DR to be a model for anti-corruption

cr8tions

New member
May 20, 2004
29
0
0
Is this the biggest joke or what... what pisses me off about all this is that Leonel said he would not do what previous government administrations have done regarding "borron y cuenta nueva" (erase the past.. start off fresh). This is a crock of Sh!T to me because from what you can see from plan renove, the housing scandal, the automobile scandal etc. just to name a few.

It seems to me that if this whole anti-corruption does take affect. It is going to happen with no one or maybe 1 or 2 individuals sent "supposedly" to jail just to set an example. Also, if they do decide to send someone to jail it would only be for one reason only - to try and win the confidence of the local and international community.

Now we all know that the crooked politicians and anyone who got a piece of the pie now has enough $$$ to buy themselves out of going to jail and doing some real time. Unfortunately, poor suckers like me still have to pay the high remittances to maintain the family because the prices have not all gone down and the freaking taxes (the increaseed ones and the the new ones) have cause the prices not to drop so much. Though I am pissed that my US$ lost its buying power its ok as long as the motives are understandable but, I look at things like this:

1.)Increasing the power of the peso is good because I will reduce the amount of peso's needed to pay the debt.. but if the government enforces all of this anticorruption policy and beats the crap out of all these politicians I am pretty sure they can recupe a whole bunch of the money they stole back.

2.)Increasing taxes is good because it increased the revenue for the government... but why should a hard working individual like myself that makes an honest living need to pay back the money those politicians stole. I think increasing taxes unless its temporary which I know these taxes will become permanent. The way I see this, is that the local community will get used to paying the higher taxes and then the government is going to be like "you know what, since we just ripped off the cunts again, again, and again! lets keep the taxes until it replenishes what we took besides I need to finish off the house I started in Monte Cristi".

Excuse my typos and my grammer but, I am just to dam pissed to do that right now :angry:
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
13,370
3,150
113
I must confess, this is a bit hard to believe.

But, then again, any master persuader knows that expectations are important in persuading people's opinion of you.

If people expect the government to be corrupt, corrupt it will be. However, if people's expectations change for the opposite, the less corrupt the government might become.

It's like getting the cold, when you feel it coming you say to yourself "I feel a cold coming" and the next thing you know, you got the cold.

However, there are times when you just say "I am not getting sick!" and many times you end up not getting sick.

Most people who are in jail, supposedly were told by their mothers when they were a child that they were going to end up in jail someday - go figure.

Expectations is a really interesting thing and Leonel knows it. Create expectations among the masses and the expectation will be met.

The reason behind that is that its human nature to live up to expectations. When people tell you something is hard to do before you do it, you will most likely do worst on it than if somebody would have told you that the same thing was easy!

I must say that most people expect the DR government to be corrupt and every year, it becomes more corrupt than the last! Go figure!
 

Spirit7

New member
Aug 26, 2004
150
2
0
I have a lot of respect for Leonel, but....

....the DR as a model of anti-corruption has got to be one of the biggest jokes in the history of humanity. A country where corruption is deeply rooted in every facet of daily life and the 'authorities' are the first ones to practice it. Leonel and his PLD have not done much if anything to try to get back all the peoples' assets that were taken by the previous, horrendously corrupt government. They have been passive regarding the obvious complicity of the judicial system with the infamous PRD.

As has been stated above, what about all those crooked police officials that were using 'recovered' stolen vehicles by the hundreds? What about the people that participated in the Plan Renove and the hundreds of millions stolen? What about all the tax evasion at Customs under that awful PRD party president Sanchez Baret? And on, and on ....

The PRD is an association of criminals and the PRSC has been their ally and has its own sorry history during Balaguer's years controlling this country. Leonel's PLD is the more institutional and conscientious party but in order to govern it has to play to the other two parties' interests. We have a lousy system which will take generations to straighten out. I wish Leonel the best.
 

bienamor

Kansas redneck an proud of it
Apr 23, 2004
5,050
458
83
only if you start over

Spirit7 said:
....the DR as a model of anti-corruption has got to be one of the biggest jokes in the history of humanity. A country where corruption is deeply rooted in every facet of daily life and the 'authorities' are the first ones to practice it. Leonel and his PLD have not done much if anything to try to get back all the peoples' assets that were taken by the previous, horrendously corrupt government. They have been passive regarding the obvious complicity of the judicial system with the infamous PRD.

As has been stated above, what about all those crooked police officials that were using 'recovered' stolen vehicles by the hundreds? What about the people that participated in the Plan Renove and the hundreds of millions stolen? What about all the tax evasion at Customs under that awful PRD party president Sanchez Baret? And on, and on ....

The PRD is an association of criminals and the PRSC has been their ally and has its own sorry history during Balaguer's years controlling this country. Leonel's PLD is the more institutional and conscientious party but in order to govern it has to play to the other two parties' interests. We have a lousy system which will take generations to straighten out. I wish Leonel the best.

Only if you shoot everyone over the age of 3!! and start over. The culture is tooo deep. Then only maybe depending on where you get the new instructors from
 

Robert

Stay Frosty!
Jan 2, 1999
20,574
341
83
dr1.com
He said... "this nation would become a model for other nations in the region with regards to the fight against corruption".

He never said is.

At least he acknowledges it and is moving in the right direction.
That is not something that could have been said about he predecessor.

Of course, the reality could be something very different.
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
13,370
3,150
113
Spirit7 said:
....the DR as a model of anti-corruption has got to be one of the biggest jokes in the history of humanity. A country where corruption is deeply rooted in every facet of daily life and the 'authorities' are the first ones to practice it. Leonel and his PLD have not done much if anything to try to get back all the peoples' assets that were taken by the previous, horrendously corrupt government. They have been passive regarding the obvious complicity of the judicial system with the infamous PRD.

As has been stated above, what about all those crooked police officials that were using 'recovered' stolen vehicles by the hundreds? What about the people that participated in the Plan Renove and the hundreds of millions stolen? What about all the tax evasion at Customs under that awful PRD party president Sanchez Baret? And on, and on ....

The PRD is an association of criminals and the PRSC has been their ally and has its own sorry history during Balaguer's years controlling this country. Leonel's PLD is the more institutional and conscientious party but in order to govern it has to play to the other two parties' interests. We have a lousy system which will take generations to straighten out. I wish Leonel the best.
So lets see how this will work.

Leonel says the country will become a model of anti-corruption. If more people would believe that, the corrupt politicians would see the type of expectations most people would have of them. As a result (this is part of human nature), they will feel a slight urge to at least try to live up to expectations and corruption might go down a bit.

However, if people look at this as a joke, what will happen? Every body's expectations of the government officials would simply plunder even further. Eventually the politicians will notice the general expectation and they will live up to it by continuing to be corrupt.

Think of it this way, if there is one or two politician who is not corrupt and by Leonel complementing such behavior, others who are corrupt might feel a need to become less corrupt, especially if the media and the public praises the anti-corrupt attitude of such few politicians.

However, if everybody continues to blame every politician as corrupt, even those who are not corrupt eventually would succum and ask themselves "for what am I not a corrupt bastard, everybody thinks I am anyways and plus, I need some money to feed my family" and as such he will become corrupt!

People, work with Leonel here! There is always a silent motive behind everything Leonel does. Don't ruin it by continuing to make a joke or dismissing any minute attempt he makes in trying to fix this country's problems! After all, you are only doing the PRD a favor by doing so!
 

FireGuy

Rest in peace Amigo!
Aug 21, 2002
2,516
74
0
70
www.polaris-fs.com
Robert said:
He said... "this nation would become a model for other nations in the region with regards to the fight against corruption".

He never said is.
So far we have no disagreement.



Robert said:
At least he acknowledges it...
Still no disagreement.



Robert said:
and is moving in the right direction.
That is not something that could have been said about he predecessor.
Well, possible disagreement here. To give all the benefit of the doubt (how long should the honeymoon last...) I guess it really han't been long enough to really hold his feet to the fire. But niether have I heard a lot to indicate that "it" is moving in any direction - let alone the "right direction". I guess there still is hope, so far. The comment about "el burro" is right on the money and at least purple is more colourful than white - there's something good.



Robert said:
Of course, the reality could be something very different.
We hope not but... time will tell.


Gregg
 

Pib

Goddess
Jan 1, 2002
3,668
20
38
www.dominicancooking.com
cr8tions said:
Is this the biggest joke or what... what pisses me off about all this is that Leonel said he would not do what previous government administrations have done regarding "borron y cuenta nueva" (erase the past.. start off fresh). This is a crock of Sh!T to me because from what you can see from plan renove, the housing scandal, the automobile scandal etc. just to name a few.
You can't have it both ways. There is (at least on paper) "independence of powers" in the DR, meaning that the Executive does not mess or try to influence the judiciary. Leonel can't fight corruption and at the same time violate the same laws that dictate how the justice process is to be conducted. What do you think he can do? Send some cops to arrest Hip?lito? Grab people's properties with no due process?

His job is to keep his own house clean. Let us blame the judiciary if nothing is done about past corruption.
 

Chris

Gold
Oct 21, 2002
7,951
28
0
www.caribbetech.com
I'll tell you what I'm going to do - I'm going to copy this speech a number of times and highlight the statement... then, the next time Ahmet or some silly official at the airport attempts to put 'the bite' on me, I'm going to give them the speech and say - Hey buddy -- what are you doing?

Maybe it will save some money but .. at least .. it will be worth watching the reactions....
 

NALs

Economist by Profession
Jan 20, 2003
13,370
3,150
113
Chris said:
I'll tell you what I'm going to do - I'm going to copy this speech a number of times and highlight the statement... then, the next time Ahmet or some silly official at the airport attempts to put 'the bite' on me, I'm going to give them the speech and say - Hey buddy -- what are you doing?

Maybe it will save some money but .. at least .. it will be worth watching the reactions....
Not a bad idea at all...

If you are serious, let us know how it goes...
 

Chris

Gold
Oct 21, 2002
7,951
28
0
www.caribbetech.com
Nal0whs said:
Not a bad idea at all...

If you are serious, let us know how it goes...

Oh, I'm always serious... I bet you I don't pay ;)

FireGuy said:
get their uniforms dirty as they roll on the ground laughing?

Gregg

The thing is that the almost 'petty' few bucks here and few bucks there I really cannot complain about. For me, it is almost a tip for good service - and especially on the airports if you pay a few bucks, you do get good service. I do prefer walking straight through instead of being subjected to the third degree. And this stuff is really petty in the grand scheme of things.

The important thing for me is when we import stuff and as soon as the gringo factor kicks in, the propina increases. This I think is really not fair.

It is good and well to say "we're going to be anti-corrupt", but the whole system around it needs to be in place. The officials need to be trained and educated, they need to be paid at least a living wage and they need to be able to do the accounting or at least show you in the formal paperwork, what you're paying for. At the moment, for us each import is still a crapshoot - we really do not know what we're going to end up paying, unless we use the propina method.. then I can budget and at least the structure here, is clear. To do it legally, I do not know of anyone really knows the rules.

In the grand scheme of things, the little that we can do, is so little that I despair. Corruption is a world-wide phenomena, and I truly do not know whether us here in the DR, can make a significant difference, Leonel, or no Leonel.

One thing about Dominican officialdom.. if you give them a good laugh, they're more apt to treat you leniently... So, I'm going to give it a try - on Friday, as a matter of fact... and coming back in the next week. So, let's see.
 

bienamor

Kansas redneck an proud of it
Apr 23, 2004
5,050
458
83
Problem is

Nal0whs said:
Not a bad idea at all...

If you are serious, let us know how it goes...

I'll tell you what I'm going to do - I'm going to copy this speech a number of times and highlight the statement... then, the next time Ahmet or some silly official at the airport attempts to put 'the bite' on me, I'm going to give them the speech and say - Hey buddy -- what are you doing?

Maybe it will save some money but .. at least .. it will be worth watching the reactions....

The only problem is, your assuming that they can read the article! Might work with AMET, but PN iffy. :nervous:
 

Snuffy

Bronze
May 3, 2002
1,462
6
0
If I were dominican I would think...

Hmmm...Leonel wants me to no longer be corrupt. But, what happens when Leonel is no longer here. Things will just return to normal. In the meantime there are the suckers that are going to try to do as Leonel suggest. This is a great opportunity to take advantage of them. But of course I have to be discreet as always.

That is the way these people think...in general. Of course there are the people that do and will try to live life without corruption. But in general...this is a joke. And I like Leonel.
 

MrMike

Silver
Mar 2, 2003
2,586
100
0
52
www.azconatechnologies.com
While they tend to talk alot of flowery nonsense, (which the Spanish language is well suited for) Dominicans are very realistic in thought and practice.

And reality is, that in a situation where there are some corrupt and some non-corrupt, the corrupt have a gross advantage over the non-corrupt. Thus until no one is corrupt, everyone must be corrupt or be unable to compete with the corrupt.

So I think corruption is here to stay.
 

nickkieswetter

New member
Aug 6, 2003
85
0
0
two choices

I whole hartedly agree with the last post

Someone once said to me ;
?You have two choices in this life, be a mug or a mugger?

Certainly stands to reason in this country!

Nick
 

Danny W

Bronze
Mar 1, 2003
999
12
0
Doing away with corruption would be the greatest transformation imaginable, so when the prez. glibly shoots his mouth off, of course it doesn't ring true. To pull it off would require a crusade and a leader willing to be a martyr. In order to take the necessary steps, Leonel would need to have the stature of a Sadat, a Gorbachev or a MLK - willing to stand up to some powerful enemies and go the distance. I don't think anyone feels like that's going to happen. Simply being a politician with his heart in the right place won't make a dent. - D