"The modern world is awash in Capones, but the most brazen don't run brothels, guns or moonshine. They run countries. Many even get generous financial support from American taxpayers. Far from turning a blind eye to this corruption, the wealthiest countries oversee a labyrinthine system of financial institutions that inadvertently enable international crime...
Perhaps average citizens can help shrink the problem of tracking corruption. Today it's feasible, as never before, to mobilize the crowd to itemize what world leaders are spending. Next week the perfect opportunity will be at hand, as thousands descend on New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
The uninitiated might be forgiven for thinking the U.N. meeting's purpose is conspicuous consumption, as visiting dignitaries are whisked from their official jets to Madison Avenue. So let's keep track. Do you see a foreign leader going into Cartier or hopping into an idling Bentley ? Take a pic! We can turn the observable behavior of free-spending politicos into hard data.
Corruption in developing nations is not a victimless crime, and giving fungible money to shady governments makes American taxpayers into dupes. When foreign dignitaries take each other out to dinner in New York next week, their waitress should not be the sucker who picks up the tab."