography and commercial sex.

It has moved online and towards the safety of fake names and accounts and rerouted IP addresses. Online prostitution is ruining lives.

Human trafficking is a harsh reality for millions of women, men, and children throughout the world every year. It oppresses and exploits without mercy, often using violence and power to exert dominance and demand submission of the victims.

The precise number of people being trafficked is difficult to estimate, but the Global Slavery Index (GSI) suggests 36 million victims worldwide are involved in forced labor and sexual exploitation.

This is particularly relevant to any and all conversations that take place concerning future relations between the United States and Asia, especially as it relates to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), because, according to the GSI, of those 36 million trafficking victims, nearly two-thirds are from Asian countries.

Humanitarian photographer Lisa Kristine emerges from an illegal gold mine in Ghana after photographing the enslaved miners who work inside. Photo: Lisa Kristine, Lisa Kristine Photography

Human exploitation in Asia is one of the most severe human rights problems of our time.  The GSI places India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Thailand in the top 10 countries with the highest number of trafficking victims in the world. The most egregious countries are India, which tops the list with 14 million victims of trafficking, followed by China at 3.2 million, and Pakistan with 2.1 million trafficking victims.

Trafficking, however, is not something that we can consider an isolated or restricted crime. Everyone must address human exploitation because trafficked individuals travel from 127 countries and are exploited in 137 countries, on every continent and in every type of economy. 

So the next time you go shopping think about where and what cost before you putting it in your shopping basket.

Perhaps the system of Capitalism we see that privatizes profits and nationalizes losses is impossible to justify, but the selling of humans for free labor is beyond the pale.  Some how Capitalism for the want of a better word, must be rescued from the Bankers.

If any one reading this post recognizes the bastards in the above U Tube video you know what to do.

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The Beady Eye looks at history’s greatest Frauds

28 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Corruption., Privatization, Technology, The Future

≈ Comments Off on The Beady Eye looks at history’s greatest Frauds

Tags

Cons., Economic Inequality, Fraud., Global economy, Scams.

We think we know it all.

We all know there are Political Frauds, Military Frauds, Cover-ups & Conspiracies.

Other than mentioning some of them here I will leave it to you to look and make up your own minds.

John F. Kennedy, Aliens & UFOs, Pearl Harbor, CIA Drug Testing On Civilians, Catholic Church — 3 Secrets Of Fatima, James Earl Ray & Martin Luther King, Big Tobacco’s Big Denial, Jimmy Hoffa, The Philadelphia Experiment, Celebrity Deaths, Watergate, and Iraq War.

Then we have the others.

The below list unfortunately leaves out the greatest: Cons Scams Frauds (what ever you want to call them) of all.

The Sale of the Roman Empire (193 A.D.)

The Mississippi Scheme (1719)

The Diamond Necklace Hoax (1785)

The Wright Panic (1900)

The Original Ponzi Scheme (1920)

The Eiffel Tower Sale (1925)

The Match King Hoax (1929)

The Baker Estate Swindle (1936)

ZZZZ Best Cleaners (1986)

The Great Insider Trading Scam (1986)

The Savings & Loan Scandal (1989)

Tyco International (1996)

CEO Dennis Kozlowski (pictured)and CFO Mark Swartz soaked Tyco for more than $150 million in unearned bonuses and loans from 1996 until 2002.

Cendant (1997)

Shortly after the company was created by the merger of CUC International and HFS in 1997, a massive, decade long accounting fraud at CUC was uncovered.

Fannie Mae (1998)

Fannie Mae paid the SEC $400 million in 2006 to settle charges of misstating financial statements from 1998 through 2004.

Qwest Communications (2000)

Qwest’s stock traded as high as $64 in 2000 before plummeting in 2002 to less than $1 because of a multiyear accounting fraud.

Enron (2001)

The energy company’s bankruptcy in 2001 after allegations of massive accounting fraud wiped out $78 billion in stock market value.

World Com (2002)

The 2002 fraud-induced bankruptcy of the telecom company wiped out a firm that once had $103.9 billion in assets on its books.

Health South (2003)

In March of 2003, the SEC accused CEO Richard M. Scrushy of overstating earnings by at least $1.4 billion over four years.

Bernard Madoff (2008)

New York money manager Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest fraud ever by an individual.

Lehman Brothers (2008)

Investment bank Lehman, with $600 billion in assets, failed in late 2008. It was the largest bankruptcy in history and a spark to the worldwide financial crisis.

MF Global (2008)

The brokerage firm, led by former Goldman Sachs Chairman and former New Jersey Senator then Governor Jon Corzine, had $41 billion in assets.

The Great Wall Street Rip-Off (Ongoing)

Zhang Shuguang, a former railway-ministry official, admitted to having spent nearly half of $7.8m in bribes that he had collected trying to get himself elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Bell Labs.  Jan Hendrik Schön (born 1970 ) is a physicist German, who enjoyed a brief fame after a series of advanced scientific apparent that eventually turn out to be fraud.

HSBC. (2014) ongoing.  Helped customers to hide millions from taxman.

La Cour.  The VAT fraud costs 10 billion euros per year.


Sadly, it seems that corruption/fraud is to be found wherever there are human beings.

THE GREATEST OF ALL:  

The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest Fraud.   

 A sweeping statement. Not on your nanny.

Now you might think it cannot get any worse.  Read and learn.

Wheat: 

Manipulated us to its advantage, not the other way around. (Which by the way was a wild grass)

We became enslaved by its master plan.

With in a few short millennia it was growing all over the world.  World wise it covers 2.25 million square kilometers of the globe’s surface.

It demanded a lot of attention from Mankind. It did not like sharing its space with others so we spend every hour of our waking day weeding. It got sick so we spend billions on fighting its enemies worms and blight. It was attacked by locust and rabbits so we build fences and stood guard. It has an unquenchable thirst so we built irrigation canals and dams. It even has us collecting animal faeces to feed the ground it grew in. We did not domesticate wheat it domesticated us.

How did it convince us to exchange a rather good life for a miserable life of existence.?  What did it offer in return?.

Not a better diet. Hard to digest it is bad for our gums and teeth. It did not give economic security. When it was hit by a drought or a swarm of locusts we died by the thousands or fought each other because we could not move.

It did nothing for us as individuals but it allowed us as a species to grow exponentially.

It created armies.  It created Political Systems. Being the most successful plant in the history of the Earth it created Capitalism.

Capitalism:

Which we are now beginning to see its true colors. One of the biggest Scams, Con jobs, or Fraud what ever label you like to attach en flicked on mankind.

It has allowed a few elitist to become wealth on the promise that some of the wealth might rub off on all of us.

It sure did.

It has turned us all into trading commodities in order to acquire more wealth for the greedy few.

It has produced Poverty, Inequality, Migration, Wars, Terrorist Groups, Corruption, Disease, Racism, Climate Change, treating the very existence of Our Common Planet. You name it and you can be sure that the free Global Greed Market it created will exploit it to create more short-term Profit.

It has and it is robbing all of our common resources to create profits for Corporations that now want Legal Rights to sue Nations. (See Previous post: The TTP and TTIP TRADING AGREEMENTS.)

It has promoted Massive theft of government (i.e., taxpayer) funds and property, which is going on and is tolerated decade after decade.

It has produced Sovereign Wealth Funds currently plundering the World.

Not forgetting the Stock Markets, where Capital greed has no bounds. 

And where are we to-day in the Technology Age (A product of Capitalism) that has little or no regulation using our vanity to pilfer all knowledge which will be sold back to us or others to make profit. Google, Facebook, Twitter. Amazon, Apple. The Cloud.

Google has already changed the world by altering the way we interact with technology.

As it enters its second decade as a public company, Google wants to repeat the trick.

Fuse man and machine. Drive Your Cars. Bring the Internet to everyone, everywhere.  Solve Death.

How exactly does Google plan to pull this off?

Apart from announcing some high-profile hires, Google hasn’t shared much about its vision.  Last month Google announced a new medical company called Calico, whose explicit aim is to take on aging itself.

In the absence of any real information, many commentators have speculated that Calico will pursue a “big-data approach to health: gathering massive amounts of information from patients and ‘crunching it’ to help speed the way to health care discoveries. Some have suggested that Calico’s new CEO will take the view that the best way to tackle aging is to focus on preventing diseases.

All pretty bright for a plant don’t you think.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of wheat plants"

 

Corruption, Fraud, Scams, whatever you want to call it cannot be tackled in isolation, but only in the context of efforts to reduce world poverty.

If we are not vigilant we are all going to end up Slave of the Wheat of Technology. Call Data.

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The Beady Eye: Has gone all Corrupt.

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Corruption.

≈ Comments Off on The Beady Eye: Has gone all Corrupt.

Tags

Corruption., FIFA., Political corruption.

Let’s take a look.

A Cancer at the heart of so many of the problems we face around the world.

Across a great deal of the modern world corruption continue to ­prevail.

We have all resorted to it in one form or the other: The Dash, The Sweetener, The Kickback, The Backhander, Hush Money, Payola, Soap, Fix, Graff, Look Money, The Brown Envelope, The Political Party Donation and the Tip all bribes.

Think of Putin’s Russia, Zardari’s Pakistan, Karzai’s Afghanistan, or modern Saudi Arabia. In all cases government has been converted into a form of pillage by a ruling family, individual or ruling elite.

Why? Because human nature is venal.

There is little point in trying to categorize or to list all the forms of corruptions.

World wide, corruption that has being going on long before the arrival of Capitalism.

It is sufficient to say that, a world-wide contemporary malaise which we could call the revolving doors has been around and will continue to exist as long as we and the planet we live on are turned into consumer products.

These days it is treated with the same taboo (over pointing a finger and stirring up concerns) since time memorial.

For years we have all knew that FIFA lined the pockets of those on the inside. However no one lifted a figure.  It was met with a reluctant sigh.
Résultat de recherche d'images pour "papers on world corruption"

We see our world leaders gathering at International meeting after International meeting to addressing World Poverty and Inequality only to be undermined by Corruption.

The World Economic Forum recently estimated that Corruption adds about 10% to business costs globally. While the World Bank says that $1 trillion dollars are paid in bribes every year, about 3 % of world GDP.

It costs the EU £120 million a year.

The question as to how to get good governance in corrupt countries when they see themselves surrounded by corruption in sport, business, banking, religion, and power.

Scandals in the corporate world, whether centered around corruption, bribery, fraud, or other greed tend to have a significant impact on the economy.

Take your pick from a few of the most recent.

The Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme. $65 billion.

Health South. $1.4 billion.

The Stanford Financial Fallout. $8 billion.

Tyco Ltd.$600 million.

Lance Armstrong and the Livestrong Foundation.

Enron Corp.

Arthur Andersen.

Bearn Stearns Companies Inc. government bailout

Swiss air.

Parmalat. €14 billion.

BANINTE. $2.2 billion deficit.

Adelphia Communications Corp.$2.3 billion.

Global Crossing Ltd. $22.4 billion with debts amounting to $12.4 billion.

HIH Insurance $5.3 billion.

Martha Stewart’s Mess.

Deutsche Bank Spying Scandal.

Urban Bank.

Jerome Kerviel and the Société Générale Banking Scandal.€4.9 billion.

Barclays.$450 million.

Bre-X.

Barings Bank.$1.3 billion.

Hewlett-Packard Spying Scandal.

Siemens.bribes may have been up to 100 million Euros.

Volkswagen.

World Com.$11 billion with $3.8 billion in fraudulent accounts.

Political USA.

Woodrow Wilson’s Engagement, Grover Cleveland’s Illegitimate Son, The Petticoat Affair, The Credit Mobilier Scandal, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, The Whiskey Ring, Iran-Contra, Teapot Dome, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky,Watergate. US financial imperialism in Latin America, or Washington’s refusal to confront Israel over its maltreatment of the Palestinian population.

India:

62% of Indians had first hand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully.

Indian Coal Allocation Scam – 2012 – Size 1.86 L Crore.

2G Spectrum Scam – 2008 – 1.76 L Crore.

Wakf Board Land Scam – 2012 – 1.5-2 L Crore.

Commonwealth Games Scam – 2010 – 70,000 Crore.

Telgi Scam – 2002 – 20,000 Crore.

Satyam Scam – 2009 – 14,000 Crore.

Bofors Scam – 1980s & 90s – 100 to 200 Crore.

The Fodder Scam – 1990s – 1,000 Crore.

The Hawala Scandal – 1990-91 – 100 Crore.

Harshad Mehta & Ketan Parekh Stock Market Scam –1992 – 5000 Crore Combined.

Brazil’s biggest ever corruption scandal.

Court approves inquiry into dozens of senior leaders, including former president Fernando Collor, over kickbacks from the state-owned oil company, Petrobras. In total, 54 people are to be investigated by the attorney general, including 21 federal deputies and 12 senators.

China:

Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the center of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades.

Near Home.

The UK:

You got phone-hacking, the LIBOR banking scandals, child abuse allegations, the manipulation of evidence by police over the Hillsborough disaster, the 2013 horse meat labelling scandal, British involvement in torture,and so forth.

Corruption, you could say is “a central mode of power-mongering in contemporary Britain”. Theft of public assets.

  • Barclays and HSBC have been named in legal papers filed in the US 
  • Documents have also named London-based Standard Chartered Bank 

It could be said that Britain is as corrupt as klepto-states such as Afghanistan or Russia, and that only residual racism prevents us from perceiving this.

The last prime minister to make a fortune out of public office was Lloyd George.

Tony Blair is admittedly an exception but he has acquired his wealth since leaving office. No one has ever suggested that he took (or takes) bribes.

Nigeria:

Nigeria is not quite the most corrupt country on earth.

Nigeria’s 170 million-strong population should be prospering in a country that in recent years has launched four satellites into space and now has a burgeoning space programme.

Nigeria is sitting on crude oil reserves estimated at 35 billion barrels (enough to fuel the entire world for more than a year), not to mention 100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The resource curse.

70 per cent of Nigerians live below the poverty line of £1.29 a day. It is estimated that since 1960, about $380 billion  (£245 billion) of government money has been stolen — almost the total sum Nigeria has received in foreign aid.

Whether the country is ruled by civilians or soldiers, who invariably proclaim their burning desire to eradicate civilian corruption, it makes absolutely no difference.

Frankly, we might as well flush our cash away or burn it for all the good it’s doing for ordinary Nigerians.

And you wonder why ship loads of people are arriving in Europe.

Poverty: Millions of Nigerians are living in poverty, despite the country earning huge profits from its oil depositsHaiti or the Congo are more corrupt than Nigeria..

Corruption and poverty unfortunately go hand-in-hand. 

Corruption leaves children without mothers, families without healthcare, people without food, the elderly without security, and businesses without capital.

What can be done?

The general consensus is,

We need to increase the participation of people in decision-making, making public spending and budgets more transparent, and making law enforcers and public services answerable to ordinary people.

We need to make governments publish key data on spending. Simply getting the information out there would be a good first step.

Today only a fifth of the 49 lesser developed countries have access to information laws.

2.5 billion people still live in poverty. This is not sustainable.

By 2030 the population will reach 8.5 billion.

In the latest Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index that measures how corrupt the public sector is perceived to be, two-thirds of the 177 countries ranked scored less than 50 on a scale where 100 is considered clean.

The average score of the world’s least developed countries is 28.

My belief is that the Smart Phone is already getting rid of low-level corruption, by reducing opportunities and incentives to engage in corrupt practices.

The world needs sustainable, equitable, and clean development before large-scale corruption can be tackled.

This can only be achieved by making Capitalism contribute, IE placing a 0.05% Aid Commission on all High Frequency Stock Exchange Transactions, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisition and on all Foreign Exchange Currency transactions over ($20,000) : see previous posts.  

 

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THE BEADY EYE. Let’s look at the “ C-word”.

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Corruption.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE. Let’s look at the “ C-word”.

Tags

Corruption., Narrowly legalistic., Political corruption., Racketeering., Scams.

Until recently corruption was an acknowledged fact of life,“Corruption is one of the few disasters which is wholly man-made” and is to be found wherever there are human beings.

Corruption and economic turmoil often go hand-in-hand.

In western nations like the United States and many European countries, we often see corruption come to light as the result of whistle blowers or journalist efforts. But in many other areas of the world, however, corruption plays a major role in fostering staggering poverty and broken economic systems in a much more blatant way.

Why is this?  Because;

Many governments have their roots in constitutions from generations ago, and have outgrown their current systems. Many other countries are ruled by a variety of independent tribal leaders and often lack a centralized power structure with any meaningful sway.

Now it is beginning to be accepted that corruption is not a private matter between corrupted and corruptor, but something that may distort and degrade whole economies and cultures, not to mention sport.

Seven members of FIFA were arrested for corruption in their hotel in Zurich on Wednesday morning, UEFA requested the postponement of the proceeding Congress and the presidential election. They have only being rigging the World Cup for the last decade or so.

Corruption has spread its branches in almost each and every sector of our Existence.

It comes in a variety of forms, so getting a precise gauge is difficult.

Corruption is profoundly inegalitarian in its effects – it has a ‘Robin Hood-in-reverse’ character.

Corruption infringes the fundamental human right to fair treatment.

It is the poor who are most dependent on good public services, for they have few alternatives (they cannot afford private health care or schools, for example). The problem with pragmatic acceptance, seeing bribery as little more than a different way of doing business, a way to bypass red tape and to outdo business rivals.

Generally speaking the governments in poor countries are also the most corrupt.

If you were asked to give a definition to describe Corruption you would be hard press to formulate a definition that encompasses all its aspects.

You might say Corruption is;  “The act by which ‘insiders’ profit at the expense of ‘outsiders’ ” (conveying the ideas of abuse of position, offending against relationships, and under handedness).

You might say;  that the mingling of business with politics (particularly ethnic politics) is a sure recipe for corruption.

You might say;  the culprits are secrecy (in government) and poverty.

You might say;  it is the abuse of public office in exchange for private benefits.

The definition of corruption consequently ranges from the broad terms of “misuse of public power” and “moral decay” to strict legal definitions of corruption as an act of bribery involving a public servant and a transfer of tangible resources.

If corruption is to be seriously addressed its causes must be clearly identified. It is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon with multiple causes and effects, as it takes on various forms and functions in different contexts.

Can it be eradicated ?  Not a hope in hell  – Third World dictators of the Cold War era, the crash in East Asia (which had seemed both corrupt and prosperous), and the growing cost of corruption to business have all helped to focus minds.

The rankings in the table below and the color of the country on the map indicate the country score on a scale of 0 to 100 where 0 means that the country is perceived as highly corrupt and 100 as very clean.

Can it be curtailed?  Yes –  It may flourish both in over regulated and deregulated economies, under democracy or dictatorship.

Transparency is the secret.  Access to information, must be prerequisites for any Aid program or Privatizations or Acquisitions of Resources by Sovereign Wealth Funds. (Corruption significantly raises the likelihood of macroeconomic instability, in addition to reducing economic growth. This is particularly true in a globalizing world economy. The gap is widening between those countries that can manage to control corruption and those that cannot.)

Here are a few specific example of what happened in the UK. You may have noted the privatization program taking place in the UK.

Making particular reference to the 1996 sell-off of British Rail. A 1998 report submitted by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons found that rolling stock sold for £1.8 billion was resold only ten months later for £2.7 billion. Taxpayers thus lost nearly £1 billion and former British Rail managers became multi-millionaires.

One of the biggest scams which India faced in the last decade was the Commonwealth Games scam.

Called the CWG scam in which many politicians were found guilty of making crores of money in the games illegally. The Commonwealth Games in India were held in 2010.

Then there is the Indian Coal Allocation Scam or Coalgate; it was the mother of all the scams, total scam was of Rs 10600 billion.

Or the 2G Spectrum Scam This scam led to the distribution of 2G licences to the private telecoms at through way prices in 2008, the prices were actually of 2001. It led to increment of the mobile subscribers from 4 million in 2001 to 350 million in 2008. These three scams are drop in an ocean.

It begs the question is a Scam Corruption or is it “Narrowly legalistic”

Doing no more than trying not to fall foul of the legislation is not enough.

Back to Europe.

To date, the list of corrupt Greek politicians Siemens is kept secret by Germany, only German Chancellor Angela Merkel is aware of the whole process of corruption, names and amounts received by each Greek politician.

Mr. Akis was accused of receiving 20 million euros for corruption signing arms contracts with foreign companies, especially German, which he received EUR 8 million for the country on the path of a heavy debt commander in 2000, four German submarines to 1.6 billion Euros in the MAN group was sentenced to 160 million tickets a German court for making corruption (60 million euros paid in one year) a new marketing technique to sell submarines to other countries in financial crisis as Portugal.

On 15 December 2011, is the successor of Grevy, Jacques Chirac, 78, who will scoop 2 years suspended imprisonment by the Court of Paris for embezzling public funds and abuse of power, of what happened between 1977 and 1995, thanks to a magic potion used in Europe called IMUNITE.

The issue of corruption will never be resolved if it is treated as a problem solely, or mainly, of the Third World. It is rampant at all levels of Society.

If we take a close look at the European Union although the nature and scope of corruption may differ from one EU State to another, it harms the EU as a whole by lowering investment levels, hampering the fair operation of the Internal Market and reducing public finances.

The economic costs incurred by corruption in the EU possibly amount to EUR 120 billion per year. This is one percent of the EU GDP, representing only a little less than the annual budget of the EU. This estimate could well be a conservative one. One way or the other it is “breathtaking”.

http://www.euractiv.com/video/commission-corruption-costs-eu-eu120-billion-yearly-307440

It cannot be tackled in isolation, but only in the context of efforts to reduce world poverty. The burden of Third World debt and the imbalance of power in world trade need to be addressed at the same time as tackling corruption.

The problem of corruption has been seen either as a structural problem of politics or economics, or as a cultural and individual moral problem.

Corrupt individuals and companies may be exposed and punished, but of itself this will only redirect the corruption.

Action aimed specifically against corruption will have to go hand in hand with action to secure freedom of information.

The major concern for international aid policy through the last five decades is to improve the living conditions for the poor in the poorest countries of the world.

In fact, as the world economy becomes increasingly globalized, the IMF’s anti-corruption efforts are becoming more important. The roles played by international organisations and multinational companies, and the Internet in fostering as well as combating corruption is evident for all to see.

The negative impact of corruption on development, and the consequences for the poor.

Corruption in poor countries should also look beyond the formal structures of the central state to the informal networks of patronage and social domination that often determine how political power actually is wielded, including the local community or district level. Aid has achieved so little it has drawn attention to corruption as possibly a principal cause of failure.

The IMF, the World Bank, and other international development organizations can play a valuable role in fighting corruption.

There is no point in spreading funds across twenty cities, or twenty country, they are unlikely to make enough of a dent in any one place to be effective. They should focus their resources on one or two special governance zones in a particular country. Once reform is under way there, the increased investment and tax revenue will be the “anti-corruption dividend. A win-win strategy.

Governments are all too often not looking out for the everyday needs of their population and are instead enriching a privileged elite.

In 200 years, nothing has changed. When we look at the history of political scandals, we can easily conclude that political corruption is as old as politics itself.

Money is Corruption.

“Politicians are all corrupt,” that is what emerges when you ignore the vulnerable.  

There is only one place for Corruption:

Here are the most corrupt nations in the world, as ranked by Transparency International.

Eritrea. Libya. Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan. Iraq. South Sudan. 

Afghanistan. Sudan. North Korea. Somalia. Haiti. Venezuela. Myanmar.

Honorable Mention: The United States Corruption score: 74

No surprises!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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