We regularly get high scores on an international Corruption Perceptions Index. Given the Mossack Fonseca fiasco it should then be clear that this has more to do with our perceptions than our corruption. Basically I think we might be friendly to the point of naivety sometimes. Also the main opposition party has been up to fuck all for the last few election cycles, record low voter turn out, etc.
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There are certain types drawn to government, no matter where you are
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Isnât the âCorruption Perceptions Indexâ (aside from explicitly measuring perceptions) mostly concerned with the extent and visibility of corruption in day-to-day operations: 'have you ever been shaken down for a bribe by the cops? Can you get a building permit/passport/etc. without passing a little baksheesh to the appropriate clerk? Are government jobs and contracts effectively for sale?" that sort of thing?
In principle(and quite possibly in New Zealand), you could run a country that is squeaky clean in that sort of domestic governance stuff; but also has an industrial scale money laundering apparatus run for the benefit of offshore customers, one which enables atrocious amounts of corruption, crime, and outright pillage; but is just a featureless office park that offers some legal and accounting jobs and no retail services so far as the neighbors are concerned.
A number of notoriously opaque banking destinations actually seem to be of that flavor: the services that they provide enable massive amounts of corruption globally; but arenât really sold to residents; and the income you get from taking a very tiny slice of all that slush money for nothing more than the service of being discreet and having a low tax rate allows you to do things like pay civil servants and cops adequately enough that they donât live primarily on bribes.
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Lets be a little more accurate. Those money laundering countries are neck deep in human blood, facilitating mass corruption of democracies by enabling offshore bribes, laundering money for drug cartels, laundering money for arms suppliers, enabling pillaging of other countries treasuries and promoting tax evasion whilst austerity is running wild result in massive cuts in social services.
They are the facilitators of global crime, where millions suffer and die as a result, the represent the core evil of our world and are the enemies of all except the corrupt, who they support in mass global criminal actions. Real penalties should be applied to tax havens not only prevent future crimes but also to pay for past criminal activity, real harsh penalties, let them feel what they facilitated and promoted.
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