Romans were far more tolerant of official corruption for one. Appointment to government positions and influence over government officials were pretty much blatantly for-sale.
Really? This doesn’t sound very different to me.
LOL, agree, from all the examples he could give, he chose the worst one. That has not changed at all.
Slaves would be the most obvious.
I think at that level of wealth you could simply use paid labour to do anything you want, no slavery required.
There are a few unspeakable things that you can not do with paid labor but can do with slaves, you would have to be extraordinarily evil to pursue any of them which is unlikely but is a possibility nonetheless.
Fiat currency.
You can buy fiat currency today without any problems. You'd have a harder time buying those in Roman times.