I have been following several different threads on Facebook and other online places about the Mueller investigation. I am not surprised that there are many people defending Trump and his people, or that they try to undermine Mueller or make light or deny that there was anything illegal.

But what I am stunned at is that I have not read a single comment by any of these folks, presumably conservatives and/or Republicans, who will admit there was anything wrong with the acts that brought this up in the first place.

Even if there was no collusion during the election campaign, it is clear that Trump’s team, before he was president but during the transition period, bargained with Russia to undermine official US policy, one that was strongly supported by both parties, to punish Russia for hacking in the USA.

Apparently, this is all fine with these pro-Americans who up until a year ago thought Putin and Russia were evil.

This post from Lawfare summarizes it:

“The most important revelation here is that contrary to Cobb’s statement Friday morning, Flynn is saying clearly that he was not a rogue actor but was operating at the behest of the presidential transition team. He states that a “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team,” a “senior official of the Presidential Transition Team” and “senior members of the Presidential Transition Team” were involved in directing his actions. The stipulated facts also make clear that Flynn reported back to the transition on his conversations with Kislyak.

“Second, take a moment to remember the context in which Flynn’s underlying conduct took place: He and apparently the Trump transition team were working to undermine U.S. foreign policy goals endorsed by both parties. In December 2016, President Obama authorized sanctions against Russia in response to cyber-enabled election interference. He did so with broad bipartisan support to deter such activity in the future against the U.S. and its allies. The shared bipartisan—even nonpartisan—goal was to protect foundational elements of democracy and legitimacy. To the extent that there was mainstream criticism of the action, it was for being too weak, not for being too aggressive with respect to Russia.”

The post Why aren’t Republicans outraged by Flynn’s pro-Russia activities? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If I have counted correctly, at least 31 legislators in 24 states resigned in disgrace [or should have] in 2017. This development is shocking, but it is hardly new. Many state representatives and state senators were shamed into calling it quits in recent years as well. It’s just that this year, I decided to do a news-search to survey the landscape and to explore the scope of this phenomenon. What follows are the results of my non-scientific, state-by-state search.

I have included only state legislators reported to have resigned as a result of one form of misbehavior or another. I’m not including US Congressional representatives or Senators. I’m not including state legislators who quit to pursue higher office, or because of health/family issues, or to assume an appointed administrative position or take a job as a lobbyist. I’m also not listing those who simply decided not to run for office again after many years in a legislature.

The only people in this roundup are state legislators and party officials, plus one governor, who resigned from their offices or party leadership positions because of behavior deemed to be socially, morally or ethically shameful, or because of misdeeds that resulted in criminal investigations and/or charges.  In addition, there are several more who, according to public sentiment or party leadership, should resign, but haven’t done so.

Unfortunately, even with those exclusions, there are too many state legislators who fit into the ignominious category in 2017. I don’t pretend that this list is comprehensive: I probably have missed some. Still, even if it’s incomplete, it is dismayingly lengthy, so this promises to be a long post. And, sorry, but most of them happen to be Republicans. That’s how the chips fell.

Here’s what I found, listed by the type of misbehavior.

Sexual misconduct

These are some of the ickiest behaviors that turned up in my search. In calling for the resignation of a one state legislator who engaged in sexual misbehavior, one state majority leader reportedly said that this conduct “does not rise to the standards of behavior that we expect of elected officials.” But judging from how many state legislators across the country have engaged in—and gotten away with– these inappropriate acts, you have to wonder whether sexual misconduct itself is, indeed, the standard. And you have to ask yourself how much more of this is going unreported.

Examples from 2017:

In South Dakota, State representative Matthew Wollman [R] resigned in January, after admitting to having sexual relationships with interns during the past two legislative sessions.

In Louisiana, State Senator Tony Brown [D] resigned in February rather than face expulsion by the State Senate. According to the Times-Picayune, he had pleaded no contest twice in four months to misdemeanor charges related to domestic abuse—one charge lodged by his wife, and another by a woman who called herself his “side friend.”

Also in February, Tennessee House Representative Mark Lovell [R], in his first year in the house, resigned amid allegations that he had inappropriate sexual contact with a woman. He denied wrongdoing but resigned anyway. Lovell’s other job is listed as a “fair and carnival operator.”

Two Oklahoma state Senators resigned in disgrace in 2017: Oklahoma state Senator Ralph Shortey [R} resigned in March after facing felony child prostitution charges for soliciting sex from a 17-year-old boy.

Oklahoma’s Bryce Marlatt [R] resigned in September after being charged with sexual battery. He was named as a suspect in an assault on an Uber driver, in which he allegedly grabbed the driver forcefully and kissed her on the neck while she was driving.

In Nevada,  State Senator Mark Menendo {D], accused of sexual harassment in May, stepped down as chairman of Nevada’s Senate Committee on Transportation.

In October, Ohio State Senator Cliff Hite [R] resigned, citing “failing health” and “a mistaken judgment.” He admitted to “inappropriate conversations with a state employee, sometimes “asking her for hugs.” The female state employee said she rejected Hite’s advances more than a dozen times over two months, according to a state document. [In response, Ohio’s Senate president announced implementation of sexual harassment training.]

In the subcategory of “probably should have resigned, but didn’t” we have:

Iowa State Senator Bill Dix, the GOP majority leader, who settled a sexual harassment case lodged by a former GOP caucus staff member to the tune of $1.75 million in July, and California State Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra [D], about whom it was revealed in November that, eight years ago, when he was a top legislative aide, he was disciplined after being accused of groping another staffer.

In Kentucky, a quartet: Speaker of the House Jeff Hoover [R], resigned as speaker in November—but did not give up his elected seat—after admitting to secretly settling a sexual harassment claim, to which three other state legislators are also signatories: State Rep. Brian Linder [R], Michael Meredith [R] and Jim DeCesare [R].  Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has called for the resignation of any elected official who settles a sexual harassment claim.

And in Minnesota, State Senator Dan Schoen [D], has been accused of sexual harassment by several women, who describe behavior by Schoen that ranges from persistent and unwanted invitations to meet to physically grabbing a woman from behind. One woman, who asked to not be identified, said he sent her a photo of male genitalia via Snapchat. Schoen denies engaging in any inappropriate behavior.

Inappropriate and offensive statements

In Nebraska, State Senator Bill Kintner [R}—who had previously been fined for having cybersex using a state computer—resigned in January after re-tweeting a message that implied that participants in the post-Inaugural Women’s March were “too unattractive to be victims of sexual assault.”  Kintner did not apologize for his comments.

In New Hampshire, State Representative Robert Fisher [R], resigned in May, saying it was “out of concern for the safety of himself, his girlfriend and his family.” The issue was his creation of an incendiary forum on Reddit, known as The Red Pill, in which rape was described as “not an absolute bad.” His comments on women included these words: “I don’t hate women. I just understand what use they are to me…stimulating conversation is not one of them.”  Fisher faced no sanctions, according to a New Hampshire legislative committee, because his online behavior took place before he was elected in 2016.

In Rhode Island, Joseph De Lorenzo—not an elected official, but 2^nd vice president of the Democratic State Committee—quit the party, under pressure, after making dismissive comments about a Democratic state representative’s sexual harassment claims against a fellow—unnamed—lawmaker. Similarly, in New Mexico, a county Republican Party chairman was forced to resign in August, after posting social media comments about “violent, leftist protesters.

As for others who said offensive things and did not lose their jobs, we have:

Virgil Peck [R], a state representative from Kansas, who, in March, publicly stated,” Looks like to me, if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a (solution) to our illegal immigration problem,”, according to The Wichita Eagle.

In Missouri, State Representative Warren Love [R], stated on his Facebook page that, “people who vandalized a Confederate monument should be found and hung from a tall tree with a long rope.”

Elsewhere in Missouri, State Senator Maria Chapelle-Nadal [D], in a Facebook comment, suggested that Donald Trump be assassinated.

Campaign finance violations/malfeasance in office

In January, State Representative Micha Neal [R] of Arkansas resigned after pleading guilty in a scheme in which he took $38,000 in kickbacks from $600,000 in state grants to two nonprofit entities in Northwest Arkansas. Another Arkansas State Representative—Jake Files [R]—has been under investigation for wire fraud and pocketing $25,000 in taxpayer General Improvement Funds. To date, Files has not resigned.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley [R] resigned from office in April, after it was determined that he failed to file a major campaign contribution report, knowingly converted campaign contributions to personal use, and—by the way—covered up his extra-marital relationship with an aide.

Also in April, Oklahoma State Representative Kyle Loveless [R] resigned when it was announced that he was under criminal investigation for embezzling campaign donations.

State Senator Andre Cushing [R] of Maine resigned as assistant majority leader in October, after he was fined $9,000 for violating the state’s campaign finance laws.

In Arizona, State Representative Jesus Rubalcava [D] resigned in July after a random audit from the Citizens Clean Elections Commission found problems with his accounting. A follow-up audit identified $9,200 in expenditures that could not clearly be determined to be related to his campaign.

In South Carolina, State Representative Jim Merrill [R] resigned in August. A grand jury indicted him in December 2016 on two counts of misconduct in office and 28 counts of ethics violations. He is accused of illegally profiting from his position. Merrill is one of three legislators suspended by a state probe into statehouse corruption.

In Maryland, State Delegate Michael L. Vaughn [D] resigned in January, just minutes before the 2017 session convened. He was not charged with a crime, but is rumored to have been a possible informant in a case involving bribery of two former state lawmakers and two county liquor board officials.

State Representative Brandon Hixon [R], of Idaho, resigned in October, when it was revealed that he was involved in an active criminal investigation that had begun two weeks previously. No charges were filed at the time of his resignation, and no details were available.

And in Michigan, State Representative Brian Banks [R] resigned in February, as he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing false financial statements. He faced four criminal charges, for falsifying documents to obtain a $3,000 loan from a credit union. He also faked employment records in 2016, stating that he worked at a company where he had never been employed.

And the year is not over.

The post 31 State lawmakers who resigned in shame in 2017 [or should have] appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Soon after Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, he convened an economic summit in his home town of Little Rock, AR. He saw the biggest challenge that he would face upon assuming the presidency would be to jump-start the economy.

If Hillary Clinton is elected this November 8, and if there is no gratuitous challenge to the results from one Donald Trump, then she too will likely work to make good use of the transition period, the time between Election Day and the inauguration on January 20, 2017.

Candidates are generally cautious in talking about the transition prior to the election, but we know that they all do. Similarly, journalists, pundits, bloggers as well as lobbyists and potential job seekers engage in the parlor game well before the election even takes place.

Here are three suggestions for items of study that could be very beneficial to a President-elect Clinton during the transition.

1. Counseling about her propensity for secretiveness and non-transparency
2. Advice from President Obama on how he minimized corruption in his administration for eight years.
3. Discussion with futurists about how technological and social changes in the economy may lessen the demand for jobs performed by humans and what can be done to begin transition to a “fourth-wave” economy.

Suggestion number one may seem jarring. Let me clarify that I mean counseling in the generic sense, seeking and receiving advice. While it may be that Clinton could benefit greatly from professional counseling on her defenses (as most of the rest of us might at some points in our life), it would not be politically helpful for her to enter therapy at this time. But what would be acceptable and very helpful would be for her to seek out friends and others who have expressed concern about her repeated instances of “getting behind the curve” because she is slow to disclose. In many ways, this could be less risky than assumed because thirty years of evidence has shown that despite numerous extensive investigations, she has never been found guilty of any major transgression.

But despite a career record of honesty that far exceeds most politicians, it cannot be denied that millions of Americans do not see her as trustworthy. Yes, part of this can be attributed to the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” but she has repeatedly provided them with fodder to continuously advance this meme. Hillary Clinton needs to sit down for some conversation from which she might want to get up and leave, but it would do her well to engage. It is not necessary for her to understand any or all of the psychological reasons why she “clams up” and does not disclose. What is necessary is for her to have close advisors who can tell her when a lack of disclosure portends poorly for her and how to actually disclose in a timely and willing fashion. It does not have to be that different from a parent reminding an adolescent who has been a little carefree with money to make sure that he or she gets correct change after a cash transaction. In the case of Ms. Clinton, she must go through a checklist of presidential items where without change she might opt for less transparent than is necessary. The follow-up would be for her to seriously consider alternative actions that would allow her to stay in front of the curve.

President Obama could probably give her good advice in this regard and also tips on keeping her administration as “clean” as possible. No other president in modern history has been as scandal free as Barack Obama. There are a few tricks to his trade, such as not hiring former lobbyists onto the White House staff (a promise generally well-kept). Hillary Clinton would do well to look for fresh faces. As a way of better connecting with those who currently support Trump, she might want to go a little lighter on politicians and even academics. A labor secretary who is union-bred would be very helpful as would a transportation secretary who has not been a mogul. She would do well to follow advice from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on consumer and fair practices issue. A clear break with “business as usual” would be very helpful to her.

Finally, Clinton would do well to consult with futurists on how society is changing. Her husband rode the “Third Wave” (the initial digital age) that Alvin Toffler wrote about in 1970 in Future Shock. In many ways, it is remarkable that unemployment in the United States is only 5% in light of the out-sourcing, automation and computerization we have experienced since the 1990s. But we are now seeing on the horizon a new wave of inventions and practices that will potentially eliminate jobs in an unprecedented fashion. Will driverless cars mean the end of truck, bus and cab drivers? Will computers be able to do new forms of analysis and interpretation such as reading X-rays? Is the teaching profession further endangered by computerized learning? Will the metal fabrication of tomorrow be so automated that we will hardly remember what steelworkers were?

The bigger question is: What will human beings do when there are fewer and fewer jobs? How will we “earn our keep?” In one sense we will all be richer because more goods and services will be available. But what if that happens without us earning money? Do we need to re-define jobs and do we need to think of income as opposed to salaries or wages?

These are difficult questions, but addressing them becomes more urgent every day. It would behoove Clinton, if she becomes president, to look well beyond the twenty-four-hour news cycle or even the trade deals of today and look at the trade winds of how humankind is changing as we move further into the twenty-first century.

There will be little time to wax philosophical about these three issues once Clinton takes office.  She needs to quickly redefine what it means to be the “best and the brightest” and how she can most effectively be part of that.

The post Three things Hillary can do if she wins the election appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Rod Blagojevich and the other Illinois governors jailed for corruption are not alone. They’ve dominated the headlines lately, but 20th and 21^st Century American history is rife with similarly sordid examples of top-of-the-ticket, out-of-bounds state officials elsewhere. They got caught abusing their power, engaging in obviously corrupt practices and violating the public trust. Here, in no particular order, is a non-comprehensive look at other intriguing stories from the governors’ hall of shame.

Bad bet on the bayou: Louisiana’s Edwin Edwards

During his fourth term as governor, the colorful, gambling-addicted Governor Edwards was ratted out by a for-profit-prison entrepreneur, who allegedly gave him $845,000 in conjunction with a scheme to locate a private juvenile prison in Jena. Edwards was indicted in 1998 by the federal government. The prosecution released transcripts of audio conversations, as well as excerpts of video surveillance that seemed to indicate dubious financial transactions regarding riverboat casino licenses for political cronies. The Edwards investigation also tarnished the reputation of San Francisco 49ers owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., who admitted to paying Edwards $400,000 in exchange for Edwards’s assistance in securing a casino license. Edwards was found guilty on 17 of 26 counts, including racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud and wire fraud. In October 2002, he began a 10-year prison term.

Wheel dealer: Louisiana’s Richard Leche

After Huey Long’s assassination, Leche ascended to the leadership of the “Long faction” in the state and served as governor from 1936-1939. One of his early statements offers an insight into his later-revealed corrupt activities: “When I took the oath of office,” he said, “I didn’t take any vow of poverty.” He and other state officials developed a scheme to sell trucks to the state highway department. Under federal law, this activity constituted mail fraud. In 1940, Leche was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. He served five and, in 1953, was pardoned by outgoing President Harry Truman. He later became a lawyer and a lobbyist.

Charisma in cell block 11: Connecticut’s John Rowland

When he took office in 1995, Rowland was a charismatic, rising Republican star and was the youngest governor in the state’s history. A year after being sworn in for his third term, he was accused of influence peddling and admitted that he had received free work from state contractors on his summer cottage. He eventually resigned, pleaded guilty to a federal corruption charge, and served ten months in federal prison. Asked a few years later to explain what happened, he said, “The sense of entitlement is the beginning. Before you know it, you’re doing things you never thought you’d do in the past. Then you send that message to others.” Rowland is also quoted as describing his downfall this way: “It seems like just yesterday I was at the White House staying in the Lincoln bedroom and everything was wonderful. And then almost overnight I’m standing in line for toilet paper at a prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania.”

Liquor is quicker: Tennessee’s Ray Blanton

Elected in 1975, Blanton first got in hot water when a fired parole-board chairman accused him of taking bribes in exchange for clemency for prisoners. According to Downfall Dictionary, federal investigators raided the state capitol as they looked into those charges, but didn’t indict him. However, during the investigation, an undercover agent asked a Blanton bodyguard how much it would cost to pardon James Earl Ray—the convicted murderer of Dr. Martin Luther King. The bodyguard reportedly said that, while King’s assassin was too high-profile for clemency, for the right price, he could probably be allowed to escape. Later, Blanton was convicted of granting 12 licenses to liquor stores run by political allies in exchange for a kickback of a portion of their income. Those charges stuck, and in 1981, he was convicted of conspiracy, extortion and mail fraud. He was sentenced to three years in prison and an $11,000 fine. He was released after 22 months. He later worked as a radio commentator and used-car salesman.

Guilty. I mean, not guilty: West Virginia’s Arch A. Moore

Moore, a three-term Republican governor [1968, 1972 & 1984] in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, had a long history of shady dealings. Most recently, in 1990, he was convicted for extorting a $573,000 kickback from a local coal company, while he was governor, to help it get $2 million from the state’s black lung fund. He was also charged with failing to report, on his income tax returns, tens of thousands of dollars in payments from various companies and lobbyists, taking illegal payments for one of his reelection campaigns, falsifying documents and trying to persuade witnesses to lie. He pleaded guilty to that last charge when federal prosecutors informed him that they had taped him conspiring with his former campaign manager to obstruct the investigation. Shortly thereafter, he tried to retract his guilty plea, but the courts denied his request. He served more than two years in jail.

Dad takes the fall: Rhode Island’s Edward DiPrete

In December 1998, long after the end of his third term as Rhode Island’s governor, Edward DiPrete pleaded guilty to 18 charges of corruption, admitting that he accepted bribes and extorted money from contractors while in office. He pled guilty in exchange for leniency for his son, a co-defendant in the case. DiPrete was the first Rhode Island governor to go to jail for corruption. His downfall was precipitous: In 1987, a public-opinion poll reported that he had an 89 percent approval rating, the highest of any American governor in a decade. ”The pressures of raising money for campaign spending obviously clouded my perspective,” he said.’

Special cases

Not included in the preceding rogues’ gallery are several governors for whom wrongdoings were investigated and/or alleged without resulting in indictments or convictions. They include:

• Every Kentucky governor between 1971 and 2002, whose alleged misdeeds ranged from insurance scams, conflicts of interest, kickbacks, gambling, gun-and-cocaine smuggling, receiving illegal gifts—such as a grand piano and a tanning bed, tax fraud, arson and sexual harassment.
• Nevada’s Jim Gibbons, who, in 2006, was investigated for sexual harassment and for a shady-looking financial relationship with a defense contractor.
• Kentucky’s Ernie Fletcher, who was indicted in 2006 for improperly giving state jobs to his political allies. The charges were later dropped, when a judge ruled that a governor could not be prosecuted while in office.

Another special case is that of Alabama’s Don Siegelmann. In 2006, Sieglemann was convicted and sentenced to jail for appointing a political donor to an all-volunteer state board—an act that, he has said, has never before been considered a crime in America. Many of his supporters, plus a large contingent of state prosecutors who have called for an investigation of the case, allege that his crime actually was to defeat a Republican opponent and that the move against him was led by conservative politico Karl Rove.

And then there’s Harold Hoffman, New Jersey’s popular, “boy-wonder” governor from 1934 to 1938. Known to all as a big-spending, free-wheeling, highly entertaining politician, he managed to hide his more than $300,000 theft of public money until after his death, when he revealed it all in a posthumous letter to his daughter. In today’s Google-powered, politically vindictive, schadenfreude world, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep that secret, and that’s a lesson that contemporary, bad-behaving governors should probably heed.

The post (Other) (non-Illinois) governors behind bars appeared first on Occasional Planet.

“Corruption hurts everyone, and it harms poor people the most.” That basic principle underlies the work of Transparency International [TI], the Berlin-based international group whose mission is nothing less than helping to create a world free of corruption.

Founded in 1993, TI has evolved into a global network with more than 90 chapters. The idealism of the organization is impressive, given the news we read daily about bribery, kickbacks and greed and fraud in countries all over the world. But even as it acknowledges that environment, TI persists in challenging the inevitability of corruption. Politically non-partisan, TI does not itself conduct investigations of alleged corruption or expose individual cases, but it…

bring[s] together relevant players from government, civil society, business and the media to promote transparency in elections, in public administration, in procurements and in business. TI’s global network of chapters and contacts also use advocacy campaigns to lobby governments to implement anti-corruption reforms.

Straight talk about corruption

TI defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It hurts everyone whose life, livelihood or happiness depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority.”

That definition incorporates virtually everyone. But it’s especially relevant to poor people, whose daily scramble to survive depends greatly on local, regional and national governments, and on aid organizations. In fact, says TI, corruption is both a cause of poverty, and one of the biggest barriers to overcoming it.

Most Americans would probably claim personal innocence from political corruption. Sure, we acknowledge that it exists, but we often cynically dismiss corruption-fighting as a battle against the worst of human nature. Mostly, we see corruption as an abstract concept that applies to others, and we easily dismiss it as irrelevant to our daily lives and more pertinent to Jack-Abramoff-type lobbyists and politicians who hide shoeboxes full of cash payoffs in their closets. Of course, we’re kidding ourselves. Corruption is everywhere in many forms—both obvious and subtle. And for many people around the world, corruption is a daily routine—one that limits their lives in many ways.

Transparency International makes the realities of corruption very vivid, describing impacts both small and large:

• A father who must do without shoes because his meager wages are used to pay a bribe to get his child into a supposedly free school.
• The unsuspecting sick person who buys useless counterfeit drugs, putting their health in grave danger.
• A small shop owner whose weekly bribe to the local inspector cuts severely into his modest earnings.

At other times, corruption’s impact is less visible, says TI:

• The prosperous multinational corporation that secured a contract by buying an unfair advantage in a competitive market through illegal kickbacks to corrupt government officials, at the expense of the honest companies who didn’t.
• Post-disaster donations provided by compassionate people, directly or through their governments, that never reach the victims, callously diverted instead into the bank accounts of criminals.
• The faulty buildings, built to lower safety standards because a bribe passed under the table in the construction process that collapse in an earthquake or hurricane.

Measuring corruption

So, how corrupt is our world? That’s a question that Transparency International continues to try to answer, using several “corruption measurement tools.” Among these are:

The Corruption Perceptions Index [CPI], which measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. The most recent CPI, released in 2009, ranks Somalia and Afghanistan as the countries perceived as most corrupt, while New Zealand and Denmark are perceived as least corrupt. On the CPI scale of 0-10, with 10 being the lowest level of perceived corruption, the US gets a 7.5, compared to New Zealand’s 9.4 and Denmark’s 9.3. The vast majority of the 180 countries in the 2009 CPI score below 5.

TI observes that countries perceived as the most corrupt tend to be those that have been torn apart by wars and internal strife.

The Bribe Payers Index [BPI], which evaluates the “supply side” of corruption—the likelihood of firms from 22 industrialized countries to bribe abroad. The BPI gives ratings from 0 to 10, with 10 indicating the least likely to bribe. In the most recent BPI, published in 2008, Belgium and Canada shared first place with a score of 8.8. At the other end of the spectrum, Russia ranked last, with a score of 5.9, just below China [6.5], Mexico [6.6] and India [6.8].

The BPI also shows that “construction, real estate, oil and gas companies [are] the most corruption-prone when dealing with the public sector…Public works and construction companies are most likely to exert undue influence on the policies, decisions and practices of governments.”

The Global Corruption Barometer [GCB], a public-opinion survey that assesses the general public’s perception and experience of corruption in more than 60 countries. It provides an indicator of how corruption is affecting individuals and how efforts to curb corruption around the world are perceived on the ground. The 2009 GCB found that…

The massive scale of global corruption resulting from bribery, price-fixing cartels and undue influence on public policy is costing billions…In developing..countries alone, companies colluding with corrupt politicians and government officials have supplied bribes estimated at up to $40 billion annually.” Research in the report also shows that “half of international business executives polled estimated that corruption raised project costs by at least 10 percent.”

These indices tell us a lot—perhaps more than we care to know—about the world we live in. Obviously, no country is without corruption. The differences are only in degree. What TI is doing may not end corruption or change human nature, but by raising our awareness, it might help us face reality and take action.

The post Corruption hurts: Who, where, how much? appeared first on Occasional Planet.