Corruption!

I don't have much to say about yesterday's elections, although I suspect that John Corzine's tenure at Goldman-Sachs didn't do him much good. Hell, even fat-cat Mike Bloomberg didn't do as well as everybody who counts the money expected.

Actually, I was thinking about the non-election in Afghanistan. If there were something less prestigious than "third world," I guess Afghanistan would qualify, and if there is a country more corrupt, well...

Okay — so what is corruption? In Afghanistan, the men with wealth and power buy and coerce their way to more wealth and more power. Hmmm... does that sound a little familiar? And if your Supreme Court says that strong-arming the political class with vast infusions of money is not corrupt — that, in fact, it is free speech — does that make it any less corrupt?

Obama told Karzai he has to clean up the Afghani government. Yeah, right. Let's see if Karzai takes any action against his brother — or, if family ties are too strong, Abdul Rashid Dostum, or Muhammed Qasim Fahim. Wake me up when it happens. I need a long nap — a very long nap.

You also can wake me up when the government steps in to stop Goldman-Sachs from buying tax exemptions — at deeply discounted prices — from Fannie and Freddie.

Face it: capitalism and corruption are inseparable, and it doesn't matter if the source of wealth is opium or derivatives, nor if the country is first world or third. All hail the plutocrats!