I dispute the use of the word, "theft."

We have armies of lawyers mining for an opportunity to sue companies that step out of line. And they do sue and they do win.

We have armies of lawyers and many cadres of special interest groups and jealously, even poisonously antagonistic political parties that are eager to catch each other with a hand in the till.

Thus, there are both qualitaive and quantitative differences between the descent of the Russian emergent democracy into a strange mafia-bureaucracy marriage in which outside investigators are murdered.

Maintaining a sense of proportion is very important. Is the USA perfect, hell no, far from it. In my own little corner I know of all kinds of kniving and back-scratching. Most of it probably doesn't rise to the level of illegality. It sure as hell doesn't involve murder.

B