The CPI

In my reading the other day in stumbled upon an interesting ranking of nations. it shows how 180 of the world's nations rank as to how corrupt their countries are. Sure it is a largely subjective measurement, but it's interesting. So I am going to give you a little about it now.
The annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) was first released in 1995. It has been widely credited with putting the issue of corruption on the international policy agenda and "exposing" countries with great amounts of dishonesty in public and private policy. This CPI ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. According to the CPI people this is a short explanation of how the index is calculated:
"The CPI gathers data from sources that span the last two years, calculated using data from 14 sources originated from 12 independent institutions. All sources measure the overall extent of corruption (frequency and/or size of bribes) in the public and political sectors and all sources provide a ranking of countries, i.e., include an assessment of multiple countries. Evaluation of the extent of corruption in countries is done by country experts, non resident and residents (in the CPI 2007. Next, all values for a country are are averaged, to determine a country's score."
Ok, so much for that. Now, which country was measured most and least corrupt? What surprises are there on the list. I am not going to give you the whole list but here are a few highlights as I see it.
- The least corrupt, a three way tie for first were Finland, Denmark and New Zealand...no surprises there for me.
- Singapore, the nation that spanks it's citizens for chewing gum was next in line. It's no surprise to anyone who has been the. That country is practically a cult, with "observers watching every move everyone makes.
- And yet another Scandinavian country, Sweden, follows. There must be an honest man or two in Scandinavia..unless they bribed the CPI to ratethem so high.
- Canada was number nine and the U.S and France tied at 19 and 20. I don't mind being behind the provincial Canadians, but being tied with those lousy French is too much to take. What's the matter with them? I know they are first in arrogance, but don't they know how to bribe!
- The rest of the top twenty is mostly Western European though Hong Kong finished at number 14. I am surprised, given the reputation there for business bribes.
- Surprises include; Chile finishing at number 22, ahead of both Spain and Israel; Italy finishing way down the list at 40 (must be the mafiamentality); China and India finished in the top half of the listing tied at number 72; and NO, Iraq was not last on the list. That honor went to two nations, a tie between Somalia and Myanmar, though Iraq was ranked one spot from the bottom at number 178I have no idea hat the lists tell us or even if it is accurate or useful. But I sure would like to see the U.S ahead of France!