full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Now, why did the World Bank not let me do this work? I found out afterwards, after I left, under a big fight, the World Bank. The rasoen was that the members of the World Bank thghuot that forgien bribery was okay, including Germany. In Germany, foreign bribery was alolewd. It was even tax-deductible. No wonder that most of the most important international operators in Germany, but also in France and the UK and Scandinavia, everywhere, ssleytcaialtmy bribed. Not all of them, but most of them. And this is the phenomenon which I call failing governance, because when I then came to Germany and started this little NGO here in Berlin, at the Villa Borsig, we were told, "You cannot stop our grmean exporters from birinbg, because we will lose our contracts. We will lose to the French, we will lose to the Swedes, we'll lose to the Japanese." And therefore, there was a indeed a prisoner's dilemma, which made it very difficult for an individual cpmanoy, an individual exporting country to say, "We are not going to cnniotue this deadly, disastrous habit of large companies to bibre."

Open Cloze

Now, why did the World Bank not let me do this work? I found out afterwards, after I left, under a big fight, the World Bank. The ______ was that the members of the World Bank _______ that _______ bribery was okay, including Germany. In Germany, foreign bribery was _______. It was even tax-deductible. No wonder that most of the most important international operators in Germany, but also in France and the UK and Scandinavia, everywhere, ______________ bribed. Not all of them, but most of them. And this is the phenomenon which I call failing governance, because when I then came to Germany and started this little NGO here in Berlin, at the Villa Borsig, we were told, "You cannot stop our ______ exporters from _______, because we will lose our contracts. We will lose to the French, we will lose to the Swedes, we'll lose to the Japanese." And therefore, there was a indeed a prisoner's dilemma, which made it very difficult for an individual _______, an individual exporting country to say, "We are not going to ________ this deadly, disastrous habit of large companies to _____."

Solution

  1. continue
  2. allowed
  3. foreign
  4. thought
  5. bribe
  6. german
  7. reason
  8. systematically
  9. bribing
  10. company

Original Text

Now, why did the World Bank not let me do this work? I found out afterwards, after I left, under a big fight, the World Bank. The reason was that the members of the World Bank thought that foreign bribery was okay, including Germany. In Germany, foreign bribery was allowed. It was even tax-deductible. No wonder that most of the most important international operators in Germany, but also in France and the UK and Scandinavia, everywhere, systematically bribed. Not all of them, but most of them. And this is the phenomenon which I call failing governance, because when I then came to Germany and started this little NGO here in Berlin, at the Villa Borsig, we were told, "You cannot stop our German exporters from bribing, because we will lose our contracts. We will lose to the French, we will lose to the Swedes, we'll lose to the Japanese." And therefore, there was a indeed a prisoner's dilemma, which made it very difficult for an individual company, an individual exporting country to say, "We are not going to continue this deadly, disastrous habit of large companies to bribe."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
civil society 13
world bank 5
failing governance 4
foreign bribery 4
billion people 3
large companies 3
society organizations 3
worst projects 2
million dollars 2
grand corruption 2
oecd convention 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
civil society organizations 3

Important Words

  1. allowed
  2. bank
  3. berlin
  4. big
  5. borsig
  6. bribe
  7. bribed
  8. bribery
  9. bribing
  10. call
  11. companies
  12. company
  13. continue
  14. contracts
  15. country
  16. deadly
  17. difficult
  18. dilemma
  19. disastrous
  20. exporters
  21. exporting
  22. failing
  23. fight
  24. foreign
  25. france
  26. french
  27. german
  28. germany
  29. governance
  30. habit
  31. important
  32. including
  33. individual
  34. international
  35. japanese
  36. large
  37. left
  38. lose
  39. members
  40. ngo
  41. operators
  42. phenomenon
  43. reason
  44. scandinavia
  45. started
  46. stop
  47. swedes
  48. systematically
  49. thought
  50. told
  51. uk
  52. villa
  53. work
  54. world