Posted on 02/21/2013 10:21:29 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Corruption cost Russia an estimated $211.5 billion between 1994 and 2011, according to a report released by Global Financial Integrity, a U.S.-based research and advocacy organization. Even more staggering is the $552.9 billion that flowed illegally into the Russian economy in the same 18-year span. The report goes on to estimate the size of the country’s underground economy at nearly 46% of GDP annually over the same period. According to World Bank experts, this statistic makes Russia’s underground economy 3.5 times larger than corresponding G-7 economies like the U.S., France, and Canada. For every 1% increase in the size of the underground economy, the report estimates that the cross-border flow of illicit money increased by 7%. “Russia has a severe problem with illegal flows of money,” noted GFI’s Director, Raymond Baker. “Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost that could have been used to invest in Russian healthcare, education, and infrastructure. At the same time, more than a half trillion dollars has illegally flowed into the Russian underground economy, fueling crime and corruption.”
Yep. This is what happens when you have no private property and the government screws you at every turn. Lib’s BEWARE.
Marx summed up his own manifesto, "No private property!!"
Someone, like Rush, should very plainly tell their audience that this basic principle is why socialists will never cut government. It only gets bigger until it owns everything.
yitbos
And we’re going to lecture them on corruption?
I don’t think we have much room to talk.
And it was what....better?
Before Vlad took on the oligarchs?
If I were a Russian, I would love Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He has done more to bring Russia out of the post Soviet years and the ineffectual Yeltsin years. IMHO, Putin wants to stay in power not so much to empower himself and his cronies but for the betterment of the Motherland, Russian.
“Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost that could have been used to invest in Russian healthcare, education, and infrastructure.”
Tell me about it. Here’s some excerpts from an article from May, 2011 on illegal aliens sending $69.2 Billion back to their families in Latin America:
Since June 2009, immigrants (including illegal aliens) have gained 656,000 jobs, while U.S. born workers lost 1.2 million jobs during that same period....
Remittances, such as Western Union Moneygrams from the United States represent the second largest source of income for Mexico. In 2009, Mexican workers, mostly illegal aliens, sent home $21.2 billion in such transfers....
Furthermore, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, all of Latin America received $69.2 billion in remittances from the U.S. in 2009 alone.
>>>Tell me about it. Here’s some excerpts from an article from May, 2011 on illegal aliens sending $69.2 Billion back to their families in Latin America<<<
Russia has the same problem hosting second largest alien population, after US.
Countries like Georgia, Armenia, Vietnam or Kyrghizstan makes a significant share of their wealth out of money sent back by their illegals in Russia.
Germany is a third most affected nation in the world.
All the other nations’ combined losses from illegal immigration are less than for these three.
When you destroy religion-—you destroy the ethics system. Christian Ethics was the most free and Just system for all—compared to all other ethical systems which are usually very exclusive and doesn’t give dignity and worth to all human beings. When you don’t have one system of Right and Wrong (a unity) you get chaos and no economic flourishing.
There can no Trust without Virtue-—which is what Russia beat out of generations of people with their immoral government and forcing women in the workplace away from forming moral children. Marxism is dehumanizing—reduces all human beings to infancy-—slaves. There is no maturity.
Where there is no Virtue, their is no Freedom—where there is no Freedom (that has to include private property) there can be no Virtue—freedom to worship and parents to raise and mold their own children. Culture and Morality can only be transferred by a loving mother and a loving father. Only selflessness (Loving parents) can successfully raise Virtuous children. They need the modeling of both biological parents and extended family.
Destroy the family—and you destroy the transmission of culture—and Virtue. Children are vulnerable without the protection of biological parents and institutionalization of young children, dehumanizes them-—makes them anti-social and pathological.
As Socrates and the Founders always knew-—character (Virtue) is instilled in young children. We have public schools which are destroying intentionally Virtue in children by destroying their innocence (and normal sexual development) with Sex Education which was designed by perverted, sick, evil Cultural Marxists to destroy the concept of man and woman and Natural Law-—so that the State can create their “artificial” reality and call it “good”. Read Brave New World to see how they make the word “mother” make children vomit. All conditioning-—Pavlov was Lenin’s mentor for educational systems-—”group think” conditioning-—to emit “feelings”. As Aristotle stated in his Nicomachean Ethics——you need children to LEARN the correct “feeling” for the act. If they feel happy while doing evil-—you will have a little sociopath on your hands. Children need to feel “bad” when they do evil. If they don’t learn to “feel” appropriately (habituated) when young and have clear idea of Right and Wrong-—they will not grow up to have character.
People of no character can not build a Virtuous society which is the only type which can be Free and Flourish-—at best, immoral people will form a third world country built on bribes and no trust. They neglect any children they have who turn out rotten with no morals since they copy their own parents.
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