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Foreign exchange market 
Euro: Greece is Saved Again…
AUD/USD Swap: New Opportunities for FX Traders
World Blitz Chess Champion Becomes Alpari Forex’s First Client
Masterforex-V Expo Names World’s Best Brokers for Beginners in May 2017
Bitcoin Skyrocket to $3000
Forex Trust Management the Right Way – Balance Between Moderate Risk and High Profit
Euro: Greece is Saved Again…
AUD/USD Swap: New Opportunities for FX Traders
World Blitz Chess Champion Becomes Alpari Forex’s First Client
Masterforex-V Expo Names World’s Best Brokers for Beginners in May 2017
Bitcoin Skyrocket to $3000
Forex Trust Management the Right Way – Balance Between Moderate Risk and High Profit
Stock and commodities markets
Crude Oil Plunges Below $45/b
Trading Week Starts with Oil Price Drop
Brent Drops Below $48/b Amid Qatar’s Paradox
Russia Wants Expensive Oil. Is It Really That Beneficial for the Russian Economy?
Russian Oil Production to Hit New All-Time High This Year, ACRA Experts Say
Oil Prices Don’t Care About OPEC’s Decisions
Crude Oil Plunges Below $45/b
Trading Week Starts with Oil Price Drop
Brent Drops Below $48/b Amid Qatar’s Paradox
Russia Wants Expensive Oil. Is It Really That Beneficial for the Russian Economy?
Russian Oil Production to Hit New All-Time High This Year, ACRA Experts Say
Oil Prices Don’t Care About OPEC’s Decisions
Business And Politics News
What’s New in New Anti-Russia Sanctions?
Fed Raises Key Interest Rate. How Will This Affect Russian Economy?
Why Did British People Punish Theresa May During Parliamentary Election?
Why Does Trump Fail to Be a Good President?
Trump Accuses Qatar Of Financing Terrorists
Trump Is a Boomerang Russians Have Hit Themselves With
What’s New in New Anti-Russia Sanctions?
Fed Raises Key Interest Rate. How Will This Affect Russian Economy?
Why Did British People Punish Theresa May During Parliamentary Election?
Why Does Trump Fail to Be a Good President?
Trump Accuses Qatar Of Financing Terrorists
Trump Is a Boomerang Russians Have Hit Themselves With
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Business And Politics News
Tips For Investors: Is Daily Beast’s Corruption Rating Really Unbiased?
Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:58:00 +0000
A country’s level of corruption is one of the main factors determining its investment attractiveness. No wise investor would probably invest in the economy of a highly-corrupted country. These days, when the entire world is on the verge of falling into the abyss of another major crisis, attracting foreign investment has become a matter of life and death for numerous economies around the globe.
Strange as it may seem but the more critical the global economic situation is, the more ratings are published. Not so long ago Western mass media (like The Guardian, The Financial Times, The New York Times, Forbes) reported that The Daily Beast had published its own international corruption rating. In other words, we can witness another attempt to divide the world into good and bad “guys”, i.e. corrupted countries and those that are corruption-free, democratic and attractive for investors.
How important are “corruption” ratings for investors?
According to Eugene Olkhovsky, Masterforex-V Academy’s leading expert, it is fairly easy to understand how can such ratings affect a country’s investment attractiveness.
Most investors pay attention to different ratings when deciding to invest in a foreign economy. By the way, more and more experts start questioning the objectivity of such ratings. Market Leader tries to be as objective as possible in highlighting any information that can be important to investors. It was noticed that when a certain rating irritates influential countries, they initiate publication bans and numerous investigations. It is sufficient to recollect, how the EU authorities started questioning the objectivity of international rating agencies after they started downgrading the credit ratings of European countries.
According to the experts of Masterforex-V Academy, when it comes to making any international rating, it should be unbiased, with transparent methodology and distinct criteria. Otherwise, a rating can quickly turn into a weapon of information warfare.
The Daily Beast’s rating
First of all, the rating is mainly based on Corruption Perceptions Index 2011 by Transparency International (for more details, please, also read Transparency International: Corruption Perception Index 2011 - Valuable Info For Investors Or Weapons Of Manipulating Public Opinion?)
The rating was made by The Daily Beast (a popular US edition), which doesn’t specialize in corruption ratings. Apart from Corruption Perceptions Index 2011 by Transparency International, the Daily Beast used Freedom House’s report on the freedom of the press and the latest data provided by the World Bank.
Transparency International is the only organization that makes scientifically-based corruption reports. It has a distinct definition of what corruption is while its index is based on a number of criteria. For more information, please, visit the official website.
However, The Daily Beast decided to expand Transparency International’s list of criteria, thus adding political rights, social freedoms and other irrelevant criteria.
The question arises: What is the object of the given research? Corruption or political and social freedoms? Obviously, these are different notions. Moreover, they contradict each other. There is very little or no corruption in totalitarian countries while corruption flourishes in those countries that make first democratic steps. It seems like we have a mere profanation here (I mean The Daily beast’s rating).
Uzbekistan is number 1, Belarus is number 6. Why?
This is unclear. The Daily Beast’s rating reveals only the world’s 20 Most Corrupt Countries (unlike TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index).
The Daily Beast’s rating looks as follows:
1. Uzbekistan (89,6 out 100)
2. Eritrea (87,8 out 100)
3. Laos (87,8 out 100)
4. Afghanistan (86,3 out 100)
5. Equatorial Guinea (84,2 out 100)
6. Belarus (83 out 100)
7. Congo (82,5 out 100)
8. Swaziland (81,3 out 100)
9. Iran (79,1 out 100)
10. Ethiopia (78,5 out 100)
11. Chad (78,2 out 100)
12. Syria (76,8 out 100)
13. Cote d’Ivoire (76,4 out 100)
14. Venezuela (76 out 100)
15. Iraq (75,5 out 100)
16. Yemen (73,9 out 100)
17. Burundi (73,6 out 100)
18. Angola (72,3 out 100)
19. Cambodia (71,9 out 100)
20. Haiti (69,9 out 100).
There are some major changes in comparison with TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2011.
According to Transparency International’s index, Uzbekistan was number 5. The daily beast made it the world’s most corrupted country, thus eliminating Somali (by the way, Somali wasn’t included in the rating for some strange reasons). North Korea and Turkmenistan were also eliminated from the list (they were number 2 and 6 in TI’s rating).
It is not accidental that Iran is in the same list of highly-corrupted countries, especially amid the current confrontation between Iran and the West (the Strait of Hormuz, the oil embargo, various sanctions, Iran’s controversial nuclear program.)
The most shocking an unexpected change is that Belarus suddenly rallied from number 39 (Transparency international) up to number 6 (The Daily Beast). What on earth happened in Belarus that forced The Daily Beast into making such changes?
Dmitriy Frantsevich, the head of the Belarusian Association of Traders and Investors under Masterforex-V Academy, is sure that even despite the fact that the USA and the EU keep questioning the Belarusian democracy, Belarus is not as corrupted as the Daily Beast thinks. In fact, Belarus is less corrupted that some other states of the former USSR. Anyway, it cannot be the world’s 6th most corrupted country.
Corruption is a delicate issue, which needs a delicate approach. However, The Daily Beast seems to be manipulating the data taken from other competent sources to pursue some shady goals (probably some orders from above). The Daily Beast’s rating looks biased and hardly deserves investors’ attention.
Market Leader and Masterforex-V Academy would appreciate if you could participate in a survey. Please, visit the Academy’s forum for traders and investors and answer the following question:
In your opinion, Is The Daily Beast’s rating worth being trusted?
You are free to discuss this article here: forum for traders and investors
What’s New in New Anti-Russia Sanctions?
Today, the Russian political establishment and media are glad that the Senate of the U.S. Congress has recently postponed their voting on new sanctions against Russia. However, this is just the so-called “calm before the storm”, Western experts say.
The new sanction mechanism developed by the Senate is fundamentally different from the sanctions imposed on Russia previously, under Obama’s administration. The experts say that unlike Obama’s isolated decrees, the Senate has come up with a whole new mechanism taking into consideration the whole seriousness of Russia’s crimes in the global geopolitical arena. This mechanism will prevent the U.S. authorities from being able to cancel those sanctions gradually. So, the only way out will boil down to Russia leaving Donbass, the Crimea and Syria. So, this will be the only opportunity for Russia to see the Western world cancel those sanctions.
Publication date: 26 June 01:26 AM
Fed Raises Key Interest Rate. How Will This Affect Russian Economy?
The federal Reserve has raised the key interest rate by 0,25%. According to international experts, this may well make foreign assets (including Russian ones) less attractive in terms of investing.
The decision was made as the result of the recent 2-day FOMC meeting. The interest rate was raised up to 1-1,25%. At the same time, it’s interesting to note that the actual decision matched expectations, both from the international expert community and financial markets.
Publication date: 20 June 05:12 AM
Why Did British People Punish Theresa May During Parliamentary Election?
During the recent parliamentary election in the UK, the British Conservatives failed to gain public support required to get the absolute majority in the British parliament. Now, the international expert community is discussing the reasons why Theresa May failed on her expectations.
Publication date: 20 June 03:09 AM
Why Does Trump Fail to Be a Good President?
As you probably know, the scandal around Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director Comey is just one of the unpleasant incidents in his presidential career started in early 2017.
The truth of the matter is, after the investigation against Michael Flynn started, Donald Trump asked FBI Director Comey to let the investigation slide. While Director Comey didn’t dare object to President Trump openly, he didn’t do that. On the contrary, the investigation got even more intensive.
Publication date: 16 June 01:46 AM
Trump Accuses Qatar Of Financing Terrorists
Donald Trump thinks that Qatar has been involved in sponsoring terrorists in the Middle East. That said, the USA joined other nations accusing Qatar of this kind of financing. President Trump thinks that it’s time to put an end to this. However, he didn’t specify what exactly Qatar did to sponsor terrorists.
Publication date: 15 June 05:35 AM
Trump Is a Boomerang Russians Have Hit Themselves With
Experts say that Donald Trump is gradually turning into a boomerang launched by Russia, and the thing is, this boomerang is going to hit Russia, thereby disappointing the Kremlin instead of letting them. President Trump is turning from Russia’s hope into Russia’s disappointment.
The Kremlin celebrated Trump’s victory with champagne while today Vladimir Putin says he didn’t expect anything from Donald Trump as the next president of the United States. He moved to the White House 5 months ago, but none of his decisions was made in favor of Russia.
Publication date: 13 June 06:25 AM
Will Macron Become Anti-Trump?
New French President Emmanuel Macron seems to be getting more popular both in France and outside. The 39-year-old President of France seems to have challenged his 70-year-old American peer.
Not so long ago, he made his TV speech in English. While some older representatives of the French people were indignant at this move since no other president in the history of France had ever dare do so, but the French youth seemed to like this.
Publication date: 12 June 01:52 AM
Google Reveals Near-Term Forecast
Google Technical Director Ray Kurzweil has revealed his forecast for the period until 2030. Previously, he also made similar prediction for the near future related to IT. Strange as it may see, most of his predictions did really become a reality. That’s why the international community has been closely watching his predictions over the last few years, even though sometimes it’s very difficult to believe that the future will be the same as he described in his forecast.
Publication date: 10 June 11:54 PM
25th Amendment Threatens Trump with Impeachment
President Trump is reported to have found himself in another unpleasant situation. To be more specific, just for revealing some top-secret information to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, he is now threatened with a possible impeachment. They say that the 25 amendment to the American constitution, this becomes a very likely scenario. In particular, this assumption was put forward by an advisor who used to work for George Bush Jr.
Publication date: 07 June 12:25 AM
Chinese IT Innovations as an Example for the Resto of the World
China seems to have been trying hard to revolutionize the Internet and entire IT industry through innovation. The international expert community has been seriously discussing the possibility of China setting a good example for the rest of the world when it comes to innovation.
Publication date: 05 June 06:04 AM
