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Corruption costs African countries an estimated 25% of its combined national income, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said - some $148bn a year.

"The cost of corruption in Africa":http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4723572.stm

I don't know... corruption is a complex issues. There's high corruption, which deals with 100.000s USD or 1 mil USD as its basic unit and it's the kind of deal where a (foreign) investor pays a high-ranking official to sell to him the State-owned businesses that are privitized. And then there's the slip-50-cents-in-a-hospital-nurse's-pocket to get your bedpan changed more than once/week.

In Romania, there has been some progress on petty corruption but very little on big corruption (cabinet member level, even).

If a list would be done for EU and joiner countries, Romania would be in the top 3 by far.

Damn. I was sure that Uzbekistan would come in ahead of Tajikistan on this one. I guess it doesn't count if your whole state is just one huge mafia and you've practically admitted it. There must be some level of disorganization in a country for it to count as corrupt.

I'm impressed-- it looks like Indonesia has been making progress, despite the previous, stunning corruption in the judiciary. There were rumors that the new President SBY would shake things up. Let's hope.

What does "corrupt" mean? It might reasonably be thought that one who uses public office for the secret advancement of hidden benefactors might be corrupt, if one lives in a democracy like the UK or the US. One the other hand, if you live in a dictatorship where it is expected and normal that one utilizes the government for the benefit of a few, is it really corrupt to do what is expected of you? Does not corruption mean the distortion of the norm for the benefit of the few? If the norm is "government for the benefit of the top 1%" then publicly doing what is expected of you does not seem like corruption to me. By this standard, though, Bush and Cheney are the most corrupt people on the planet, because their government is based on the premise that the 1% who own 60% of the productive assets in the US are more deserving of government beneficence than the other 99% of us, even though the premises behind the founding of the government are presumably the opposite. It just so happens that this 1% is the source of 80% of their campaign funds. Theirs is corruption on a grand scale. In the Roman Empire, at ~200 AD, 1% of the population owned 70% of the productive assets. Think about it. Who is corrupt?

Notice they said Myanmar instead of Burma. Anyway, does that country, whatever its called, even belong on the list? I know it's a hellhole ruled by an insane military dictatorship, but does it really meet the definition of "corrupt" as opposed to just "nonfunctional"?

North Korea's not on the list?

Yeah, gwb, no one in the US other than the top 1%has ever benefitted from capitalism. Witness all the squatters camps everywhere and the 3 rolls-royces on the empty I-95 and the open pit fires burning everywhere throughout every city, the millions of malnourished beggars lining every street, and the lack of any kind of infrastructure, or roads, or hospitals, or museums or sports parks, or grocery stores, or...etc, etc.

"One the other hand, if you live in a dictatorship where it is expected and normal that one utilizes the government for the benefit of a few, is it really corrupt to do what is expected of you?"

Ahem , allow me to paraphrase:

"One the other hand, if you live in a dictatorship where it is expected and normal that one utilizes the government to murder personal enemies and hated minorities, is it really a crime to do what is expected of you?"

How's the logic holding up now gwb ?

The answer is "yes" in both instances by the way.

How did Russia not make this list? Maybe it is the methodology - apparently from the Putin years the total number of bribes stagnated or declined slightly, but the size of the bribes increased 10-fold.

Novisti on Russian corruption

Note to gwb: some understanding of basic economics would help. In a free market economy, the wealthy are allowed to keep accumulating wealth because in order to make more money they have to invest it, creating jobs that help people like me pay the equivalent of a month's cost of living in many countries for their high-speed internet connection, so they can read tirades against the free market on Coming Anarchy. And the nature of our tax system ensures that the wealthy pay more than their fair share; because of deductions, most of those in the bottom 50% of incomes now pay no income taxes, and the rest pay only a little. It is the upper middle class and on up ($50,000 +) who pay for virtually everything in our government. Those receiving the benefits of this should show some gratitude.

"Those receiving the benefits of this should show some gratitude."

Ooooh, thanks so much to the vast majority of the upper-middle class who were born that way. I'm so grateful. You only don't pay income tax if you are below $8,000.00 per year (approximately) for a one-person household, plus a bit less than that for each dependent. Is 50% of the population really living below that line???? Shocking.

Before everyone goes on with stories about some uncle who was born without a shirt and made a million- first of all, poor people don't have such stories, and second of all, I'm talking about the average, not the exception.

Nonetheless, Kirk is right: I certainly would not argue that the US is anywhere near as corrupt as the countries on the list- our rich generally inherit their advantages according to laws accepted by most of humanity- while their rich stole, blackmailed, etc. I, too, thought about Russia, but then Russia is not as corrupt as Kyrghyztan or Uzbekistan, and if they didn't make the list, well...

"This describes who pays what in the US in terms of taxes.":http://www.allegromedia.com/sugi/taxes/

Addmittedly, on a quick glance, the writers appear to be of the anti-tax variety, but they do back up their assertions with facts and tables.

The $8,000 figure (the floor for paying taxes) only applies if you have no children; most people do. With an income $25,000/year (somewhat below average) married, two kids and a 10% tax bracket, you would end up with only about $1,000 in federal income taxes, or 4%. I think that it is justifiable to say that those in the bottom half of incomes pay either nothing or very little. And that analysis doesn't include handouts (in which I would include individual benefits like food stamps, but not a public good like funding for education). If you include individual subsidies of this kind, many have an inverted contribution curve, as Snow's chart shows.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with Kyrghystan or Uzbekistan to make a judgment about their corruption versus that of Russia, but if they are worse, then that it quite bad indeed.

The fact that Americans in poverty pay little taxes is not exactly something to gloat about. Are they supposed to pay more when they can barely sustain themselves? The percentage of Americans living in poverty are increasing, while the rich are getting richer. That is not a good trend.

Mi-Hwa, the link shows that nearly 50% of Americans pay little income tax. That has little to do with poverty.

There has been no long-term increase in the poverty rate since the late 1960s. It has fluctuated with the business cycle, but been around 12-13% for over three decades. In the past year the poverty rate increased by one-tenth of one percent - I think from 12.6% to 12.7%. If it next year decreases back down to 12.6%, will people start claiming that poverty is on the demise?

Mi-Hwa is partially correct about the "rich" if he refers to the percentage of wealth earned by, say, the 20%. But there you have to look at long-term trends like the increased importance of education and technical skills, immigration being disproportionately from individuals with low incomes, etc.

Kirk- Depends on whom you ask about Uzbekistan and Kyrghyzstan, and depending what your indicators of corruption are. It's not really clear from this survey, though I'd venture to guess it's money stolen from the World Bank.

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