How much do crooked politicians and others steal every year?
Nobody really knows, of course, but as the BBC reports today, the UN estimates that $1.6 trillion each year is stolen each year and moved across national borders. Tragically, much of this money is stolen from poor countries. It is bread taken out of the mouths of the poor.
Don’t expect this figure to drop any time soon. Led by Russia, China and Iran, a large group of countries are fighting efforts to crack down.
This money is significantly greater than the value of all foreign development aid. It is more than the ten year cost of the health care bill that just passed the House. It would be enough to fund a worldwide basic health system and provide basic primary education to every child on earth. Over the next fifty years it will cost the world much more than climate change.
yes we are a fallen people and that is why we need the revealed faith of Christ Jesus. It is also why we cannot be trusted to make that faith up according to what we may feel is right….
I think we might be a little surprised how much “crooked money” crosses the palms of politicians and government officials in this country. In my state of Pennsylvania, political corruption is so deeply ingrained that it involves politics at every level: state, county, and local. Given the size of political payrolls and “bonuses” awarded by politicians to themselves and their staffs, the amount of money spent on such tends to mount up.
I would also love to see:
the real link between the huge escalation in British fuel prices, the disgusting profits of fuel companies, the dissolition of a body with power to discipline said fuel companies and payments/positions on beards etc to politicians et al…..