Although its not new, the fact is there is 'organized crime' going on at the highest levels of government and business. We complain of corruption in China and Russia and yet we find it every day, right here in our own backyard.

This article really sickened and saddened me. I don't know why this one hit home, maybe because it was Americans scamming small towns and cities in their own country, or my own sense of fair play being trounced. Not that any of it matters when greed comes into play.

But I guess it happens at all over the world:

From Marketwatch today:

"Merrill Lynch downgraded the entire metals sector to neutral on economic-growth fears and concerns about the manipulation of metals prices."

There you have it. Eveyone out to rig everything for the big score. Am I just overly paranoid or cynical?

Mike
NYC

I'm disgusted too, but aware similar things have happened in the past and been prosecuted. Yes, America has corruption, but one of the differences is that if you get caught there's usually a price to pay. And I hope those corporations get hammered. I'm not saying it always works out that way, but some of those other countries don't have a Eliot Spitzer or others leading the way.

MikeNYC

Merrill may have downgraded "the entire metals sector," but they also just upgraded AUY from a $14 target to $15.75. I guess the AUY analyst didn't get the message.

The greater majority of the 3.1-percent of adults (usually poor, undereducated, with inadequate legal representation) incarcerated in US prisons are there for petty crimes (usually drugs related) and not, unfortunately, corporate corruption which the little people still view with a sort of "Jesse James folklore" mentality. I mention "little people" because they are the only segment of American society capable of shifting this paradigm - if only they can overcome the fear that our "vast wasteland" (Newton N. Minow) of a media has planted in their collective heads: "that they SHALL be the next victims of petty criminals if they don't give the state more police powers than it currently enjoy.

http://www.finfacts.ie/corruption.htm

Those sort of shenanigans is precisely why free markets left to their own devices can be shameless. Appropriate, independent oversight is always preferred to over-regulation. With mischief such as this, you leap frog over the appropriate and self and move directly to over.

I try to be cynical, but I CAN'T KEEP UP !!!

"...it's a fact that 3.1 pct of America's adults are in jail. So, when does the nonsense stop? When 1 in every 10 Americans are in jail?"

Bill, this does not compute!

ALOHA !!

Fozzie ... last I heard 1 in 10 is 10%!

Okay ... now we are talking "productivity" !!! Me ... in my past life as an electrical contractor(currently I am an orchid farmer)with many a public works project in the great state of California back in the 1980's and 1990's have some keen insight into the cost of human storage(incarceration). I had electrical and communications contracts on the following California prisons:

- Vacaville
- Corcoran
- Yolo
- Pelican Bay
- Ione

My last project in that sector was at Corcoran, CA. Cost in 1990 to construct one 8x10 prison cell was $125,000. Cost to house one inmate per annum $35,000.

Do the math people ... your tax dollars and a fiat monetary sytem at work! A clue ... fiat money by its nature creates this problem of prison overcrowding ... it only gets worse!

Yes, The United States puts criminals in prison. What do you do with your criminals?

Sure criminals belong in prison, but if the numbers keep rising, something is broken. Thought I read somewhere (can't find it now) that large chunk of those criminals are drug related. The War on Drugs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_On_Drugs) has been going on for how long now? 30+ years? Has the situation improved? Is there an end in sight? Or is this 'War' merely attacking the symptoms...

Some countries deal with this by examining alternative legislation, programs, whatever. It hardly seems like the War on Drugs could be much less effective, so maybe it should be reevaluated. Sadly that is unlikely to happen and prisons will continue to be filled.

Prohibition was a war on a drug, and was society better off while it lasted? Not really, but at least then they acknowledged its failure.

Proudpapa

I could not agree more. I simply say take out the profit motive by legalizing all drugs. Sell and tax drug sales. Use the money we spend for drug interdiction and enforcement for treatment centers for those who want help to break addiction.

Anyone who thinks we can stop people from using drugs or alcohol if they want to are dreaming.

Drug addicts goes to prison, money-addicts gets to self-regulate ? This is beautiful.
People are born with self-regulation, it is called morality.
Any regulation is over-regulation by money-addicts and they have sold it well.

1985 : 700K prisoners, 2006 : 2 million
Did not this country get more religious(e.g.forgiveness) during last 20 years ?

Felons don't get to vote... ever. So much for voting rights struggle.

Prisons are big-business, and big-business needs to keep attracting "customers"

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/12/01/8394995/index.htm

"I thought, 'Why not? This could be a business,'" he says. With that first trainee, Oberfest founded Incarceration Optimization Program International in New York City, offering a 100-hour, $20,000 course that instructs mainly white-collar criminals on the finer points of prison etiquette.

"Prison time for someone who lives in a penthouse on Park Avenue?" Oberfest says with a laugh. "You might as well send them to the moon."

This story really bother me because it is simply and directly turning Mom and Pop over and shaking the quarters out of their pockets, without them able to see it clearly. I think about these towns and how this money is not buying a new senior center, textbooks, police and fire equipment, whatever, and it is buying some piggish money shuffling scammer a new flat panel, a bigger sub-zero, fridge, etc., etc. (Don't get me wrong, if you earn it, enjoy those things!)

Here in NYC there is a pending court judgmenet to increase funding to schools because, relative to areas outside the city, the kids are not being funded fairly. That money, if this happened with NYC muni bonds, is needed.

Regarding that murder chart:

Notice that my city is no longer on that list? It's one of the safest big cities in the world. My neighborhood, Washington Heights, was in the 80's and early 90s, one of the most feared, responsible for the majority of coke and other drugs on the east coast, and murderous drug gangs.

Ten years later, the crime has abated to almost nothing and the yuppies, like me, who are priced out of downtown and midtown are moving in.

Landlords are unlocking and reaping the benefits of literally billions of dollars in property values all over the city,but especially uptown. Everyone thanks Guilliani. I think it's the cops who put it on the line to get these areas cleaned up.

The reward?

A new contract for the police. The starting salary has been lowered to $23,000. A rookie NYC cop with a wife and two kids qualifies for food stamps.

Around the same time this contract was signed, an article appeared in the NY Times about a shortage of slips for mega yachts in Florida. These two things are NOT unrelated.

Sorry for the rant. But in my mind, this all fits together into a disturbing pattern.

Mike
NYC

WE'RE NUMBER ONE! - Over 2M prisoners in the US. China (number 2) has only 1.5M. And per head of population, the US is WAY ahead of the Chinese!

US has from 5 to 10 times as many prisoners as the other democracies as a % of population.

As long as we keep imprisoning people for posession of minor amounts of drugs, the US will continue to lead the world by this unfortunate measure.