You probably know already that 44 people were arrested yesterday, mostly in New Jersey, for corruption and money-laundering. They included mayors, rabbis, and assemblymen (oh my!).
The story is simultaneously vast and banal, seeming to illustrate every cliché of politicians and the people who seek to grease their palms. There are many, many angles to be discussed. A few thoughts that sprung to mind include:
- If nothing else, it is nice to see that people of many ethnic and religious backgrounds can work together to allegedly bribe and cheat. You’ve got your Syrian Jews, your Italian-Americans and African-Americans, your Latinos and … well, at least it seems to have been an equal-opportunity corruption racket.
- Even though this investigation was handled by law enforcement from the outset, such corruption circles are often exposed by investigative journalists. For a variety of reasons, it may be easier for a whistle-blower to go to a journalist than to the police or F.B.I. Thanks to a cratering newspaper business model, a lot of journalists are getting fired, especially in New Jersey. It’s hard not to wonder how much easier it will be in the future to commit this kind of petty corruption when there are fewer nosy reporters around.
Note that the case even involved some trafficking in human organs:
Another man in Brooklyn, Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, was accused of enticing vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then selling the organ for $160,000. Mr. Dwek pretended to be soliciting a kidney on behalf of someone and Mr. Rosenbaum said that he had been in business of buying organs for years, according to the complaint.
Remember this story the next time someone brings up the need for a legitimate, regulated market for human organs, as we’ve discussed here many times in the past. Many people’s objection to such a market is that poor people would suffer because a) they won’t be able to afford to buy organs; and b) they may be coerced into selling them. But with the current black market, poor people are already being excluded from getting organs (because there’s a scarcity of donated organs) and being lured into selling them — although in this case, it appears that a middleman got to pocket $150,000 while the “donors” got only $10,000.
and 
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And Mr. Cammarano expressed confidence that he would be elected no matter what, according to the complaint. “Right now, the Italians, the Hispanics, the seniors are locked down,” he is quoted as saying. “Nothing can change that now.”
“I could be, uh, indicted,” he continued, “and I’m still going to win 85 to 95 percent of those populations.”
Ladies and gentlemen, your democratic party.
i’d like to put up my kidney on ebay- not sure if spoilage will affect the price, tho
#1 -the Gooch
Exqueeze me Gooch, are you implying that the Republicans are somehow more moral and honest than the Democrats?
Har de har.
Gooch -
Corruption isn’t limited to any one party – “Duke” Cunningham ring a bell?
Yup, we’re in an economy where the middlemen get all the profits. We see it in agribusiness, drug-running (how much do poppy growers get in Afghanistan?), and American healthcare.
Most busineses to raise their profits do as much as they can to eliminate the costs of the middlemen. That’s what this whole healthcare debate is about. The middlemen are doing little to improve our well-being, while they tout the advantages of a “free-market” where they have little competition, and use lobbyists to make sure they get their cut of taxpayer dollars. Meanwhile the costs to patients are skyrocketing.
You could argue that our economy is dying because all the money is being looted by the predator middlemen so it stopped circulating. The working class has no buying power anymore. They can’t get loans, even though banks have plenty of money, because they have low incomes and low collateral. Tinkle-down economics doesn’t work. Good wages are the primary driver of demand. (and tax revenue).
Executives receive one-third of all pay in the U.S.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/21/executive-pay-wsj/
Inequality and Institutions in 20th Century America
MIT Department of Economics Working Paper No. 07-17
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=984330
Could making it legal create a situation that is it easier for organ “traffickers” to establish shady dealings? This is the case for the trafficking of women/children in places where prostitution has been legalized…
Get rid of 100 dollar bills. Make them electronic. That will end dangerous drug traffic overnight. These creepy politicians will be hurting too. The kidney guy is a businessman just like everyone at AIG and Morgan Stanley.. they just wear different clothes. There has to be some government regulation in both trades.
This one is sort of wacky – but…
With commodifying bodies – say it did become legal and regulated, where should the line be drawn here? For instance, you willingly donate your eyeballs for money, but as as result will be blind. Someone basically bought your sight…
Or half your liver, which is a riskier surgery where a lot could go wrong, and you seriously have to change your lifestyle to stay healthy…
Or say even, your entire body, consenting to die, so that your family can benefit from all the $$ (had a Willy Loman moment there). People are willing to do a lot for money.