In mid-2015, I posted about corruption and perceptions of corruption, a blog that included the following diatribe:
My ire about this subject began to reach continental proportions as the Northern European ire over Greece got splashed across the world media. “We are tired,” a friend reported his Scandinavian friends complaining, “of people wanting a handout. Their country is rife with corruption. We want them to pay their debts.” No admission was given that the poor of Greece will suffer while the corrupt sail off in their yachts. In fact, as far as I can see, the EU powerbase does not care how many people are starving, how many young lives are ruined, as long as they get “their” money back.
Just about everywhere one goes, one hears a lot of distain from the well-off for all those corrupt, darker-skinned folks south of Alps all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope. In my hemisphere, it’s from the Alamo all the way down to Tierra Del Fuego. I have heard a lot of this same drivel within Italy: The northerners “tired” of the meridianali, and blaming them for their poverty.
But where did this susceptibility toward corruption come from? Is it a genetic propensity linked somehow how to skin color?
Now, for the past ten days or so, I have been giggling when listening to the news about the Panama Papers and the ensuing scandals about off-shore tax avoidance schemes. Last year's sanctimonious condemners of the darker folks to their south have now found out that they have gazillions of goniffs of their own.
I know I shouldn't gloat, but I hate it when any group claims that "We're all good, and they are all bad." That sentiment is usually followed by giving "us" the right to make (or at least let) "them" suffer.
If you have missed the news, I would not blame you for avoiding it. But here is a select list of the items that caught my attention when it comes to this story:
Iceland: the Prime Minister and his wife's financial diddling is bringing him down.
Norway: On the lists of the Panamanian tax brigands, they found thirty companies owned by Norwegians
Sweden: Nordea, one of the largest financial institutions in Scandanavia has set up almost four hundred off-shore companies to help its clients avoid paying taxes.
Great Britain: The Guardian reports that 31,000 (Yes! Thirty-one thousand) off-shore companies own property in Britain. More than 180 million British pounds invested just in 2015 are thought to be the proceeds of corruption. Six members of the House of Lords were on the Panamanian scandal list.
To be fair, I have to admit that no continent is free of these doers of miserable deeds. But I have always believed in equal opportunity. Perhaps that is why I am happy to hear that the finger-pointers of last year are on this year's mud-slinger target list.
I leave you with the words of Woody Guthrie:
Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
Now, for the past ten days or so, I have been giggling when listening to the news about the Panama Papers and the ensuing scandals about off-shore tax avoidance schemes. Last year's sanctimonious condemners of the darker folks to their south have now found out that they have gazillions of goniffs of their own.
I know I shouldn't gloat, but I hate it when any group claims that "We're all good, and they are all bad." That sentiment is usually followed by giving "us" the right to make (or at least let) "them" suffer.
If you have missed the news, I would not blame you for avoiding it. But here is a select list of the items that caught my attention when it comes to this story:
Iceland: the Prime Minister and his wife's financial diddling is bringing him down.
Norway: On the lists of the Panamanian tax brigands, they found thirty companies owned by Norwegians
Sweden: Nordea, one of the largest financial institutions in Scandanavia has set up almost four hundred off-shore companies to help its clients avoid paying taxes.
Great Britain: The Guardian reports that 31,000 (Yes! Thirty-one thousand) off-shore companies own property in Britain. More than 180 million British pounds invested just in 2015 are thought to be the proceeds of corruption. Six members of the House of Lords were on the Panamanian scandal list.
To be fair, I have to admit that no continent is free of these doers of miserable deeds. But I have always believed in equal opportunity. Perhaps that is why I am happy to hear that the finger-pointers of last year are on this year's mud-slinger target list.
I leave you with the words of Woody Guthrie:
Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
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| Thanks for this final image to Carlos Dews, co-author with SJ Rozan of the wonderful BLOOD OF THE LAMB! |
