[Cheezmeister]

"Seems" is not the same as "is". In the US at least, I see not corruption so much as deeply entrenched dysfunctional incentives.

It's not malice or conspiracy or even stupidity. It's simply the way the US's political, economic, and industrial systems (alternately known as THE MAN) co-evolved.

[ant6n]

First world corruption doesn't directly rely on bribes, people wouldn't experience it like they do in the third world. Here it is more advanced. It comes as crazy conflict-of-interest creating campaign contributions, as giving contracts to friends, as corporatism, lobbyists writing laws. A strong sense of plutocracy. Most contracts the public gives out these days seem to have insane costs.

Yes I wrote 'seem', not 'is', because I can't prove it.