USA, pervasively corrupt

The US has 751 people per 100,000 in prison. 

That's the highest incarceration rate in the world, five times the rate in England, eight times the rate in Germany, 12 times the rate in Japan. Yet the US mostly refuses to prosecute financial criminals like those whose malfeasance brought on the 2008 financial crash, and like the HSBC executives who for decades laundered money for Al Qaida terrorists. 

Why? Those financial institutions and their executives are big-time political donors, and they're big-time practitioners of the bribery that largely controls legislation in the US, and so heavily influences other government action here.

On 13 December a disturbed man attacked 20 or more young pupils and at least one adult in an elementary school. 

A day later, another disturbed man attacked 20 or more young pupils and at least one adult in another elementary school.

Every victim of the first attack is still alive. Twenty-six victims of the second attack, twenty of them six or seven years old, died.

What was the difference? The first attacker was in Chengping China and had only a knife. The Sandy Hook attacker brought a semi-automatic assault rifle and two handguns. 

Guns do kill. All over the world, people in democracies understand that. They've sensibly persuaded their governments to protect them from guns. 

Even a few undemocratic governments understand that.

Not in the USA. Why? Because 5,400 US gun manufacturers make huge profits on gun sales, $13.6 billion in 2011, and nothing stops them from shovelling enough of that money to the NRA, and directly to politicians, to buy obstruction of effective gun control.

Is this corruption specific to finance and guns? No. It also pervades the US prison industry, the US pharmaceutical industry, the US health insurance industry, the US energy industry, US defence industries and the US media.

You're expecting Sandy Hook to trigger a big change in gun control in the US? 

Worse than we knew

Since the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, the US has had 31 school shootings. The rest of the world has had less than half that many, 14. To explore the details visit here and scroll down to the interactive map.

More than twice as many as the rest of the world put together is worse than we knew. But you're telling yourself, these violence statistics are just black swans, weird outliers---the US is still one of the greatest countries in the world, right?

Think again. Edward Fullbrook, editor of Real World Economics Review, has published a wee ebook tabulating how the US compares with 29 other OECD countries on 56 measures of personal, social, economic and political life.

On eight health measures, the US ranks an average of 28th of 30. 

On healthy life expectancy from birth, the US ranks 24th of 30. Its citizens can expect six fewer years of healthy life than the citizens of Japan, five less than citizens of Switzerland, four less than citizens of Sweden, Iceland, Italy, Australia and Spain.

Its infant mortality rate is 25th worst of 30, 2½ times higher than Sweden's. Its obesity rate is worst of all OECD countries, eleven times higher than South Korea, eight times higher than Japan, four times higher than Switzerland and Norway. 

Well maybe, you say. But it's still a great place to live, isn't it? On eight family life measures the US is dead last. 

Its teenage pregnancy rate is 23 times higher than that of South Korea, eleven times that of Japan, nine times higher than The Netherlands and Switzerland. On paid maternity, Denmark guarantees 100% of annual wages, Norway 86%, Germany 84%, Sweden 82%, The US provides 0%; no other OECD country is that stingy. The US child poverty rate is second worst, 22%, nine times that of Denmark, eight times that of Finland, five times that of Sweden. Its divorce rate is worst, four times that of Mexico Italy and Ireland, twice Canada's rate.

But you say, at least it's a leading democracy! On freedom and democracy the US is also dead last.

It's worst in voter turnout. It's also worst by a huge margin in prisoners per capita---the US incarceration rate is 77 times that of Iceland, twelve times that of Ireland and Norway, ten times that of Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden. It's near worst in percent of parliamentarians who are women, press freedom, and collective bargaining coverage

But surely with its emphasis on law and order, the US is a shining example of public order and safety? On public order and safety, the US is also dead last.

I've written about homicide and gun ownership rates. In HIV infection rate and cocaine abuse the US ranks worst. Its robbery rate is one of the worst, 31 times higher than Japan, fifteen times higher than South Korea and France. Road fatality rate and percent of lifetime lost to injury are near worst. 

Well, you say, at least the US is one of the most generous countries? On generosity the US also ranks dead last.

On NGO and public tsunami relief pledges, the US is middle of the table; Norwegians and Swiss give eight times more per capita. On government foreign aid, asylum seekers accepted per capita, greenhouse gas emissions per capita, efforts to reduce exploitation of the global commons and ecological footprint, the US is near the bottom, and on net development assistance as percent of gross national income, the US is dead last.

Well at least don't Americans enjoy a nice life? On income and leisure the US ranks 27th of 30.

It's 7th of 30 in GDP per hour worked, 12th in ratio of female to male income, but worst or near worst in hours worked, share of income received by the poorest 20%, income inequality and vacation days per year.

Only in education does the US escape the bottom ranks.

It's in the middle of the table on high school and university enrolment, student reading and scientific literacy; near the bottom in problem solving, math literacy, and in percent of college grads working in scientific and engineering jobs.

The statistics on violence and guns in the US aren't black swans. They look more like indicators of social and political disintegration, due to forty years of neoliberalism and plutonomy.

A political gaffe is a politician accidentally telling the truth

Joke or insight? Whichever it is, it came from US political journalist Michael Kinsley.

Yes, Mitt Romney meant to tell his millionaire donors the truth about his view of the great unwashed US public.

Many of his donors, and other rich people like them, hold views very like Romney's. The rich deserve to be rich, the poor deserve to be poor. Most of the poor are poor because they have character flaws. They won't take responsibility. They mooch off government. They whine about not being able to afford health care. They don't pay taxes.

Is it true that Obama voters are mostly those unwashed, irresponsible moochers? No, it's a lie. The highest concentrations of welfare dependency in the US tend to occur in states that vote Republican!

And Republican poohbahs know it. They have to, so they can design misleading and effective advertising for those states.

As Paul Krugman reminds us, Orwell's Inner Party isn't supposed to get bamboozled by the Prolefeed. That's happened, and it's a mistake, but it isn't the gaffe.

Nor was the gaffe Romney parrotting the Prolefeed about the great unwashed to his donors. They mostly believe this nonsense too.

The gaffe was letting the great unwashed see the tape.

Will his gaffe bring about his defeat? Not likely. A lot of US political discourse is driven by the people and institutions who pay for it. Mainly, that's super-rich people and corporations, aka the 1%. In the next week or two you're going to hear so many US commentators express regret that Romney misspoke so insensitively.

How in the world do rightwing US politicians, who are just about wholly controlled by super-rich patrons and their lobbyists, persuade up to half the US population that they're actually interested in helping the poor get on better?

By lying. By pretending they don't hold the views we hear Romney expressing so enthusiastically.

How do they persuade half the US population that wealth trickles down from the top, that a minimum wage and good free education and universal health care and prosecution of Wall Street crooks would be bad for the middle and lower classes?

By repeating those lies over and over and over, by making it a point of honour to believe that those lies are red-blooded-true-American star-spangled truths, whereas the actual truth (which has a well-known liberal bias) is just socialist unAmerican mooching, or treason, or both.

To get a population to believe terrible lies, you just have to repeat the lies over and over. The more media you own, the easier that gets. Since the 1960s, US super-rich have gained control of most US media.

So where I live, in the Deep South, 92% of “white” people voted for McCain in 2008. Where I live, people with graduate degrees in 2008 seriously entertained the proposal that Obama was “the antichrist”. Where I live, many “white” people seriously think the NAACP are a bunch of carbetbagging troublemakers and agitators, maybe communist too.

I'm not making this up. You can't exaggerate how much pure craziness has been sown in the US population by rightwing lies sent out over these airwaves in the last fifty years.

In the country I come from, Canada, we have the idea that one good way to protect free speech is to penalise media for deliberately lying. When Fox News found that out about Canada, they withdrew their application for TV licences.

Fox News thrives in the US.

Not to be dramatic, but in the US, effective democracy looks mostly done for.