How Deep Is The Rot In America's Institutions?
How deep has the rot of corruption, fraud, abuse of power, betrayal of the public trust, blatant criminality and insiders protecting the guilty penetrated America's key public and private institutions? It's difficult to tell, as the law-enforcement and security agencies are themselves hopelessly compromised.
All this rot–corruption, fraud, abuse of power, betrayal of the public trust, tax evasion, blatant criminality and insiders protecting the guilty–has consequences. As I explained in Crony Capitalism Is Kryptonite to Democracy and the Real Economy (October 6, 2014), When the machinery of governance is ruled by the highest bidders, democracy is dead. (Hmm, why is Facebook suddenly spending $100 million on lobbying?)
Or as correspondent Simons C. recently put it: “The ethical dimension underpinning the whole system is this: what's moral is what's legal and what's legal is for sale.”
See Also:
Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
REVIEW: The Divide – American Injustice in the Ago of the Wealth Gap by Matt Taibbi
