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How much fraud and abuse has to occur before it's able to be labeled as "corruption"? Fraud literally means intentional lying in accounting or other financial

How much fraud and abuse has to occur before it's able to be labeled as "corruption"? Fraud literally means intentional lying in accounting or other financial representations, for the purpose of improperly benefiting someone. If people in government are benefited directly or indirectly by fraud, that's literally included in the definition of corruption.

mlyle 2y ago
What a long gallop. > If people in government are benefited directly or indirectly by fraud, that's literally included in the definition of corruption. Yup, that endpoint is fine and can be agreed with. People in government having a job doing something you think isn't useful isn't corruption, though. And if a few percent of the money their program spends is wasted or benefits other people through fraud-- that's not corruption either. And the blanket cuts, layoffs, offers for voluntary separation /early retirement, and contract cancellations don't seem to be aimed at the thing we agree is corruption.
- TimTheTinker 2y ago
  > People in government having a job doing something you think isn't useful isn't corruption, though I didn't say anything about that; I don't think I know enough yet to have a fully formed opinion. But I do think that the overly powerful DC bureaucracy, DC NGOs, and corruption that holds it together is a worthy common enemy for all of us - that's what I'm trying to point out. I'm actually amazed at Democrats' position on this. I grew up in a Democratic family... We used to be the anti-establishment party! JFK was a Democrat - and he's the one who was apparently taken out by the CIA because he said he was going to destroy it. It used to be Republicans who wanted to keep the institutional status quo in DC. Either way, I think a pro-Democracy attitude will oppose growing power of unelected officials, regardless of political leanings.
  - alxjrvs 2y ago
    > Either way, I think a pro-Democracy attitude will oppose growing power of unelected officials, regardless of political leanings. DOGE is headed by an unelected official, from a party with not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now.
    - TimTheTinker 2y ago
      DOGE headed by Elon Musk was one of Trump's foremost campaign promises. In terms of democracy, that is about as direct of an electoral mandate as possible. > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now How about having been duly elected in the ballot boxes? Being pro-democracy means accepting and implementing the will of the people. (Trump disputed the election results in 2020 because he believed there was widespread election fraud. That may be evidence he was deluded, but I don't think it's necessarily evidence of being anti-democracy in his leanings.)
      - tzs 2y ago
        > > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now > How about having been duly elected by a landslide majority in ballot boxes? How is 49.8% a "landslide majority"?
        TimTheTinker 2y ago
        I stand corrected, thanks. Edited my comment.
      - alxjrvs 2y ago
        > I don't think it's necessarily evidence of being anti-democracy in his leanings. This is either willful ignorance or something else.
        TimTheTinker 2y ago
        It's a complete distrust in the media and all they say.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Moreover, where do people think corruption comes from? The human desire to be richer and the power to make it happen. Do people think Trump, Musk, and Thiel don't want to be richer? And worse, that the poorly-vetted people who have attached themselves to this administration don't? The idea that getting rid of fraud in a chaotic fashion is going to lead to less fraud is laughable, unless the assumption is also 'All of the people who are doing this are altruistic and moral.' If you create chaos at scale, you simply end up with different fraud. And you can quote me on this in 6 years when investigations begin to lead to trials... (Which, naturally, Republicans will claim are politically-motivated? But you know who complains loudest about the rule of law? People who do illegal things.)
  - mlyle 2y ago
    Musk has talked explicitly about unwinding portions of NASA and replacing it with SpaceX to "improve efficiency." Which honestly should happen to some extent (I'm not a fan of SLS). But we shouldn't become beholden to one vendor, and it's sure looking a lot more like removing options for the future and competition than a play for efficiency. And anyone doing this for their own companies in the past would be a textbook example of corruption.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      People forget that Boeing space was an excellent engineering company at one point. One of the things that fucked it up was decades of cost-plus government work. Companies become the most profitable versions of themselves the market allows them to be... which without competition usually doesn't bode well for excellence.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    >Do people think Trump, Musk, and Thiel don't want to be richer? FYI, lots of dumb people actually DO believe that. "Oh they have so much money already" they say. They don't even attempt to square that with collecting more resources than some Gods, for, reasons.
sophacles 2y ago
Others have asked, and I'm going to ask: Prove the fraud. That is a specific charge, with a specific meaning - as you point out yourself in your comment. Pointing to money that was spent differently than you think it should be is not fraud, no matter how much you want to claim it. Pointing to money being spent in suboptimal ways is not fraud. Maybe it's waste - but often it's what the law calls for (aka definitionally the opposite of fraud). Yelling very loudly about how it's all fraud and waste is not proof. It doesn't matter how loudly you yell. Repeating "there's so much fraud, omg, fraud everywhere, soooo much fraud" over and over is not proof. Even if your repetitions would make an animated gif jealous. Actually prove the fraud: Show that the money was spent in a way different than proscribed by law, that the people authorizing the spending were lying, and there was direct enrichment of someone via those lies and misspending. It's not hard if of it around.
- exodust 2y ago
  > Show that the money was spent in a way different than proscribed by law When people find loopholes in the law to obtain grants, do you defend their actions because technically it didn't break the law? DOGE is apparently exposing a system of dubious and questionable spending at scale. If "wasteful" is an understatement, don't be surprised when taxpayers use "fraud" to describe the decisions made to blow their money. Even if a court finds that funding that "drag show in Ecuador" was lawful, doesn't take the sting out. It doesn't take the fact away that someone benefited who probably shouldn't have, relative to the government's broader budget purposes. It might enrage people even more that it was a systemic abuse of grant money.
  - sophacles 2y ago
    > When people find loopholes in the law to obtain grants, do you defend their actions because technically it didn't break the law? I don't defend their actions as moral. I think the loophole should be closed. I also think that they didn't commit fraud, as a loophole is by definition legal. As for all your nonsense about money being spent different than you would like: I get it, you're very upset. As I covered before: money being spend different than you would like it to be spent is not fraud, no matter how much you rant and hate.

mlyle 2y ago

What a long gallop. > If people in government are benefited directly or indirectly by fraud, that's literally included in the definition of corruption. Yup, that endpoint is fine and can be agreed with. People in government having a job doing something you think isn't useful isn't corruption, though. And if a few percent of the money their program spends is wasted or benefits other people through fraud-- that's not corruption either. And the blanket cuts, layoffs, offers for voluntary separation /early retirement, and contract cancellations don't seem to be aimed at the thing we agree is corruption.

TimTheTinker 2y ago
> People in government having a job doing something you think isn't useful isn't corruption, though I didn't say anything about that; I don't think I know enough yet to have a fully formed opinion. But I do think that the overly powerful DC bureaucracy, DC NGOs, and corruption that holds it together is a worthy common enemy for all of us - that's what I'm trying to point out. I'm actually amazed at Democrats' position on this. I grew up in a Democratic family... We used to be the anti-establishment party! JFK was a Democrat - and he's the one who was apparently taken out by the CIA because he said he was going to destroy it. It used to be Republicans who wanted to keep the institutional status quo in DC. Either way, I think a pro-Democracy attitude will oppose growing power of unelected officials, regardless of political leanings.
- alxjrvs 2y ago
  > Either way, I think a pro-Democracy attitude will oppose growing power of unelected officials, regardless of political leanings. DOGE is headed by an unelected official, from a party with not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now.
  - TimTheTinker 2y ago
    DOGE headed by Elon Musk was one of Trump's foremost campaign promises. In terms of democracy, that is about as direct of an electoral mandate as possible. > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now How about having been duly elected in the ballot boxes? Being pro-democracy means accepting and implementing the will of the people. (Trump disputed the election results in 2020 because he believed there was widespread election fraud. That may be evidence he was deluded, but I don't think it's necessarily evidence of being anti-democracy in his leanings.)
    - tzs 2y ago
      > > not a lot of Pro-democracy leanings to spare right now > How about having been duly elected by a landslide majority in ballot boxes? How is 49.8% a "landslide majority"?
      - TimTheTinker 2y ago
        I stand corrected, thanks. Edited my comment.
    - alxjrvs 2y ago
      > I don't think it's necessarily evidence of being anti-democracy in his leanings. This is either willful ignorance or something else.
      - TimTheTinker 2y ago
        It's a complete distrust in the media and all they say.
ethbr1 2y ago
Moreover, where do people think corruption comes from? The human desire to be richer and the power to make it happen. Do people think Trump, Musk, and Thiel don't want to be richer? And worse, that the poorly-vetted people who have attached themselves to this administration don't? The idea that getting rid of fraud in a chaotic fashion is going to lead to less fraud is laughable, unless the assumption is also 'All of the people who are doing this are altruistic and moral.' If you create chaos at scale, you simply end up with different fraud. And you can quote me on this in 6 years when investigations begin to lead to trials... (Which, naturally, Republicans will claim are politically-motivated? But you know who complains loudest about the rule of law? People who do illegal things.)
- mlyle 2y ago
  Musk has talked explicitly about unwinding portions of NASA and replacing it with SpaceX to "improve efficiency." Which honestly should happen to some extent (I'm not a fan of SLS). But we shouldn't become beholden to one vendor, and it's sure looking a lot more like removing options for the future and competition than a play for efficiency. And anyone doing this for their own companies in the past would be a textbook example of corruption.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    People forget that Boeing space was an excellent engineering company at one point. One of the things that fucked it up was decades of cost-plus government work. Companies become the most profitable versions of themselves the market allows them to be... which without competition usually doesn't bode well for excellence.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  >Do people think Trump, Musk, and Thiel don't want to be richer? FYI, lots of dumb people actually DO believe that. "Oh they have so much money already" they say. They don't even attempt to square that with collecting more resources than some Gods, for, reasons.

sophacles 2y ago

Others have asked, and I'm going to ask: Prove the fraud. That is a specific charge, with a specific meaning - as you point out yourself in your comment. Pointing to money that was spent differently than you think it should be is not fraud, no matter how much you want to claim it. Pointing to money being spent in suboptimal ways is not fraud. Maybe it's waste - but often it's what the law calls for (aka definitionally the opposite of fraud). Yelling very loudly about how it's all fraud and waste is not proof. It doesn't matter how loudly you yell. Repeating "there's so much fraud, omg, fraud everywhere, soooo much fraud" over and over is not proof. Even if your repetitions would make an animated gif jealous. Actually prove the fraud: Show that the money was spent in a way different than proscribed by law, that the people authorizing the spending were lying, and there was direct enrichment of someone via those lies and misspending. It's not hard if of it around.

exodust 2y ago
> Show that the money was spent in a way different than proscribed by law When people find loopholes in the law to obtain grants, do you defend their actions because technically it didn't break the law? DOGE is apparently exposing a system of dubious and questionable spending at scale. If "wasteful" is an understatement, don't be surprised when taxpayers use "fraud" to describe the decisions made to blow their money. Even if a court finds that funding that "drag show in Ecuador" was lawful, doesn't take the sting out. It doesn't take the fact away that someone benefited who probably shouldn't have, relative to the government's broader budget purposes. It might enrage people even more that it was a systemic abuse of grant money.
- sophacles 2y ago
  > When people find loopholes in the law to obtain grants, do you defend their actions because technically it didn't break the law? I don't defend their actions as moral. I think the loophole should be closed. I also think that they didn't commit fraud, as a loophole is by definition legal. As for all your nonsense about money being spent different than you would like: I get it, you're very upset. As I covered before: money being spend different than you would like it to be spent is not fraud, no matter how much you rant and hate.