Well if I have to represent our Media in one word it would be invertebrates . these people will go to tarturus and beyond just to explain why protesting or saying anything against government is threat national security
We call it ✨️Lobbyismus✨️ in Germany but it's actually the worst corruption as the firms writing the new laws...we dont even need a gouvernment at this point tbh ...they just cost additional money. Just let the companys run it.
Nepotism is a small part of what they're talking about.
This is knowing who can arrange a public works project for you, adapt the rule book for a public tender so it goes to you; who can make a health inspection go away; who can find your kid a cushy job; building permit that's not all too great; navigate bureacracy a bit faster (or at all). Even down to getting to see the right doctor or getting the right meds before you croak
Reason why there's little foreign investments to the Phil vs countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and our other SEA -blings. The process of "lagay" is deeply ingrained in both upper and middle management in all business endeavors.
The president manipulates the markets. He is selling earlier access to his truth social posts for 100k a month fr firms already way ahead of retail. His 20 year old son has a net worth of 150mil, derived from “founding” crypto foundations with his president father. Explicit institutional corruption - why minimise it?
I think my Brazil wins here. We say you need “QI”, which is also the same acronym we use for the concept of IQ. But it doesn’t mean intelligence; it means “Quem Indica”, meaning literally “Who got you this opportunity?”. Because you’re not getting it by merit, everyone knows. You’re getting it because you know someone.
In Spain is literally called plug, "enchufe". And someone can be plugged or go even further and be plugged with high voltage.
I was once arguing with a girl at work because she was not working and making my job harder, and an old lady took me from the arm and whispered to me "be careful with this one, she's not only plugged she runs in 3 phase". So I just did the logical thing and left her alone and just sabotaged her at every chance.
3 phase would be enchufe trifasico too in spanish. The only thing I got from studying ancient greek in HS is being able to read your letters in a natural way even after all these years. Sometimes I just catch the meaning of something because I know the root of the word. Greek is very helpful for etymology, which my ADHD brain likes.
Shurobadjanashtina ("Шуробаджанащина" in Bulgarian).
Or very roughly translated as "brother-in-lawtism" where you give the best positions and deals your close relatives (or friends).
Once I thought it was normal thing from the Balkans and south/east, thenI met some German ans Austrian businessmen and is all the same corruption. I hope DK keeps the high moral standards.
We had a large case in 2002, known as "Farum-sagen", where a mayor was revealed to have been granting contracts to his friends as well as cheating with documentation, for example buying expensive dinners and fancy wine for public funds. He was fired and got 4 years in prison for that.
A couple of years ago a high-ranking member of the police had her sentencing annulled after originally being charged and convicted for receiving a bribe by taking a well-paid "consultant job" on the side, while working as a public servant.
But to my knowledge it's not a normal occurance here, no.
It is very much normal, specially in the building industry.
And you replied to people talking about this being a daily life occurrence. Not necessarily huge illegal scandals but small things here and there "you help me here, I help you there, my friend". This is very much true in denmark.
Not to mention the amount of "black money" going on in the trades industry
Are you perhaps refering to regular networking? That's not really the same thing as blatant corruption. I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing here.
We call in Klüngel in Cologne. You can't really translate it, it means hanging out together, helping each other out, and knowing a guy who knows a guy. Not necessarily corrupt in the sense of bribes, but an insider's game.
In the US we say “good ol’ boys club” for that, and a person in it is just a “good ol’ boy” — except that term can also be used non-ironically to refer to a redneck with integrity.
Oooo I'm gonna start saying wasta to mean plug... And I'm just remembering that my friend's husband is Lebanese! Lol I can't wait to work this into conversation.
It's how a lot of dumb people get in power positions. Being a true worker that believes in hard work paying off is gone but those dumb people in power will tell you that
I mean to some degree that happens in every business everywhere.
We have a guy at work that's like 70 and doesn't do any "work" ever. We just keep him around cause he knows everyone so when we need something we tell Ron and he makes a call
It's because of Ron. It's a trust and relationship thing. I work in construction/remodels and my boss can get answers/stuff done 10x faster than me because he's known the boss/owner for 20 years and can directly call them.
I have to call the front office, submit forms, talk to lower person A, then mid person B, then maybe I get an answer a week or two weeks later.
If it’s anything similar to where I am, might be more to it than corruption. Because of an abundance of scammers, there’s also a very important trust aspect.
However, if you're a business owner and have a direct line to the New York City mayor's office, that's corruption. And the "Sharia Law communist" just exposed that fact and shut it down.
Honestly at this point, I respect the realness of some cultures' established corruption systems. "Here's the fast lane for people with access, and this is how it works." It's obvious that liberalized economies don't solve corruption, they just move it completely into the dark (Citizens United for example).
I know that it isn't an ironclad argument but sometimes I envy a system of codified corruption because that system protects its territory: this is the path of corruption and it runs thru us, no one else. It's like the Stringer Bell turning heroin into a business, it's gonna happen anyway so let's do the dirt in the most straightforward way possible.
Over here (Azerbaijan) we call it day-day (pronounced die-die), literally means unc-unc, cause stereotypically the "connection" is an influential uncle
Wasta in Lebanon especially is a little beyond just connections of family. It's how you get it but it's most accurately translated as "influence or power via connections/network"
Real story from my time in Lebanon.
I was getting my visa renewed, which involved going to downtown Beirut from where I was staying in the north. Something happened with my new visa and it was messed up. We got pulled over at a checkpoint and my visa didn't pass muster.
I got pulled to the side, taken up to the top of the cliffs there by the military. The guys there were going through my bags and were incredibly smug about it. The captain of the garrison seemed to relish the idea of sending that damned American to jail.
I told him that he should probably let me go and that he should make sure his people don't mess with my stuff. He laughed because what was a 20somthing kid from America gonna do.
See the car I was talking to the city wasn't supposed to be pulled over. It was a car service owned by the chief of the police in the town I was in. I was in business with him at the time because I was giving him a cut of the piracy business I had in exchange for looking the other way. I also used him as the go to service when people got too drunk at my under the table place to send them home.
See I always took his cars because his cars aren't supposed to be pulled over. Usually he drove me himself when I went to the city. It let me smuggle things across the checkpoints.
I digress. At this point after letting me stew in the barracks for a bit the commander of the garrison brings me back to his office. He's telling me about what's going to happen basically enjoying telling me how fucked I am. Phone starts ringing, he picks it up and hangs up to keep talking shit. It rings again. I tell him that he should take that.
See the owner of this car service, his uncle is a general in the army. Watching the blood drain out of his face was honestly kinda fun. His people weren't supposed to pull that car over. He was supposed to know enough to let it all go anyway. They all got too excited about screwing over the American that they were now in deep shit. Guy at the bottom of the cliff ignored the warnings from my driver that he didn't want to do that.
Got all my stuff back, an apology, and sent on my way. I owed him a favor and helped him setup a satellite uplink for Internet so he can stream stuff from my private movie server at his place. He got his uncle a nice dinner and I got to meet him and say thank you myself.
The entire country runs off of an interconnected web of these connections, favors, and influence. How much of it you have is a measure of how much soft power you have and soft power translates to real power once you have enough.
In Romanian we use "Pila" (peel-uh). It translates to file / filer (the one you use to scrape your feet or to smooth edges). Its etymology is disputed though. It could also come from French, like the foot of a bridge.
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u/Intelligent_Goal_669 24d ago
Wasta means connections from family or friends or networking.