After reading this, I lost my appetite. In fact, I think I'll just
crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/14/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Cole writes: "While it is true that you don't typically have to bribe your
postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America's political
and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the
usual global South suspects."
Donald Trump. (photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Top 10 Signs the US Is the Most Corrupt Country in the World
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
14 December 15
Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as
hopelessly "corrupt" always imply that the United States is not corrupt.
VOA reports :
While it is true that you don't typically have to bribe your postman to
deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America's political and
financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the
usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16
trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.
1. The rich are well placed to bribe our politicians to reduce taxes on the
rich. A nonentity like Donald Trump got filthy rich via tax loopholes, and
is now trying to buy the presidency. The way the Supreme Court got rid of
campaign finance reform and allowed open, unlimited buying of elections is
the height of corruption. Note that despite his supposed "populism," Trump
never talks about the unfairness of our current tax system, instead
dividing
and ruling working and middle class Americans by stirring racial and
religious hatreds. As it stands, 400 American billionaires are worth $2
trillion, as much as the bottom 150 million Americans. That kind of wealth
inequality hasn't been seen in the US since the age of the robber barons in
the nineteenth century. Both eras are marked by extreme corruption.
2. Money and corruption have seeped so far into our media system that
people
can with a straight face assert that scientists aren't sure human carbon
emissions are causing global warming. Fox Cable News is among the more
corrupt institutions in American society, purveying outright lies for the
benefit of the billionaire class. The US is so corrupt that it is resisting
the obvious urgency to slash carbon production. Even our relatively
progressive president talks about exploiting all sources of energy, as
though hydrocarbons were just as valuable as green energy and as though
hydrocarbons weren't poisoning the earth. All of the GOP candidates for the
2016 presidential election are climate change deniers, all of them in the
back pockets of Big Oil, and this includes Trump.
Even Qatar, its economy based on natural gas, freely admits the challenge
of
human-induced climate change. American politicians like Jim Inhofe are
openly ridiculed when they travel to Europe for their know-nothingism on
climate.
3. Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with
limited
and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the
US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks
for
advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time
fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are
basically on the take, though many are honorable people. They are forced
into it by the system. Former House Majority leader John Boehner has
actually just handed out cash on the floor of the House from the tobacco
industry to other representatives.
When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter
French police actually went into his private residence searching for an
alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L'Oreale
heiress.
I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our
presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding
error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions
from
arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the police
haven't
been anywhere near his house.
American politicians don't represent "the people." With a few honorable
exceptions, they represent the the 1%. American democracy is being
corrupted
out of existence.
4. That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like
banking (what is called "regulatory capture") means that they will be so
bribed. Billions were spent and 3,000 lobbyists employed by bankers to
remove cumbersome rules in the zeroes. Thus, political corruption enabled
financial corruption (in some cases legalizing it!) Without regulations and
government auditing, the finance sector went wild and engaged in corrupt
practices that caused the 2008 crash. Too bad the poor Afghans can't just
legislate their corruption out of existence by regularizing it, the way
Wall
street did.
5. That the chief villains of the 2008 meltdown (from which 90% of
Americans
have not recovered) have not been prosecuted is itself a form of
corruption.
6. The US military budget is bloated and enormous, bigger than the military
budgets of the next twelve major states. What isn't usually realized is
that
perhaps half of it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. It
is corporate welfare on a cosmic scale. I've seen with my own eyes how
officers in the military get out and then form companies to sell things to
their former colleagues still on the inside.
7. The US has a vast gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and
penitentiary. There is an increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized,
and this tendency is corrupting the system. It is wrong for people to
profit
from putting and keeping human beings behind bars. This troubling trend is
made all the more troubling by the move to give extra-long sentences for
minor crimes, to deny parole and to imprison people for life for e,g, three
small thefts.
8. The National Security Agency's domestic spying was a form of corruption
in itself, and lends itself to corruption. With some 4 million government
employees and private contractors engaged in this surveillance, it is
highly
unlikely that various forms of insider trading and other corrupt practices
are not being committed. If you knew who Warren Buffett and George Soros
were calling every day, that alone could make you a killing. The American
political class wouldn't have defended this indefensible invasion of
citizens' privacy so vigorously if someone somewhere weren't making money
on
it.
9. As for insider trading, it turns out Congress undid much of the law it
hastily passed forbidding members, rather belatedly, to engage in insider
trading (buying and selling stock based on their privileged knowledge of
future government policy). That this practice only became an issue recently
is another sign of how corrupt the system is.
10. Asset forfeiture in the 'drug war' is corrupting police departments and
the judiciary.
So don't tell the Philippines or the other victims of American corruption
how corrupt they are for taking a few petty bribes. Americans are not seen
as corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion
and you aren't corrupt, you're respectable.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid.
Donald Trump. (photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
http://www.juancole.com/2015/12/signs-corrupt-country.html?utm_source=dlvr.i
t&utm_medium=facebookhttp://www.juancole.com/2015/12/signs-corrupt-country.h
tml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Top 10 Signs the US Is the Most Corrupt Country in the World
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
14 December 15
hose ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as
hopelessly "corrupt" always imply that the United States is not corrupt.
VOA reports :
While it is true that you don't typically have to bribe your postman to
deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America's political and
financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the
usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16
trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.
1. The rich are well placed to bribe our politicians to reduce taxes on the
rich. A nonentity like Donald Trump got filthy rich via tax loopholes, and
is now trying to buy the presidency. The way the Supreme Court got rid of
campaign finance reform and allowed open, unlimited buying of elections is
the height of corruption. Note that despite his supposed "populism," Trump
never talks about the unfairness of our current tax system, instead
dividing
and ruling working and middle class Americans by stirring racial and
religious hatreds. As it stands, 400 American billionaires are worth $2
trillion, as much as the bottom 150 million Americans. That kind of wealth
inequality hasn't been seen in the US since the age of the robber barons in
the nineteenth century. Both eras are marked by extreme corruption.
2. Money and corruption have seeped so far into our media system that
people
can with a straight face assert that scientists aren't sure human carbon
emissions are causing global warming. Fox Cable News is among the more
corrupt institutions in American society, purveying outright lies for the
benefit of the billionaire class. The US is so corrupt that it is resisting
the obvious urgency to slash carbon production. Even our relatively
progressive president talks about exploiting all sources of energy, as
though hydrocarbons were just as valuable as green energy and as though
hydrocarbons weren't poisoning the earth. All of the GOP candidates for the
2016 presidential election are climate change deniers, all of them in the
back pockets of Big Oil, and this includes Trump.
Even Qatar, its economy based on natural gas, freely admits the challenge
of
human-induced climate change. American politicians like Jim Inhofe are
openly ridiculed when they travel to Europe for their know-nothingism on
climate.
3. Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with
limited
and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the
US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks
for
advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time
fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are
basically on the take, though many are honorable people. They are forced
into it by the system. Former House Majority leader John Boehner has
actually just handed out cash on the floor of the House from the tobacco
industry to other representatives.
When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter
French police actually went into his private residence searching for an
alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L'Oreale
heiress.
I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our
presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding
error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions
from
arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the police
haven't
been anywhere near his house.
American politicians don't represent "the people." With a few honorable
exceptions, they represent the the 1%. American democracy is being
corrupted
out of existence.
4. That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like
banking (what is called "regulatory capture") means that they will be so
bribed. Billions were spent and 3,000 lobbyists employed by bankers to
remove cumbersome rules in the zeroes. Thus, political corruption enabled
financial corruption (in some cases legalizing it!) Without regulations and
government auditing, the finance sector went wild and engaged in corrupt
practices that caused the 2008 crash. Too bad the poor Afghans can't just
legislate their corruption out of existence by regularizing it, the way
Wall
street did.
5. That the chief villains of the 2008 meltdown (from which 90% of
Americans
have not recovered) have not been prosecuted is itself a form of
corruption.
6. The US military budget is bloated and enormous, bigger than the military
budgets of the next twelve major states. What isn't usually realized is
that
perhaps half of it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. It
is corporate welfare on a cosmic scale. I've seen with my own eyes how
officers in the military get out and then form companies to sell things to
their former colleagues still on the inside.
7. The US has a vast gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and
penitentiary. There is an increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized,
and this tendency is corrupting the system. It is wrong for people to
profit
from putting and keeping human beings behind bars. This troubling trend is
made all the more troubling by the move to give extra-long sentences for
minor crimes, to deny parole and to imprison people for life for e,g, three
small thefts.
8. The National Security Agency's domestic spying was a form of corruption
in itself, and lends itself to corruption. With some 4 million government
employees and private contractors engaged in this surveillance, it is
highly
unlikely that various forms of insider trading and other corrupt practices
are not being committed. If you knew who Warren Buffett and George Soros
were calling every day, that alone could make you a killing. The American
political class wouldn't have defended this indefensible invasion of
citizens' privacy so vigorously if someone somewhere weren't making money
on
it.
9. As for insider trading, it turns out Congress undid much of the law it
hastily passed forbidding members, rather belatedly, to engage in insider
trading (buying and selling stock based on their privileged knowledge of
future government policy). That this practice only became an issue recently
is another sign of how corrupt the system is.
10. Asset forfeiture in the 'drug war' is corrupting police departments and
the judiciary.
So don't tell the Philippines or the other victims of American corruption
how corrupt they are for taking a few petty bribes. Americans are not seen
as corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion
and you aren't corrupt, you're respectable.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
