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Greece: Even Corruption Is In A Deep Recession
Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com
Transparency International just published the results of its 2011 National Survey on Corruption in Greece, which tried to sort out the kind of bribery and petty corruption that households had to deal with in their daily lives, and the results were sobering, as they tend to be with corruption surveys—but in an unexpected way: for those asking for bribes, an outright depression has commenced.
Corruption is an issue in Greece. In the Corruption Perception Index 2011, which covers 182 countries, Greece is in 80th place, sharing that honorable position with Colombia, El Salvador, Morocco, Peru, and Thailand. It is worse even than China whose corruption is legendary. It is in last place within the Eurozone which prides itself in its clean way of doing business. But they’re not that clean either: for holier-than-thou Germany, the cost of corruption has reached a quarter trillion euros! Read.... The Rising Cost of Corruption in Germany.
The survey, the fifth since 2007, measured “petty corruption” of the type that touched average folks in a routine manner and not the type of high-level corruption where millions are involved. It relied on questionnaires sent to a sample of 12,000 households. Respondents reported that the number of petty corruption incidents in the public sector edged up from 7.2% in 2010 to 7.4% in 2011. They fell in the private sector from 4% in 2010 to 3.4% in 2011. The worst offenders were hospitals within the state-owned healthcare apparatus; next were tax offices and construction licenses.
The price list for fakelaki—little brown envelopes—has a broad range. At state-owned hospitals, for example, the rock-bottom bribe for getting some surgery done will set you back a still affordable €100. At the upper end, however, it’s a whopping €30,000. That’s just to get into surgery. The national health system, which is administered by IKA, pays for the surgery itself. To get catapulted up the waiting list costs as well, with prices ranging from €30 at the very bottom, maybe to get ahead of some people in the emergency room, to €20,000 at the top end.
Such widespread incidents of bribery in the state-owned healthcare system appear shocking to outsiders and might lead us to conclude that this kind of nastiness would never occur in privately owned hospitals where doctors and business people are in charge, not corrupt government bureaucrats. Alas, private hospitals and clinics are afflicted with the same scourge. Getting into surgery costs from €150 to €7,000. For medical tests, you dish out €30 to €500.
To get a tax audit arranged in your favor costs from €100 for banal cases to a hefty €20,000. For documents, you might be asked to fork over somewhere between €15 and €1,000. A construction license goes for €200 to €8,000. Did you get caught with an illegal building? Not a problem: from €200 to €5,000.
But in a sign of just how tough things have gotten in Greece, the amounts that households paid for bribes plummeted from €632 million in 2010 to €554 million in 2011, a 12.3% nosedive, and part of the drumbeat of Greece’s economic horror show. For a debacle that continues in its relentless manner, read....“A harder Default To Come.”
Apparently, not only Greece’s economic and fiscal crisis exercised downward pressure on the amounts, but also a change in the perception of bribery. For example, due to new tax policies that require taxpayers to submit value-added tax receipts with their tax returns, respondents increasingly thought that a seller’s refusal to provide such a receipt constituted a corruption incident. And people appear to have become weary of it: 25.3% refused to play along when asked for a fakelaki by a public-sector employee, and 21.6% spurned such requests in the private sector. Interestingly, the bribe payers are largely educated men between 45 and 54 who were self-employed or had businesses with employees.
Across the border, in deficit-plagued and inflation-infested Turkey, the government floated a plan to get its citizens to turn in their substantial pile of physical gold in exchange for paper “certificates,” a first step in what may become a process of gold confiscation. And this, just as the world's major central bankers spoke at the Fed conference in Washington. For that load of ironies, doublespeak, and red flags, read.... Gold Confiscation, Inflation, And Suddenly Virtuous Central Bankers.
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Hell I wish we had a little of that pay-as-you-go corruption here in Canada with the slow health care system we've got.
Dup
Dup.
C'mon..since when was 12.3% a "nosedive" ..give us a break
The bond redemption they just made, they raided the bank accounts of the universities and hospitals and at least one utility to get the cash to pay fat cat foreign bankers. Old folks are killing themselves rather than eat from garbage cans, unemployment is skyrocketing. Hospitals and clinics will shutter their doors, colleges will close and send students home, fuel will not get paid for and brown/blackouts will hit this summer. Workers will not get paid and families will go hungry.
I must confess I don't understand it. How their government can let people suffer and die so that they can stay in the euro and keep German bankers happy. So that fat assed banksters can make billions. And sure all government at this point is inherently corrupt but you would think the people themselves would simply refuse to cooperate any more till the government does the right thing, and or riot, burn it down.
Some here on the right to far right are not going to like this, but capitalism has just gone way too far, I have always supported a quasi socialist/capitalist hybrid economic organization because lack of redistribution through high taxes on the wealthy is always ALWAYS going to result in greed choking off the formation of wide pools of capital in which many average citizens participate in the health of the economy, it fosters poverty and kills demand. But I have been a lone voice in the wilderness of dip shits that formed the Tea Party and want to concentrate wealth so much further that there will be no government, no middle class, only a small ruling elite oligarchy that is cruel and ruthless, unreasonable, blind and stupid.
Watch, first Greece, then Spain, then Italy, all will go communist. And you will have Raygun/Thatcher type policy to blame for it.
I'm not sure you're right about Greece, Spain & Italy going communist. The movements I hear about over there are all about real democracy, not about capitalism vs. communism. They get that it is fascism that is causing them problems not capitalism. They get that the way to fix fascism is more democracy, not less capitalism.
What's to not underrstand? Their Gov't is broke. Old Folks aren't killing themselves, one person did.
As far as capitalism going to far, you couldn't be more wrong. Crony capitalism and redistribution of wealth has brought the system down.
"Their government is BROKE?"
Banksters and central bankers invented credit (and money... the same thing) out of thin air and lent it to governments, so that governments could operate without having to actually tax revenues out of those that have something TO tax, and they kept doing it till the resulting inflation is threatening to end not just damage economies around the world.
They are NOT BROKE! They just refuse to tax those with shit to tax, but even if they did not tax anybody the debts are still invented out of thin air. They are a claim on the production of, and the very people in, the nations they have victimized all so that politicians can fail. Fail to do the hard things, like making government efficient and of real use, no more than that.
By the way, one person shot himself in the head in Syntagma Square and it made headlines, but he is not the only one, for every sensational suicide that you read about there are ten others who slip away quietly which is not reported. And those that do it have made that decision because life was intolerable for them, most will hate it but eat from the garbage cans anyway. Hospitals and clinics are already closing, open facilities are out of drugs, particularly antibiotics, so yes people are dying as a direct result of this mass murder at the hands of bankers.
Wrong about capitalism you say? We will see, but pure capitalism will never ever work, never has, never will, because it requires in fact that some win big at the expense of others, many of whom lose big or all. That is an intolerable state of affairs for people with a conscience. Thus there will always be some form of social safety nets which by definition has to be a transfer from the "winners." After that it is just at what level the redistribution takes place. And the reason it will be YOUR fault we get a harder version of socialism or communism is that you refuse to compromise. Obamacare is a perfect example, the private for obscene profit capitalist healthcare delivery system was SO greedy it essentially killed the industry and damn near the nation, they would not compromise and control their greed so they will be taken over and socialized or communized, but in a half assed way that assures us NOBODY will be happy with the results. Your version of capitalism is the same fucking thing on a bigger scale, and any 5 year old can figure that much out. You cannot have 1% of the nation raping the other 99% for 2/3 of the wealth and income without consequences.
How do you pronounce fakelaki? I predict this word will become universalized before the end of the year. It has such an onomatopoeiac ring to it. I would pronounce it as fakkylakky or fakey larkey...
easy..Fuck a lackey !
20,000 euro bribe to get surgery? When the government pays for the surgery?
Pretty cheap I'd say, and peanuts compared to Fraud Street banks demanding $3 trillion in bribes from the Fed or they'll blow up the financial system.
No, the gov't does not pay for it...taxes plus debt issuance "pay" for it. Too bad, Greece. Your Socialist chickens have come home to roost...and now the banksters are stealing the eggs.
Socialist chickens? If they were so socialist how come fat pig capitalists ended up with all the money (and anything worth anything in Greece)? Fascist mafia banksters and stupid STUPID deregulation gave us this mess, Greece will have to choose between survival and leaving the euro by the end of May.
One of these days the good ol' US of A will be factored into this equation in a much bigger way. I just wonder though, what manner of brown envelope payment will be required if and when this happens and the greenback goes belly up. Gold, silver a bottle of JD?
All those surveys, all that data mining are worth nothing. They are propaganda tools.
Statistical samples and the rest, adjusted to factor in moods etc...
Corruption has no meaning in US citizenism. What is called corruption in US citizenism is historically the normalcy of US citizenism.
US citizenism has not changed one bit.
Cash is king even in Euros
yep, when I worked for a private medical practice(mid-90's), cash paying patients were treated right away and well b'c the doc didn't have to submint insurance claims, take discounts on medical services/supplies.
The worst to deal with were Medicare and Medicaid redtape, reimbursement and patients.
Oh I know about that, medicare and medicaid decides what they will pay you and thats it. So if the bill is truly a certain price and your gigged about 1/3 less, then you have to eat it pure and simple.