Quotes About Corruption

It is important to note that this deal was with the Chinese government—not with a Chinese company, which means that the Chinese government and the son of the vice president were now business partners.

embarrassing entanglements. "Bribery interferes with trade, investment, and development," Hillary Clinton said at the OECD's fiftieth-anniversary forum in 2011. "It undermines good governance and encourages greater corruption. And of course, it is morally wrong—and far too common." On that we can all agree.

Politics in modern America has become a lucrative business, an industry that has less to do with policy and a lot more to do with accessing money and favors. As we will see, bills and regulations are often introduced not to effect policy change, but as vehicles for shaking down people for those money and favors.

Complexity is a useful and lucrative method of legal extortion for politicians

According to Waggoner, the trouble is that complicated laws enrich those who make the laws while making the rest of society poorer.

They were directed to hire certain well-connected advisers and lobbyists in Washington. "You hear about bribery in China," says Herbold. "They have nothing on us. We are just more sophisticated about it.

Throw Them All Out

But the problem is not just with accumulated power, but also with those who seek it. As scientist and author David Brin pointedly noted, "It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible.

Sometimes, politicians will literally offshore corruption by moving the location of the deal, the entities, and the players involved, abroad. Other times, they offshore corruption metaphorically by shifting the cronyism out of their own hands and into those of their children or a close friend to leverage from afar and avoid detection.

SADE Olhai-os Marat olhai os antigos donos de todos os bens do mundo como transformaram em triunfo a sua queda Agora que lhes roubaram todos os prazeres O cadafalso guarda-os de tédio infindo Felizes sobem as escadas como se subissem ao trono Não é o cúmulo da corrupção

I often found it helpful to think of central Africa in the mid-1990s as comparable to late medieval Europe - plagued by serial wars of tribe and religion, corrupt despots, predatory elites and a superstitious peasantry, festering with disease, stagnating in poverty, and laden with promise.

There is evil! It's actual, like cement. I can't believe it. I can't stand it. Evil is not a view ... it's an ingredient in us. In the world. Poured over us, filtering into our bodies, minds, hearts, into the pavement itself.

Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one.

In a society of criminals, Shaeffer offered, the innocent man goes to jail.

La Chiesa e Cosa Nostra hanno qualcosa in comune: una specie di distacco adamantino nei piani alti. I lavoretti sporchi ricadono sui pesci piccoli in fondo al barile.

If the system can survive only by imprisoning innocent people, then it deserves to be destroyed

As soon as men who believe they're doing God's will get hold of power, whether it's in a household or a village or in Jerusalem or in Rome itself, the devil enters into them.

You are a cesspit of moral filth.

Du bist ein Feind der Kirche, Lee Scorsby. An ihren Füchten sollt ihr sie erkennen, an ihren Fragen die Schlange sehen, die an ihren Herzen nagt...

It may be useful to remember that a peacetime political machine is built essentially on patronage.

In any broth, the scum [politicians] always rises to the top.

But now I could see, through the Vietnam debacle, that while there was a price to be paid, it was only correct to pay it if the product—democracy—was sound. And it was not sound in the corrupt ranks of South Vietnam's government and military, nor had it ever been, nor would it ever be, regardless of how many of America's sons threw their lives into the pot. As a nation, we had to get out of there. I'd

New generations of scholars continued to study the same subjects, but in a very different spirit. Their work tended to center less on American liberty, freedom, equality, and democracy. It gave more attention to American slavery, racism, inequality, injustice, and corruption.

The ego corrupts our mindset in five ways: (a) It chooses what we focus on, (b) it makes what we see all about us, (c) it concludes that all negative experiences are due to a deficiency within ourselves, (d) it magnifies the relevance of our focus, and (e) it causes us to believe that we can think our way out of a situation that is beyond our control or understand something that is unknowable.