Evaporation Drops the Temperature

Ref:#24,

Jay.

The story of maxwell may be partly true. The reason that you don’t find every body bothering about it is that the institutions charged with the duty are performing their job to the maximum. The Britons do not have to clamour for justice. They have confidence in their legal system and there are little loopholes. The difference a criminal would find in the two societies is that there he knows that if his crime is reported, may be he can stay at large for some time. But once apprehended he does not have any chance of getting away whereas here the criminal is sure that he can stay free for ever and if apprehended his chances to freedom are numerous, although the degree and ratio of crime may be somewhat equal both areas.

tariqlodi.

saaf-go, on corruption again. Here is story from england.

nearly seven years ago, the empire that maxwell built, collapsed under a debt of 6 billion dollars. The son maxwell, said he has no money to pay, he was declared bankrupt. He registered for the unemployment benefit, turned up in a mercedes. He stayed in a 60 room manor house, in his wifes name. His children continued in the boarding school at $8000 a term, paid by the relatives. His relatives supported in him establishing a telco company and four years later he is a billionaire.

Nobody in England is palking about corruption, in a third world country it would be termed monumental corruption. Is it possible that people who have no oppertunity to amass wealth through `corruption` keep talking about corruption.

Actually, there is a much bigger wind of change than anything the expatriate Pakistanis can provide. This is the revolution in information technology and global communications which is making the progressive societies on this planet even more dynamic than before and furthermore makes the stagnant societies (like good old Pakistani society) part of the same gas tank. Of course the expat Pakisanis can and should do what they can (financial support to opening new schools, direct investments, and so on), and the global winds would seem to be on their side too.

sorry for the repeat in my reply #20

Re: Lakhania # 18

I came here eleven years ago. For the first few years I felt much the same way that you do now. Although I am not as homesick as I used to be, I have not forgotten that home either. And I have a new home now. Success is not just material gain, it is the feeling of achievement and fulfillment. Don’t let the unnecessary guilt get in the way of your achieving your goals. If I had to do it over I will do it the same way.

Boond ko gohar bana deta hay zandane sadaff

Qaid-e-Tanhaai MaiN Ham nay Iss Liyae Katay Barass

Re: Jay

I think corruption has an effect of undermining the economic system itself. When loans are approved without merit and the borrowers do not use it for the purposes it was meant for and the industries fail, losses mount it does have negative effect. When corruption is as institutionalized as it is in Pakistan it effects the legal and justice system. Public loses confidence in the system and govt. Long term investment dwindles. Strategic investment initiatives are passed over for ones that are more profitable for the corrupt decision-makers. That is the cost of corruption in Pakistan and other third world countries.

The cost of corruption in economic system is bad decision, which in the least leads to loss of efficiency and in the most loss of investment and failure of pubic policy. In the absence of public scrutiny (evidence of corruption of public office holders) the bank manager will pick the candidate who would provide the optimal benefit to him/her. This may not be from the two comparable competitors.



The cost of corruption in legal and justice system is citizen and human rights abuse and confidence lost in the system.

Ultimately it may lead to complete break down of the entire society.

This is when people wish for ‘GOD’ to save them because everybody else has failed them.

If only it were as simple as that:

humm nay jabb waadi-e-ghurbat mein qadam rakha tha

douur takk yaad-i-watan aayee thii samjhanay ko

It has been 1 year since I came to US for my education. I find it hard to explain how this year has been for me.. Saying that it has been the worst year of my life simply won`t do the justice. I sometimes think why am i doing this? I would have got addmission in a good university in karachi.. I had a good life in karachi.. friends.. parents.. i left them all to achieve the dream every student have. After 4 years of hard work, sleepless nights, haunting images of my college days.. when I get my degree and about half a doson good job offers.. what am i gona do..?? what am I supposed to do??? should i take a good offer and capatilize on four years of hard work or should i continue to suffer and come back to repay my country for the identity it has given me.. this is a question which is faced by a 1000 students of my university. A lot of them will probabbly go back. but i dont have those guts. it is hard to let go of success that you achieved of hard work. it doesnt mean that i dont love my country.. it is just that i am not a hero that my motherland wants me to be.

saaf-go,

wait on, I was not talking about that type of corruption. I was talking about a situation where there are two `competing` investments, the one who pays bribe to th bank manager gets the loan. In such a situation, corruption is only a transaction cost, abank charge, collected by the manager, which effectively increases his pay, and has no adverse economic effect.

Now coming to your point, the type of system you are taliking about, can only exist at a relatively small level. For example, if the loans are not `invested` in an economically sound manner, it will be impossible to repay the loans, the non performing looans of the banks will increase and usually when it reaches around 40% of the loan portfolio, the bank will collapse.

The fact that there are still private and public sector banks still op[erating in pakistan is the proof that you are exagerating the level of corruption. Have you heard of `grmeen bank` in bangladesh, it is not a small time operation, more than US$ one billion has been lent with non performing loans at less than 5%.

:Who are the people at the two ends of the :bell-shaped empowerment curve for

:Pakistan? At one end is a minority of individuals :who possess the political/professional/financial :clout to influence progressive change, and at the :other is a self-centered wealthy ruling elite, :that resists change and thrives on status quo.

A wise man said that two fundamental mistakes are that people who lack external decorations -- wealth, power, education, connections -- consider themselves to be powerless or even worthless, and that society considers such people powerless or worthless.

The same mistake is being perpetuated in this article. It is a difficult mistake to avoid.

-arun gupta

Re: Jay

I think corruption has an effect of undermining the economic system itself. When loans are approved without merit and the borrowers do not use it for the purposes it was meant for and the industries fail, losses mount, it does have negative effect. When corruption is as institutionalized as it is in Pakistan it effects the legal and justice system. Public loses confidence in the system and govt. Long term investment dwindles. Strategic investment initiatives are passed over for ones that are more profitable for the corrupt decision-makers. That is the cost of corruption in Pakistan and other third world countries.

Faraz,

While seeing corruption every where and using it as a justification for not doing anything and demoralising the people at home, it is useful to look at Japan where not many want to talk of corruption as an inhibiting facotr in economic progress. Insider trading, hiring of Yakuza to manipulate share holder meetings, colution of govt and private sector and out right bribary are rampant and only the west is talking about corruption, not the Japanese.

As long as the bribe money is spent within the country and there is a consumtion/sales tax regime the effect of bribe is negligible. What the govt loses is only the income tax stream.

If the bribe is taken out of the country, then it is a capital drain there are more significant loses.

One also has to realise that because of the extended family situation, the notion of corruption is more widely cast in the subcon. It is common to see in the west where the children run consultancey companies and deal with the parents companies with out much hue about corruption. The lobyists and facilitators, easily accepted as part of the bussiness edealings in the west are termed corrupt in the east.

All that I was trying to focus on was that corrution is cast as the willian by every one for inaction while it need not be so. One also should not forget that vevery who managed work abroad, even while engaged in jobs at the bottom of the pile think that they infact deserved much better deal in their own country and it is corruption that prevented them from achieving it.

Re: Jay

Corruption a myth? What next, poverty a myth as well? Making a couple of calls to help a relative is one thing. However, when the system becomes so accustomed to sifarish that it becomes a prerequisite to any job then there is a problem. And what about people who do not have connections and are passed over for a position in favor of a less-qualified but better-connected person. That is wrong. The subcontinent has very strong families, and that is a great thing...but nepotism is one of our weaknesses.

Incidentally, I have read a little bit about the efficiency increasing aspects of bribes, but would like to hear your take on it. Thanks

Faraz

To Faraz and other believers of the Myth of Corruption

It is depressing to see anything in India or pakistan reduced to the consequences of corruption. What is corruption, no body apparently has tried to understand it from a sociological point of view.

Corruption, the way it is presented in the subcon is as a consequence of the clash of two cultures, the western and the eastern.

For example, let us looka t nepotism. In the east it is an accepted norm that theat the young look after their parents in their old age, there are not many old peoples home. The parental obligation is unending, all through the scool days, teaching the children, after education see that the get a job, and after that to see that they are married into good families and there after take care of the grand children.

This has to be contrasted with the western norm where in the children chose their careers and are `of the parebts hair` at the age of 16.

In the social context of the east refered earlier, it is understandable that the parents `pull` a few strings to get their children a job. Is this corruption called NEPOTISM. Is it not an action consisitent with the social values.

Having been on the otherside in the West, I prsonally know of several instances where the influence was used, it is called `putting in a word`, there is no talk of corruption, the idea is that `nominall` the selectors are neutrl and has no affect. I can promise you this is not true. In some of the prestigeous companies they prefer to give the jobs to relatives, Nepotism, the word is never uttered.

This is just an opening remark, may be at another stage, bribary can be explained as a transaction cost that has no effect on efficiencey.

It is refreshing to see articles like this one
on CHOWK. Idealism is not dead yet for Pakistanis
but its demise is being announced daily.

Ras

Wrong!!

The ``brain drain`` is not what`s killing the country. Its the factors that cause the brain drain; corrruption, economic mismanagement, law & order etc. I honestly believe it is better for me AND my country if educated Pakistanis make their fortune wherever they can, provided they keep their country in mind when they have made it. It would take one patriotic desi Bill Gates to wipe out Pakistan`s ENTIRE foreign debt (...and still remain a billionaire).

Faraz