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In China many of the top party officials are billionaires. Vladimir Putin is widely believed to have massively enriched himself during his reign. Even in the U

by gaius 8y ago

In China many of the top party officials are billionaires. Vladimir Putin is widely believed to have massively enriched himself during his reign. Even in the US many politicians are far, far wealthier than their official salaries would suggest is plausible. Update: By the downvoting I know that you all know I mean the Clintons.

onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>Update: By the downvoting I know that you all know I mean the Clintons. Putin or a Chinese Politburo member can get as much a Clintons ever made (all public--books, speech fees) by calling /blackmailing an oligarch or an exec of their big corps. In one shot. You simply do not exist unless the state allows you to in those countries. Over there, every project has a corruption tax added to it and it goes to the top officials. Now think of that when it comes to hundred of billion projects a year.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
Chinese too officials are billionaires, American top officials are millionaires at best unless they have money coming in before. You can only make so much on speaking fees and book royalties, while red families like Xi’s own and control significant portions of the Chinese economy. Just reporting on such issues is why most western newspapers have been blocked. They don’t even bother trying to refute it, because princeling dominance of the economy an open dirty secret. It also puts better into perspective how the economy is managed in favor of their own interests.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- withhighprod 8y ago
  Chinese officials are not at billionaires level, millionaires at most. It’ll be a huge risk to their political life if they and their families possess billions. It’s very likely they could control multiple billionaires though
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    No it isn't. You simply shutdown all discussion about it. https://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-leaders-family-worth-a-billion-20120629-218qi.html https://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-leaders-family-worth-a-... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/world/asia/chinas-president-xi-jinping-investments.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/world/asia/chinas-preside... And do you remember that discussion about Wen Jiabao's mom controlling a good chunk of China's jewelry industry that got the new york times banned: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of... I think Chinese officials are genuinely surprised in how poor western politicians are and how many of them even lack xiaosans.
geofft 8y ago
> Update: By the downvoting I know that you all know I mean the Clintons. Except for the late-1970s cattle futures investment (which was legal and documented, just surprisingly unlikely), I think everything about the Clintons can be explained by their straightforward participation in private business like speaking engagements, consulting, and selling books. If you count their "official salaries" as salaries just from their jobs as public servants, you'd get a lower number, yes, but you don't need to speculate about bribery or corruption to figure out where the rest of the money comes from. (I suppose you could construct an argument that these forms of private business are in fact morally equivalent to overt corruption, but I'd be curious to hear the details of that argument, especially as basically all of them were after Bill left office. There's a huge difference between bribing a current politician and a former one, in that the current one can meaningfully look the other way or send you kickbacks.)
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  I mean, it's no shocker why bankers were eager to pay the Clintons hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking engagements, and it's not because of the Clintons' keen market insight.
  - gaius 8y ago
    You can clearly see both speakers fees and "donations" to the Clinton Foundation fall off a cliff after she lost the election. Goldman's paid her a lot, didn't they?
- a1369209993 8y ago
  > There's a huge difference between bribing a current politician and a former one, in that the current one can meaningfully look the other way or send you kickbacks. Actually there isn't[0], because the former one can have looked the other way or sent you kickbacks while they were in office, in the knowledge that you would bribe them later, when it no longer officially 'counts' as corruption. This is the standard way that corruption works in the US, since there are laws against just directly bribing a politician the way you would in some other countries. 0: Edit: isn't a huge difference; obviously there is a little difference, just not enough to do more than slow down the development of corruption.
dang 8y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18740561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18740561 and marked it off-topic.

by gaius 8y ago

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>Update: By the downvoting I know that you all know I mean the Clintons. Putin or a Chinese Politburo member can get as much a Clintons ever made (all public--books, speech fees) by calling /blackmailing an oligarch or an exec of their big corps. In one shot. You simply do not exist unless the state allows you to in those countries. Over there, every project has a corruption tax added to it and it goes to the top officials. Now think of that when it comes to hundred of billion projects a year.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

Chinese too officials are billionaires, American top officials are millionaires at best unless they have money coming in before. You can only make so much on speaking fees and book royalties, while red families like Xi’s own and control significant portions of the Chinese economy. Just reporting on such issues is why most western newspapers have been blocked. They don’t even bother trying to refute it, because princeling dominance of the economy an open dirty secret. It also puts better into perspective how the economy is managed in favor of their own interests.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
withhighprod 8y ago
Chinese officials are not at billionaires level, millionaires at most. It’ll be a huge risk to their political life if they and their families possess billions. It’s very likely they could control multiple billionaires though
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  No it isn't. You simply shutdown all discussion about it. https://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-leaders-family-worth-a-billion-20120629-218qi.html https://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-leaders-family-worth-a-... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/world/asia/chinas-president-xi-jinping-investments.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/world/asia/chinas-preside... And do you remember that discussion about Wen Jiabao's mom controlling a good chunk of China's jewelry industry that got the new york times banned: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of... I think Chinese officials are genuinely surprised in how poor western politicians are and how many of them even lack xiaosans.

geofft 8y ago

> Update: By the downvoting I know that you all know I mean the Clintons. Except for the late-1970s cattle futures investment (which was legal and documented, just surprisingly unlikely), I think everything about the Clintons can be explained by their straightforward participation in private business like speaking engagements, consulting, and selling books. If you count their "official salaries" as salaries just from their jobs as public servants, you'd get a lower number, yes, but you don't need to speculate about bribery or corruption to figure out where the rest of the money comes from. (I suppose you could construct an argument that these forms of private business are in fact morally equivalent to overt corruption, but I'd be curious to hear the details of that argument, especially as basically all of them were after Bill left office. There's a huge difference between bribing a current politician and a former one, in that the current one can meaningfully look the other way or send you kickbacks.)

ForHackernews 8y ago
I mean, it's no shocker why bankers were eager to pay the Clintons hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking engagements, and it's not because of the Clintons' keen market insight.
- gaius 8y ago
  You can clearly see both speakers fees and "donations" to the Clinton Foundation fall off a cliff after she lost the election. Goldman's paid her a lot, didn't they?
a1369209993 8y ago
> There's a huge difference between bribing a current politician and a former one, in that the current one can meaningfully look the other way or send you kickbacks. Actually there isn't[0], because the former one can have looked the other way or sent you kickbacks while they were in office, in the knowledge that you would bribe them later, when it no longer officially 'counts' as corruption. This is the standard way that corruption works in the US, since there are laws against just directly bribing a politician the way you would in some other countries. 0: Edit: isn't a huge difference; obviously there is a little difference, just not enough to do more than slow down the development of corruption.

dang 8y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18740561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18740561 and marked it off-topic.