Western firms need money to bend democracy to their will.
2
This is western capitalism in a nutshell.
1
"Can Western Firms Stop Profiting From Poor Nations’ Corruption?"
Of course not. Look at President Trump.
He tried to stem corruption in Ukraine, and they almost threw him out of office for it.
It is as if the right of any American government member to make his family or foundation filthy rich off corrupt foreign countries he or she is in charge of, it is as if such a right were enshrined in our Constitution. If you only look at the way that document keeps being brought up.
3
If you can find the potion for this please start here in the US. We have so much corruption and this is the ONLY good thing about Mitch and Trump, it's right out there....corruption.
2
It seems that since 1492 (or even before that) when Colombus while he was lost and run into the islands in the Caribbean, nothing has change, before they stole everything, put all the goodies in a ship and sailed to the mother land...now everything is done with the click of a button in a computer or cell phone. But the results are the same americans or europeans end up rich, the elites from those countries (mostly educated in the usa and europe) end up rich, and the former "savages" and now "the poor" end up the "bill". The only difference is that today the pillagers are performing their craft not only abroad, but with their own population. Interesting times are coming
1
Thanks for this excellent article. Several other commenters said some version of "That's just the way things are; they will never change." The whole point of the article is that we CAN change them. This is not some intractable physics problem; it is a straightforward call for commonsense regulations. The EU has regulations; the US could too. Corruption can never be completely eradicated, but not all degrees of corruption are equal. We can certainly make it harder for the PwC's and McKinseys of the world to dump all over us.
3
The cost of living in those nations is cheaper and if foreign nations were not there then they'd probably end up like North Korea and starve. Western world countries go where the governments of those countries allow them to go. Blame the government as they are the law making legislature; not the companies. USA needs to look at their cost of living and inconsistent wages they pay. No minimum wage rates across the whole nation and homelessness. Sanctuary cities lower wages and so does illegal immigration for the rest of the nation; it's all about supply and demand. Immigration laws are there for a reason. The people in their own nations need to demand better rights, working conditions and wages. Our ancestors fought hard for higher wages for everyone and liveable wages; the citizens of those foreign nations need to take up this issue with their own governments and tax the rich more.
2
So long as there are American arms to be sold, foreign oil and extractive industries to be exploited, and foreign labor to be had for minimal cost, the corruption will continue with a wink and a nod from Western Nations - especially those under control of the likes of Trump and his cronies. Go back to Salvador Allende's Chile - and his short lived attempt to wrest back control from such corrupt foreign influences - or Nicaragrua attempts to do the same and Ronnie Reagan's ginning up the Contras to take down that effort. Those are just two obvious examples. Enlightened foreign policy will need to overcome profit motivated capitalists. Not seeing any indication of a movement in that direction anytime soon. The US government - and the GOP in particular - have kow towed to the almighty corporate and capitalist dollar to an obscene extent during this current administration, there is no end in sight without a total overhaul of the power structure.
2
The self-made billionaire fallacy is all too clear, and not just in Angola. None of these obscenely rich people play by the rules and none deserve their wealth. Why is that so hard for ordinary people to understand and demand change?
5
Even though I have not watched Jeopardy for decades and I am glad to see the NYT catch on to putting the answers in the form of a question.
I have been asking the right question question for decades and am glad to see it or a very similar question being asked in the NYT.
Between 1845 and 1850 one million Irish peasants starved to death and one million more were deported in a land whose food export economy boomed between 1845 and 1850. The answer in the form of a question was the same in 1850 Ireland as it is in Angola in 2020. What is capitalism? Nneoliberalism also a correct question.
It is not as if the Irish or the Angolans ever owned the land they lived on it always belonged to absentee landlords and the masters of the universe. We decided in the interest of we the people that property rights trumped human rights.
I wish only one thing and that is stop calling it Christianity. The pain being caused my brother Jesus is far more intense than just the physical pain of being nailed to a cross.
4
"...The United States has long criticized corruption in other countries. We need to deal with what’s rotten at home...
Does that include our pharma industry – and the consultants that aided and abetted in standing up what may be the most institutionally corrupt drug-pricing scheme of any country anywhere...
To the point where black markets in pharmas in dark corners of Africa would have more claim to price-setting legitimacy…
PS
Against the background of this transcendent obfuscation – do you all realize what nonsense it then is, to talk about “conflict-free” cobalt or chromium sourcing…
3
That's the problem with capitalism: after awhile, capital begins to warp the so-called "free" and fair markets themselves until they are nothing but a figleaf for theft by the powerful, unscrupulous and greedy. When everything is monetized, those with the most capital enslave everyone and everything else. People of conscience really, really need to examine their investments and make sure they are not investing with this companies -- or working for them *cough, cough* Pete Buttigieg.
1
All that glitters is not gold (or diamond?)!
1
The distinction between legitimate business activity and organized crime becomes blurrier every day.
1
Why would they when they have a US president promoting corruption at every turn, a man who complains about laws against bribery?
No way no how and no where in a West where corporations are people and money is speech and profits and private property are at best amoral goal net posts. And at worst callous, clever, cruel and cynical destinations.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned about the inherent existential political socioeconomic infectious disease and metastatic cancerous threat mix of capitalism, militarism and racism that has made America first in money, arms and prisoners.
On the eve of the Civil War the 4 million enslaved black African men, women and children in a nation of 30 million were worth more than of the other capital assets in America combined. Except for the land that was stolen from brown Indigenous Native nations men, women and children.
See 'The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism' Edward Baptist; 'The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest' Frances Jennings
See Matthew 25: 31- 46
2
These American companies should be investigated to the nth degree, and their management should all go directly to jail-for a very long time. They were literally taking bread out of children's mouths.
4
Congress would pass a law tomorrow if they wanted to. Follow the money and you will see that both parties receive millions of campaign contributions from the very same people profiting from poverty and death.
3
Hmm. After you've decided on this, would you please address whether western firms can stop profiting from the extreme corruption of our lawmakers, and put the army of influence peddlers (former lawmakers) and corporate stooges who exist to wage war (e.g., Cheney), pollute the country (big energy), keep the country poor and sick (big pharma and insurance), and plain defrauded (big bank and insurance) behind bars? Thank you for y our consideration.
Why democrat candidates are not pointing to the preponderance of scam artists that is the republican party, and promising to go after scam artists and white collar criminals who are defrauding and scamming us all - is something I cannot forgive them for.
2
Western nations are no different form the "local: oligarchs who corrupt local nations politiocians, all nations poor and rich. May be there are exceptions like Scandinavian countries and Germmany. But take every nation- same happens in China,, India, Russia, Brazil, and.... you name them. If westrn nations did not adopt the local corruption practices, he result will be that the poor bations will be deprved of any westrn technological and even social progressive development. How do I know? I am from Indoa who has been in the US for 60 yera.s UNtil recently, Indians did not have any radio news except for the government controlled All India Radio. Same for telephine and ..
1
You are kidding, right? We cannot even protect the United States from this kind of plunder, much less these sorts of fledgling independent former colonial outposts. And it is getting worse, much worse, very fast. And, of course Trump is the worst of the worst, but having Biden in the "entitled" role, 4 years after Hillary took that position, means both of our political parties stink to high heaven on this score. William Gibson was profiled in Michelle Goldberg's column yesterday about darkness where the future should be, and this is why.
1
Now I get to smirk when I see the PWC logo. Oh, "shocked" and "we don't do business" with her any longer. Ok, everything's fine now. Right O, Got it.
2
The better question might be can US politicians be prevented from engaging in corruption with corrupt governments?
The Ukraine, perennially one of the most corrupt countries in the entire world, seems to be a playground for corrupt US politicians and their friends and families.
Burisma hires Biden’s and Kerry’s kids paying them millions of dollars.
Pelosi’s kid is over in Ukraine, humorously, overcharging them to train them how to not be corrupt. Can’t make it up.
Let’s first try to get a handle on our crooked politicians.
Time to drain the swamp.
3
Will Bob Moritz, PWC's chairman, back up how 'shocked and disappointed' he was by his firm's actions by returning all monies received, with iinterest, to the Angolan people?
Will McKinsey?
3
The New York Times editorial board recommends that the American advisors who facilitated the corrupt plundering of poor countries be held accountable. Most of this obscene theft was through the corporate entities that controlled the natural resources of these countries, including Angola. Angola is rich in natural resources, but little, if any, of this wealth benefited the people of Angola.
The Editorial Board of the Times is right, the American accounting firms, lawyers, and consultants that enabled this should be held accountable, and investigated.
But the Editorial Board omits from its discussion one country and one natural resource: Ukraine, and its natural gas giant Burisma. Hunter Biden served as a very well-paid advisor to Burisma. Is Burisma corrupt, and was Hunter Biden's relationship with this company ethical and appropriate? Perhaps these questions were worthy of investigation.
The President of the United States is alleged to have tried to encourage just such an investigation. Look what happened to him.
Note to the Editorial Board of the Times: things aren't simple, and you folks often seem rather selective and hypocritical in the world view you and your newspaper present to your readers. You are right: American facilitators of corruption must be held accountable. But the world is more complicated and opaque than this editorial acknowledges.
3
Sure, we should have laws doing what we can to prevent greedy, amoral American companies from helping corrupt foreign leaders fleece their poor countries. But let’s not get distracted by that. Let’s keep focused on how uniquely corrupt and unconscionable the African oligarchs and their families have been. Obviously there is corruption everywhere, but at least corrupt leaders in China, and even Russia, share the wealth by contributing to general economic growth in their countries. Brazil’s corrupt leaders do nothing for the favelas, but at least Brazil has a functioning, significantly large middle class. Not most of sub-Saharan Africa, whose leaders tend to be uniquely greedy, remorseless, cruel, and inhuman in the way they hog the spoils of their commodity or one crop political economies for themselves, scattering the crumbs to their small group of henchmen, while their masses remain seemingly locked in ignorance and poverty forever. Have they no decency or shame? Of course not.
2
She says it's a "witch hunt". Why does that term seem familiar?
Can you tell me, if it can be remembered, when was the last time we didn't take advantage of the largesse of corrupt countries...for self-benefit? Angola is but a sample of our own corruption. Money speaks, and always has. And there is no human that can escape corruptibility...when no one is looking and when the price is right. Selling ourselves to the highest bidder is history. You want a current example? Go no further than the present republican administration, a mafia-like bunch of abusers of power, all for their own narrow interests...and not for this nation's wellbeing nor it's security. This, from an observer of daily dubious Trumpian behavior. The truth is sadly awol now; it has been such for these last 3 years. Can you imagine how disastrous it's extended stay?
In an ideal world, what the NYEB argues is something to pursue. But in the real world, western firms have to compete with Chinese firms which all have a Chief Bribe Officer and work in local environments where this is what officials expect, and this is how they finance their lavish lifestyles.
2
While the Republicans are trying to make the case that Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine were motivated in part by his revulsion at the endemic corruption in that country, a recently published book reports him as saying, ““It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas.”
The logic of Trump’s position is that these companies should not be admonished for facilitating the looting of Angola’s wealth by relatives of the Angolan President, thus causing untold misery among the majority of their countrymen, but should be feted at the White House for contributing to reducing America’s balance of payments deficit. As the President has made clear, he is driven singularly by the need to win, and for him, if you are not lying and cheating, you are not trying hard enough to win.
Ha, ha, ha! Good one!
Edward Abbey on Capitalism: "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell."
1
Didn't anyone there read "Confessions of a Economic Hit Man"? An American consulting firm develops the business case for a foreign aid project. Based on that economic analysis, the US government approves foreign aid for the project - often loans. then the work goes to an American company, a Bechtel or a Brown&Root. The analysis was slapped together, the resulting project fails but all the Americans have profited and the third world country is left with the mess. If you were the leader of a poor nation caught in such a scheme, wouldn't you be tempted to participate? Just who is corrupt in this scenario?
2
The NYT EB says "But naming and shaming is not enough."
Indeed, However, naming and shaming is a very important and, often, an effective way of throwing a spanner (monkey wrench) into corrupt social "machinery."
Corruption always thrives where there is opaqueness and secrecy.
Naming and shaming exposes secrets and fosters transparency. N&S can be "enough."
1
We need to deal with what’s rotten at home. Watching, ok, not watching/can’t bear to watch, this sick parody of an impeachment trial, you have to be joking.
1
How ironic and timely.
The Times Editorial Board condemns "Western Firms" for profiting from poor nation's corruption while claiming that nothing was wrong with Hunter Biden "profiting" from corruption by receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars for sitting on the board of the Ukrainian company Burismo while Joe Biden was Vice President.
4
Hey, she's even stealing Trump's defense strategy! Now THAT is RICH.
there are all kinds of things lawyers learn from c!ients, thanks to the attorney client confidentiality privilege. this privilege has limited exceptions, which may apply here. but it is shocking to see the times advocate extension of the surveillance state into attorney client relations. consider this dialog with Thomas More in the play a man for all seasons:
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law?
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
Can they? Sure. Will they? No.
1
I heard Isabel dos Santos interviewed on the BBC. Bald-faced liar who stuck to her story even though the interviewer pushed her.
And no, Western firms will not stop, not ever, because they worship the almighty dollar and the easiest way to get filthy lucre is usually the corrupt way.
2
Theodore Dalrymple (AKA Anthony Daniels) is a British doctor and essayist who worked for some years in Africa. Here is one of his pieces about Africa, in which he explains how certain admirable personal virtues of Africans lead to bad government.
Out Of Africa
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/out-of-africa/
As is becoming clearer daily, the USA is perhaps the most corrupt country in the world. Hey, keep waving the flag and singing America the Beautiful.
1
Africa has got to be a model of how NOT to run government.
BCG strongly objects to the way this editorial characterizes our firm‘s work.
From our investigations to date, we can confirm BCG has never worked directly for Isabel dos Santos or her husband.
Our work for the Swiss jewelry company was brief and completed more than 6 years ago. While some BCG employees left to join the company, we never “managed” the company or had any control over it.
Our work in Angola was performed for the benefit of the energy industry and Sonangol, and our main recommendations were endorsed in 2017 by the new Government and continue to be implemented. BCG’s services were charged at market rates.
Most important, the NYT’s implication that BCG directly profited from money laundering or other corrupt activities is categorically false. We accepted these assignments in Angola because we believed BCG could contribute to modernizing and strengthening the country’s economy, to the ultimate benefit of the Angolan people.
The charges against Isabel dos Santos are serious and very concerning to us. While there have been no formal allegations of wrongdoing by BCG, we are committed to learning from this experience and making any necessary improvements as a result.
BCG leadership started reviewing this matter immediately following the NYT call and will continue to examine our activities with great rigor. We ask the same from the NYT in presenting an accurate picture.
Nidhi Sinha, BCG Spokesperson
27
@Nidhi Sinha, BCG Spokesperson
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
Or “Yeah, right . . . .”
I’ve worked with BCG in the past, and with many other similar consulting firms. In my experience, there is very little most consulting firms would not do, so long as it was hidden from view or they could otherwise obfuscate the whole thing.
Profits always seemed more important than ethics or morality.
7
Addendum to my original comment:
And who knows if the poor countries use the wealth from their natural resources to improve the lives of their citizens instead of enriching the elite and foreigners, maybe their poor wouldn’t jeopardize their lives to immigrate here or Europe without the proper documents.
Business consulting is a racket. McKinsey is the Gambinos in more tasteful suits.
2
I sincerely wonder if our race deserves to survive. Perhaps Earth would be much better in the long run by letting us die out and trying again to create a race worthy of governing themselves.
It's bad enough to live solely for the purpose of accumulating wealth, but when you seek political power to steal from others it rises to a new level of ignominy.
Start anti-corruption efforts by reporting on the beneficial owners of all Manhattan apartments.
3
Unless there are legal and regulatory regimes in place that cover both national and international "standards" of practice in preventing legitimate public
grifting in lot of 3rd world locales, nothing can prevent those indigenous grifters from not grifting. It is probably safe to assume that neither Kinsey nor Boston consulting sent mercenaries armies there to force this grifter to grift.
Pretty disgusting.
This editorial concludes that “The United States has long criticized corruption in other countries. We need to deal with what’s rotten at home, too.”
NYT editors need to read the 2017 New York Times review of Jesse Eisinger’s book, explaining that U.S. Justice prosecutors routinely decide against convicting most of America’s own biggest financial crooks, essentially encouraging them to keep trillions of dollars of stolen assets. For decades, U.S. prosecutors have always known that they will be paid soon enough – upon leaving government in order to take money from financial criminals – for protection against the Justice Department that won’t convict them.
The 2017 NYT review states that U.S. DOJ prosecutors have been “reined in by their politically appointed bosses.” Political appointees destroy Justice Department enforcement against multi-trillion-dollar financial fraud. The 2017 NYT review also points out that for U.S. prosecutors, “Conducting the criminal investigation of an executive” would be “jeopardizing a future partnership at a prestigious law firm” protecting fraud collar financial criminals.
Such multi-trillion-dollar corruption is bipartisan, across both Democratic & Republican parties. Because U.S. prosecutors decide not to enforce worldwide asset forfeiture against most large-scale fraudulent transactions, America may be the world’s most corrupt economy by value.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/books/review/the-chickenshit-club-jesse-eisinger-.html
1
Sounds a lot like what Joe Biden did for Hunter.
2
And the Democrats hands are just as dirty as the GOP in these matters. And what of The Editorial Board? Are they all certain that all their investments are squeaky clean and ethical? I seriously doubt it. Most people don't really care where the profits are coming from so long as they're profiting. What exactly are the people of The Editorial Board doing about it besides writing a short fluff Op-Ed piece about it? Talk is cheap, whiskey costs money.
2
Reminds me of when HSBC got caught laundering billions for the Mexican drug cartels, and Obama's AG was booed while reading off joke charges.
At the end of the day, every administration is in the pocket of Big Money. It's a large club, and you're not in it. Goldman and The Malaysia Fund, BCG, McKinsey, they're all involved. What can you do?
2
Is the US immune from this MO? I'd wager we fear such an inquiry so it never happens.
1
Hasn't TRUMP just recommended that US firms be allowed to offer bribes to foreigners in order to secure their business? TRUMP really is destroying our country. REMOVE ALL REPUBLICANS FROM OFFICE.
Unless there are legal and regulatory regimes in place that cover both national and international "standards" of practice in preventing legitimate public
grifting in lot of 3rd world locales, nothing can prevent those indigenous grifters from not grifting. It is probably safe to assume that neither Kinsey nor Boston consulting sent mercenaries armies there to force this grifter to grift.
Pretty disgusting.
US investment financial services "experts" were involved in the scandal in Europe recently reported in the NYTs. Goldman Sacs was famously involved in hiding Greek debt from banks investing in Greece leading to the melt down of the Greek economy. After all the cold war controversy over Angola's Marxist gov't that took over after the Portuguese colonialism ended in Angola we find out the terrible corruption they were involved in. The ANC finds itself having its leaders involved in rotten corruption and actually working against their poor black constituents in S. Africa to the benefit of whites. The mind blowing nastiness of these cases continues daily in the pursuit of loot.
2
The more vulnerable the poor, the more slobberingly greedy are U.S. corporations. They will do anything for money. It's all that matters to them.
Prostitution is legal in the US with the exception for sex.
3
Answer to headline Q: No. N, they can't. Adam Smith warned us. As did Darwin.
1
Why do the editorial boar(d)s feel an urge to tell the rest of world how to vote and whom to elect?
Do they feel intellectually superior to us? Smarter than us? More experienced? Better trained? More in a touch with the real life? Better people than us?
Where is the evidence that this woman is an more guilty than Queen Victoria or Elizabeth. How did they get their wealth.
Or the heirs to BMW and I could go on. The new government of Angola just want to make sure that his position is safe as Isabella will always be a threat to him. It's not her fault her father was the president. Guilty by association that is all it is. The land and wealth that the whites have in South Africa that the got illegally that is what the world should be pulling hair out about. And leave this black woman alone
I am shocked! indeed shocked that the Times Editorial Board would impugn such fine upstanding American financial firms in these crimes. Heh...wait a minute while I compose myself. No, I cannot...this Opinion piece made my day, it restored my lack of faith in the American financial industry to the point I would advice my fellow Americans to keep their savings in coffee cans buried in the backyard. Or if you live in apartments behind the plaster walls. These guys will rob you blind.
1
As Western Europe and America continue to deconstruct colonial empires, flagellating themselves with massive Judeo-Christian Guilt.....
China picks up the rusting remains of mines, railroads, factories, schools, hospitals, telephone networks.....and stiches together its own Modern Empire complete with Chinese Settlements to relieve its own out of control population.
1
The whole world is seemingly the wild Wild West. Look out for the shoot out at the OK Corral.
You know the movie black panther gave an insight some missed but I hope future African leaders see. You can do so much more with the natural gifts you have. Why not? Think outside of the limited western thinking box.
Please start by publishing the names of all beneficial owners of residential real estate in NYC along with the owners’ connections to government officials from any country. Also, please reject all ads by real estate brokers, banks, lenders and law firms who refuse to identify the beneficial owners of property being sold through the NYT. Lead the way, Gray Lady!
2
This is what our elite aspire to be! Be a valedictorian, be like Gregory at Yardale, join McKinsey or BCG, then finally you get to help pick the perfect stooge in an overpopulated third world quagmire to rob the poor blind!
2
McKinsey...
That name keeps popping up in cases involving crooked dictators accused of stealing money... Those folks must be their favorite clients.
Pathetic.
3
I notice one of the earlier comments seems to be exonerating global PWC while pointing the finger at PWC Portugal.
Global PWC may well have clean hands but does anybody seriously think PWC Portugal is the sole wrongdoer among PWC's many national businesses?
1
A brutal, cold, objective comparison of Africa to the "New World" might help to explain the 21st Century.
In 1492, Population and Economic Growth caused Europe to expand operations into a "New World". The Caribean and Mexico regions they encountered had a lockstep order, based on tribal conflicts....diseases were discovered and transmitted....tribes were exploited and used to exterminate other tribes. The inter-tribal conflicts were so horrific that by the time North America becomes embroiled,,,,those tribes driven into the Forrests were willing to Ally with the Europeans, in the interests of survival, only to be anihilated by the Europeans.
Witness 21st Century Africa.....an entire continent, riven with inter-tribal hatred, 1 million Hutus hacking to death 800thousand Tutsies......AIDS, Ebola, god only knows what else cooking in the hothouse Jungles of Congo and West Africa. Somolia, South Africa...Angola. Europe and China compete for Dominance of the African Trade.
With hard work & heavy sweats,no honest person ya business entity can get so rich so quickly. Only disgraceful dishonest heads can become Billionaires ya even Trillionaire via routes of shell companies to corrupt powerful idiots,loot their natural resources,price gouging,black marketing,bankruptcies to transfer businesses funds into personal family accounts in safe heavens oftentimes while washing down the investors,banks,vendors and states/cities/towns ya communities after sucking up them through tax abatements into gutters. Are there any particular solutions to stop such cronies vulturous catastrophic capitalism to stop them stealing the nation’s wealth shamelessly and then selling the investigative proceedings as opposition’s political vedanta ya hoaxes? Yes we do have & can do it if so with strong willpower and iron fist to root out oligarchy. The establishments not gonna do it,only the victims can force them to do it. If nobody knows them,I know the pathways to help mainstream citizens in every nation. NYT can contact me for ideas ya its readers.
It's just business ($$) for PwC, Kinsey and Boston Consulting. Ethics? Who cares!
2
This editorial is unbelievably extremely racist. It still carries on the trope of Africa being the white man’s burden. The Editorial board should be ashamed of writing this and not recognizing their racism in writing this.
1
The whole of world government is rigged by the rich and facilitated by the World Bank which gives loans with demands that poor nations open their resources to outside interests. Then the extraction depletion industries come in, rape the land, impoverish the people, and enrich the elite. In the end both the people and land are left destitute and in deep debt. This is the source of failed states and we are the architects. Nevertheless, the day is fast approaching when the birds come home to roost. “As you did it to the least of these, so shall it be done unto you”.
36
@Daniel Lake Good comment but am reminded of the epigram which contains more than a grain of truth:"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose!"I can remember when President Giscard d'Estaing of France openly accepted bribes of millions in diamonds from Jean Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic, one of the most sanguinary autocrats in modern post independence Africa in return for leaving him alone to kill his enemies, who included women and children. That was almost a half century ago.What has changed for the better since then.Had an adviser for my doctoral dissertation who was a friend of Maurice Tempelsman who controlled a majority interest in UMHK, l'Union Miniere du Haut Katanga when Katanga was still a breakaway state in rebellion against the central government in Leopoldville, and whose hard line leaders, Godefroi Munongo in particular,were responsible for atrocities such as the assassination of the Congo's most popular leader, Patrice Lumumba. Not saying that Mr. Tempelsman, whose son Leon now runs the business, was in any way involved. but this was just another example of how the West has raped the African continent since "independence,"and the pillage continues. See my videos and take them for what one thinks they are worth.
1
For years Transparency International (TI) ranked countries on the level of corruption in a country.
Not surprisingly, may developing countries figured at the bottom of the list and the Scandinavian countries at the top. Every one tut-tutted saying that is what one expects from these greedy, malign politicians who ruled these third world countries.
Interestingly no one asked where the money that was stolen went and who facilitated that flight from the poor countries to the rich countries.
Of course, every one knew but just looked the other way.
Now thanks to dedicated, impartial investigative journalists we know how corrupt the lily white nations are.
Will anything change? I doubt it. Money is God in USA, UK, EU and all the places that can make rules and enforce them. They will not want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
29
Forget about Angola for a second. Treating non-rich people as a source of revenue extraction is par for the course in the United States. Why do you think Americans are conditioned to believe that private-sector companies which prioritize sales targets, profit margins, CEO compensation, and shareholder dividends can be trusted to provide decent, affordable health insurance?
Americans need to wake up and stop thinking that what happens in Angola or Haiti is just stuff that happens "over there." McKinsey, Boston Consulting, and PwC are not "American" companies in any real sense and likely their executives have zero qualms about viewing Americans in the way I described above.
4
This issue is broader than the use of shady accounting practices enabling elites to rob their national treasuries. The amorality of Western companies investing in underdeveloped countries leads them to make alliances with corrupt elites; they share the profits with these strongmen who use their end in part to finance paramilitaries to ensure they stay in power. And Western companies are happy because they get profits and have security of access, all the while they hypocritically claim they are against political interference in other countries.
1
A cartoon I saw many years ago in East Africa has stuck with me longer than any other cartoon I have ever seen. A small African boy (perhaps a toddler) is straining to reach and grab a one-dollar bill dangled above his head by a tall Uncle Sam with his right hand. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam's left hand is reaching behind the boy's back and pulling out a $ 5 bill from the boy's back pocket. This is what millions of Africans think of the United States. For them, there's no distinction between the U.S. government and predatory American firms and companies of which there are too many.
48
Its amazing how many corrupt people around the world have picked up on Donald Trumps victimhood terminology. Like Trump they’re all winners (whiners) and hire the best people. Its a swamp of wealth and greed serviced by western financial and legal firms. Once you’ve earned (stolen) your wealth then you need those best people to help hide it in all the right places and properly hoard it for future use. American and European firms have a long storied history of servicing authoritarian governments and their leaders. Angola, Saudi Arabia, Central & South American dictatorships etc etc. & then there’s here. The same firms that work for corrupt wealthy people worldwide do much of their best work here. Even now some of them work for Trump and are doing their best to keep him in power and protect the American swamp of wealth and greed he swims in. It ain’t just Angola you know.
1
there are all kinds of things lawyers learn from c!ients, thanks to the attorney client confidentiality privilege. this privilege has limited exceptions, which may apply here. but it is shocking to see the times advocate extension of the surveillance state into attorney client relations. as Thomas More observed in the play a man for all seasons: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide?
Corruption like this is one of the reasons I'm voting for Sen. Warren in the Democratic primary. She understands the financial, moral and national security implications of corporate corruption, and she has a track record of bringing malefactors to heel.
4
It’s not just western firms, the Chinese also prey on these same victims. Greed is universal.
1
In the current age of instant, electronic transfers of money.......Offshore Banking is irrelevant and counter-productive(ie.....destructive).
Outlaw Offshore Banking....
Problem Solved.
2
The belief that dos Santos and husband made their wealth "on their own" is akin to when that Jenner/Kardashian kid was listed and described as a self-made billionaire by Fortune...or was it Forbes? Doesn't matter, what matters are the lies promulgated about the path these "elites" follow to such wealth. One does it by stealing it, because she was positioned there by a father, and then readily aided by Western firms always eager to gain access to dirty money from developing and too often corrupted nations. The other does it by being born on third base, and into the American royalty lineage of Celebrity-hood. One is despicable, while the other not so much.
One thing I'd like to see more coverage in this and so many similar stories; is how many of our "American Royalty," fraternizes with the thieves like dos Santos, as well as so many other corrupt nations leaders and consorts.
SO many celebrities, like Beyonce and Jay-Z - and dozens of other "American Royalty" - who cry in their art and activism about equality, sexism, racially motivated violence, theft from the masses, exploitation, etc...
Yet they're eager to cavort/party with the dos Santos's of the world. Paid handsomely to perform at birthdays and State parties. Hopping from yacht to yacht wherever they park them during various "party" seasons and mega-wealthy vacation spots.
Seems its okay to party with the Robber Barons of the world, but then take issue with US Govt events over a Bush or Trump being there. Sad.
1
That is why we need courageous leaders, like Donald Trump, who put themselves in peril to stem corruption abroad.
1
And we have growing corruption in the trump family and all its friends and business associates. Our country is headed down that dark road at a whirlwind pace, with impeachment not removing our corrupt president and his family.
Who do you think installed and supported all those corrupt satraps to begin with? The massive US military, which is more costly than the next 8 countries combined, is used to ensure the American Corporations can extract natural resources and have cheap labor at the expense of native peoples. Mohammed Raza Pahlavi of Iran is the poster child for the world to see what evil these corporations have wrought globally.
2
Nineteen years of war, in Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas brings to mind a no-bid contract with Halliburton. Who needs accounting firms when you can get billions for supporting ever-war?
1
...and as long as we are talking about it, can American firms stop profiting from wars and conflicts?
4
These kind of nefarious activities are defended in the name of capitalism.
We'll get around to an economic collapse eventual and with the new fascist dictatorship it is sure to be unprecedented in depth and length. I am looking forward to the coming Oligarch wars as well. Once lawlessness is the law of the land, and it already is, it is but a matter of time until we have warring mafias, formerly known as corporations.
American corporations will never learn sustainable and moral practices. They will instead grow increasingly criminal. However, most Americans are criminals, so they will get empathy from most Americans, who by the way love their cruel overlords.
1
Why Angola?, We the Indian nationals will eternally obligated to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, if only it carried out similar investigative venture in to India. The investigation will certain to reveal extremely disturbing incidents of unparalleled kick backs paid to the shadow accounts of UPA leaders while the Western advisers collected a share of the proceeds, in almost all the defense deals.
Victims of a political “witch hunt” “extremely misleading and untrue” and part of “a very concentrated, orchestrated and well-coordinated political attack” are the hauntingly words very familiar to Indians. You cannot escape any discourse of Indian political corruption without the apologists of the UPA 1 and UPA 2 a motley family owned crowd of political sets ups headed by Congress party.
It will be very naïve to underestimate the deeply entrenched power of the unscrupulous. Most disturbances across the country will be found to have invisible hand of these crooks oiling the anti national agitations!
Roots of the endemic poverty of the country could be easily understood.
Same old story. Country with vast natural resources, corrupt government and western brain in some form or the other plundering and amassing wealth at the cost of its citizens. The European powers did this through their representative governments in the colonies for close to three centuries and left nations impoverished and with broken backs around the close of the second world war. Now the crony capitalists and the western 'advisers' are taking their turns. Ignorance among the masses being exploited by their own leaders is probably akin to genocide.
2
Clearly the poor may be poor without the rich but the rich may not be rich without the poor.
28
@Starry-Eyed Dem
Thanks for what could be the start of the conversation to start the process of healing the world.
I am in my 70s and remember John Kenneth Galbraith saying; " The modern conservative is engaged in man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the superior moral justification for selfishness."
When I was in school we were taught that the governments of the USA, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and The Philippines were conservative and as Angola demonstrates they still are.
My history reminds me that no matter how obscene the conduct if you have the money you can always buy indulgences from your church, your government or your tenants.
4
Many years ago, I worked for a well know Wall Street firm.
One day, an announcement was made, that one of our top institutional salesmen - still a young man - had decided to leave the firm to live on a Caribbean island.
Everyone was shocked by this. He had been making tons of money, and there was no sign that he was losing his mind.
I was baffled, so I went to speak to "the guy who knows everything". His quiet response was, "don't worry, everything is OK, keep your mouth shut".
About two months later, at our morning meeting, we were informed about some exciting news: the guy who quit, had become so bored, that he "quickly amassed" a big pile of capital, and had started a new firm on the island. His new firm would have overseas investing opportunities for our clients, with fantastic tax advantages - start telling your clients about it.
Later in the day, I went to see the "savant" for clarification. His response: "The Norwegian rat isn't the only dirty thing that gets shipped around the world, keep your mouth shut".
34
Western nations have built themselves on their own corruption, so this question, while flashy, is both distracting and moot. Slavery, colonization (the Raj, the US, the "foreign legion," the Catholic Mission, etc.), exploitative mining and agricultural practices on foreign soil, the reliance on inexpensive off-shore labor, etc., etc., etc.. There is no clean here. There is only looking away from one pile of dirt to another.
22
Let’s add “Can western firms stop destroying the environment for profit”? It boils down to the same problems; lack of ethics and accountability. Capitalism is broken people.
1
Can capitalists make huge profits without enslaving the citizens of natural resource third world countries? Can capitalists make extraordinary profits without corrupting our government to provide our defense department as their private security system? Can capitalists make profits without exploiting pain, suffering, and death? Can capitalists make money from non polluting, non-parasitic pharmaceuticals, harm free environmentally “friendly” innovation? Ask Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet. Where are the biggest profits going to be made in the near future? Hydrocarbons or renewables and energy storage?
2
The corruption in Angola follows a familiar pattern, and the involvement of U.S. consulting firms in enabling the looting of Angolan money and natural resources is shameful.
It is surprising that The Editorial Board makes no mention of the efforts of President Trump to weaken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Trump began his attacks on the FCPA long before he ran for office, and he has recently renewed his claims that the FCPA unfairly hampers American companies.
1
Western imperialism never actually died.
The best template for plundering and looting comes from the best British export there ever was: the company and entity formerly known as the East India Company. Their idea: a template for plundering and marauding that made a desperate nation rich, all the while protecting the ruling class.
You see, setting up a private entity to do their looting for them absolved the British aristocracy from the horrendous indignities and cruelties heaped upon India, even allowing Victoria to assume an almost benign view of their presence in India to making so many rich people in Britain who became rich by looting, in turn making Britain rich. This, even as they made pointless proclamations about being anti slavery, they were decidedly pro subjugation and rape of entire populations. The best weapon they had? That other European invention perfected by the British: divide and rule.
This game is now done by the military industrial complex, tax laws, UN, IMF and other entities.
And so Americans are not aware, the pointless canard of being America being exceptional is drilled into every American : the media is complicit and so is an entire underclass of educators (history departments) which prepare the material to brainwash the public.
So, yes, the game is still being played.
2
The firms involved will do anything for money. And, in fact, they know that if they won't do it, another firm will. The problem is that corrupt politicians will always be able to get assistance for their malfeasance. In order to cure this, you have to get rid of the corrupt systems and politicians.
1
They won't even stop profiting from wealthy nations. Look at how many of them bilked Americans out of their money.
1
When Trump's family business can flourish through dubious deals with corrupt regimes abroad, can the Western firms resist the temptation of reaping windfall profits from similar deals with corrupt entities abroad?
Just before the opening of the impeachment trial, Donald Trump expressed his opinion that the law forbidding US corporations from bribing foreign governments was, to use his favorite adjective, "unfair". The rot starts at the top.
1
If we elect Warren , the Wall Street crowd will be held to account for their involvement in ensuring that the poverty in the world continues to exist. Wonder boys like Bill Gates who give so much money to the African companies, would need to account how they are helping anyone other than themselves with tax deductions.
Warren/ Bernie will bring accountability to their secret actions and that is why they fear CHANGE so much. Wall Street corruption would be exposed. Brand names of supposed caring will be exposed. Remember Johnson & Johnson who care so much about babies but didn't mind destroying communities with pain killers
People can talk to their pension plan managers and start a movement to remove investments from Blackrock, mutual funds, and the list goes on as we did with South Africa.
We have a right to know where our money is being invested, we have a right for strong government oversight into the misdeeds that these investment managers have being doing in the darkness. for decades.
Once people get involved we will stay involved and topple these so called titans of industries who are just murderers, economic terrorist.
Proof that as Donald Trump goes, so goes the world -- what right have we to police the corruption of other countries when he is our president? Canada is now the leader of the free world.
In a word, No. We cannot stop. As a Drexel Burnham Lambert said to me in the late ‘80’s, “They have a lot of money and they’re not to bright. They’re our kind of people.”
2
Can they stop profiting from it? Why on earth would they stop?
Here are some examples of corrupt leaders, just in this hemisphere: Batista in Cuba, Montt in Guatemala, Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in Dominican Republic, the Duvaliers in Haiti, the 20 years of military dictatorship in Brazil, Menem in Argentina, Pinochet in Chile, and on and on and on....
Western firms, particularly US firms, generally loved these people. Or at least greatly preferred them to anyone who would support actual democracy. And they were often praised by US media.
The fact that this question is even being asked is just laughable given our history, and - I have to say - the history of this paper in excusing or ignoring corruption (and worse) in the name of "anti-communism" or "free-markets" or whatever name we give as justification for our actions.
4
How about making it illegal and enforcing it? Because as far as I know nothing else will stop it. Then again money trumps everything these days doesn't it?
This headline is unworthy of The Times. Of course they "can;" and of course they won't unless forced to do so -- which I suggest would take personal, not just corporate, penalties for those who have gone this route since the earliest days of Western colonialism. Another possibility would be truly to empower stockholders to bar management from certain types of business -- and good luck with that, too.
1
there are all kinds of things lawyers learn from c!ients, thanks to the attorney client confidentiality privilege. this privilege has limited exceptions, which may apply here. but it is shocking to see the times advocate extension of the surveillance state into attorney client relations. as Thomas More observed centuries ago: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide?
When citizens of less developed countries look at the US and other Western governments with well deserved cynicism, it stems from intimate experience of the devastating corrupt influence of so-called prestigious firms aiding and profiting from the same corruption that the their governments denounce.
It didn’t start in the last decade or even in the last twenty or even thirty years.
The only time calls to action against these atrocities are taken seriously is when outlets like The Times investigate.
I recall David Cameron denouncing Nigerian corruption with such naive confidence and ignorance as if the ill-gotten wealth of the Nigerian elite wasn’t welcomed and housed in British banks.
A great start would be banks and firms refusing business deals and money from officials who are already known to be corrupt.
1
Is this a trick question? Somewhere some in the West is scheming to steal or get by any means necessary, the wealth that Africa has. Its the part of capitalism that no one wants to talk about, the willingness to steal to steal to get rich.
1
It looks like the quinary sector still can't keep its hands off the primary sector of the global economy. Speaking of natural resources extraction, at some point we're going to need highly intelligent greentech minerals mining consultants with an eye out of the greater good. Let's hope elite business schools can provide those types of folks going forward.
1
In this article replace Angola with America and the names of their criminals there with members of the GOP and the family in the US presidential palaces and it would read the same. The only thing not to change are the names of the corporations involved. Yes, Angola and many other poorer countries are ravaged by western business practices but so is the US. Why should they be different? Let's clean our house first and elect a government likely to do this.
The countries of the world are in mismatched battle against multi-national firms and their consultants, tax advisers, and lawyers. Even the U.S. is doing a poor job constraining offshore tax avoidance. The developed countries are still trying to establish an international tax system that fixes the problem. So it's no wonder that Angola falls victim to similar schemes.
53
The reality is that for all of their high-minded "mission" statements, these top-tier firms will work with anyone who has the money to pay them, and that can be more than $1,000 an hour for some resources. No matter the ethics of the clients or the principles they themselves espouse.
57
In the meantime, expats with $10K equivalent in a bank *in their country of residence* (so that it is the money they use) have to file FBAR forms, and are threatened with severe punishments if they don’t, to prevent money laundering, etc. It seems the little people who have nothing to hide end up with lots of overhead and paperwork but are compliant - because we have nothing to hide - while the crooked fat cats with the fancy accounting firms are the people that the government should actually be bothering.
74
The real crime in this "resource-rich, underdeveloped country” is that Angola’s "infant mortality rate is among the highest in the world. . . .” The term “infant mortality” means that those babies died before reaching their first birthday. If there was ever an innocent victim of the crimes outlined in this article, it’s these babies. All they did wrong was be born.
And we in the high-income world mostly just watch. Despite pledges to “end poverty and hunger everywhere” in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we routinely allow and often contribute to national corruption as detailed in this article. We are complicit in the theft of natural resources that should benefit all the people of Angola and too many other countries.
We should add such corruption to the list of crimes against humanity (they currently are not) and bring charges at The Hague.
The babies who die from robbing a country of its wealth deserve justice.
49
@David Potenziani
China just called in. They said, "If you dont want your Empire any more......we'll take it."
1
This article missed an important thread to this story: Isabel dos Santos had a LOT of business interests in Portugal. She owns major stakes in banks and other very profitable companies there. Some of the involvement of the major consulting and accounting companies were through Portuguese subsidiaries. This is now a major scandal in Portugal because at least one former minister occupies a high position in a company she controls. What did they know and when did they learn it?
50
@Watchman everyone knew pretty much everything from the start and every country accepts such investments. Saudi Arabia and other countries are no better. Honestly, no one here in Portugal is talking about Teixeira dos Santos, the former minister. The concern is about who is going to buy Isabel's stake in those companies. Hopefully not the usual American culture funds who just want to bleed them dry
6
Ms. dos Santos should be held to account and thoroughly investigated. At the same time, Vladimir Putin, and his fellow oligarchs who have plundered Russia and the former Soviet states, need to be more forcefully investigated and sanctioned by the international community. It's quite reasonable to expect that the pursuit of justice in these cases would also expose Donald Trump's assistance in criminal money laundering and benefit in the form of specious loans from that criminal organization intended to prop up his Potemkin business empire.
It seems to me that worldwide corruption is increasingly in plain sight. Hopefully, that will hasten justice.
30
@Alan R Brock -- While that is true, you can't go into that without also going into the same thing in Ukraine, and the Biden connection. It is all the same corruption.
2
@Alan R Brock Of course - but exactly who will be doing that investigating and hold to account? Anyone who even hints at doing so with Putin becomes irradiated or off'd. Elsewhere in the world, such investigation is met with an introduction to a gent with a bone saw. In the US, the very agency tasked with such investigation at home - the DOJ - is run by one of the crowd to be investigated (Bill Barr) who insists there is nothing to see here and no one can touch the POTUS anyway. The capitalist own the world and they have slowly gained ownership of the world's major nuclear powers (especially Russia and the US, and likely Israel and soon Saudi Arabia) - which insulates them further from any hint of insurrection. Good luck with that investigation.
1
@Alan R Brock Of course - but exactly who will be doing that investigating and holding to account? Anyone who even hints at doing so with Putin becomes irradiated or off'd. Elsewhere in the world, such investigation is met with an introduction to a gent with a bone saw. In the US, the very agency tasked with such investigation at home - the DOJ - is run by one of the crowd to be investigated (Bill Barr) who insists there is nothing to see here and no one can touch the POTUS anyway. The capitalists own the world and they have slowly gained ownership of the world's major nuclear powers (especially Russia and the US, and likely Israel and soon Saudi Arabia) - which insulates them further from any hint of insurrection. Good luck with that investigation.
This is not the first time that the PwC Portugal firm got caught in a scandalous relationship with criminal client. It used to audit the largest banking group in Portugal, Banco Espirito Santo (BES) until the PwC London sent in a forensic team and uncovered a web of shell companies in other territories where the the bank was hiding millions in bad credit. PwC London ordered PwC Lisbon to fire BES over Lisbon's senior partner's objections. PwC Lisbon then negotiated with BES to issue a press release that allowed BES to say it decided change auditors as a matter routine best practices. The Portuguese bank regulator was not notified that PwC fired BES, nor was the successor auditors, and the Senior Territory Partner retired and went to work for BES as a well paid adviser. Many of BES senior managers were former PwC managers. BES later went bankrupt, and thousands of investors lost millions. Someone should connect the dots here, and the story becomes even more interesting and slimy. This is less a global PwC corporate failure, and more a typical Portuguese business cultural practice that the PwC corporate HQ doesn't know how to contain.
29
There are scions of political families all over the world who loot their countries’ funds and resources. Isabel dos Santos gained much publicity for being Africa’s richest woman. Others keep a much lower profile and get away with their theft.
“The United States has long criticized corruption in other countries. We need to deal with what’s rotten at home, too.”
Yesterday, Trump’s defence lawyers argued that he had valid reasons for withholding military aid from Ukraine, saying his conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky reflected his “legitimate concerns about corruption” in Ukraine. It’s like pot calling the kettle black.
I would love to see the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists delve into the self-dealing among Trump’s family members and within their organisation. Where are his tax-returns? Don’t American voters have the right to know whether he owes Russian oligarchs billions of dollars? He hides his financial dealings, loans, business ties etc from the public, although he holds the country's highest office. By refusing to be transparent and seeking to get away from it, Trump is emulating tinpot dictators in many parts of the world.
9
With this new world of tariff wars, the corruption of poorer nations will only increase. Trump as already voiced objection as to why American companies cannot bribe legally. Soon the first world governments will be fully involved in the bribery game, using foreign aide to pry private industrial concessions from poorer nations. Trump's perfect world.
1
As long as the logic of maximizing profits remains the guiding ethic for enterprises (and, more and more often, for individuals), it will remain a dream that they will refrain from making the most they can. Boeing rushed its planes, oil and coal companies lobby the government, social media is selling our data, ... If we want people to stop acting in predatory ways, we can of course enact law so that they "behave properly". But maybe there's more to be won if we change a bit the values of our society towards more empathy and less self-centering. That may take a long time.
10
The Western corporations should be legally required to abide by the anti-fraud laws of their home countries even when work abroad and foreign nationals should be allowed to sue for violations in the home country of these corporations. That would bring some deterrence into the picture. But then would any developed country government care enough to do so?
8
Ms. dos Santos should stand trial for plundering the wealth of her country.
But so should the dozens of corporate advisors, lawyers and investment companies that were very well paid from that stolen money and who are accomplices to her crime.
A Reuters story estimates that there is approximately 32 trillion dollars hidden away in tax havens around the globe. How much of that was stolen is impossible to determine.
But all of it should be taxed by the nations that their owners of this wealth are citizens of. How quickly we forget the release of the Panama papers by Wikileaks.
While Wikileaks is vilified on a regular basis, we never hear about what the government has done to go after those tax cheats.
Ms. dos Santos story is an anomaly because of the shear size and ostentatious nature of her crime. But we must remember that every penny siphoned off by her and her fellow billionaires in the West as well as the developing world represents a child who starved, a school that was never built and hospital care that was never provided.
The US should introduce a treaty making it easier to track down and prosecute these international thieves.
But we know what the prospects for that are.
10
Sadly, her story is not an anomaly. There are many other stories of that level of corruption in many other countries, I’ve had the opportunity to live in a couple of them. It just hasn’t been posted in The NY Times.
1
I listened to a radio interview with Ms. Dos Santos recently, and it was striking just how firmly she believes she is a self-made woman, that she earned her riches by just being smarter than everyone else, and that family connections played no role whatsoever in her getting lucrative contracts from the Angolan government. It’s not unlike the delusions of many of our wealthy elite and why they view the poor with such hostility. I’m glad she’s being exposed. But now let’s also expose elites of all stripes for using their contacts to amass unearned wealth.
19
@Agarre
DJT is a self made man, what is the difference. That she is a woman and he is a white man? His father didn't give him any money, he did everyting himself.
She is as good a liar as Trump is. No difference except you have a bias against this corrupt woman. Don't know why, we have plenty of white corrupt women here in the states and in the Trump administration, Nikki Hadley, Sarah Sanders, Sarah Palin, Susan Collins
We are watching this same horrific story taking place in America for years and the last few days, we know hos in depth these economic horrors are.
She acted in accordance with relaxed social restraints. However, that is no excuse. The law is not king, or the pivot for all other actions, but is final arbiter, deciding what ultimately is right. If she had gotten away, there would have been right in her thinking and her acting. That she was caught indicates mistakes in thoughts. She is to do time if she has transgressed against the spirits, or the purposes, of promulgated laws.
Why should we stop profiting? It is either legal or illegal. If illegal, then do not engage. If legal, it is full-forward.
1
It was once legal to own people but absolutely immoral.
Clearly legality should be the final arbiter for our actions.
@Layo
I concur completely...legality should be the final arbiter of our actions.
1
So unrestrained greed is ok? ...no matter who it hurts? ...as long as there is no specific law against the damning act? This will lead to the downfall of our civilization.
This editorial is right: the American accounting firms, lawyers, and consultants that aid and abet corruption in poor countries should be investigated. This is certainly true for those that enable natural resource companies, companies which may plunder the resources of these countries.
One question: should such investigations also include Hunter Biden, a very well paid consultant and board member for Burisma, the giant Ukrainian natural gas company? I don't know whether Burisma is corrupt, and whether Hunter Biden's relationship with the company was ethical, but surely the questions are worth asking, and perhaps such an investigation was a reasonable thing to do, rather than an impeachable offense. The world is complicated.
5
Capital, like Nature, abhors a vacuum. And it will flow where there is a lack of ethics, no rule of law and little transparency. That is true whether it is in Africa or Asia or the United States(sitting sadly down around at number 21 on the Perceived Corruption Index of nations).
12
@JohnBarleycorn And such corruption is hollowing out the societies in which it occurs. Witness the poor condition of America's infrastructure: our highways, bridges, rails, etc. Also, see the article in the Times about the Big Scam that fleeced European nations. Greed, denial, outright bribery, and lack of strict regulation all play a part, and are directly related one to the other.
Angolans have suffered throughout their history at the hands of foreigners. They went thru colonialism, independence and civil wars. The Russians, Cubans and Americans supported the factions involved in the civil war. Since then the elites have exploited the natural resources and their own people to enrich themselves. Dos Santos and others have been abetted by foreign companies. To me these are crimes against humanity and need to be treated as such.
About 60 years ago while waiting for a US immigration visa my father went in search of a better job in Angola. My mother, sister and I stayed behind in Portugal. Once our family was here my father shared his experiences with us. My father always spoke about the Angolan people with affection.
From my father’s stories I learned that my lighter skin tone doesn’t make me better than those with a darker one. I learned that those of us who are poor have more in common than differences.
My father told us that the Angolans were good people and that Angola was beautiful. It is time that the good people of Angola benefit from the natural wealth of their country.
We need to make sure that the greedy elites in countries like Angola and our greedy companies don’t conspire to steal from the poor around the world.
And let’s not forget that Manafort, Giuliani, H Biden, the stable genius, Rick Perry and other foreigners have stolen or tried to steal from the Ukrainian people. Why are we allowing this?
12
Why?
Because in many instances over the last 200 years we have managed to successfully do it within our own borders.
4
"PwC’s global chairman, Bob Moritz, told The Guardian newspaper that he was “shocked and disappointed” by disclosures of what his firm did for Ms. dos Santos, and that the company would investigate and take action. Boston Consulting insisted that it had taken steps when hired “to ensure compliance with established policies and avoid corruption and other risks.” McKinsey said it wasn’t doing any work now with Ms. dos Santos or her companies."
The "shock and disappointment" was more likely from being caught, not good publicity, even if not (yet) illegal.
"The United States requires American banks and other financial firms to report suspicious activity, such as potential money laundering. But the United States does not impose that requirement on law, accounting or consulting firms"
"The United States has long criticized corruption in other countries. We need to deal with what’s rotten at home, too."
Rotten is not necessarily corrupt. Corrupt is not necessarily illegal. Legal and moral and ethical are not necessarily inclusive.
Be all that as it may, "reporting" suspicious activity is quite a subjective term. It is much easier to police banks. They after all, need lawyers and accountants to hide their questionable practices. The latter are better at hiding and subterfuge.
9
There are no level playing fields. Companies are out to satisfy their owners and/or shareholders. That is the way of business.
If that is a problem to anyone, then elect a socialist for our next president. That way, only the government can take advantage of us.
"Can Western Firms Stop Profiting from Poor Nation' Corruption?"
Why would they? Why should they? Businesses exist for one reason: to make money.
There's nothing in that which requires ethical behavior. It's why we have to have laws regulating what businesses can and can't do - because they won't do it themselves. It's why businesses spend so much money on lobbyists to make sure the law doesn't come between them and profits.
There is no inherent morality in capitalism - only what makes a profit and what doesn't.
5
@Larry Roth Very true.
But by the same token if we want a better world we can vote with our dollar, rewarding the good and punishing the evil. If a corporation is reviewing its suppliers or auditors the companies' behavior should be part of that equation.
I will never buy another Volkswagen for example.
2
Reading this on the heels of the Duchy of Cornwall article makes me wonder what’s the difference really? Both fortunes were formed by stealing money and property from the people and gifting it to the leader’s heirs. Angola’s is simply less polished and sophisticated than England’s. The difference between old money and new money- 700 versus 20 years of theft.
4
Exactly!
When I was visiting the Tower of London years ago, along with a huge number of tourists, seeing the Crown Jewels along with sites of a huge number of beheadings, torture and political imprisonments I couldn’t help thinking that it was a tourist celebration of a manner of government and power acquisition that we’d consider debasing and criminal in any contemporary country.
An interesting “message” to send visitors and the world.
3
Yes, there is gambling at Rick's place and elsewhere. There are myriad ways in which western capitalist money men and oligarchic regimes use their creatively devious, convoluted, opaque, border line criminal methods to exploit the poor, wherever they can be found, or tracked down. Do we recall the relatively recent US "housing bubble", made possible by an absence of effective regulatory oversight of 'ponzi-like' financial instruments? That was followed by a tax payer bail out of recidivist pyramid schemers. Does anyone still believe that DAVOS is not just an annual gaudy retreat for the same preening pretenders, instead of it's well-clothed misrepresentation as a force for good? Do the duplicitous arm chair pundits insincerely cogitate about populist and/or progressive discontent, wholly driven by their dependence on the same DAVOS claque that cuts their checks?
1
As with many other global problems, it all starts with the education. As long as the business schools of elite universities emphasize greed as a value and ethics as a liability, the top economists in these consulting firms will apply the skill sets that they learned. Cultural change needs to come from educating people what are the benefits of ethical behavior and morals.
8
As an economist with 20 years of depressing work experience in Africa behind me I can’t believe it’s taken this long for you all to address the issue that pretty much dates to the early 60s, (And well before in certain places)
20
Seriously, when the heads of elite financial services firms pull their best Captain Renault imitation, you know they're lying. We know their type of crime. "White collar." It's the crime where no individual, certainly not at the executive level, can be held accountable for illegal, let alone unethical conduct.
There's two issues here.
First, the rampant corruption that is endemic in third world states is simply a reality. Short of imposing colonialism on third world people again, other nations can either condone or forbid participating in such money laundering schemes. The BCG et als of western financial services want a piece of the action. They would argue that if they don't, then the Russians or the Chinese will. They're right.
Too bad for the consultants. Let them lose the business. Their arguments are evocative of the financial titans crying that limiting incomes of finance executives following the Housing Derivatives Fraud crisis would cause them to lose talent to companies not so similarly constrained.
Which brings us to the second issue.
The second issue is that white collar crime committed by executives or politicians is rarely punished. Doesn't matter if its the Biden family feeding at the legal troughs of nepotism and favor buying or the Trumps tripling their room rates for campaign purposes. Conflict of interest is the air they breath in our nation's leadership offices.
I'd argue the second issue is far more consequential than the first.
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@TDurk It’s not only rampant in third world block nations only sir,it’s well practiced in most nations everywhere on this planet earth’s countries,including ours since decades under legalized norms. Allowing structured safe heavens states/spots within USA and around the globe for shell organizations for money laundering,tax dogging And hiding assets are few known legalized rights for white collar crimes.
Interesting to read this after reading the article on the Parnas recording. The mass scale of our global economy creates huge pools of money for the corrupt to pillage, while also allowing individuals and firms to act largely free of legal oversight and regulation. The core problem is that the individuals and firms operate on a global scale, through complex and obscure international networks that are not located within any single jurisdiction, but the regulators and laws are operating at a national scale.
It will be interesting to see if humanity can ever adapt its social, economic, and political structures to allow globalism not to devolve into corrupt exploitation of ordinary people by a well-connected network of international predators. But of course, our environmental crisis—also the result of globalism and mass scale—will likely destroy us first, making it all not matter anyway.
Michelle Goldberg's opinion piece is maybe most relevant. There is only darkness where our future should be.
7
”maze of shell companies, overseas tax havens.. funneled millions to and fro before the money” ends up in the packets of a crony capitalism, not necessarily confined to third world countries, but visibly and extensively present in the advanced industrial world too.
No way real-world socialism will provide a alternate solution. Failure of Socialism is a necessary outcome of socialist institutions. Crony capitalism, on the other hand, is an avoidable perversion of capitalist principles.
Crony capitalism isn’t an accident, but something more like the natural tendency of capitalist systems
https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2019/04/is-crony-capitalism-inevitable/ provides a sensible answer. “Character matters. Part of the reason why no real-world instantiation of a system is stable is that the rules that constitute that system must always be interpreted and applied by human beings. If the people who administer the institutions are corrupt, then so too will be the institutions. But we don’t even have to assume corruption to make this argument work. ... a difficult task, requiring a long process of education and social change. But it’s not, I think, a Utopian one. And it’s much more feasible than the kind of radical transformation of human nature that Marx envisioned as being necessary for the realization of full communism”.
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In the past 6 years, the World Bank has made more than US$1 billion in budget support loans to Angola, the most recent of which (US$0.5 billion in 7/19) " ... supports reforms in the telecommunications sector which are expected to enhance competition and market structure, and as such improve the availability, quality and cost of telecommunications services." The WB should have known of this alleged corruption in general and specifically in telecoms (where the company controlled by dos Santos was known popularly in Angola as "Isatel"). What did the WB do about that corruption ?
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@JM
Nothing. The WB knew. Every single one of these companies also knew What they were participating in. They don’t care. They’ll demand payment in full from future generations of Angolans, further entrenching an extractive capitalist system on the world’s poor. All in a day’s work in our modern economy...
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I can assure you that the World Bank did know about it and just doesn’t care.
McKinsey has now appeared in a succession of investigative articles in the NYT about corruption and enabling of treasury looting by foreign oligarchs and despots.
Right now, I would be more shocked by any reporting that cast their dealings in a favorable light. Let’s hope talented millennials shun this disreputable organization, in search of more fulfilling and ethically defensible work.
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I read this because I was curious. I thought that was the goal of capitalism and Western Firms, to make a profit, regardless of any Laws. Lawyers, "those skilled in circumventing the law." PwC just did the job it was hired to do, make a profit by rigging the books. American Capitalism doing what it is supposed to do, benefit the rich at all costs, legal or not.
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@gratis --American, last stage, vulture capitalism. At this point they are in a feeding frenzy, terrorized by what's coming.
Clearly, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, etc. should all be subject to the same regulations that banks are. Congress?
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@JJ : Oh, that would be bad. Why would you want that? American banks have no serious regulations. The GOP sees to that.
13
I have seen estimates that as much as a fifth of Africa's wealth is hidden in offshore accounts. The US is a frequent player in these scams, through our accounting firms and our lax treatment of shell companies. The real question is if states such as Delaware and Wyoming are willing to forgo the profits these shell company activities generate, and finally end their support of corrupt business practices. Given our current president, and GOP acceptance of his corruption, I think we are far more likely to become more like Angola than we are to crack down on this behavior.
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@EB
Delaware? I think Joe Biden has that covered.
1
We are an empire where misery pools to wealth and a burning world fuels our glory. We are the country the rest of the world fears with good reason. Our economy is based on weapons sales and endless war. Our state departments greatest goal is control of the worlds raw materials and our targeted enemies are those who have the audacity to resist our control of their resources. Our drones, bases, ships and nuclear arsenal hold the world ransom. We have met the earth destroying terrorists and they are us.
We can change this but doing so is a threat to the ruling class which continues to benefit. Any who threaten to alter this set-up are called "too radical," a "threat to the Republic and are ether ignored or vilified by connected corporate media. Notice which leading candidate is ignored in today's "Times Question."
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This is it in a nutshell.
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Looting of resource rich countries is a huge issue. There is a long list of countries whose people are crushed by this.
However, there is another issue, also related to the ethics of American involvement in management.
Consider the example of Portugal under Salazar, 1928-1968. He was monk-like in his devotion to honest government and avoiding waste. Yet Portugal began with 36% of the per capita economy typical of Europe, and ended 40 years later with almost no progress, just 38% of the European standard.
This is economic failure, not looting. It is sticking to a plan that doesn't work, and going four decades with it not working.
Yet it did work, for the 40 or so families that owned everything. They owned it all in 1928, and they still owned it all 40 years later. It worked for them.
Management for the profit of oligarchs -- where do we see that? All over the former Soviet areas of interest.
And what is the American role in that? It is a big role. US "experts" leapt in under Gorbachev and Yeltsin in Russia, and everywhere around them. The American experts are still there. The economies are not growing, but like in Portugal the same few own everything decade after decade.
Which experts?
Well the biggest industry in Ukraine was its natural gas, dominated by one giant company, and on the Board of that giant was Hunter Biden. So they had their American. What he brought was not expertise to change things and modernize that economy, was it?
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@Mark Thomason didn't it work? Keeping per capita income low was an objective of him, it worked out beautifully. Another aspect youre not mentioning is that during those 40 years the country went from bankruptcy to huge yearly surpluses and one of the biggest gold reserves in the world
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@Mark Thomason
Burisma was not the giant gas company in Ukraine but a start-up trying to get into the business. Yulia Tymoshenko and other former bureaucrats who ran the various major industries in Ukraine suddenly owned them after the USSR fell apart. It is amazing how much misinformation is being bandied about to besmirch Joe Biden while the activities of the Guilianis, the Flynns and the Trumps of the world are ignored.
As to Salazar's behavior in Portugal, my Portuguese uncle would beg to differ as would a guide we met while traveling there in the 80s who had spent years in prison because he had been an interpreter for the US military and wasn't trusted. And Portugal once had a thriving equestrian community with champion horses but the poverty became so bad under Salazar that almost all of them were eaten. Fortunately for my uncle he was fluent in seven languages and so went to work for NATO in Brussels after his property in Portugal was stolen (my cousins eventually got it back).
@Mark Thomason
Burisma was not the giant gas company in Ukraine but a start-up trying to get into the business. Yulia Tymoshenko and other former bureaucrats who ran the various major industries in Ukraine suddenly owned them after the USSR fell apart. It is amazing how much misinformation is being bandied about to besmirch Joe Biden while the activities of the Guilianis, the Flynns and the Trumps of the world are ignored.
I believe consulting firms need to take a pledge when providing services to political leaders particularly in countries subject to the resource curse. I would call it a tithe.
The pledge is simple. Sequester 10% of the monies they touch until and unless there are measurable improvements for the citizens at risk of being looted. Whether it is life expectancy, median wages, access to clean water, infrastructure improvements, climate remediation or anything else is almost immaterial.
Absent such improvements within 2 to 5 years, the consultants will actually manage disbursement of these resources to help the countries inhabitants. They can do it directly or through U.N. organizations or NGO's of international repute.
A country drained of its resources can never improve if pillaging is the modus vivendi of its leaders.
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There is no doubt that the plethora of oligarchs around the world including most Middle East leadership are fabricated from corruption, cronyism or state endorse power and wealth. Entire countries like Saudi's, Emirates', etc power and wealth exist because Western countries structured them as such. The existence of the Royal Family in the UK, as well as the rest of the European aristocracy, represent similar corruptions. Countries like India with a nominal Democracy has provincial family control with dynastic qualities. The long standing norm for the US has been to follow the tax & trade treaties, comply with local laws and international law and comply with specific US imposed obligations (e.g. don't trade with Cuba). US companies, government, etc should be held to the letter of these obligations and the US government needs to play a more direct forceful role in the creation and maintenance of the scaffolding of these institutions if it wants to alter international behavior. While I agree with the "know your customer" obligation being placed on a broader range of companies than financial institutions, it is very unlikely that our RealPolitik needs for trade will allow us to impose our values on other countries around the world
7
Mayor Pete Buttigieg worked for McKinsey & Company for three years while it helped loot Angola, as outlined in this article.
We deserved better answers about his time at McKinsey.
It isn't just whether he personally help move the money around those 400 shell companies and subsidiaries. That would be awful, completely disqualifying from any political office here, much less as President.
It is also what else McKinsey was willing to do, while they were so actively and willingly doing this. Was Mayor Pete doing any of that? Not just Angola, but any illegal money manipulation anywhere for anyone. We now see McKinsey did it, and on a huge scale. So, what EXACTLY did Mayor Pete do there for his three years?
Also, what did he know, and when did he know it?
Did he ever know, and keep quiet?
How could he not know about this basic failure of business ethics, looting billions? And other things like it?
25
Entry level workers at management consultancies as at large law firms are rarely if ever given any insight to the overall emphasis of the company. Rather they spend an extraordinary amount of time working on compiling and processing a specific set of data and numbers which are meaningless to all but the person on top who receives their work.
15
What the partners know and what the managers know in a firm like McKinsey are not the same. I was a manager at Arthur Andersen just before the Enron scandal and Worldcom scandals came out. I had no idea what was going on as these companies were not my clients. Prior to AA I worked at MCI for ten years. I never worked for Worldcom - I left before that merger - by working for AA was I responsible?
11
@Mark Thomason
Oh please. He was an entry level employee. Was every employee of Enron or Washington Mutual responsible for their collapse? Let's spend as much energy questioning Jared's big loan from Qatar or UAE or Saudi Arabia, which ever one it was who bailed him out on 666 Fifth. He's an "advisor" to the President and doesn't even have real security clearance!
4
Welcome to the world of neo-liberalism. It works for those who have the keys to the gate, the gatekeepers. It destroys the lives of those who are used to provide commodities, and end up becoming human commodities.
An interconnected web of human interaction and accountability is essential.
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@Paul C. McGlasson -- Neo-liberalism?
But we need to avoid misleading ourselves. The tag "-liberal" of any kind tends to imply just Democrats, which is horribly wrong in this case.
There are whole swaths of American politicians who wallow in such things, both here and abroad.
However, it has not been all politicians in both parties. It has been an identifiable approach by specific groups of politicians, in both parties.
Just as important, there has also been identifiable swaths of politicians who DO NOT approach things this way, either here or abroad. Credit where due. Look carefully at what they really do.
Look at what happened in Iraq, after the US invaded and Paul Bremer remade its economy according to the ideology of his group among the Republican Party -- the Ayn Rand/Paul Ryan group. Look at what happened to others of Bremer's group, like Wolfowitz going on to head the World Bank, to spread that method around the world by conditioning vital loans on drinking that Kool Aid.
Those same Republicans did it to us, too. That is how our banking system was allowed to create fake assets and fake re-insurance of those until the 2008 international collapse, all by careful removal of past regulations that prevented it.
But there were quite a few Democrats too, the Wall Street/Silicon Valley crowd. Those politicians are seen vacuuming up cash from those groups, a long pattern of chasing their money. It is not just "donor money" but a very specific sort of buying politicians.
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@Paul C. McGlasson
Neoliberalism is actually defined as laissez-faire economic systems or free market unregulated capitalism. It has nothing to do with the "liberalism" which many consider to be concern and care for others, not just selfishness and buyer-beware approaches to business.
@Mark Thomason Who are in this “identifiable swath” of the non corrupt other than Jimmy Carter?
"The United States has long criticized corruption in other countries. We need to deal with what’s rotten at home, too."
In what sense are the American enablers of foreign corruption less corrupt than their clients? Is it because they have other reputable business dealings that lend a patina of respectability to their overseas endeavors? Is it because the hallowed rules of imperialism permit a lower ethical standard to be applied to overseas dealings with underdeveloped countries? Is it because the prestigious American firms are staffed with impeccable graduates of Ivy League schools? Is there a lower ethical standard that applies to foreigners of color?
The article implies in its genteel fashion that "what's rotten at home" has been called into existence by what's rotten abroad. There is a sense that otherwise reputable American firms have been dragged haltingly into the quagmire of corruption as an inevitable response to the profitable opportunities on offer. But maybe, if we look deeper, there is a case to be made that "what's rotten at home" is as much as cause of the corruption as its effect.
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@woofer -- "In what sense are the American enablers of foreign corruption less corrupt than their clients?"
Yes, and if they do it over there, do you really think they wouldn't do it here too?
Do you really think our current de-regulated system is proof against such abuses?
It is right here at home, all around us.
2
Really tough for the US to wave the flag on this when it so obviously has its own entrenched bipartisan (Ford, Reagan and Bush I pioneered it) system of rewarding politicians (mostly after their time in office) and their family members (a lot of the times while they are still in power). Oh for the "obsolete" integrity of a man like Harry Truman who retired from the White House broke. No water skiing behind billionaire's boats, charitable foundations structured to cover for multimillionaire life styles or hundreds upon hundreds of speeches no one really listens to at US$200,000 a pop. No children being made directors - watch the associated stock options the pay is big but its the return on those options where the real money is - grifting political kids know this well -on the boards of companies run by the wealthiest seeking influence.
Truman's obsolete integrity's only concession from not trading on the prestige of his former office and potential influence trading for commercial gain was a modest return for serializing his memoirs in Life Magazine. This almost seems quaint now. Worse some people would find it laughable and Truman a "sucker".
The Presidents Act of 1958 remedied the situation by providing a generous pension and benefits system for former presidents that now runs into the millions. No former president has any excuse any more to tarnish the office with unseemly pursuit of excess wealth.
Sad thing is in today's culture nobody even sees it as wrong anymore.
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@Belasco
The Carlyle Group takes good care of ex-Presidents. Seems like they all end up on its Board.
7
@Belasco
It's the same in the defense (war) industry, "Leave no Colonel behind." Those above O-6 get on the boards or are put in charge of "divisions" that directly market the Pentagon.
Crony capitalism at it's finest, but while in uniform, integrity was their cover. It's the Stockholm Syndrome for generals.
3
I think it’s incredibly wrong, and was sorely disappointed to see the Obamas immediately cash in with paid speeches (400K a pop for Barack, 200K a pop for Michelle), on top of their $60 million book deal. It’s unseemly. We the people shouldn’t have to pay their pension, their staff costs, office costs, etc. Same with the Bushes and the Clintons. If you cash in, you forfeit your pension and perks. Congress?
3
And how was Burisma able to afford to pay Hunter Biden a million a year for several years for doing nothing except to provide Burisma with a shield against an investigation of its corrupt practices?
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@Robert Richards
Answer: they didn't. He got a maximum of $50,000 a month, i.e., less than $600,000 a year, not a million. (I agree that less than $600,000/year is ridiculous, but that's how our corporate masters operate.)
2
@Robert Richards
It was started by an oligarch and they tend to be billionaires. As to the million dollars a year where did you find that as fact and not just a FOX news claim?
Get back to me when you find Hunter Biden’s top security clearance his daddy (in-law) gave him over the objections of the intel community. When we get tapes, even...transcripts of all those Kushner-Saudi meetings....give me a break.
3
Read 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' by John Perkins.
The west has maintained its hold on former colonies via a system that gives the leaders of these nations a simple choice - get rich and play along with us - or die.
The leaders that try to make sure that the people of their nation benefit from that nation's riches are overthrown by coups or die untimely deaths.
Angola suffered 40 years of war - as much over raw materials as ideology. It is bad enough that corruption at the top has stolen from its people but worse that so many firms helped them do so. But it is not unusual. Look at all the help afforded drug traffickers by financial institutions. What ever happened to the Panama Papers?
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@cynicalskeptic
Thanks. John Perkins. should be required reading in economics and social studies.
13
@cynicalskeptic
Why did we invade Panama 1989? Just 'Cause.
4
Maybe some regime change will take care of the problem. Or we can force our business ethics on them. We could also influence their electoral processes, such as they are. Or we can just not meddle in their internal affairs.
Pick one.
4
@Jp
Forty plus years of war with the US, South Africa, China, the Soviet Union and Cuba involved supporting various factions - UNITA, FNLA and MPLA - was 'meddling enough'.
It would be nice if Angolans actually got to benefit from their nation's wealth but that would make them an exception.
I think Singapore was the only nation to gain independence and avoid corruption. But then they had no raw materials that interested outsiders - and had a government dedicated to preventing corruption (at the price of being a bit authoritarian)
21
@Jp
Nice bit of sarcasm, might go mostly unnoticed until morning in the US, but nice nonetheless. ;-)
@cynicalskeptic : Cuba and the Soviet Union's meddling was needed at the time. The West was content to let those countries live under the boot of White supremacy. And after White Supremacy was put on the run Cuban and the Soviet Union did not steal the wealth of those nations, that was done by the West.
"We need to deal with what’s rotten at home, too."
.
Amen. Having lived and worked in Asia for the last 25 years, I've had somewhat of an "outsider's" view of how we have - rather than influenced Asian industry and government to clean up their acts - become more like them in the realm of dirty business practices. And it isn't just limited to Asia.
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This has reduced our moral standing to fight corruption by being the "good guys". And the US *were* the good guys not so long ago, at least in how we did business back then.
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Now through a confluence of our business people joining in the cheating and our government making itself less respected - loathed in many places - we are ignored when we try to lead the way on many issues. Needless to say, Trump has been the icing on this cake.
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Only cleaning up at home can help us lead abroad. And there's a lot of *bipartisan* cleaning up that needs to be done. It really is the "swamp" that Trump calls it. He's just made it worse.
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@West Coaster
And Trump has recently called for getting rid of the
"Foreign Corrupt Practices Act" because he thinks it is unfair that American businessmen can't pay bribes! Of course he and his have accepted the equivalent of bribes from foreign entities, especially those who pay big bucks to stay in his hotels!
3
I'd like them to stop with corruption of rich western nations. It's harder to see in the US, but the dollar values are much higher.
20
What are the odds of the GOP-majority Senate passing any increased regulation of anything, let alone accounting firms? Of course, there are also plenty of Dems who dance to the same tune...
In short, don't hold your breath waiting for the US to do what the EU has done, on this as on so many other issues.
51
The POTUS is on record saying he believes US businesses should not be hampered by anti-corruption policies in their overseas adventures.
6
"... it’s clear that the current rules — or rather, the lack of rules — allow those companies far too much leeway to make money at the expense of the countries where they operate."
The very openness of the US is what permitted the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to glean, sort through, and present all of the information for this particular report. The reason there is no such editorial about China's practices is because there is no openness in that country. You may be certain that if US firms assisted some dictator's daughter to accumulate a paltry $2 billion, Chinese firms have done so on a much grander scale.
4
@NorthernVirginia
There have indeed been Times editorials and articles about China's practices, both corruption and oppression. You missed them; I'm sorry.
@NorthernVirginia
So your point is ‘we must be as corrupt as China if we are to remain competitive’? That rationale has become as popular in the 21st Century as the Domino Theory – increase our military budget annually to contain Communism - was in the 20th. As I’m sure you’ve heard, two wrongs do not make a right.
What did your parents used to say when you whined “gee, Bobby’s parents let him do it”?
2
@NorthernVirginia most of the work was done in Portugal, so I have no idea what you're talking about
1
Why is this case not the Angola Papers or the Dos Santos papers? The International Consortium of Journalists couldn't wait to smear Panamá when millions of documents were leaked from ONE Panamá law firm. That was totally unfair and caused the loss of many thousands of jobs in law firms, banks and other financial firms in Panamá. They were doing legitimate tasks for many people from various countries around the world, such as incorporating businesses to carry on in retirement, making wills becuase they were part-time residents of Panamá, etc. Many of those individuals were scared off by the reports of the Panamá Papers. Again, the documents were produced from ONE law firm, Mossack Fonseca, which is now defunct. The ICJ's smear campaign of Panamá didn't destroy the strongest economy in Latin America, but it hurt many individuals for no justifiable reason. I have lived in Panamá since I retired in 2012 after a career as a corporate restructing partner at three of the largest law firms in NY. Many of the individual victims were friends of mine.
4
@James Ricciardi Interesting defense of an industry built to evade tax authorities and banking regulations. We see it daily here in Miami, where a significant percentage of our local economy depends on money stolen from central and south America. The Mossacks of the world were built to sustain this structural theft from largely impoverished nations and launder these funds through legitimate financial institutions. US based lawyers and accountants further enable legitimization of these illicit funds. The shiny Miami economy would likely collapse if these illicit funds were somehow siphoned from our economy. I, for one, celebrate the ICJ in exposing the vast underbelly of fraud that is a contagion throughout the world.
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@Mannyar You completely misunderstood my point. I am not defending the Mossacks of the world. I am pointing out that if Mossack were in NY or DC the exposé would have been called the Mossack Memos and not the NY Notes ot the American Archives. It is an example of the prejudice and stereotyping all too often directed at Latin America and Panamá in particular.
Panamá was just ranked (by US News and World Report) 3rd best country in the world for doing business in 2020, behind only Luxembourg and Switzerland and ahead of Singapore. Nearly 100 multinationals like Merck, Nestlé, Estée Lauder, Diageo, Sanofi, J&J etc. have their Latin American headquarters in Panamá. I do not believe they are here to "exploit" Panamamanian corruption. Copa, the international airline based in Panamá, was the most punctual international airline in the world for 2018.
Mossack was one of thousands of law firms operating in Panamá. I know a smear job when I see one. I was one of the lawyers leading the team representing the creditors' committee in the Enron bankruptcy.
I think you protest far too much. A Chinese proverb sums it up for me “He who has never cheated cannot be a good businessman.” There are a lot of good businessmen in Panama.
1
This is capitalism, as understood by the business elite.
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@Cassandra How can such a reduced view satisfy so many people? The editorial is not dripping red meat for liberals to pounce on. It is about a real world dilemma as old as civilization itself!
It is about how all humans tend to ignore the external effects of their actions. It is how we have great difficulty identifying and pursing our true ideals and values.
People with choose, in a democracy this mean vote for, things that enrich their lives. If you enjoy your car and computer then you cannot criticize "capitalism" or "elites" without supremely being a hypocrite.
The answer is to speak only of and reward real and fair morality tempered by understanding and forgiveness.
@Cassandra "Savvy businessmen" indeed!