[visarga]

> a mostly still intact and strong property rights system

The practice of civil forfeiture on people who can't defend legally, like this guy, sure doesn't indicate that.

Maybe for the HSBC guys who laundered $378.4 billion over several years there will be a small fine, their profit for a few months. But no bank was forfeited. No board members were sent to jail for it. It seems property rights are solid, if you are rich.

[adventured]

Yes, the DEA forfeiture racket is vile, and yes it needs to be stopped. Nobody should undercut how terrible what they're doing is.

The reason the US still ranks high on the low corruption index, is because you have to take the value of the whole, not just one small problem such as this.

It impacts an extraordinarily small percentage of Americans today, and the dollar sums are extraordinarily small in such a large economy. Put another way, on that 100 point corruption scale, the DEA program would represent a negative deduction of 2 or 3 points.

What's actually important here, is stopping it before it gets larger. If they don't stop it, it will get much bigger, and graduate from being a small problem to being a serious threat to the average citizen.

If we're talking about rights violations, civil forfeitures are a joke compared to the war on drugs for example and the incarceration that has been going on since the 1970s.

[deciplex]

The reason the US ranks low on the corruption perception index, is that those in the electorate not totally apathetic have scandal fatigue. Try looking into what passes for a "scandal" in some of the countries that have similar scores to the US.

[m_mueller]

Until you respond to the very good counter arguments brought forth about your linked source, you have nothing to back up your claim that the US has low corruption. Why are you still calling it a "low corruption index"? Please allow your viewpoint to be challenged by arguing rationally rather than just repeating the same falsehoods.