Corruption 101

Give me a break from braying newshounds nipping at senatorial heels.  Senators, clean up your act, and hounds go tree cats or something useful.  BC Blue has the right attitude, publish pictures of reporters drinking the party's booze, to tone down the hypocrisy.

Left leaning reporters want
their side more prominent.

Here's what corruption 101 looks like:

-Your leaders have unexplained sums in their possession measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes in the billions.  Hello Putin ($40 billion in Gazprom?), Iranian Supreme Leader Al Khameini (billions and a BMW dealership), hello to the late Gaddafi (90 billion unaccounted for)  and Arafat, (more than a billion stolen), hello to the humble Castro brothers  ($900 million at least), hello to the late Chavez (Over 1 billion) , hello Mubarak family ($700 billion?).
-All friends and relatives of your leaders have cushy jobs, unexplained cash and live largely.
-Most big industries of the land are somehow being run by generals and politicians as in China and Russia and all those other places.  (The richest top 50 Chinese politicians have amassed some $95 billion in wealth, nearly 100 times more than the collective assets of the 50 wealthiest members of the U.S. Congress,)
-Their is no auditor general doing a decent job.  You can't even get an accurate number for what goes through the treasury.
-People who disagree with leaders are routinely beaten up, fired and disappeared.

Folks, this isn't happening in Canada and not in the Senate of Canada either.

So, I'm a hypocrite.
Don't shoot me.

Senatorial sin is cheating to save tax or running close to that line and $90,000 is the largest sum mentioned.  (Compare Greece where two thirds of all  the doctors claim to earn less than 12000 euros per year) These bad behaving senators are afraid of the Canada Revenue Agency! They actually expect to pay taxes! They sometimes fudge the rule of law but pay ardent lip service to it! That's why I prefer hypocrites to tyrants.



Footnote:  Taxes are often not black and white and need legal opinions. My dear and late uncle John Woodworth went to the accountant after his very first year in business as a professional.architect. He rounded up all the invoices and bank books in a box and with a little bravado announced he was there to pay every penny of tax.  The accountant looked up and asked this one question: "Do you want to be taxed on the same basis as everyone else?" (Of course).  "Then take every deduction you can, because rates are set on the assumption you will try to keep hold of as much of your money as possible. If you don't push back, you pay too much tax, more than the government expects."