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Until I figure out how to un-close it, at least.

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So yeah.

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Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: May 01, 2014, 02:06:40 pm

[Descan]

Nah, you just have to make the corrupt elements think that "not getting caught" is a better deal than "making some (a lot) more money", and that getting caught could happen at any time. A few high-profile, well-connected corrupt elements taken out of the picture should eliminate a lot of the more opportunist corrupt agents.

S'mathematical. If they don't have perfect knowledge of who's going to get hit, then they're more likely to say "Fuck it, not worth jail-time" after some of their 'friends' (hence: well-connected) get taken out, and stay clean. To keep them guessing, should take out a few small fry as well, so the others don't think "Well I'm not THAT corrupt or well-connected, I should be okay as long as I don't go overboard..." At least long enough for people with more integrity to take up the position.

You imply that the corruptioners are rational actors. I'd say people who build dozens of mansions for themselves only to not visit them ever are not rational.

Those are the "high-profile" corrupt actors you take out. The ones who DON'T fall under "opportunistic", and instead are mentally imbalanced.

Most people are rational, though. The small-fry, the guys who think "just a little won't hurt, and I need that extra money." They're right, just a little probably wouldn't hurt, but if -everyone- thinks that way, you get tragedy of the commons and half of any project is siphoned away from literally hundreds of tiny cuts. You need to make them think that that little cut isn't worth the danger of going to jail, and the danger of going to jail needs to be on the forefront of their minds. Hence the high-profile cases making it forefront, and the few small-fry taken out as a "You aren't safe, because these guys weren't."

[smjjames]

I suppose investing in good old defense industry is good, but having a president that doesn't luxurify themselves with a dozen of mansions that they barely even live in themselves is even better.

Heh, true. And fixed your post.
Elimenating reducing corruption is the most important thing, without that any other reforms are useless

A dozen? Lol geeze. While owning your own mansion or estate before becoming president is fine (there have been a few), ordering a dozen built and furnishing them with luxuries with government money would more than tick a few people off if an US president did that. Besides, they have their own presidential mansion with a deep and rich history*.

*Yes I know it's not as deep as the history of Europe.

[BlindKitty]

Well, we have been dealing with corruption left over from last political system for last 25 years. Also, quite a few other countries are doing that too. After looking around at how it works... Don't look at Poland as role model at this. Probably Hungary with Orban are your best bet at this, but still very, very far from optimal. Actually I still think that there is a need to at least pull Saakaschwili (how do you even spell it in English?!) on pretty much every office, and any organization with ties to the government (that is, fire everybody and then rehire people who make sense; those two groups may overlap sometimes - Saakaschwili did that to traffic police in Georgia). It's monumental amount of work, but necessary, especially in courts (corrupt judges are extremely depraving). This can be done one-by-one, and actually taking a look at whether or not any given office is needed at all (most aren't). Also, rewrite any codices (like criminal law, civil law etc.; I'm not sure if codex is right word for those in English?) from scratch, not just update them. We have some socialistic leftovers in a lot of laws, and those really don't make any sense any more, but it is very hard to actually get anybody working on those now. Finally, keep in mind that there are surely less then 50 jobs that need to be licensed by the government, and less then 25 branches of industry to be regulated, don't let anybody tell you there are more.
Well, I don't see much of those happening. But on the other hand, I have not foreseen the Maidan, too, so I hope you will do better on the way to capitalism than Poland (and most other post-USSR countries) did.

[Xeron]

Capitalism got pretty well in  Post-USSR countries.It's the democracy that isn't really happening

[Knit tie]

Ukraine now, with all the government change, has all the potential needed for massive social reforms, let's not forget that.

[mainiac]

Nah, you just have to make the corrupt elements think that "not getting caught" is a better deal than "making some (a lot) more money", and that getting caught could happen at any time. A few high-profile, well-connected corrupt elements taken out of the picture should eliminate a lot of the more opportunist corrupt agents.

S'mathematical. If they don't have perfect knowledge of who's going to get hit, then they're more likely to say "Fuck it, not worth jail-time" after some of their 'friends' (hence: well-connected) get taken out, and stay clean. To keep them guessing, should take out a few small fry as well, so the others don't think "Well I'm not THAT corrupt or well-connected, I should be okay as long as I don't go overboard..." At least long enough for people with more integrity to take up the position.

Yeah corrupt systems arise when people feel invincible.  How many people in Wall Street went to jail for the systematic fraud in the insurance industry?  Big fat zero.  Not hard to figure out why it happened.

[Zangi]

Ukraine now, with all the government change, has all the potential needed for massive social reforms, let's not forget that.

It does have the potential, but then you need a good base to push those social reforms in a meaningful way.  It can easily get into a quagmire due to many reasons...
Specifically for Ukraine, the previous establishment is more or less intact. While what some say the driving force for the Maiden(sp?) revolution, the Right Sector, is still embroiled in belligerence with the government.
There is also the issue of it holding the steam it had during the Maiden(sp?) revolution... what with Russia taking Crimea and possibly the uncertainty of Ukraine's collective future.

Don't get me wrong, some things of course will change for the better, but you still have a strong presence of the status quo and the overt meddling by international influences.

I guess Ukrainian Ranger has a better handle of how well things are going then I do from reading bbc/npr.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Right Sector has some conflicts with our police but it is far away from the dangerous escalation. Yarosh(Leader of the Right Sector) gives interviews and runs for presidency so calling that belligerence is too much

Currently Right Sector is transforming itself from a militant group to a party, not an easy process but I like the progress

[Guardian G.I.]

posting to watch

[Xeron]

Eastern European Union man.We should stop being pushed by Russia/ the West and instead pool our resources together.We'll just end up under Russia again if we leave it to the West, because they'd be willing to sacrifice us to avoid other issues with Russia.And if Putin's ambitions are more than Crimea, well things might end up like that anyway.

[BlindKitty]

Eastern European Union man.We should stop being pushed by Russia/ the West and instead pool our resources together.We'll just end up under Russia again if we leave it to the West, because they'd be willing to sacrifice us to avoid other issues with Russia.And if Putin's ambitions are more than Crimea, well things might end up like that anyway.

This.

Of course, last try at this was Commonwealth, which got f***** up pretty well but no-one else but Ukraine who asked Russians for help to gain independence.*

*Just to clarify, there is way too many nuances in that situation to discuss here, and this is mostly a light-hearted reference to very non-light-hearted situation. Also, everybody who ever asked Russia for help tend to learn their lesson very, very quickly, and nobody ever tries it again.

[smjjames]

Eastern European Union man.We should stop being pushed by Russia/ the West and instead pool our resources together.We'll just end up under Russia again if we leave it to the West, because they'd be willing to sacrifice us to avoid other issues with Russia.And if Putin's ambitions are more than Crimea, well things might end up like that anyway.

This.

Of course, last try at this was Commonwealth, which got f***** up pretty well but no-one else but Ukraine who asked Russians for help to gain independence.*

*Just to clarify, there is way too many nuances in that situation to discuss here, and this is mostly a light-hearted reference to very non-light-hearted situation. Also, everybody who ever asked Russia for help tend to learn their lesson very, very quickly, and nobody ever tries it again.

I'm pretty sure xeron wasn't talking about the Eastern European nations forming into one state like the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.

[Xeron]

Yeah, uniting all states would cause more harm than good.I was thinking something more along of a actual alliance with the best interests of the member states, and a strong focus on independence from the EU/Russia.

[mainiac]

Eastern European Union man.We should stop being pushed by Russia/ the West and instead pool our resources together.We'll just end up under Russia again if we leave it to the West, because they'd be willing to sacrifice us to avoid other issues with Russia.And if Putin's ambitions are more than Crimea, well things might end up like that anyway.

Kinda ironic to blame this on being too close to Europe when the last Ukrainian administration took the approach of pushing Europe away.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Yeah. Ukraine+Romania+Poland+Baltic States+ maybe Belarus, Moldova, Bulgaria and Georgia and we would not need that EU and\or NATO... Chance for an alliance like that was lost in early 1990s when Ukraine got commie infested and mostly pro-Russian government because hey, it would be not democratic to limit voting rights of the ones who weren't born in Ukraine.... Grrrrrrr

blindkitty
Polish-Ukrainian relationships were... not so pleasant. But history demonstrated pretty well that without helping each other we are doomed to be dominated by either Russia or Germany.