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#15165734
If Americans were smart they would only accept immigrants/refugees that would benefit the country economically (skilled/educated) and help resettle all other refugees in other countries that matched their level of economic potential.

Makes more sense to me for most Central American refugees to resettle in other Latin American countries. I don't blame them for wanting to maximize their self-interests by trying to move to the USA, nor should anyone blame the US for maximizing their self-interests.
#15165799
@wat0n @Unthinking Majority

wrote:
It is indeed, but what happens when they don't learn from them? What happens when, once he gets power, the guy who thinks paying people $2 a day is exploitation eventually becomes corrupt and begins to exploit his own countrymen in one way or another?


Wat0n, what is corruption? We know that corruption has something to do with lack of functionality in a system. It could be values or criminal organizations, it could be abuse of power, and it could be poverty and lack of the ability of people to see their needs being met adequately through the conventional means of making a decent standard of living. Usually they are all related Wat0n. Again, dedicate oneself to a series of things. Good wages, good standards of living, good levels of education, and good health care, housing and development. The sustainable kind and the most balanced. A rigged system where only the wealthy that are always a minority of the population will tend to with more income inequality become increasingly corrupt over time. That is fact. Take a look at this:

Causes
The greed of money, desires. (Capitalism)
Higher levels of market and political monopolization. (Crony-capitalist practices and class dominance of profit).
Low levels of democracy, weak civil participation and low political transparency.(Politicians making it hard for people to vote if they are poor or not helping the democratic process become more inclusive, democracy being undermined by corrupt money influencing the process --[b]Citizens United court decision
--in the USA almost half of eligible voters not voting.
Higher levels of bureaucracy and inefficient administrative structures.(No investment in educational, and state systems to keep up with technological demands including updating infrastructures like airports, highways, bridges, roads and so on...the state is starved effectively because the private corporations are gobbling up that part of the public purse).
Low press freedom.( All Fox News and paid or liberal or conservative interests and more eyeballs on shitty stories and making a buck rather than balanced Press with critical questions about society--it is more propaganda instead of fact-based reporting without favoring some elite owner class. The ones who own a smaller and smaller group of media corporations--people lose faith and trust in their reporting. They notice bias and skewed reporting--read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, he explains it very detailed and well how they do the lack of free press in the end. It becomes a back the owner's interests period.)
Low economic freedom. (Most people having to work two jobs and two parents working two jobs instead of one well-paid job of an adult that used to be enough for everyone to live on in the family and now both got to bust their ass all day in double shifts and so on to pay the bills and kids vegging out without supervision by loving adult caretakers in front of the TV or computer spending time on video games only and not exercising or building skills that are for the long haul). Bad economic opportunities for most. THE GIG ECONOMY with no benefits.
[/b]



@Unthinking Majority you are right to point out what I have thought about deeply. Can six billion poor people all move the USA? No. The socialists like Bernie don't believe in open borders. He never did. It drives desperate cutthroat competition between Central American workers and Mexican rural workers being pushed out by Narcs and low prices for their crops to go and accept shit for wages in farm labor and it undercuts the American manufacturing base. The socialists back no scabs and no replacement with lower paid labor for the American working class. Not having the capitalists happy with lots of cheap labor to live off of and have them killing each other for $7.25 an hour bare minimum jobs or even worse wages with bushels and huge amounts required to get even $5 an hour in these places. So no....the socialists are anti open borders. So am I.

I think the Central Americans need good jobs in their own nations. Good health care, education, housing and so on in their own nation. Not in the USA only. That is inefficient and also inhumane. That is why investing profit not in bullshit things that waste it all, is critical. Invest in building up the economy of these nations to serve the needs of all its people. In their own cultural and historical and familial context. Don't ship out the problems created by class greed and economic imperialist greed to the imperial nation or the class conscious people who truly don't care about their own country and only care about lining their pockets? Those people got to be identified and defeated in elections. And the entire premise of capitalism has to be changed forever. Democratize all the workers productive value and there are a whole lot of solutions to stimulate underdeveloped economies that work very well. You just need the political will and the money for investment to make it work. It works!

As for capitalism being the solution Unthinking. Even to the genius high tech scientists and coders and programmers who dedicated themselves to the trading floor in Wall Street? I just saw a documentary. The brightest minds in technology say shocking things about capitalism Unthinking. They say it is rigged, and it is not a system that will be productive over the long haul. They are the ones who did the instant trading and algorithms for all predictors of success with the stock market. They explain it and interview the most interesting and forward-thinking tech leaders of the entire thing. Their conclusion? Not me the cultural anthropologist non-techy woman living in Mexico.....but they.....people like Haim Bodek and other geniuses there who dedicated their considerable brainpower in math and STEM to making fortunes....have said, "I have no faith in the capitalist system. It is rigged and immoral. Not worth it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Bodek

They call them 'quants' they are math geniuses. He found out the system is rigged and wasn't impressed at how low a bar it was intellectually. He thinks humans should be tackling curing cancer and climate change. Like most people with good brains. Lol. If you keep backing such a system when the most technological and scientific and mathematical say it is a bad system? Not much left to discuss eh?

So? Sorry dude. It sucks. I think it sucks and it is not going to be solving big problems. Dump it is my conclusion.



The Wall Street Code.

The creators say some really important things about this system you pro capitalists keep repeating is great. It is not. Do you have an answer for them? The brainy men with tech skills and who solve very tough problems?

I am just a Fromm humanist socialist, who studies human behavior, artifacts and history over long periods of time. My conclusion says 'we can do better'. The techy dudes who are or made billions with innovation in tech for profit say, 'it is rigged and we can do better."

What is your answer to that? :D
#15165805
Unthinking Majority wrote:If Americans were smart they would only accept immigrants/refugees that would benefit the country economically (skilled/educated) and help resettle all other refugees in other countries that matched their level of economic potential.

Makes more sense to me for most Central American refugees to resettle in other Latin American countries. I don't blame them for wanting to maximize their self-interests by trying to move to the USA, nor should anyone blame the US for maximizing their self-interests.

The history of the world is about invasions and some groups conquering others. Within the groups there has always been a class struggle in every nation that ever existed. We will never have equality and for some reason the left think this is achievable.

America sometimes uses immigration wisely. In my neck of the woods the number of prestigious Indian physicians is very high. Many of them are the offspring of physicians that immigrated here from India. East Asian immigrants are also awesome. As for Latin immigrants we mostly receive those that are uneducated and with no skills. The professional class in Latin America tends to stay put and do not come to America. The exception was Cuba and hence Cuban Americans have done nearly as well as Indian and East Asian immigrants.

Immigration needs to be done very carefully. Accept a few from every nation on Earth rather than a large number from 1-2 countries. The latter causes the creation of large neighborhoods that fail to integrate or even learn the language of the host nation.

BTW, many of those that cross the border from poor latin nations also do well. About 30 years ago my wife hired painters from an American company. Among the employees there was a man named Mario who told my wife she could call him directly if she ever needed a painter. Next time we needed a painter we called Mario and he gave us a great price. He also offered handy man services and he ended up changing faucets and installing ceiling lamps in our house. Today, 30n years later Maria has his own home remodeling business with a fleet of trucks that say Mario Bros on the side. Today he is a very successful business man and works as a contractor. So yes, immigration works for many and we the consumer benefit from that. My wife only hires Hispanic workers. I am well aware that the Hispanic construction workers do the job for less and have displaced the Anglo remodeling companies. BTW, the Anglo companies also hire nothing but Hispanic workers.
#15165810
Unthinking Majority wrote:If Americans were smart they would only accept immigrants/refugees that would benefit the country economically (skilled/educated) and help resettle all other refugees in other countries that matched their level of economic potential.


Eh, American Bourgeois actually hire illegal immigrants because they don't want to pay the American workforce a fair wage. Illegal immigrants work harder and suffer more for a lot less pay than what the typical American worker will tolerate. Why do you think the Bourgeois, who sponsor your political system, would want to change that?

If you are talking of worth, you wouldn't turn anyone away south of the border I can assure you. If Biden is having a problem with immigrants coming from Latin America, my answer to that is it is about time you took away the fucking carrot. Nobody would come to America if they didn't benefit them to do so. It isn't like America doesn't have its own problems some of which are worse than Latin America. They come because they can get work because that is where the jobs are and people will exploit that.
#15165812
B0ycey wrote:Eh, American Bourgeois actually hire illegal immigrants because they don't want to pay the American workforce a fair wage. Illegal immigrants work harder and suffer more for a lot less pay than what the typical American worker will tolerate. Why do you think the Bourgeois, who sponsor your political system, would want to change that?

If you are talking of worth, you wouldn't turn anyone away south of the border I can assure you. If Biden is having a problem with immigrants coming from Latin America, my answer to that is it is about time you took away the fucking carrot. Nobody would come to America if they didn't benefit them to do so. It isn't like America doesn't have its own problems some of which are worse than Latin America. They come because they can get work because that is where the jobs are and people will exploit that.

America and the West is a paradox for socialists that hate capitalism. All the poor and middle class in the world want to live in the West. I wonder why.
#15165813
Julian658 wrote:America and the West is a paradox for socialists that hate capitalism. All the poor and middle class in the world want to live in the West. I wonder why.


Because they hold all the wealth that is why. You don't lose rationale if you wish to become a millionaire to know the system is rigged toward the wealthy in any case. If you are educated, you just know whatever your social class Capitalismis a rigged system. Did you know that Engels was from a wealthy background? Didn't stop him being a huge part of the Socialist movement FYI.

Nonetheless the only thing you need to know is people want to survive and afford to live and feed their families. I doubt anyone wants to leave their homes or even their country as it happen, but if there isn't any jobs at home you look elsewhere. That isn't even rocket science, so they only thing Biden can do is cut off the carrot. But they are his sponsors. So nothing changes. Just like always.
#15165814
@B0ycey I take the long view. Humans as a species have legs and it gives them the ability to ambulate and move across territories and land. Back in the olden days when they had to hunt and forage for their food before they went for agricultural societies of crop and the vagaries of the weather? People moved into territories plentiful in fresh water, and berries, grains, and other things to eat. They ate till it was done, packed their things and tents and went to another territory. They had wars with other humans fighting for basics. Then the concept of private property came and agriculture and domesticated animals and then reliable food sources to feed large amount of people who are freed to labor building things like pyramids and grand palaces and churches and centers of marketing and trade...then technological things like phones, lights and computers, cars and machines, then explorations beyond Earth....

Again what defines this species of ours is understanding, exploration and discovery and then application of knowledge. It is about trial and error and ebb and flow.

People who can't be in their home nations will move to where they think or believe the foraging and the hunting is more plentiful and the conditions for life improve. They are not respecting borders and they don't respect being rejected because they are not the ones with PhDs in computer programming and don't speak English, or Spanish or Dutch or whatever...they want to be able to live. Period. You can't do that in violence, with threats, with malnutrition and with unreliable electrical grids, and polluted water and empty bank accounts or more commonly in poorer nations the UNBANKED and without funds forever.

But they got the legs. And they can walk and be stubborn and keep trying. Once the USA is no different than Mexico in being able to provide a decent living? Because the dumb people who did not see a connection between inequality, misuse of funds, corruption and bloated elites and being sellouts with a decline in economic stability happen? The legs from the underclass won't be walking North. That is the truth.

And civilizations collapse very quickly and suddenly. Like the stockmarket flash crash that the high frequency traders interviewed in that VPRO video I posted up there...once they know that it no longer is working and they have absolutely no chance at making a living that improves by going there? They will not be coming. Until then? You can't change thousands of years of surviving and survival instinct in a species looking for food. It is hardwired in our brains.

People looking to survive will not be stopping a search. the way to stem the tide is not to be an idiot and think that their problems are not yours. Because all of us humans have the same programming for survival.
#15165816
B0ycey wrote:Eh, American Bourgeois actually hire illegal immigrants because they don't want to pay the American workforce a fair wage. Illegal immigrants work harder and suffer more for a lot less pay than what the typical American worker will tolerate. Why do you think the Bourgeois, who sponsor your political system, would want to change that?

If you are talking of worth, you wouldn't turn anyone away south of the border I can assure you. If Biden is having a problem with immigrants coming from Latin America, my answer to that is it is about time you took away the fucking carrot. Nobody would come to America if they didn't benefit them to do so. It isn't like America doesn't have its own problems some of which are worse than Latin America. They come because they can get work because that is where the jobs are and people will exploit that.


It all leads to the same conclusion B0ycey. Get these societies to function well on their own. Got to work in large international groups in making education, health and jobs and sustainable development happen for all these places with nothing to look forward to but a long trek to the north and to find bad paying jobs and more deprivation except in a foreign environment with very little to look forward to.

Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa picked veggies and fruit, then became a welder and went to night school, scholarships, and his own talent got him far. But the scholarships and welding were the ace for him. Those jobs are gone now for many in the immigrant communities.

The problem is really about the future needing educated people only. Lol. Everyone wants the one who had in their native societies educations and investments that made them well educated and well skilled people who speak multiple languages and have tremendously innovative ideas. Most of those in these societies just aren't going to move to the USA in large quantities when in their own societies they have a lot of choices.

The ones without much choice? Are from nations with poverty and corruption going on. Even the highly educated Chinese and Indians are going home in large numbers if they get offered better deals in Beijing or Mumbai or New Delhi.

When will the ones with dull minds understand this fact? Your guess is as good as mine. The choice for the USA is to dump the racist only European shit and educate the Africans and the Latin Americans. They are the only ones willing to go to America. Everyone else is staying put.
#15165819
Tainari88 wrote:Wat0n, what is corruption? We know that corruption has something to do with lack of functionality in a system. It could be values or criminal organizations, it could be abuse of power, and it could be poverty and lack of the ability of people to see their needs being met adequately through the conventional means of making a decent standard of living. Usually they are all related Wat0n. Again, dedicate oneself to a series of things. Good wages, good standards of living, good levels of education, and good health care, housing and development. The sustainable kind and the most balanced. A rigged system where only the wealthy that are always a minority of the population will tend to with more income inequality become increasingly corrupt over time. That is fact. Take a look at this:

Causes
The greed of money, desires. (Capitalism)
Higher levels of market and political monopolization. (Crony-capitalist practices and class dominance of profit).
Low levels of democracy, weak civil participation and low political transparency.(Politicians making it hard for people to vote if they are poor or not helping the democratic process become more inclusive, democracy being undermined by corrupt money influencing the process --[b]Citizens United court decision
--in the USA almost half of eligible voters not voting.
Higher levels of bureaucracy and inefficient administrative structures.(No investment in educational, and state systems to keep up with technological demands including updating infrastructures like airports, highways, bridges, roads and so on...the state is starved effectively because the private corporations are gobbling up that part of the public purse).
Low press freedom.( All Fox News and paid or liberal or conservative interests and more eyeballs on shitty stories and making a buck rather than balanced Press with critical questions about society--it is more propaganda instead of fact-based reporting without favoring some elite owner class. The ones who own a smaller and smaller group of media corporations--people lose faith and trust in their reporting. They notice bias and skewed reporting--read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, he explains it very detailed and well how they do the lack of free press in the end. It becomes a back the owner's interests period.)
Low economic freedom. (Most people having to work two jobs and two parents working two jobs instead of one well-paid job of an adult that used to be enough for everyone to live on in the family and now both got to bust their ass all day in double shifts and so on to pay the bills and kids vegging out without supervision by loving adult caretakers in front of the TV or computer spending time on video games only and not exercising or building skills that are for the long haul). Bad economic opportunities for most. THE GIG ECONOMY with no benefits.
[/b]


How do you explain corruption in socialist systems?

I think that the greed you make reference too will exist even under socialism, it's just that it will be more subtle and will be kept hidden. In a country without proper checks and balances, it will also be a lot easier to hide it and thus get away with it unless it begins to cause real problems at the national level (I mean financial problems) or unless the cases are used as an excuse for jailing/execution during a political purge (so the punishment of corruption is a means to an end rather than an end itself).

While good checks and balances don't end corruption outright, they can help to keep it in check.

While all political, economic and social systems do rely on having a virtuous society to some extent (even capitalism and markets do), it's best to have one that relies as little as possible on this sort of assumption. That's where the usual liberal concepts of avoiding concentration of power become important, even if they can indeed be hard to put into practice.
#15165822
Tainari88 wrote:It all leads to the same conclusion B0ycey. Get these societies to function well on their own. Got to work in large international groups in making education, health and jobs and sustainable development happen for all these places with nothing to look forward to but a long trek to the north and to find bad paying jobs and more deprivation except in a foreign environment with very little to look forward to.

Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa picked veggies and fruit, then became a welder and went to night school, scholarships, and his own talent got him far. But the scholarships and welding were the ace for him. Those jobs are gone now for many in the immigrant communities.

The problem is really about the future needing educated people only. Lol. Everyone wants the one who had in their native societies educations and investments that made them well educated and well skilled people who speak multiple languages and have tremendously innovative ideas. Most of those in these societies just aren't going to move to the USA in large quantities when in their own societies they have a lot of choices.

The ones without much choice? Are from nations with poverty and corruption going on. Even the highly educated Chinese and Indians are going home in large numbers if they get offered better deals in Beijing or Mumbai or New Delhi.

When will the ones with dull minds understand this fact? Your guess is as good as mine. The choice for the USA is to dump the racist only European shit and educate the Africans and the Latin Americans. They are the only ones willing to go to America. Everyone else is staying put.


Indeed. I think the West need to understand that people living in the third world want the same things we consider part of society. Education, Food, Jobs, Freedom... basically everything we take for granted. We also need to understand that for every winner in Capitalism there is a loser. Money is an IOU and based on debt. It isn't a form of wealth at all. It is fictional and merely a median for exchange. So who are the losers when even the Western poor are rich compared to most of the rest of the world? Well the third world of course. We exploit them. We don't realise it, but we do. We take all their resources and food and labor and pay peanuts in return with this fictional wealth that is really a form of debt. And they look at their table and see hardly anything for a full days wage because we pay so little for their labor. So they system is rigged to benefit the West. And Julian thinks that people want to move to America because of Capitalism? FUCK OFF! They want to go there because that is where their wealth has gone from their country. Where their surplus labor has gone. And where their liberty has gone. We shouldn't be surprised that people want to better themselves. We would do the same thing if the roles were reverse. So if people want to stop that, then they need to look at who is exploiting people making them move away from their homes in the first place. Because it is the people who hire illegal immigrants to build up their profits who are the real culprits. Which is irony because by doing that they also take jobs away from ordinary American workers who are also the victims.
#15165837
There are two more reasons for this surge that have not been brought up:

1. The pandemic. This is a bit indirect. Like everywhere else, the pandemic has caused economic problems in Honduras and other Central American countries. This means more people trying to go to the US. But Trump instituted pandemic emergency policies that let the US kick people out en masse. Biden is keeping most of these polices but has now made an exemption for kids. Thus, the high number of unaccompanied minors.

2. Hurricane Eta. Climate change migration is already here.
#15165840
wat0n wrote:How do you explain corruption in socialist systems?

I think that the greed you make reference too will exist even under socialism, it's just that it will be more subtle and will be kept hidden. In a country without proper checks and balances, it will also be a lot easier to hide it and thus get away with it unless it begins to cause real problems at the national level (I mean financial problems) or unless the cases are used as an excuse for jailing/execution during a political purge (so the punishment of corruption is a means to an end rather than an end itself).

While good checks and balances don't end corruption outright, they can help to keep it in check.

While all political, economic and social systems do rely on having a virtuous society to some extent (even capitalism and markets do), it's best to have one that relies as little as possible on this sort of assumption. That's where the usual liberal concepts of avoiding concentration of power become important, even if they can indeed be hard to put into practice.


Checks and balances? Is that what you suggest as a way of ending corruption? Or keeping it in check? I happen to think that the USA if you study Howard Zinn's version of American history? It is about people who are working as a group pressuring rights out of a very resistant wealthy elite class concessions of rights. None of those governments concede without it. NONE. In the entire history of humanity.

What happened in China long ago? The Emperor and the Chinese elite were corrupt, money hungry and warmongering and wasteful and bloated with both power,arrogance and land and power....the peasants paid the price. The Chinese rural class suffered famines, wars, deprivation, illiteracy, and horrific conditions. There was a revolution. Why would some Mandarins and Cantonese etc speakers go for (the Han ethnicity) go for a German Jewish man with a theory about capitalism and go for that foreign dude's political philosophy? because the peasants thought the Emperor and the Dynasty system was corrupt, and oppressive. Because it was.

The Japanese were Empires also from a class conscious Right wing thought process. Invading and killing with agrression to acquire new territories and to rule over other societies to benefit their own only. Arrogant and greedy too.

In human history it all leads to the same thing Unthinking.

The solution is pressure. Not checks and balances. Those are all manipulated by the powerful as we see with Citizens United dude. They pass a law to make the rich have a lot more power than the ones making a lot less. One billionaire contributing millions to a politician's campaign will never the be same as a cashier at 7-11 donating $5 to a politicians campaign. The only ones who think they will? Are naive and foolish people who don't really analyze power relationships under capitalist economic systems.

In the 'socialist' systems' the corruption happens because the socialist system is a much higher bar to reach as a society. It eliminate the greed and the low bar as the only way to make money. It then becomes how much are you going to serve, work and give and how well are you going to inculcate group value systems motivated not on greed and money but on performance and service orientation to the greater good.

It basically predicates people with good value systems. If you study crime what does the criminal think that makes them violate a law? Basically it is various things. Criminal justice majors know this....but it is about not following a rule because they don't find it works or don't trust it at all. People who want it (success or material things without any sacrifice or responsibilities involved and want things without efforts), this of course is erroneous thinking. The important thing to remember is how many people in the system FAILED to address the criminally minded's needs to be validated? All people seek it. The system drops the ball and they have zero faith in it. They go the crime route out of desperation.

Socialist policies that are backed by strong investment in education, housing, stability, work retraining, and good wages, job respect and peer recognition and integration do very very well.

Again, the vast majority of the world's poor nations Unthinking are not living with late stage capitalist development and huge and strong social safety nets. They are living in cutthroat underdeveloped capitalism.

When that happens? Inequality is the result. Like this: (It is not a race problem it is about access to wealth based on again, education, investment and health and housing and jobs that are diverse. Mineral wealth for making cell phones and the ones who profit are just a few? It doesn't work. People are hard working in these nations. But they are not getting either good educations, health care and investment in development that is sustaining the entire society. Got to change that paradigm because it fails.



I like the rapper dude in the yellow car...at least his deal is to give away cash. But the best thing is to have those men in cooperative units and owners of markets in their group. Democratizing the concept of investment. Invest in their abilities and labor and don't make it a loan with high-interest rates. Make it about them. Calculate how much they need to make to live decently. The work ethic is there and the intelligence too. But the MONEY is lacking. If the BILLIONS lost in that fucked Wall Street trade coding in 2010 that disappeared!? Had been invested in those poor Africans instead? How much real progress would the Kinshasans had made eh? A lot.
#15165852
@Tainari88 saying that "corruption happens in socialism because the population has to face a much higher bar" is hardly a good explanation.

You say that in the end corruption leads to Revolution, and cite China and Zinn's views on US history (which I'm sure is not a consensus among American historians). True, but that happens when your political system cannot properly deal with it, and that will happen when it has poor or non-existent checks and balances. It's why real socialist regimes in reality would eventually become very, very corrupt for our lower capitalist standards and it would be widespread since it's necessary for getting even basic amenities of life done.

I don't think you can fully eliminate corruption but we can reduce it so it at least doesn't make life unlivable and the government terminally dysfunctional.
#15165856
Corruption is due to the Spanish model of colonialism and imperialism, and was exacerbated by Yanqui neocolonialism and neoimperialism.

Even if we make the illogical assumption that the US in no longer covertly involved in Latin America, this involvement only ended a few years ago and many of the corrupt politicians empowered by the CIA and State Department are still in positions of power.

Corruption is probably not going away any time soon.
#15165894
wat0n wrote:How do you explain corruption in former British colonies like Guyana?


Corruption exists in British colonies and within Britain also. Aren't there pay offs in English systems? Are there criminal organizations with white as can be British people doing shady dealings? Of course. It has been going on for centuries, poverty, injustice, corruption, violence and bribes. It is about human behaviors.

The Opium Wars with the English or GB wanting a foothold in Chinese markets and not having real trade (extraction resources), they went for becoming drug dealers (Opium traders) to make money. English people with money. The East India Company. Lloyd's of London. Among many others all getting involved in shady shit. But it the El Chapos and the Pablo Escobars from Mexico and Colombia who are the ones who do the corrupt stuff and the payoffs and the drugs for power and money only.

It is a human problem Wat0n and what one should do is invest massively in providing a society that can educate and can invest and can tax and can rely on decent results where citizens have power over the issue that causes waste and inequality and poverty galore. Democratize the economic thing. Democratize workers and give them the power to be co-owners and use the power of the group Wat0n to POOL their earnings and make life work for all. Not just a few.

Damn, people are pooling all their salaries to buy that fake Lemon/gasoline juice and total lies....fraudster. That is not going to work in the end. What works is real labor, real investment, real equality, and real love and respect, and education? Trying to make easy fraud and bullshit and bloated BILLIONS and the majority going hungry? Or paying cops and policemen or working people $2 dollars a day is NOT going to work. Ever.

In the Third World they have very similar problems. Very similar problems. It has to do with weak infrastructure, weak health care systems, weak publicly funded education systems, weak systems of justice and criminal investigation and laws, weakness that is based on not again....INVESTING in human needs and neglecting huge millions by not making it stable because the concern is with capitalism and short term profits. And to hell with stability and combatting poverty. Giving up is not an option.
#15165897
I know, @Tainari88. That's why I'm asking @Pants-of-dog about Guyana, which seems to be sitting at levels similar to those of other countries in South America. And yes, you can include corruption in other Anglo countries too, including the US. Even the nordics have some corruption, it's just an issue of how much (an example).

Corruption, like other forms of crime cannot be realistically completely eradicated. The issue is that they must be detected and dealt with so they don't affect governance and make everyone's lives miserable.
#15165898
Pants-of-dog wrote:Corruption is due to the Spanish model of colonialism and imperialism, and was exacerbated by Yanqui neocolonialism and neoimperialism.

Even if we make the illogical assumption that the US in no longer covertly involved in Latin America, this involvement only ended a few years ago and many of the corrupt politicians empowered by the CIA and State Department are still in positions of power.

Corruption is probably not going away any time soon.

Corruption happens in every government in every system. Corruption happens when you give people power and they're able to get away with things because of lack of oversight and accountability.

Therefore, there's far more corruption in communist governments because they are dictatorships where oversight and accountability is almost non-existent. Healthy democracies have the least corruption because they have the strongest oversight and accountability.

Power corrupts virtually everyone, because people are generally selfish, except the very very small minority of people who have integrity. But very few people with integrity get to the top of the power pyramid because to get there you almost always have to lie, cheat, give and receive slimy favors, and kiss ass.
#15165899
wat0n wrote:I know, @Tainari88. That's why I'm asking @Pants-of-dog about Guyana, which seems to be sitting at levels similar to those of other countries in South America. And yes, you can include corruption in other Anglo countries too, including the US. Even the nordics have some corruption, it's just an issue of how much (an example).

Corruption, like other forms of crime cannot be realistically completely eradicated. The issue is that they must be detected and dealt with so they don't affect governance and make everyone's lives miserable.


See my explanation above.

You can't 100% get rid of all corruption unless you have perfect oversight and perfect accountability, which is impossible. There will always be leakage somewhere. Hackers are always 1 step ahead of IT security because they're always looking for openings, and security is patching the gaps after being exposed. Politicians and bureaucrats seeking to gain or retain power and personal advantage are always looking for openings too, so openings need to be minimized/removed.

The best you can do is a have the most robust oversight and accountability possible to prevent as much corruption as possible. If Latin American countries are corrupt it's because their oversight and accountability is lacking, and their institutions need reform.
#15165901
wat0n wrote:How do you explain corruption in former British colonies like Guyana?

I don't know anything about Guyanese politics. But I think besides weaknesses in the institutions themselves, corruption, and crime in general, is also more likely in poorer countries because people are more poor and more desperate, and there's more to gain and lose when in power. In other words, people in power in poor countries may be more willing to seek gaps in oversight/accountability.

This is why people who are well-off in the West are less likely to become drug dealers than the poor. They have money, education, and more opportunity, so they don't need to break laws to get what they need or want. That said, there are other factors, ie: poor people are also often not raised as well and will repeat less ideal learned behaviors that led to their parents being poor in the first place (ie: crime, dropping out of school, drug use etc).

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