Corruption, Eradicated?

Can Corruption Be Eradicated?: "....It seems unlikely that any outside force can introduce enough carrots and sticks to persuade a country to reform its political system. When Romania was campaigning for admission to the European Union, in 2003, it launched an anticorruption drive, and appointed a tough justice minister who spurred a series of corruption cases against senior officials. As soon as Romania joined the E.U., in 2007, the campaign fizzled, the justice minister was fired, and the cases were dropped. “A fish rots from the head,” Chayes observes, and, in the absence of national leaders with integrity and political will, it doesn’t appear that the United States will be able to reverse the pathologies in Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other country, notwithstanding Washington’s share in creating and sustaining some of those pathologies. Indeed, we may struggle to differentiate between the kinds of patronage that might assuage a population—the “glue” that Thomas Barfield describes—and the state-sanctioned larceny that Chayes argues, convincingly, is a threat not just to Afghanistan’s national security but to that of the United States...." (read more at the link above)

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US, Afghanistan, Iraq, Corruption, Waste

Can Corruption Be Eradicated?: "....Every day, millions of dollars in cash were declared by couriers at Kabul International Airport, and then flown to the United Arab Emirates, where the new Afghan élite invested in real estate and Bentleys. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the United States has, since 2002, spent a hundred and four billion dollars on rebuilding the country (nearly as much, in today’s dollars, as was spent on the Marshall Plan), a large but untold fraction of which was skimmed away by middlemen before it could produce any tangible improvement for the Afghan people. “We know all this money is coming in,” a farmer outside Kandahar told Chayes, yet there was little the local population could do as it vanished. For the average Afghan, it was like watching a slow-motion heist in broad daylight...."

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Illinois the Worst State, Residents Want Out

source: Gallup

Poor Illinois, almost nobody wants to live there--high taxes (and getting higher), cities and state budgets with unfunded public pension liabilities in the billions, Democratic Party-Big Union corruption and policies, gang culture pathologies, bad schools, political malfeasance . . . (and the list goes on)

Gallup: "Every state has at least some residents who are looking for greener pastures, but nowhere is the desire to move more prevalent than in Illinois...."

Even the Obamas have indicated they are NOT moving back to Illinois after his term is up. Who can blame them?

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Governments as Customers, Corruption, Crony Capitalism

@edyson: "Governments can be great customers. You just have to do that little thing of eliminating the corruption first." #GEC2014
— Philip Auerswald (@auerswald) March 18, 2014

Governments as Customers, Corruption, and Crony Capitalism -- they all go together.

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Obama proposes creation of six more Solyndras

Obama proposes creation of six new tech manufacturing hubs | Business Tech - CNET News: "Obama did not indicate where the hubs would be located or what they would specialize in."

OMG more Solyndras? see: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-18/news/ct-met-kass-0918-20110918_1_solyndra-loan-guarantee-obama-fundraisers-obama-white-house What is it with Obama, tech manufacturing, and his corrupt practices and track record of failure?

If Obama, or Washington, really wanted to help, they would: 1) enforce net neutrality and ensure access to fast, cheap, internet, at least in all urban areas; 2) enact comprehensive tax reform and stop discriminating against entrepreneurs, small business, and self-employed; 3) directly fund infrastructure, particularly in urban areas (Detroit was the tip of the iceberg).

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Cashing Out of Corruption

As I wrote recently, cash and coinage will soon disappear, but who will object to this disappearance of paper money and coins? Why, of course, bureaucrats, corrupt government officials, and crooks--

Cashing Out of Corruption | MIT Technology Review: " . . . Although the Afghan government recently sought proposals to expand mobile payments, such efforts have moved slowly in part because of “determined” resistance from some bank and police officials, says Loretta Michaels, a Washington, D.C., consultant who worked in Afghanistan with Roshan to implement the mobile money system. Corruption is a sensitive diplomatic issue with U.S. troops exiting the country, even as tens of billions in aid still pours in. McGowan, the USAID analyst, says electronic payments have the benefit of rooting out graft without singling out specific officials or looking like an “anticorruption crusade.”. . ."

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