On The Road

The fragrant Mrs G and I are traveling beyond the reach of the Internet for the next several days – next post May 26.

Is Brown Honest?

Gordon Brown is set to be enthroned as Brit Prime Minister when Blair departs next month.

We expect he’ll be anti-American and further damage the Brit economy – he is, after all, a Socialist.

But, worse, he may be a creature of the same mechanisms that make all international institutions corrupt.

Such corruption is primarily (though not exclusively) driven by the tendency of groups of individuals from cultures with different corruption levels to regress to the lowest common denominator.

This relates to Brown because he, and much of his party, are from Scotland, a nation with very different characteristics to England. This shows up in the murder rate in 2004 (the most recent statistics available). The rate for England and Wales was 1.62 per 100,000 inhabitants whereas that for Scotland was 2.56.

That’s a huge difference for two adjacent areas. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more corrupt, but it’s a strong proxy indicator.

Anyway, we can all overcome deficiencies in our backgrounds, so we need to look for other signs, and here’s one (my ellipsis):

The man expected to become Gordon Brown’s chief of staff was yesterday forced to deny accusations of hypocrisy over an affair with a fellow worker at the World Bank.

A message written by a bank employee and leaked, said: “Please know, that UK Executive Director Tom Scholar is continuing an affair with [a bank employee]. This woman has been given preferential treatment because of her relationship with this powerful ED (Executive Director), this affair is in violation of the Bank Staff Rules and the Board’s Standards of Conduct.”

Mr Scholar, 37, sits on the board of the World Bank, which is about to deliver judgment on its president Paul Wolfowitz, who is also accused of favouring his partner and helping her to get a substantial pay rise.

Here was the guy’s defense:

“I am not the supervisor of my partner, either directly or indirectly. We have never come into professional contact, and I have made arrangements to avoid any possibility of professional contact.

“Since I am not a member of staff or management, I could never be involved in any individual personnel decision affecting her and I have never discussed any such issue with anyone who could possibly be involved.”

There’s more detail here.

The man’s defense is disingenuous – no director of a public company would be allowed such license. And, as the WSJ has revealed, the World Bank is a cesspit.

So, here’s our test. If Brown hires this man, he too is corrupt.

State Scoundrels (1)

This is the first of a series of examples of the malignancy of the US State Department, and concerns paying the murderous dictator of North Korea the proceeds of his forgery of US currency.

You may recall that fanfare surrounding State’s agreement, to pay the dictator his criminal haul, in return for him shuttering his Plutonium-producing reactor. Well, the reactor’s still churning out nukes. And State is giving him the money:

On Feb. 13, the Six-Party Talks in Beijing ratified a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and North Korea, providing for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs. The first step, 60 days after ratification, was to be that North Korea “will shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment” the Yongbyon nuclear facility, and readmit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.Other steps were to follow, but the first move was unequivocally to be made by Pyongyang.

The 60 days came and went, and indeed, another 37 days have come and gone. No IAEA inspectors have been readmitted, and not even Pyongyang claims that it has “shut down” Yongbyon.

In response, State renegotiated (my ellipsis):

North Korea…insist(ed) that (prior to shut down) all the funds had to be returned to the actual account holders, with no restrictions on their use, even though all agree that at least some were acting illicitly. This…State accepted.

Thus, State makes the world more dangerous.