Is there something as outrageously corrupt in your country as gerrymandering or congressman being able to trade stocks ?
August 12, 2025
I always consider these things as pretty crazy in the US I was wondering if you had something eqyivalent in your country ?
20 comments
We all know that fines serve as deterrent for infringing rules, right? To avoid regular infringement and to avoid rich people to be able to infringe traffic rules, pretty much every country has a points system license. If you break rules, you lose points, if you lose too many points, your license gets taken.
In Italy however, if you get a fine for example at a speedometer or running a red light, you can simply declare that “you don’t know who was driving the car in that moment”, pay a ridiculously low amount (like 200€), and no one gets their points taken. Et voilà, if you’re rich, getting a fine is just a minor annoyance.
EDIT: just remembered that you can avoid both losing points, AND even the additional fine. Just find a grandma who doesn’t drive anymore but still has her license active, and declare that she was driving. Pretty common to do so and save your license
I don’t think so… I don’t hope so.
But we do have Mette and Messerschmidt and they definitely do make some demographics on the corruption scale.
For certain types of felonies, members of the parliament cannot be charged and go to court, unless the prosecution gets the approval of the parliament itself. So, your an MP and you made a felony, and you’re in a party that has the majority in that moment? Magically, the other members of the party and the allies will vote “no” to your prosecution, shielding you from legal actions and allowing you to continue to commit that felony
Jens Spahn still being active in German politics is a testament of how much politicians can get away with corruption here
There was the situation during Covid when the UK government created a “fast lane” for procurement of protective clothing (PPE) etc. for hospitals. So that they could buy things quickly without the usual long process.
But weirdly, a lot of the companies that got contracts were not in the business of providing PPE, and happened to be owned by businesspeople who had given lots of donations to the Conservative Party.
And weirdly, it turned out that a lot of them then underdelivered their contracts or delivered poor PPE which was useless, but still got paid.
Oh, and there was also the fact that Boris Johnson, when he resigned as PM, elevated someone on their twenties from his staff to a lifetime position in the Upper House of Parliament, for no apparent reason (although there has been plenty of speculation). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e9w79jqdjo
Our entire government is outrageously corrupt. Even the opposition used to be outrageously corrupt.
I spend my entire life in a disgusting political environment where noone had any power against the system.
I am 30 and I’ve never been in the position of choosing a political party which alligned with my ideology. I always had to choose the party which had the most chance against our government. And none of them ever had a chance because the government is outrageously corrupt.
This is the first time in my life I have hope about my future and my children’s future
Senator isn’t a full-time job in the Netherlands. Many senators have seats on boards of a company, or are also employed as an ‘advisor’ of commercial parties.
This is all public, and there’s a gentlemen’s agreement that the senator doesn’t vote on the subjects that are of interest to their other jobs. But they do talk to their colleagues of course to ‘inform’ them.
Some parties voted the current president in exchange of him acquitting their politicians on all their criminal charges
Also, the wife and brother of the current president are under criminal investigation.
His closest collaborators, the ones that helped him become head of the Socialist Party, are under criminal investigation as well
One of the main opposition figures, the president of the Madrid region, has his boyfriend under criminal investigation as well for crimes similar to the ones of the president’s wife
Former finances Minister, also from opposition party, is under investigation for helping some companies in exchange for money.
Former interior Minister, also from the same PP party is under criminal investigation for using the police to spy and invent criminal charges against other parties politicians. Also for trying to destroy proofs against his own party corruption
Ah! Also our former king, father of the current one, is extremely wealthy and paid hundreds of millions to his former mistress. It is unknown where that money came from.
He now lives in Abu Dhabi hoping everybody forgets and his son’s reign is not affected. Seems to be working
Nothing like our heads of state creating a pump and dump shitcoin and using it to receive bribes, our head of state telling their insider friends what stocks to buy before he tweets/truths market-moving bullshit… or well the list is too long…
But we have had a number of elected politicians that got paid a stipend for housing they that didn’t need or cheating on their expense claims. And we do have some controversies from the ex-politicians that have turned lobbyists that still have access to their old colleagues. And elected politicians have the most lucrative pension schemes in the country… if that counts.
Nothing as obvious, but here in the Netherlands there’s an open secret about politicians retiring into kushy high-paying industry ‘jobs’.
Which sector they go into depends on the party, and breaking down each party by which industry they go into is the best political compass you can make for this country.
It’s frustrating because retired politicians should 100% have the right to once again become private citizens but through this system of building up favor untill cashing out you retain the negative effects of corruption.
I think (and I’m by no means an expert) that the concept of Gerrymandering mostly affects the US this harshly due to the FPTP system and the Electoral College – in e.g. Germany, the voting districts are mapped to the local counties/cities etc. and not changed independently, and you can’t “win” a district and take all the spoils – while this guarantees you a seat in parliament, the percentages of the vote also directly influence the makeup of parliament. The system is pretty complicated, but quite fair.
(And I’m not sure if I explained it correctly either)
Besides, Germany does not know the concept of “registering to vote” – every eligible citizen is automatically registered and gets their voting materials for all elections sent to them automatically. Plus our big voting days are always set on a Sunday to ensure that a maximum of people can participate without having to call out of work.
Nothing stopping a parlamentarian from trading stocks here. There’s rules about transparency for holdings above given values/ownership stakes, but otherwise only general rules about impartiality (i.e. don’t vote on something pertaining to a company you own a majority-stake in) and nebulous norms about ethics. Stricter for cabinet members.
When Germany finally introduced something like private retirement funds everyone could invest in, they made it mandatory that you buy it through an insurance and use one of their managed funds. What a coincidence that those funds all have fees around the average growth rate and since the state matches the payments up to a point guess where those tax payer euros end up. Also don’t google how Germany handles cum ex and cum cum deals. Also, the moment when the former finance minister texted the CEO of Porsche to get some input on how to argue for ICEs during the last governments coalition negotiations was very funny. Oh and I mean the current government openly appointing a meat industry lobbyist as minister of agriculture and a gas industry lobbyist as minister of economy was just perfect.
Gerrymandering and stock-trading congressmen sound bad, but these seem like a joke compared to what is going on in Greece. Our entire system is structured to make sure everyone in the political club gets their cut and they make sure that we mere people know we’re not part of that club. Basically, if there were a Eurovision for corruption, my country would win it every single year, hands down.
Just some examples: Politicians here can be caught red-handed in multi-million-euro scandals or tragedies costing human lives and then return to public office as if nothing happened, often without even issuing a statement or apology.
Public tenders are also a running joke, the “winner” is decided long before the competition is even announced, usually because they’re the minister’s cousin’s company.
Judges can delay high-profile cases until they expire due to the statute of limitations (basically our national sport), and not a single true political crime is adequately converged on the news because all “independent” media outlets are quietly owned by the same oligarchs who bankroll the major parties.
Fun times, eh.
Everything related to state-owned companies (“spółki skarbu państwa”). Any time government changes the whole board and management of such companies is staffed with members of parties in power who then earn their wages doing pretty much nothing (if employees of these companies are lucky) or doing most inane things (if these employees are not lucky). No matter which party is in power, it does not change
Finland does not have a constitutional court but a parliamentary committee that oversees constitutional affairs. As with other committees, its composition is based on the power relations of the parliament. While this isn’t necessarily corrupt in itself since the committee used to set aside their political affiliation and evaluate constitutionality of the legislation objectively, the problem is that the committee has become politicized in recent years.
While the unwritten rule has been that members of the committee should make decisions based on judicial evaluation instead of political evaluation, nobody actually oversees their actions so they can make completely political decisions and say they are “constitutional”. This is one of the reasons why there have been some demands to establish an independent constitutional court.
Here they can trade stocks but we’re a small country with a majority export economy so honestly the us government has a greater influence on our companies then we do ourselves so it honestly doesn’t really matter. We are pretty pissed though that they set their own salary and retirement age which is much earlier then everyone else’s
Austria. There are always things coming to the surface, but be crimes have never been made that visible in the public. We have also our fair share of corrupt politicians (some of them ending up in prison), but nothing to the insulence in the US and the indifference of most of the media.
One of our vice chancellors had to step down (blowing up the government) because he was caught on hidden camera, sayging that he would be interested that a supposed russian oligarchs daughter buys the countries biggest newspaper to push the news into his direction. He did not do it, he said he wanted. Not OK – he stepped back (although he is kind of back again now), but also the creator of the hidden video was arrested.
And also the involvement of high officials with dubious businessmen. Two of our former chancellors “economy advisors” are sitting in jail being in or awaiting trial for fraud and more.
The crimes are there, but shady deals still being made in the dark.
I mean, the House of Lords?
I could pick specific things about them, but in general, an unelected house being able to block laws from passing is pretty bad. Especially when some are chosen because the current PM is close to them, like when BJ gave an appointment to a junior member of his staff.
I feel like that’s more equivalent to the US having certain judges appointed for life.
Well,
When I buy a new built house, you see two prices. One for the house and one for the land it is built on. That last one is set by the city and is quite expensive (around 50% of the total price)
Then, when you live there, the city comes by and says your property (including the land) is worth this and this much, therefore you need to pay us taxes.
To me that seems just weird, but I never hear anybody about it being weird.
20 comments
We all know that fines serve as deterrent for infringing rules, right? To avoid regular infringement and to avoid rich people to be able to infringe traffic rules, pretty much every country has a points system license. If you break rules, you lose points, if you lose too many points, your license gets taken.
In Italy however, if you get a fine for example at a speedometer or running a red light, you can simply declare that “you don’t know who was driving the car in that moment”, pay a ridiculously low amount (like 200€), and no one gets their points taken. Et voilà, if you’re rich, getting a fine is just a minor annoyance.
EDIT: just remembered that you can avoid both losing points, AND even the additional fine. Just find a grandma who doesn’t drive anymore but still has her license active, and declare that she was driving. Pretty common to do so and save your license
I don’t think so… I don’t hope so.
But we do have Mette and Messerschmidt and they definitely do make some demographics on the corruption scale.
For certain types of felonies, members of the parliament cannot be charged and go to court, unless the prosecution gets the approval of the parliament itself. So, your an MP and you made a felony, and you’re in a party that has the majority in that moment? Magically, the other members of the party and the allies will vote “no” to your prosecution, shielding you from legal actions and allowing you to continue to commit that felony
Jens Spahn still being active in German politics is a testament of how much politicians can get away with corruption here
There was the situation during Covid when the UK government created a “fast lane” for procurement of protective clothing (PPE) etc. for hospitals. So that they could buy things quickly without the usual long process.
But weirdly, a lot of the companies that got contracts were not in the business of providing PPE, and happened to be owned by businesspeople who had given lots of donations to the Conservative Party.
And weirdly, it turned out that a lot of them then underdelivered their contracts or delivered poor PPE which was useless, but still got paid.
There are still ongoing cases to try and get some of the money back: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/11/dhsc-122m-claim-michelle-mone-linked-company-high-court
Oh, and there was also the fact that Boris Johnson, when he resigned as PM, elevated someone on their twenties from his staff to a lifetime position in the Upper House of Parliament, for no apparent reason (although there has been plenty of speculation). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3e9w79jqdjo
Oh, and the Members of Parliament who placed bets on the date of the next general election based on inside knowledge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election_betting_scandal#:~:text=On%2012%20June%202024%2C%20The,before%20Rishi%20Sunak%20announced%20the
Unfortunately, I could go on…
Our entire government is outrageously corrupt. Even the opposition used to be outrageously corrupt.
I spend my entire life in a disgusting political environment where noone had any power against the system.
I am 30 and I’ve never been in the position of choosing a political party which alligned with my ideology. I always had to choose the party which had the most chance against our government. And none of them ever had a chance because the government is outrageously corrupt.
This is the first time in my life I have hope about my future and my children’s future
Senator isn’t a full-time job in the Netherlands. Many senators have seats on boards of a company, or are also employed as an ‘advisor’ of commercial parties.
This is all public, and there’s a gentlemen’s agreement that the senator doesn’t vote on the subjects that are of interest to their other jobs. But they do talk to their colleagues of course to ‘inform’ them.
Some parties voted the current president in exchange of him acquitting their politicians on all their criminal charges
Also, the wife and brother of the current president are under criminal investigation.
His closest collaborators, the ones that helped him become head of the Socialist Party, are under criminal investigation as well
One of the main opposition figures, the president of the Madrid region, has his boyfriend under criminal investigation as well for crimes similar to the ones of the president’s wife
Former finances Minister, also from opposition party, is under investigation for helping some companies in exchange for money.
Former interior Minister, also from the same PP party is under criminal investigation for using the police to spy and invent criminal charges against other parties politicians. Also for trying to destroy proofs against his own party corruption
Ah! Also our former king, father of the current one, is extremely wealthy and paid hundreds of millions to his former mistress. It is unknown where that money came from.
He now lives in Abu Dhabi hoping everybody forgets and his son’s reign is not affected. Seems to be working
Nothing like our heads of state creating a pump and dump shitcoin and using it to receive bribes, our head of state telling their insider friends what stocks to buy before he tweets/truths market-moving bullshit… or well the list is too long…
But we have had a number of elected politicians that got paid a stipend for housing they that didn’t need or cheating on their expense claims. And we do have some controversies from the ex-politicians that have turned lobbyists that still have access to their old colleagues. And elected politicians have the most lucrative pension schemes in the country… if that counts.
Nothing as obvious, but here in the Netherlands there’s an open secret about politicians retiring into kushy high-paying industry ‘jobs’.
Which sector they go into depends on the party, and breaking down each party by which industry they go into is the best political compass you can make for this country.
It’s frustrating because retired politicians should 100% have the right to once again become private citizens but through this system of building up favor untill cashing out you retain the negative effects of corruption.
I think (and I’m by no means an expert) that the concept of Gerrymandering mostly affects the US this harshly due to the FPTP system and the Electoral College – in e.g. Germany, the voting districts are mapped to the local counties/cities etc. and not changed independently, and you can’t “win” a district and take all the spoils – while this guarantees you a seat in parliament, the percentages of the vote also directly influence the makeup of parliament. The system is pretty complicated, but quite fair.
(And I’m not sure if I explained it correctly either)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany
Besides, Germany does not know the concept of “registering to vote” – every eligible citizen is automatically registered and gets their voting materials for all elections sent to them automatically. Plus our big voting days are always set on a Sunday to ensure that a maximum of people can participate without having to call out of work.
Nothing stopping a parlamentarian from trading stocks here. There’s rules about transparency for holdings above given values/ownership stakes, but otherwise only general rules about impartiality (i.e. don’t vote on something pertaining to a company you own a majority-stake in) and nebulous norms about ethics. Stricter for cabinet members.
When Germany finally introduced something like private retirement funds everyone could invest in, they made it mandatory that you buy it through an insurance and use one of their managed funds. What a coincidence that those funds all have fees around the average growth rate and since the state matches the payments up to a point guess where those tax payer euros end up. Also don’t google how Germany handles cum ex and cum cum deals. Also, the moment when the former finance minister texted the CEO of Porsche to get some input on how to argue for ICEs during the last governments coalition negotiations was very funny. Oh and I mean the current government openly appointing a meat industry lobbyist as minister of agriculture and a gas industry lobbyist as minister of economy was just perfect.
Gerrymandering and stock-trading congressmen sound bad, but these seem like a joke compared to what is going on in Greece. Our entire system is structured to make sure everyone in the political club gets their cut and they make sure that we mere people know we’re not part of that club. Basically, if there were a Eurovision for corruption, my country would win it every single year, hands down.
Just some examples: Politicians here can be caught red-handed in multi-million-euro scandals or tragedies costing human lives and then return to public office as if nothing happened, often without even issuing a statement or apology.
Public tenders are also a running joke, the “winner” is decided long before the competition is even announced, usually because they’re the minister’s cousin’s company.
Judges can delay high-profile cases until they expire due to the statute of limitations (basically our national sport), and not a single true political crime is adequately converged on the news because all “independent” media outlets are quietly owned by the same oligarchs who bankroll the major parties.
Fun times, eh.
Everything related to state-owned companies (“spółki skarbu państwa”). Any time government changes the whole board and management of such companies is staffed with members of parties in power who then earn their wages doing pretty much nothing (if employees of these companies are lucky) or doing most inane things (if these employees are not lucky). No matter which party is in power, it does not change
Finland does not have a constitutional court but a parliamentary committee that oversees constitutional affairs. As with other committees, its composition is based on the power relations of the parliament. While this isn’t necessarily corrupt in itself since the committee used to set aside their political affiliation and evaluate constitutionality of the legislation objectively, the problem is that the committee has become politicized in recent years.
While the unwritten rule has been that members of the committee should make decisions based on judicial evaluation instead of political evaluation, nobody actually oversees their actions so they can make completely political decisions and say they are “constitutional”. This is one of the reasons why there have been some demands to establish an independent constitutional court.
Here they can trade stocks but we’re a small country with a majority export economy so honestly the us government has a greater influence on our companies then we do ourselves so it honestly doesn’t really matter. We are pretty pissed though that they set their own salary and retirement age which is much earlier then everyone else’s
Austria. There are always things coming to the surface, but be crimes have never been made that visible in the public. We have also our fair share of corrupt politicians (some of them ending up in prison), but nothing to the insulence in the US and the indifference of most of the media.
One of our vice chancellors had to step down (blowing up the government) because he was caught on hidden camera, sayging that he would be interested that a supposed russian oligarchs daughter buys the countries biggest newspaper to push the news into his direction. He did not do it, he said he wanted. Not OK – he stepped back (although he is kind of back again now), but also the creator of the hidden video was arrested.
And also the involvement of high officials with dubious businessmen. Two of our former chancellors “economy advisors” are sitting in jail being in or awaiting trial for fraud and more.
The crimes are there, but shady deals still being made in the dark.
I mean, the House of Lords?
I could pick specific things about them, but in general, an unelected house being able to block laws from passing is pretty bad. Especially when some are chosen because the current PM is close to them, like when BJ gave an appointment to a junior member of his staff.
I feel like that’s more equivalent to the US having certain judges appointed for life.
Well,
When I buy a new built house, you see two prices. One for the house and one for the land it is built on. That last one is set by the city and is quite expensive (around 50% of the total price)
Then, when you live there, the city comes by and says your property (including the land) is worth this and this much, therefore you need to pay us taxes.
To me that seems just weird, but I never hear anybody about it being weird.