I found this an interesting commentary on the anti-corruption movement in India.
I find the level of suspicion to be right about the same level as mine. Which maybe healthy or not. Nevertheless, any successful movement must take account of its enemies and I like the article’s predictions as the moves likely to be made. I would have suggested many of the same ones. The one that I focused on immediately was putting loopholes in the legislation to make enforcement impossible. In America, the use of loopholes (known as jokers in American law) is endemic. I strongly agree they are a major danger.
Anyway, read the article. This movement may change the world. It deserves attention.
James Pilant
Hidden Agenda to derail Anti-Corruption Drive? Anna Hazare’s fast unto death to press for demands on Jan Lokpal Bill in April 2011 took the UPA government at the centre by surprise in spite of intelligence inputs. The massive public response it evoked shook the crisis managers of the government. 24 x 7 media coverage had multiplier effect to spread the message and participation to the remote corners of India. As the response of the government unf … Read More
I thank God for angry, indignant bloggers. We have to have strong emotion. We have to be vital, intent, focused and unrelenting if there is to be change.
I like what I read here. There is anger in India against corruption. In American the more subtle corruption of campaign contributions and lobbyists have no real opposition, just the occasional gripe. I wish we had someone like Anna Hazare.
I am watching. The world is trying to look away from the controversy in India. Don’t let them. Don’t let your anger cool. Keep it hot and keep it on target. Don’t be diverted by side issues. Never let the pressure off and never be deterred by frivolous charges and threats. The way to moral success is not always straight and beset with difficulties.
Win this one. Change history.
James Pilant
Mani Shankar Aiyer, Congress MP to Rajya Sabha, yesterday in his characteristic outspoken way took on Team Anna Hazare for leading a movement against corruption which has reached gargantuan proportions in India. Mr.Aiyer’s anger, please note, is not against rampant corruption in India due to the rotten political system being followed by political parties since decades. Though Indian citizens were/are angered over the way, the politicians drag the … Read More
These are some great people. They took up a public fight on a major issue before the media or the government recognized the problem. In fact, the government and the press denied there was a problem. These people are heroes, using the power of the internet as visionaries have hoped.
I wish them well!!
James Pilant
Picture of some of the guests at our latest happy hour. Had another great time. We all wore “Hello My Name Is” stickers. Funny thing, almost everybody there was named Linda Green! It really confused the bartenders, they didn’t know which tab to ring the drinks under… Over the weekend I will be posting the history of all of our happy hours and how you can get them going in your town. I want to see this happen in every city every month until the … Read More
Generally, I try to write a few paragraphs and explain what I think about the situations. This one, this post, is difficult to write about.
First, it’s long and quite detailed. I like that. In fact, that the author was able to describe and explain so much without losing me was strong reason to reblog the post.
Second, it’s about India, not just about the country but about the nation’s future, hopes and dreams. That’s a dangerous area to comment on. I have noticed that even mild criticism of India can generate strong responses. That’s okay. I’m getting used to it. When the United States was becoming a great power back in the early 20th century, there was a lot of thin skin there too.
India is a great nation with a difficult future, and it’s not just a little complex. From the middle of the United States, it’s hard to get a good, solid view, but I’m going to try. I need to write about this. In my country, on one of the major news networks, Hazare merited a short single article. We don’t think about India. We don’t read about India. We probably get more information about India from Rajesh Koothrappali than we do from the news.
So, I’m passing on to you a long, detailed and, in my mind, well written and informative post. Please read it!
James Pilant
Anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar The real battle for the future began the moment Anna Hazare sipped lemon water at Delhis Jantar Mantar to break his fast on April 9. The four-day fast started on a low-key note, but exploded into a nationwide exhibition of anger, as a diminutive, unknown Gandhian from Maharashtra turned into a giant icon, a heroic symbol of the hidden despair that had been swelling in the consciousness of an … Read More
When Fragile becomes Friable: Endemic Control Fraud as a Cause of Economic Stagnation and Collapse
Individual “control frauds” cause greater losses than all other forms of property crime combined. They are financial super-predators. Control frauds are crimes led by the head of state or CEO that use the nation or company as a fraud vehicle. Waves of “control fraud” can cause economic collapses, damage and discredit key institutions vital to good political governance, and erode trust. The defining element of fraud is deceit – the criminal creates and then betrays trust. Fraud, therefore, is the strongest acid to eat away at trust. Endemic control fraud causes institutions and trust to become friable – to crumble – and produce economic stagnation.
For about seven months now, I have argued over and over again that lying to the courts with false affidavits and actions amounting to fraud were prosecutable. I have used the word, crimes, and I meant it.
Why is it that if one of my students breaks the law by stealing a few dollars that he will go to jail and these banks can commit these acts and reap huge profits without fear of prosecution?
I want these law-breakers, these greedy well placed fraudsters, to go to jail, to do the perp walk, to pay enormous fines, and to serve as a warning to every Armani clad crook haunting the board rooms of our great investments banks.
James Pilant
My thanks to “Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge.”
The Market Ticker – Federal Reserve: They Broke The Law but nobody cares…. (including us) The reviews found critical weaknesses in servicers’ foreclosure governance processes, foreclosure document preparation processes, and oversight and monitoring of third-party vendors, including foreclosure attorneys.While it is important to note that findings varied across institutions, the weaknesses at each servicer, individually or collectively, resulted … Read More
Corruption in India is fairly endemic. It is present in everything from traffic tickets to giant government contracts. Hazare is struggling with a mountain of inertia, a community acceptance of corruption and an appreciation of its benefits. He is trying to work with and develop a contrarian philosophy. I suspect this may be based on the Indian development of greater economic and political power in international relations.
The Indians are a proud people to put it very mildly. But a reasonable person can easily conclude that corruption on the current scale will make it very difficult for India to become as signiificant as its large population and geography would make it. Corruption on the current scale threatens national growth and impairs the nation’s standing in the world just as investment banking speculation and greed endanger growth in the United States.
I have a lot to learn about this situation but I’m going to try.
Indians may speak English but the implications and history behind the words are different than in American English. This is not to imply superiority to ether form of the language merely to acknowledge the need for caution.
James Pilant
Before I start, I want to be clear that I want this movement to be a success…. Corruption in India is an integral part of everybodys everyday life. We are on one of the sides, either at the receiving end or the giving. Corruption does not begin in the office, it begins on the streets. It does not care for age, status, class, or position, just the effect varies. The traffic police always gives us two options; First, that is legal, time consumin … Read More
Jayaribcm’s Blog discusses the problems with corruption in India. In this post he discusses the corruption of elections. As I have said before, corruption is not an Indian problem, it a worldwide phenomenon from which the United States is in no way immune. While they fight the fight there, we need to fight our struggle here.
Since the United States did not share the information of the bribery and the U.S. benefited from it, there is bound to be suspicion of involvement in the bribery or that there may have been other wrong doing possibly involving the United States.
James Pilant
This is a significant article about election fixing as it is done in India. In the United States we fix elections by removing the poor and minorities from the election rolls on the grounds of non-existent election fraud. It’s the same game and just as evil.
The fight against corruption is an American problem, an Indian problem and a worldwide problem. Their fight is our fight, our fight is theirs. Corruption takes different forms in the two countries. In America it is more a matter of corrupting legislators and buying influence, subverting regulators and rewriting the rules behind closed doors. In India, it may in some cases, be more public and related often to the official duties of various officials. However, there have been national scandals on a humongous scale.
We in the United States should pay more attention to developments in India. That nations economic and diplomatic power are on a steep rise and I strongly suspect their long term goals are more peaceful than their neighbor to the East.
James Pilant
Here is my colleague in blogging, Manoje Nath. He is often witty and very often profound. Here is a selection from his latest post –
Democracy attributes good sense and judgment to its citizenry at large and it is supposed to exercise its control over the day to day functioning of the government through public opinion,(as if there is a body of opinion, fully formed, ubiquitous and all knowing, which once alerted to wrongdoing, will come down like a ton of bricks and ensure immediate remedial measures. ) That, alas! is not true. Generally speaking people are ignorant and indifferent, people are resistant to mobilization and sustained activism. Wrapped in their own petty little concerns and anxieties they are easily satisfied with cosmetic changes. As a worst case they get used to everything – just about everything. This is where the charismatic leader comes in.
And from a little further down –
The ambiguity in the public attitude towards ill-gotten money is the result of our peculiar situation. Our economy is half white and half black, half over-ground and half underground. We condemn black money but deal in it, nevertheless. Under our very eyes, criminals and gangsters acquire wealth, then political power, then more wealth and with it acceptability and social esteem. Political banditry as a mode of creation of surplus value has long been accepted as a legitimate vocation. To displace the awareness of these contradictions, we have devised various overt and covert strategies to acknowledge and accommodate the criminality with in our midst. Lawyers, chartered accountants, investment advisors, honestly work for the legitimization of dishonest earnings by politicians, government officials, corporate CEOs, etc. Dirty money courses through our formal and informal financial system in different ways, with different consequences. We do not seek to know hard enough about the offshore funds being routed in our economy for fear of discovering their actual provenance. We are so enamoured, even over awed with power and manipulation that we tend to ignore what David Bell calls “the economic fulcrum underneath”.
There are few assaults upon our dignity as crushing as the theft of all of our possessions. It is not so much the large items like refrigerators and televisions that are missed. Humans attach value to the strangest things. Instead of the microwave they lament the loss of their wedding pictures. When logic would dictate the loss of the computer should be the first cause of regret, they think of the old worn chair that has sat in the living room for years. Considering the great value placed upon personal privacy and possessions, would it not seem logical and prudent that those entrusted with the safety of the public should investigate and seek to punish the guilty. But the investigators would only need a mirror to discover the perpetrator of this crime, law enforcement itself.
It seems unfair that the bank never has to worry about these mistakes in judgment. It seems unfair that the bank, should use so many public resources to serve its interests.
The victim is asking $500,000 dollars in damages.
That seems fair, first, to recompense her for damages and second, to discourage the sheriff and his deputies from any more random home raids.
James Pilant
Sheriff’s Officers Accused Of Emptying Wrong Home In Botched Foreclosure HILLSIDE – A 76-year-old Hillside woman has filed a claim for damages against Union County, alleging that officers of the county sheriff’s department illegally entered her home and removed the entire contents because they had the wrong address of a foreclosure. In the document, obtained by Tina Renna of The County Watchers, Ozzie Leak claims that Union County Sheriff Ralph F … Read More
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