so here we have this is a video from DW
news which is a German uh public
broadcaster and they’re going to give us
a little bit of the background to the
assassination of Shinzo Abe the former
Japanese leader so let’s go ahead and
listen to some of that and then I’ll
give you more information on it Japan’s
former prime minister Shinzo Abe has
died after being shot at a campaign
event police say a 41 year old man has
been arrested in connection with the
shooting ABI was the country’s longest
serving Premiere and was well known for
his strong economic and defense policies
his killing has shocked yet Japan the
nation where Firearms are strictly
regulated and political violence so let
me just comment on that real quick there
were a bunch of uh people who lean right
and who are very pro-gun rights who used
the killing of Shinzo Abe to say look at
that bro obviously uh gun control laws
don’t work that is such a flipping and
glib and stupid response because there’s
only nine gun deaths per year in Japan
nine we have 39 000.
in the U.S
so
you gotta look at the macro statistics
and the macro statistics paint a very
very clear picture but they think
because one person was killed with a gun
they’re like oh well obviously gun
control laws don’t work well I’ll ask
those people would you rather have nine
gun deaths a year or 39 000 gun deaths a
year now by the way I’m not their laws
are super strict like way more strict
than what my preferences are but
you have to call a spade a spade and say
in terms of reducing gun violence oh it
absolutely works I mean there’s a
trade-off and you have no right at all
to a firearm there but it works in terms
of uh from a public safety perspective
anyway I digress this is extremely rare
[Music]
handled to the ground
what appears to be a weapon lying on the
road nearby clearly a makeshift weapon I
mean held together I think with literal
duct tape
people ran to the age of Japan’s former
prime minister as he lay seriously
wounded
he was quickly transferred to helicopter
and flown to hospital
at this point his condition was
described as critical but doctors were
unable to save him
confirming his death the hospital said
the 67 year old had suffered two deep
wounds including to his heart
the area in the city of Nara where this
veteran politician had been giving an
election campaign speech is now a crime
scene
the assassination has shocked Japan a
country where gun violence is rare
this is a dustedly and barbaric Acts
that took place in the midst of an
election
this is the basis of a democracy
and it’s absolutely unforgivable I would
like to use the harshest words to
condemn this act
Shinzo Abe was first elected Prime
Minister of Japan in 2006 making him at
52 the country’s youngest ever premier
it proved short-lived a year later he
quit following a string of party
scandals he was also suffering from
health problems
but he wasn’t gone for long in 2012 he
was back promising to revive Japan’s
flagging economy following years of
deflation
he even put his own name on the plan
urbanomics now by the way he was part of
What’s called the liberal Democratic
party in Japan but understand that the
liberal Democratic party is actually the
conservative party in Japan so I know
it’s so weird all these different
countries have these names for their
political parties and it will be like
contradictory to the actual ideology
that they have and that gets frustrating
and annoying but I just want everybody
to understand that he was a conservative
Abe was also hawkish on defense
expanding Japan’s military role after
years of pacifism yes let me explain
that a little bit there’s there’s um
pacifism in the Japanese Constitution
which was the United States either
helped write it or did write it after
World War II they made Japan a pacifist
Nation
for obvious reasons I mean they Japan
had allied with Nazi Germany they were
an Empire uh they had a viciously
barbaric Empire they you know massacred
Koreans they massacred uh Chinese when
they were an Empire and so they made
pacifism in the Constitution and Shinzo
Abe wanted to roll back the pacifism
that was in there and uh you know build
up the Japanese military
approved a controversial policy and he
failed to formally rewrite the country’s
pacifist Constitution
he did though bolster Japan’s security
alliance with United States
Abe was considered a strong leader on
the world stage but in 2020 he again
resigned citing poor health
it’s more just so everybody understand
it’s more
corruption than you know oh I have
health problems there were political
scandals and he uses the health thing as
an excuse
politics though was always in his blood
right up until the end
for more we can now apprecame so that’s
enough of that now let me give you some
more information on them
so um this is on the guy who killed him
the man accused of assassinating former
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe had
reportedly told investigators he
targeted Abe because he suspected he had
ties to a religious group that took a
huge donation from his mother law
enforcement sources cited by Kyoto news
had the suspect identified as 41 year
old tetsuya yamagami had first planned
to attack a leader of the unnamed
religious group before settling on Abe
instead yamagami is said to have told
police The Killing had nothing to do
with politics homemade guns and items
thought to be explosives were found
during a search of yamagami’s home on
Friday just hours after he allegedly
used a homemade firearm to gun Abe down
in front of a crowd watching him deliver
a campaign speech in the city of Nara
sources cited by Kyoto news said
yamagami admitted to traveling to
another city a day earlier where Abe had
had also given a campaign speech the
police chief of the perfect prefecture
which is the Japanese it’s a state
basically where the shocking killing
took place admitted on Sat today that
there were problems with the safety
measures taken and took full
responsibility for the lapses that led
to Abe’s death so look I haven’t seen
anything particularly convincing on the
motives of the guy who did this
assassination this is the line that I’ve
heard
um
seems kind of weak if you ask me I saw
some speculation that effectively the
guy who did The Killing was like
part of Japan’s version of Q Anon if you
will
um I don’t know I don’t know none of
this stuff seems particularly convincing
or solid to me in terms of developing a
motive
um more on Shinzo Abe here this is in
The Daily Beast Shinzo Abe was Trump
before Trump except he pulled it off
Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe
died on Thursday in a scene reminiscent
of the Yakuza films he loved so much
that’s of course the Japanese Mafia
gunned down in a crowd by a lone shooter
who didn’t even try to escape the nation
was shocked to learn that he had passed
away when it was reported by state
broadcaster NHK there were many hoping
that he might still pull through and
Nara passerbys began to place flowers on
the site where he was shot some praying
for his safe journey through the spirit
world to his next Incarnation 15 years
before the bloody incident Shinzo Abe
was considered politically finished when
he resigned from office during his first
dentist prime minister he was exhausted
disliked and unable to weather the
tsunami of scandals that surrounded his
cabinet but in 2012 he came back from
the graveyard of failed Prime Ministers
to rule for almost eight years when news
spread that he had been shot twice and
was in critical condition his supporters
hoped that he might be able to pull off
another miracle a physical resurrection
that didn’t happen but the man who
Donald Trump adviser Stephen Bannon
famously praised As Trump before Trump
leaves behind a legacy that may have
forever changed pan he reduced it to a
Perpetual one-party democracy that seems
unlikely to change ABI certainly seems
to have had a Playbook that was similar
to Donald Trump’s he was a populist who
tapped into racism and fears of change
to stoke his base and consolidate power
during his Exile from Power Abe and his
cabinet members allied with anti-korean
and other xenophobic groups Abe drummed
up anti-korean sentiment to bolster his
support and made sure his allies did the
dog whistles while he kept his hands
clean while Trump portrayed immigrants
as the boogeyman threatening Japan I
think that was supposed to say
threatening America Abe latched on to
deep-rooted anti-korean sentiment
towards both the Korean residents of
Japan who stayed after the war and
citizens of South and North Korea former
colonies of Japan he appointed ariko
yamatani a woman closely associated with
the flamingly anti-korean group zaitoku
Kai to be the head of the National
Public Safety commission that oversees
National Police agency the National
Police agency he also embraced uh Nippon
kaiji a conservative Shinto cult and
political Lobby you could aptly compare
his alliance with them to Trump’s
absorption of the Tea Party and other
far-right elements of the Republican
Party
even while out of power the liberal
Democratic party with Abe exerting
influence developed plans for a new
Imperial Constitution for Japan the
removal of the post-war Constitution
which was written with the help of the
American occupation not by them as some
claim now during his political Exile Abe
even briefly became head of an extremist
Think Tank Nihon sosei which is create
Japan made up of ldp liberal Democratic
party lawmakers and other conservative
superstars in May 2012 the organization
released a clip of him Gathering titled
the swearing-in of the revised
Constitution for Japan in which he and
his cronies discussed the ldp’s
substitute Constitution there were some
astonishing moments a former Minister of
Justice nagasi jinen appointed during
Abe’s first term in office told the
crowd the people’s sovereignty basic
human rights and pacifism these three
things date to the post-war regime
imposed by MacArthur General MacArthur
on Japan therefore we have to get rid of
them by making the Constitution our own
Abe loudly applauded this get rid of
basic human rights democracy and wage
Warfare also restore the emperor to
power
in other words make Japan great again
it’s no wonder that years later Steve
Bannon would say that Abe was Trump
before Trump Abe for many
excuse me Abe for many years the most
powerful man in Japan’s ruling political
party the liberal Democratic party in
fact he was campaigning for their
candidates in the coming Upper House
elections when he was shot on Thursday
the ldp was founded in 1955 by Abe’s
grandfather a former war criminal who
also served as prime minister they were
funded with money from Yakuza associate
and CIA operative yoshio Kodama but
starting with his Fall From Grace the
ldp’s popularity sank in 2009 it seemed
like Japan might really change and for
the better for only the second time
since 1955 the perpetually corrupt and
archley conservative liberal Democratic
party was kicked out of power and the
liberal egalitarian feminist leaning
Democratic party of Japan took hold of
The reigns of power it was a revolution
but it didn’t last long the dpj had
risen to power partly with expectations
that they would be cleaner and less
criminal than the ldp but then one
scandal after another implicating the
party’s top management and unsavory ties
with the Yakuza through dirt on their
squeaky clean image the lower house
elections of 2012 were a political
meltdown almost all the opposition
parties including the dpj were decimated
and we know who returned from the
political graveyard ready to rule Japan
with a rusty iron fist Shinzo Abe was
quick to take revenge upon his critics
once back in power labeling the liberal
newspaper Asahi shimbun an enemy of the
people later he would tell Donald Trump
you should handle the New York Times the
way I handled acai
wow he bullied the left-wing media and
whined and dimed the right-wing media
dragging Japan’s press freedom from 11th
in the world to as low as 72nd Place in
in world rankings in 2014 he created a
cabinet Personnel Bureau which exercised
ruthless control of bureaucratic
appointments assuring that any
government worker who didn’t toe the
line or released information
contradicting the government was either
shunned fired or sidelined so very
authoritarian on press freedoms is what
you’re learning here
it worked very effectively and some
high-ranking officials even took it upon
themselves to cover up Abe related
scandals without direct orders to do so
television anchors and pundits that were
too critical of Abe vanished from the
airwaves the world’s largest newspaper
the yomiyuri shimbun smeared the biggest
critic in the education Ministry for
frequenty frequenting sexy bars in
kabukicho so smearing his political
opponents
he had no qualms about using the media
for defamation campaigns and the media
and eager for spoon-fed Scoops was happy
to comply eventually in 2020 the weight
of political scandals and an
investigation into election law
violations by Abe forced him to resign
under the guise of medical issues a few
months later he threw his political
secretary onto the bus and was more or
less exonerated he kept a low profile
for months but couldn’t resist the
Limelight Shinzo Abe failed to change
even one word of Japan’s constitution in
the end but did pass several laws that
are still eating away at it including
article 9 Japan’s Declaration of
pacifism his greatest achievement having
so thoroughly discredited opposition
parties in critical media that Japan
isn’t even reminiscent of a two-party
democracy it’s a one-party democracy
where the media has its tails between
its legs and is likely to stay that way
for decades
so
um
that gives you
um a look into who Shinzo Abe is what
his ideology is and um the background
around that
and then also look it super conservative
guy
um
wanted to be more militaristic make
Japan less pacifist uh hardliner on
immigration
anti-korean anti-chinese authoritarian
when it comes to the Press now that’s
not none of this is to say that homeboys
should have been assassinated of course
not uh but you should understand the
background and who Abe is and again as
far as the motive of the guy who did The
Killing
I still don’t have any answer that I
find uh convincing I told you what’s
been reported but you know I have a
feeling that maybe over time we’ll learn
more or maybe we’ll never learn more but
that’s not I don’t think that’s the full
the full reasoning so by the way we’ll
end on this note
um
as a result of the assassination now
Shinzo Abe’s right-wing party the
liberal Democratic party as it’s called
is even more popular
they surged in the polls after the
assassination so
there you have it
um you know giant political event and um
of course other world leaders have come
out and and uh
offered condolences and Trump said
something about
um Abe being assassinated uh Trump had
played golf with him a number of times
random side point but
anyway there you have it uh momentous
event of a former Japanese leader being
assassinated hey y’all do me a favor and
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you know you want to
The Ten Worst Insurance Companies in America
How They Raise Premiums, Deny Claims, and Refuse Insurance to Those Who Need it Most
1. Allstate
2. Unum
3. AIG
4. State Farm
5. Conseco
6. WellPoint
7. Farmers
8. UnitedHealth
9. Torchmark
10. Liberty Mutual
The U.S. insurance industry takes in over $1 trillion in premiums annually.3 It has $3.8 trillion in assets, more than the GDPs of all but two countries in the world (United States and Japan).
Over the last 10 years, the property/casualty insurance industry has enjoyed average profits of over $30 billion a year. The life and health side of the insurance industry has averaged another $30 billion.
The CEOs of the top 10 property/casualty firms earned an average $8.9 million in 2007. The CEOs of the top 10 life and health insurance companies earned even more—an average $9.1 million. And for the entire industry, the median insurance CEO’s cash compensation still leads all industries at $1.6 million per year.6
Profits Over Policyholders
But some companies have discovered that they can make more money by simply paying out less. As a senior executive at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), the group representing those who are supposed to oversee the industry, said, “The bottom line is that insurance companies make money when they don’t pay claims.”7 One example is Ethel Adams, a 60-year-old woman left in a coma and seriously injured after a multi-vehicle crash in Washington State. Her insurance company, Farmers, decided the other driver had acted intentionally and denied her claim, contending that an intentional act is not an accident. Another example is Debra Potter, who for years sold Unum’s disability policies until she herself became disabled and had to stop working. All along, Potter thought she was helping people protect their future, but when her own time of need came, she was told her multiple sclerosis was “self reported” and her claim denied—by Unum, the very company whose policies she had sold. In cases like these, and countless others, the name of the game is deny, delay, defend—do anything, in fact, to avoid paying claims. For companies like Allstate, there are corporate training manuals explaining how to avoid payments, portable fridges awarded to adjusters who deny the most claims, and pizza for parties to shred documents.
Conclusion:
The insurance industry is in dire need of reform. For too many insurance companies, profits have clearly trumped fair dealing with policyholders. The industry has done all it can to maximize its profits and rid itself of claims. Allstate CEO Thomas Wilson outlined the strategy when he said the company had “begun to think and act more like a consumer products company.”176 Allstate has enjoyed a return double that of the S&P 500, but its policyholders have suffered cancellations, nonrenewals, and punishing loss-prevention techniques.177 Wilson has been unrepentant: “Our obligation is to earn a return for our shareholders.”178 Wilson is one of many insurance leaders who have lost sight of their legal and ethical responsibility to policyholders. Now they answer only to Wall Street. The time is due for insurance reform that will level the playing field for consumers.
Allstate—The Worst Insurance Company in America
CEO: Thomas Wilson 2007 compensation $10.7 million (predecessor Edward Liddy made $18.8 million in compensation and an additional $25.4 million in retirement benefits)
One company stood out above all others. Allstate’s concerted efforts to put profits over policyholders has earned its place as the worst insurance company in America. According to CEO Thomas Wilson, Allstate’s mission is clear: “our obligation is to earn a return for our shareholders.” Unfortunately, that dedication to shareholders has come at the expense of policyholders. The company that publicly touts its “good hands” approach privately instructs agents to employ a “boxing gloves” strategy against its own policyholders.1 In the words of former Allstate adjuster Jo Ann Katzman, “We were told to lie by our supervisors—it’s tough to look at people and know you’re lying.
There is no greater poster child for insurance industry greed than Allstate. According to CEO Thomas Wilson, Allstate’s mission is clear: “our obligation is to earn a return for our shareholders.”9 Unfortunately, that dedication to shareholders has come at a price. According to investigations and documents Allstate was forced to make public, the company systematically placed profits over its own policyholders. The company that publicly touts its “good hands” approach privately instructs agents to employ a hardball “boxing gloves” strategy against its own policyholders.10 Allstate’s confrontational attitude towards its own policyholders was the brain child of consulting giant McKinsey & Co. in the mid-1990s. McKinsey was tasked with developing a way to boost Allstate’s bottom line.11 McKinsey recommended Allstate focus on reducing the amount of money it paid in claims, whether or not they were valid. When it adopted these recommendations, Allstate made a deliberate decision to start putting profits over policyholders. The company essentially uses a combination of lowball offers and hardball litigation. When policyholders file a claim, they are often offered an unjustifiably low payment for their injuries, generated by Allstate using secretive claim-evaluation software called Colossus. Those that accept the lowballed settlements are treated with “good hands” but may be left with less money than they need to cover medical bills and lost wages. Those that do not settle frequently get the “boxing gloves”: an aggressive litigation strategy that aims to deny the claim at any cost. Former Allstate employees call it the “three Ds”: deny, delay, and defend. One particular powerpoint slide McKinsey prepared for Allstate featured an alligator and the caption “sit and wait”—emphasizing that delaying claims will increase the likelihood that the claimant gives up.12 According to former Allstate agent Shannon Kmatz, this would make claims “so expensive and so timeconsuming that lawyers would start refusing to help clients.”13 Former Allstate adjusters say they were rewarded for keeping claims payments low, even if they had to deceive their customers. Adjusters who tried to deny fire claims by blaming arson were rewarded with portable fridges, according to former Allstate adjuster Jo Ann Katzman. “We were told to lie by our supervisors. It’s tough to look at people and know you’re lying.”14 Complaints filed against Allstate are greater than almost all of its major competitors, according to data collected by the NAIC.15 In Maryland, regulators imposed the largest fine in state history on Allstate for raising premiums and changing policies without notifying policyholders. Allstate ultimately paid $18.6 million to Maryland consumers for the violations.16 In Texas earlier this year, Allstate agreed to pay more than $70 million after insurance regulators found the company had been overcharging homeowners throughout the state.17 After Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Department of Insurance received more complaints against Allstate— 1,200—than any other insurance company, and nearly twice as many as the approximately 700 it received about State Farm—despite the fact that its rival had a bigger share of the homeowners market.18 Similarly, in 2003, a series of wildfires devastated Southern California, destroying over 2,000 homes near San Diego alone and killing 15 people. State insurance regulators received over 600 complaints about Allstate and other companies’ handling of claims.19 Allstate says the changes in claims resolution tactics were only about efficiency.20 However, the company’s former CEO, Jerry Choate, admitted in 1997 that the company had reduced payments and increased profit, and said, “the leverage is really on the claims side. If you don’t win there, I don’t care what you do on the front end. You’re not going to win.”21 For four years, Allstate refused to give up copies of the McKinsey documents, even when ordered to do so repeatedly by courts and state regulators. In court filings, the company described its refusal as “respectful civil disobedience.”22 In Florida, regulators finally lost their patience after Allstate executives arrived at a hearing without documents they had been subpoenaed to bring. Only after Allstate was suspended from writing new business did the company, in April 2008, finally agree to produce some 150,000 documents relating to its claim review practices.23 Still, some commentators believe many critical document were missing.
Allstate’s “boxing gloves” strategy boosted its bottom line. The amount Allstate paid out in claims dropped from 79 percent of its premium income in 1996 to just 58 percent ten years later.25 In auto claims, the payouts dropped from 63 percent to just 47 percent.26 Allstate saw $4.6 billion in profits in 2007, more than double the level of profits it experienced in the 1990s. In fact, the company is so awash in cash that it began buying back $15 billion worth of its own stock, despite the fact that the company was simultaneously threatening to reduce coverage of homeowners because of risk of weather-related losses.27 Despite its treatment of policyholders, Allstate’s recent corporate strategy has focused on identifying and retaining loyal customers, those who are more likely to stay with the company and not shop around. The target demographic, as former Allstate CEO Edward Liddy said, is “lifetime value customers who buy more products and stay with us for a longer period of time. That’s Nirvana for an insurance company.”28
Loyalty only runs one way, however. While Allstate focuses on customers who will stick with it for the long haul, the company is systematically withdrawing from entire markets. Allstate or its affiliates have stopped writing home insurance in Delaware, Connecticut, and California, as well as along the coasts of many states, including Maryland and Virginia.29 In Louisiana, Allstate has repeatedly tried to dump its policyholders. In 2007, the company tried to drop 5,000 customers just days after the expiration of an emergency rule preventing insurance companies from canceling customers hit by Katrina. Allstate dropped them for allegedly not showing intent to repair their properties. After an investigation by the Louisiana Insurance Department, Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said, “[A]t best, it was a very ill-conceived and sloppy inspection program. At worst, they wanted off of those properties.”30 Allstate also used an apparent loophole in the law by offering its policyholders a “coverage enhancement” which the company would later argue was a new policy, and thus exempt from non-renewal protection.31 In Florida, Allstate has dropped over 400,000 homeowners since 2004.32 The move has landed Allstate in trouble with regulators because the company appears to be keeping customers if they also have an auto insurance policy with Allstate. Florida law prohibits the sale of one type of insurance to a customer based on their purchase of another line of coverage.33 Allstate officials have acknowledged that most of the 95,000 customers nonrenewed in 2005 and 2006 were homeowners-only customers. The company ran afoul of regulators in New York for the same reason, and was forced to discontinue the practice.34 In California, while other major homeowner insurers, including State Farm and Farmers, agreed to cut rates, Allstate demanded double-digit rate increases in what the former insurance commissioner described as an “exit strategy.” John Garamendi, now the Lieutenant Governor, said, “[T]hey’ve said they want to get out of the homeowners business in a market that is competitive, healthy and profitable.”35 Consumer advocates have also complained that Allstate put an ambiguous provision in homeowners’ policies that may have deceived some policyholders into thinking they had coverage for wind damage when they did not. Socalled “anti-concurrent-causation” clauses state that wind
and rain damage—damage covered under the policy— is excluded if significant flood damage occurs as well. Therefore, those with policies covering wind and rain damage and “hurricane deductibles” still faced the prospect of learning, only after a catastrophic loss, that they had no coverage.36 In 2007, then U.S. Senator Trent Lott sponsored legislation requiring insurers provide “plain English” summaries of what was and what was not covered in order to stop this kind of abuse. “They don’t want you to know what you really have covered,” said Lott.37
10. Liberty Mutual
CEO: Edmund F. (Ted) Kelly 2005 compensation $27 million
Like Allstate and State Farm before it, Liberty Mutual hired consulting giant McKinsey & Co. to boost its bottom line. The McKinsey strategy relies on lowering the amounts paid in claims, no matter whether the claims were valid or not. By all accounts, Liberty Mutual has not become as notorious as its rivals for the deny, delay, and defend tactics that McKinsey encouraged. However, that has not stopped the company from leading the way in complaint rankings and stories of short-changed victims.171 In fact, Liberty Mutual is facing a glut of litigation from its own vendors who say the company’s cost-cutting has resulted in poor claims processing and a spike in lawsuits.172 Like several other big property casualty insurers, Liberty Mutual has also begun abandoning policyholders across the country. The company has pulled out of many states—not only hurricane susceptible states such as Florida and Louisiana, but also northern states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, and much of New York. A 2007 New York Times article highlighted Liberty Mutual policyholders James and Ann Gray of Long Island. The Grays were “nonrenewed” by Liberty Mutual despite the fact that they lived 12 miles from the coast and had “been touched by rampaging waters only once, when the upstairs bathroom overflowed.” In fact, Liberty Mutual and its big name competitors have left more than 3 million homeowners stranded over the last few years.173 New York regulators chastised Liberty Mutual for tying nonrenewals to whether a policyholder had an auto policy or other coverage, against state law.174 Liberty Mutual has also gone where even its big property casualty rivals Allstate and State Farm have feared to tread by trying its hand at massive corporate fraud. While the likes of AIG, Zurich, and ACE settled charges that they colluded with broker Marsh & McLennan in a huge bidrigging fraud, Liberty Mutual remains the only insurance company that refuses to concede guilt. The fraud centered around fake bids that companies submitted to Marsh in order to garner artificially inflated rates. Liberty Mutual claims its business practices were lawful and that regulators’ settlement demands are “excessive.”175
How Corruption Destroys Armies – Theft, Graft, and Russian failure in Ukraine
On paper, Russian military modernisation should have produced a force that could overmatch the Ukrainian army. For more than a decade, funds for modernisation were allocated to State Defence Orders for everything from next generation aircraft and tanks, to new communications and battlefield control systems.
Russian R&D did its part (mostly), turning out systems that won attention and praise at trade shows, while commentators steadily built the Russian army up as an example of a dangerous foe that proved you could achieve more with less in the military procurement space.
Then they invaded Ukraine, and the image was shattered. I’ve previously explained this by looking at the Russian Defence budget and their priorities in the lead up to the invasion, but in doing that I refrained from focusing on one key issue.
Corruption in Russia is endemic, corruption in the Russian defence sector (like many around the world) is a catastrophe. From the highest levels of procurement fraud, down to the level of the enlisted personal hawking diesel, copper, and even explosives for petty cash, corruption has been a constant thorn in the side of all efforts to modernise the Russian army and mould it into an effective fighting force.
In this video In this video, I try to take a somewhat light hearted look at how corruption in a military context can (and sometimes does) work, citing examples of actual cases and using hypotheticals to demonstrate the kinds of actions that can rot an institution from head to tail. For those of you in countries that face this problem, it should all seem a little familiar.
Examples are taken from the sources listed below and I make no independent representations on the veracity of any claims. I don’t know exactly how much is stolen from the Russian defence budget, I doubt anyone does. But what I can do, is help us understand how a nation capable of producing some of the most advanced defence equipment in the world would be running out of fuel on day 3, and be rolling out museum piece tanks less than three months into a major conflict.
Sponsor: I am fortunate enough to have a sponsor for this video, Ground News Compare news coverage. Spot media bias. Avoid algorithms. Be well informed.
Download the free Ground News app at: https://www.ground.news/perun
A majority of proceeds will be directed to the Australian Red Cross Ukraine appeal, which supports Ukrainians displaced by the war. https://www.redcross.org.au/ukraine/
Key sources: Corruption in the Russian Defence Sector (Beliakova and Perlo-Freeman) https://sites.tufts.edu/wpf/files/201…
Russian statements (albeit old) on defence budget theft
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ru…
Russian corruption ranking https://www.transparency.org/en/count…
- Corruption is possible because a person is capable of selling/stealing something without paying the cose of doing so.
- They are not acknowledging the externalities of their actions
- Because of this — price is not “efficient”
You’re going to put up with what the law allows councilman! The police will not even listen to you.
This needs to be taught and instilled to our children, and repeated over and over by grown adults: “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance…”
Isn’t Joshi the guy who had his uncle take the blame for pulling campaign signs from peoples yards; and he still got elected mayor? The “dumbing down is real.Voicing grievances is allowed. But I find if you do it with respect and not contempt, it speeds the success of resolve.