[lbo-talk] corruption

Wendy Lyon wendy.lyon at gmail.com
Sat Dec 2 02:26:10 PST 2006


On 12/2/06, John Kozak <j_k_ at xylema.org> wrote:
> > Gallup has launched a new corrup?ion index <http://www.galluppoll.com/
> > content/?ci=25612>.
>
> > Finland comes out as least corrupt. Canada comes out at #15 [...]
>
> and Saudi Arabia is at #5!

The Irish ranking (joint 11th) is somewhat unbelievable as well. We're only a couple months from a controversy in which the PM admitted receiving significant "personal gifts" from property developers and other assorted big business types, who incidentally have done extremely well under his government. He came out of it more or less unscathed but a number of ministers/representatives from the same party have been less lucky. Many of us believe that the reason Ahern survived is that people are so used to the endemic corruption in his party that his own takings seem relatively insignificant. In fact his poll numbers went up during the "scandal". These Gallup findings seems to reflect the fact not that Ireland is less corrupt, but that the people don't really care that it's corrupt.



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