Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times wrote an interesting article about Occupy Wall Street Movement and corruption in the heart of capitalism, Wall Street and Washington. The article is in mypaper today. During the Asian financial crisis, the finger was pointed at Asian crony capitalism as the main cause of the crisis. Today the cause of the American financial crisis is exactly a result of American crony capitalism.
What is so unfair in the American system is that it allowed the cronies to more than their fair share of reward in the American financial system. As a result, it’s human for them to grab as much as they could. This is unlike Asian culture where there is propriety and no one will grab as much as they can just because the system allows them to. To make matter worst, the cronies privatized the profits and socialize the risk to the public or American citizens. And when they failed miserably, billions of taxpayers’ money were used to bail them out. But the moment they rigged up profits they started to pay themselves crazy again, without having to repay the public debt.
That is how brilliant the American system is. Fortunately the Asian countries knew of the rot in the American system and are not imitating them. The Americans like to point the finger at Asians for being corrupt when they were the most corrupt in the world. The only thing that is saving them is that they control the western media and the media would not write about them.
We don’t have problems with too big to fail institutions. And we do not need to make our tax payers bail out the big losses during the world financial crisis. And our big fund managers are doing so well that they deserved to be paid handsomely since no public funds were used to bail them out.
There is no such thing as privatizing profits and socializing risks here. We are safe. Our money, our reserves are safe. And we may even consider bailing out the Europeans if they come knocking at our door.
PS. Please feel free to disagree with me if you think I am writing nonsense. Writing nonsense is an art and also my forte.
10 comments:
Yes, US is the most corrupt country in the world. Political lobby is a different form of corruption.
Exactly!
What happens in US is what happened anywhere else. The only difference is they call it corruption anywhere else but not in the US.
The most corrupt country in the world is also the most hypocritical. On every count! Nothing less!
4 Singaporeans arrested for selling radio antenna to Iranians while the US is selling their arms everywhere, and killing people everywhere.
OK, America bullies everybody,
What do You want?
What can You do?
Asian girls find them
romantic and friendly.
Asian mans find them sexy
and 'tuaki'
Politicians find them
chivalrous and heroic.
Businessmans find them
efficient and honest
with no problem of 'guanxi'
And nobody loves the
Americans than Singaporeans.
Many kay angmoh in Sin.
Quite true. Everything the Americans said and do Singapore will copy wholesale like words from God.
So you see, it is still follow the white masters. Lessons are never learnt. How sad!
I saw a picture in the ST today of two ex Singaporeans in Australia welcoming the Queen. See how delirious they were to just have the opportunity to wave at the British Queen.
That is the high in their lives. Maybe it is good for people to be able to find simple joy like this.
Still exhibiting loyalty towards royalty.
It never fails to amaze me!
Every country has some form of corruption except may be Singapore which leegalise all the takings.Is there a difference between corruption in the US / the West on one side and others on the other? Corruption in US / the West is a grand collusion between the rogues, crooks and scoundrels in the private sector and their counter parts in the government.The corruption is on a grand scale and is globalised to affect not only US and Europe but also the whole world at large. In other words US and the Europeans not only swindle and cheat their own people but also every other country around the world. It is cancerous and may destroy the world economy and finance. On the other hand corruption in non western countries is localised and limited to the countries concerned ,so it does not affect the whole world.
Southernglory1
Legalised or non-nlegalised corruption is still the same. It evokes the same sentiment in sane beings.
When they say a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, corruption by any other name smells just as foul.
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