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Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah the stock trading in congress is another one for your list. I sometimes feel like America is the most corrupt country I've ever encountered. it's not overt like "Pay me $50 and you can avoid a ticket" but it's pernicious and wide spread.

- Law makers trade on what they're going to vote prior to voting it

- charging people a different price for the exact same procedure, at the same location, under the same market conditions simply for the reason of their income/insurance/whims

- nepotism and politicking in executive class (boards, Csuite etc), their lobbyists, and the ruling class ("elected" officials) etc. as an example Stock Buy backs are being decided by these groups and benefiting those groups' stock based income despite the duty to maximize shareholder value.

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Yeah America has largely avoided the little corruptions like the cops shaking you down for money, but we've got massive amounts of large corruption instead. Although the way that corporations are looking for any kind of new parasitic revenue stream they can find (flip around displays with tip amounts growing everywhere) are sort of a kinder, gentler style of little corruptions.

That one popular Greek economist pointed this out in the way Northern Europe critiques Southern Europe as 'corrupt', the economist points out that while Southern Europe is rife with highly localized corruption, it is Northern Europe that is the breeding ground for systemic corruption by elites (pointing out various banking scandals, etc)

We've just got the cops that will murder you in cold blood for looking at them wrong. I think I'd take the $50 get out of jail free card, if I could.

If you think corruption is actually worse now than it has ever been, as opposed to better but more visible to the general public… I have a nice bridge to sell you.

Only problem is that most politicians will tell you that their money is in a blind "trust". The real issue is deregulation of banking and the incentivization of how debt was repackaged into new "investment" vehicles along with the reality that credit/financial risk assessment never became institutionalized.

Remember, all the sub-prime mortgages were given high marks in being safe risks once they were packaged vehicles of debt because banks could bully their way into giving them assessments that were less than factual due to business pressures put upon them from the competition.

The real current crime is that all the debt from 2008 never was written off in any way. This in turn has had a cascading effect on the economy globally.

everything on this thread relies on ignorance about what was occurring in some prior time

so transparency is improving huh

Thank. You. I’m shocked by how little historical context people here have.

It almost makes me wonder if the average age on here is extremely young? I remember at a young age I felt like the world was falling apart because I had 0 historical context, but a little bit of learning goes a long way to seeing how much the world has improved. Even in recent years.

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