It’s definitely not a few rotten apples: It’s not just the politicians, but people working for the government in general that believe they can use their position for anything they want. The culture is very OK with small corruption, which then leads to bigger one. For instance, I know of a case where someone wanted to hire a specific person, but as one would expect in Spain, you have to open the position to all, and typically decide based on a test. Well, in this case, the intended hire wasn’t just handed the test in advance: he was asked to write the actual test.
So then when, say, some decision maker that gets to have some say on the specs of a big contract buys a house in ruins, and said house is then fully renovated by some elves with uniforms matching a very large firm, nobody bats an eye. Because if you talk, you’ll get on people’s bad sides. So this kind of behavior has been going on for decades. It’s not one party or another, but a culture of grift, in a country where most people don’t make a lot of money.
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It’s definitely not a few rotten apples: It’s not just the politicians, but people working for the government in general that believe they can use their position for anything they want. The culture is very OK with small corruption, which then leads to bigger one. For instance, I know of a case where someone wanted to hire a specific person, but as one would expect in Spain, you have to open the position to all, and typically decide based on a test. Well, in this case, the intended hire wasn’t just handed the test in advance: he was asked to write the actual test.
So then when, say, some decision maker that gets to have some say on the specs of a big contract buys a house in ruins, and said house is then fully renovated by some elves with uniforms matching a very large firm, nobody bats an eye. Because if you talk, you’ll get on people’s bad sides. So this kind of behavior has been going on for decades. It’s not one party or another, but a culture of grift, in a country where most people don’t make a lot of money.