What do you think about corruption? (any examples?)

[Torsten]

You probably have heard of ENRON, once one of the most innovative and successful companies in the US. Then in 2001 ENRON collapsed because of a major corruption scheme. Now, what do you think of corruption? What is your definition of corruption and how prevalent is corruption in your country? According to Transparency International, Iceland is the country with the lowest level of corruption, or in other words, Iceland is the most transparent country. Interestingly enough, according to the 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index, the level of corruption in Germany and the US is much higher than in Singapore or in Hong Kong.

I think corruption is an integral part of many societies. For example, there are countries where it is daily practice to stop a private car on the street, negotiate a price with the driver and use their transportation services. I would classify this practice as a mild form of corruption because neither the customer nor the service provider pays any taxes in this instance.

As for Germany, I would classify the further education system as highly ineffective to the point where corruption is institutionalized. I mean, any person in their right mind will understand that most of the state funded training programs in Germany could easily be improved and new jobs could be created. Still, no real progress is made in this area because the administration is powerful and the unemployed are not organized and determined enough to change the system.

Do you know any examples of corruption? If so, let's share them here to get a better picture of our environment.

Regards,
Torsten
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[Jamie (K)]

Corruption usually happens when bureaucracy or poorly conceived laws prevent people from getting things they need or doing things they have to do.

In the Czech Republic a doctor once made out a phony prescription for medicine and had me take it to the pharmacy. He had actually made out the prescription to another person and ordered me to tell the pharmacist that the lady was confined to bed and that I was there on her behalf. Theoretically, this should have been unnecessary, because I had national health insurance and all my visa papers were in order. However, it's so common there for all types of bureaucracy to resist cooperating in any transaction involving a foreigner, that the doctor felt the government would give him and the pharmacy too much trouble and might not even pay them. When I got to the pharmacy, the pharmacist knew what was going on, and she filled the prescription free, I think without even reporting it. This was all corruption, but the professionals felt it was necessary in order for me to get my medicine. In my opinion, something like that is justified.

Here in the United States, I have heard of a case where the government gave a man a visa to immigrate, but wouldn't allow his wife into the country. There was no apparent reason for this; the bureaucracy just didn't want to give her a visa. Finally, his own brother, who was a US citizen, went back to their home country and "married" his brother's wife. She was given a visa, and after three years she could get US citizenship, divorce the brother, and marry her real husband. This is corruption too. Is it justified, or should the man have moved back to his own country?

Here is another one: A man's wife is having an affair, and he is sure she is going to divorce him. He has a considerable amount of property he has acquired during their marriage -- without her help -- and if he loses any of this property, he'll lose his ability to continue his business or profession. So he transfers all of this property to a trusted friend for one dollar, and will buy it back when the divorce is finished. (As a concrete example, a professional musician once transferred her instruments to my sister in this way, because if her very nonproductive husband got them liquidated in a divorce settlement, she would not be able to work in her profession.) This is corruption. Is it wrong?

[Ocean_Gemini]

i think corruption exist in every countries. But sometimes its effect is too large , that's when everybody recognizes it and agrees that's bad for them... In my country, corruption is damaging teh system of education.... Almost students are asking the same question: What are they sudying for? Because the result can be bought by money . But noone is brave enough to change this situation.So day by day. they are still living with it.
Some of us, who have enough money or have enough talent., are finding another bright way by going abroad. But not to run away from our country. All of them, who are studying abroad , are looking forward to their hometown.
Anyway, i think this question will be answered soon in my country.
P.S: my english is not good, is it?

[Fan Of Arabian Horses]

Hi all!

Like Torsten wrote corruption is an integral part of many societies. Only that the word corruption always has a bad smack. It is similar to the regards between problems-issues, challeneges, opportunities. In the industrial trade it would better be called help for making decisions. And how could one value it? I mean if providers try to sale for example expensive investment goods they certainly always have competitors which provide a similar to even good having the same price. So that the customers need any help. And what is this help to find a decision? Corruption! As corruption is supposed to be making anybody a fortune so that that person decides for the provider?s offering. I remember working at a machine factory I often saw that the trainees on the job had to clean up a special house on the companies area after weekend. They often had to carry away different party relics as there were from empty champaign bottles to women?s underwear and "used" condoms. And mostly you could hear about a good buisiness that was made recently after.
That isn?t the only case of corruption (help for making decisions) I know about. So, how to value that? For the competitors it wasn?t good, of course. But for the company and their occupators it was positive because good buisinesses of the company means profits for the company and work for the occupators.

Michael

PS: Ocean_gemini, as you asked, you have basic English skills I think and you made a good decision to join this site. If you use it often, it will make you a fortune for your English skills!

[Yankee]

Hi Torsten,

There can be all kinds of corruption, I think. Both large-scale and small. As Jamie mentioned, sometimes it's hard to criticize some forms of corruption.

I've heard a story (more than once) that some people in Germany buy bogus university diplomas (usually in South America). I've never researched this story, though. Is there any truth to it? I mean, it seems plausible enough when you take into account the degree of importance that is placed on educational "titles" in Germany. It seems like everybody and their brother includes "Dipl.-Ing." (or something similar) with their name on most written documents. I've even seen those titles attached to very informal writing.

Another topic that comes to mind is that people sometimes consider not paying taxes or paying as little as possible a kind of "sport": Is this OK or not? I can see pros and cons. One the one hand, why shouldn't people take advantage of every possible write-off? On the other hand, what if the write-off is not really true or illegal? Of course, taxes are a necessary evil, but the German tax code, for example, is massive and also very bureaucratic. It's basically impossible for the average person to know exactly what he's entitled to (or not entitled to). It's not transparent in the least. This probably helps to explain the huge number of tax consultants in Germany. For many (or maybe even most?) people in Germany, the fact that hiring a tax consultant is completely unavoidable tends to breed corruption, wouldn't you say? Not only must the taxes be paid, but in order to determine how much, you also need to pay a tax consultant. Therefore, why shouldn't a person be entitled to cheat a little in order to make up the difference?

Maybe my most direct experience with what I see as corruption was my experience building a house. Having had no previous experience with house building, I had no idea just how dishonest and corrupt people in this industry could be. As a non-expert, you have to trust that the experts you've hired not only know what they're doing, but will also adhere at least to the minimum building code and the contract. And, it didn't seem unreasonable to me to expect good work. After all, Germany is world reknowned for its "quality". I discovered the hard way that this is not always the case. In order for me to have kept my house-building problems to a reasonable minimum, I would have had to have had (oh my God! What a verb construction! ) a full-time outside expert to oversee the "experts" I'd already hired. Now, I'm sure some of the problems were simply human error, but many of the things that were done wrong on my house were quite obviously done wrong knowingly. (It wasn't obvious to me until later --- after I'd been forced to inform myself about many details that it shouldn't have been necessary for me, as a non-expert, to know about.) The shortcuts were simply taken in order to save money and maximize profit. For these people there was not the least bit of interest in the fact that ignoring building code (e.g., the so-called "DINs", etc.) could lead to big problems or severe damage to the house within a short period of time. These people bank on the fact that their "shortcuts" will outlast the guarantee or that the homeowner won't notice the problems until after the guarantee is over, and then the cheaters are off the hook. "Unfortunately" for my contractor, many of the problems became apparent shortly after I moved in. But even then, the repairs often didn't really solve the problems, but rather were designed simply to hide them as cheaply as possible. Nowadays, my opinion of my contractor is that he's not only dishonest, but also corrupt. And his dishonesty and corruptness have cost me dearly.

Hi Michael,

I enjoyed reading your post very much, but I'd also like to mention that you need to say "bad taste" and not "bad smack". Also, I don't think "occupator" is actually a word. I think you must have meant "employees". (Arbeitgeber = employer, Arbeitnehmer = employee)

Amy

[Torsten]

[Yankee]

Hi Torsten

Yes, I did consider the media, and in fact, I was actually approached to be part of one of those "house-building troubles" TV shows. In the end, I decided it was entirely possible that such a show might accomplish nothing at all and could even end up making things worse. So, I decided against it.

Some of the "repair opportunities" () were successfully negotiated/mediated, but ultimately (and unfortunately), many had to be decided in court. It's taken almost 6 years. At the moment, the last of the corrections/repairwork is finally being done. But getting my builder to do things (and also do things properly) has been like pulling teeth. Or worse.

The whole experience has had one positive effect, though. And that's the effect it had on my German. I had to do a lot of things I'd never had to do before. Often quite intensively.

First, I had to do a lot more writing in German. Most of it was connected with describing and explaining things, clarifying, requesting information. Of course the constant practice helped me improve.

Second, I also had to do lots of research and reading (internet sites, manufacturers, forums, legal texts, expert opinions, etc.). So, I got a lot of additional reading practice and my vocabulary grew. My house-building vocabulary is now pretty darn sizable and I know words that most of my German friends don't even know. Unfortunately, I don't always know all of the English translations. Can you believe that? Many of the words that I simply learned in context had been previously completely unknown to me in both English and German. I didn't just learn words, though. I was able to learn whole phrases, improve my grammar, and so on. My experience just goes to show, you can learn vocabulary simply from context and without ever translating the words into your native language. The key is exposure and then active use of the vocabulary and phrases.

Third, there were also new types of listening challenges. Not all of the workers were German, so there was a variety of accents to deal with. Talking to my contractor taught me to understand "evasive talk" in German better. One of my experts (in German Sachverst?ndiger) comes originally from the northernmost part of Germany, and I can tell you, I think it was hardest to get used to his pronunciation than all of the others put together. But I think that is also due to the fact that he's what I would refer to as a "motor mouth" (i.e, he speaks at high speed).

And, finally, there was speaking practice. Of course, that involved practice in some areas that I previously hadn't had to deal with very often. And there's nothing like getting a word out of your mouth (in a meaningful sentence, of course) in order to learn it well.

So, I guess my experience proves that there is some truth to the saying "every cloud has a silver lining". But I'll tell you a little secret: I'm not planning to ever reveal any of what I've just written to my contractor.

Amy

[Fan Of Arabian Horses]

Hi Amy!

First of all I like to thank you for referring to my two mistakes. I don?t know which devil forced me to use the word (or unword ) occupators. The second regards obviously to my lack of proficience.

But would you share to us which sort of house you?ve built? It seems to be one in "Ready-Build-Way". Some of the let me speak about problems is that companies who sell houses from that kind think that their employees don?t need to have special knowledges, so that they of course employ people who usually don?t have the skills they needed and because of that they also don?t get much money for their work. Often those houses will be offered for a small account as long as you decide for a standard house. But if you have special requirements to your house the price raises up, but the quality decreases. I think that is a general problem in Germany. For me that is one of the German problems since opening the borders in the EU. Although there are certainly advantages but not only! That is what I sometimes tried to refer to and nobody liked to hear. While, of course, the standards of the members of the EU must be approximated the standards of many members raised up but the standards of some others decreased. And your problem with building a house stands in straight regards to this circumstance. I can imagine how annoying that is. By the way, this circumstance had been refered to by some respected authorities still years ago. But like you mentioned most of your problems had got solved and I wish you can enjoy your house now.

Michael

[ElenaUzunova]

Guys, I live in Eastern Europe, tell me about it. You have absolutely no idea what it's like to want to watch the news and to know that there will be something like the chief prosecutor has been arrested for corruption or three children killed their mate yesterday brought on. I wouldn't wish it to my greatest enemy. Instead of sharing opinions about corruption, try to imagine how we could stop it. And it's not only paid authority that is evil in this world. Change yourselves and you change it all! Just think about this.

[Toefl]

Every level of our society, no matter in which coutry we live, is corrupted or at least susceptible to bribery.

I was born in former Yugoslavia and has been living in Canada since 2000. In former Yugoslavia bribery has been present for ages and somewhat played a very important role in the history of this country. During the Ottoman's invasion of Serbia in 19th century, for Milos Obrenovic, the Prince of Serbia, the most effective and perhaps the only way to stay in power and negotiate lower taxes for occupied Serbians was taking advantage of the corrupted Turkish officials.

Those were the times when "diplomacy" was equal to a "bribe". I believe that this form of corruption still exists in most of the coutries, however it is skillfully concealed.

Taking shortcuts by bribing for some people has probably become a part of life.

Every time this word "corruption" is mentioned, I can not help but to think about medical experts in the hospitals back home. Since most of the doctors make hardly enought to survive, they accept bribes. Bribes in any form, money, presents etc. What happened with "The Hippocratic Oath"?

There is one saying in my language which goes like this:" Para vrti tamo gdje burgija ne moze". A poor English translation would be:" Money makes a hole where the drilling machine can not".

What do you think, how has all this bribery thing begun?

I tend to think that if there were not people offering a bribe, there would not be those accepting it.

[Jamie (K)]

[Conchita]

[Jan]

[Jamie (K)]

One of the prime examples of Third World corruption is the United Nations. There was that Oil for Food scandal with Iraq, which gave Saddam money to build his palaces and weapons without actually giving the people much food. There's all that rape and pedophilia by UN employees in refugee camps in various parts of the world, and I have read that in some places UN employees use UN trucks to transport weapons for terrorist groups. Nothing can change there, because the UN claims it "polices itself".

[ElenaUzunova]