One of the biggest problems in America is that there are basically three ways to bribe government officials, and only one of them is actually illegal. Having what is essentially a standing job offer is a legal way for corporations to use huge financial payments to people in power to encourage them to make the [...]

Thanks to many loopholes in our tax code–the carried interest loophole being the most important–the richest people in American are likely paying a lower tax rate than you are. From Businessweek: For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate—what they actually pay—fell from almost 30 percent [...]

Imagine that I were a large, wealthy company, say Walker Investment Corp, that would like a government official to take actions that would result in millions of additional profits. I won’t just walk into the government official’s office with a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills and say if you do me this favor I will [...]

The bane of any functioning government system is corruption. Corruption doesn’t just cause unfair and poor allocation of resources, it eventually undermines faith in the government. This, in turn, can create an extremely destructive, self-reinforcing, downward spiral, eventually undermining the entire system. The frightening thing for America is that there exists three main forms of [...]