
The Dark Side Of Globalization
Maybe I'm a Pollyanna but bribery, baksheesh and whatnot are all part of the Global Corporate rules. Siemens was recently hit with a 1.2 billion dollar fine when one of their bagmen came clean about slush funds used to secure contracts
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/blog/2008/12/siemens_bribery.html
The problem with corporations is that fiduciary responsibility to shareholders is not the same as ethical business practices. Worse, it's allowed inside the corporation and used as a basis of determining fitness in the corporate culture. The one that didn't get caught gets the promotion.
Ethically run businesses have no reason to do business with nations whose cultural norms allow them to ignore integrity for the sake of profits. Clean up your own backyard before you go polluting someone else's.
Hasn't the world had enough of the slime that got us deeper into this credit mess then if it was just a problem of lending money to people who couldn't afford it?
Congratulations to the World Bank for showing integrity.