I have been reading about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, a system that lasted over 600 years.  It is absolutely clear that enormous amounts of money in the political system filled the government with corrupt politicians.  This paragraph from today's Washington Post is really unnerving!

 

View on the Web. Monday, November 5, 2012 Editorial Board: A campaign awash in cash WHEN IT COMES to the corrosive influence of money in politics, the 2012 campaign has presented a trifecta of troubling developments. They are, in ascending order of worry: the complete collapse of the presidential public financing system set up in the wake of Watergate; the explosion of the super PAC political committees, which are allowed to take unlimited checks to finance independent expenditures for or against particular candidates; and the proliferation of “dark money,” or spending by nonprofit organizations and trade groups that, unlike super PACs, are excused from having to reveal their donors. The end result is a system awash in cash and dangerously ripe for corruption. Apologies about the ads.