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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

> Further, as Kosovo is an extremely corrupt country, we are able to bribe both executive and judicative as well as getting information about court orders and raids before execution.

What happens if someone else is willing to pay a higher bribe than you are...?

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Competent corrupt officials can do the math, and understand ongoing 1X bribes are far better than poisoning their money tree by stupidly accepting a one-time 10X bribe.

“There's probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum.”

-Discussion of a rather sinister court official in Isaac Asimov's 'Foundation And Empire'

I’ve seen it in the business world, but trust is everything and if you break it once even accidentally good luck. When crime enters the picture you probably won’t ever get more than a single chance, or worse, be in physical danger if you do.

I dunno. The one thing I took away from reading both memoirs of people involved in crime (yes it exists) and reports about their court cases is that there is no honor among chiefs.

And there is very little trust too. They lie and defraud each other constantly. They do kill each other too, but most often because someone knows too much or has something want.

The saying is no honor among _thieves_. Unless you mean chiefs as in c-suite, in which case it's also accurate.

I meant thieves, thanks. But, it really does fit c-suite too, except the murder part.

> understand ongoing 1X bribes are far better than poisoning their money tree by stupidly accepting a one-time 10X bribe.

Relevant concept: Present Value of Future Cashflows (see for example https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/presentvalue.asp).

Sure, but if there's enforcement officials that will take a periodic 1X bribe to protect illegal activity, there's likely someone else in society (possibly, other enforcement officials taking a bribe, or possibly other groups that have simply bribed the right people to protect their own activities) that will take a 10X payment to suppress that activity from some party with conflicting interests, perhaps by means such as putting a gun to the head of the official taking the periodic 1X stream and giving them a choice of betraying the payer or having their office redecorated with the contents of their skull.

Corrupt systems rather notoriously do not tend to feature unity of action or interest throughout what is notionally the government, or even what are nominally single agencies within the government.

Also, a 10X carrot directly to the bribed official receiving the periodic 1X stream can also be combined with a stick.

You don't think the plata o plomo choice only applies to actors not already on someone else’s corrupt (beside the official government’s overt) payroll, do you?

In countries with systemic corruption, those people collecting periodic 1X bribes share a significant part of them with their superiors, who share it with their superiors etc all the way to the top. There may not be unity of government or any formal organization, but the cliques are very strong, and they do form along institutional lines. This isn't to say that there is no bribe large enough to break the system, but 10x is way too low for most bureaucrats to risk their neck trying to do so.

It's more complicated than that. After all, these bribes aren't exactly public and transparent. A competent corrupt official can always pocket the 10x and pretend that the 1x target didn't pay in time, or that some other official did it, or some other excuse.

In a volatile place covering for illegal thing that can bite you in the ass - you'll take the payout, gain political points by cooperating with some agency and spin yourself as a hero in the case.

‘I’m shocked, shocked! that gambling is going on here!’

until they want to retire

That actually made me laugh loud!

Bribes don't work like a shop where you can come from the street and buy something. You need to have connections first.

Also, just because you are offering a simple cash bribe doesn’t mean the party trying to subvert the person you are bribing is doing that and not, e.g., putting a gun to their head as a stick while also offering a cash bribe as a carrot.

Or just bribing someone else in a position to withdraw the authority that the person you bribed is using to protect you.

In fact, bribes can walk up to you without any connection to you (re: corrupt police)

That's for the discount

It's to ensure that someone in the network has pre-screened you, and that you understand the rules about how the bribe is to be paid.

No more ping-pong...

Or if the order comes with strong pressure from the mafia or the government, and it's not ammenable to a bribe-override?

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