Interesting for What It's Worth

I was just looking at this chart, which shows the perceived level of corruption in different countries. The methodology for culling this data is described in a broad way, but I'm still not sure if it includes only the perceptions of those who live in the respective countries.

#1 for least perceived corruption is New Zealand. The United States comes in at #19, just ahead of Barabados and Belgium.

In any case, for what it's worth, I think it's interesting that the following countries are among the 148 on the list perceived as being MORE corrupt than Israel (which comes in at #32, tied with Spain):

Portugal
Italy
Greece
pretty much every other country in the Middle East
most of Asia
most of Africa
good chunks of South America

So for those of us disappointed and frustrated by the corruption in our government -- and there is definitely much room for improvement -- just be glad we don't live in India. Or Ghana. Or Botswana. Or Venezuela. Or Russia. Or China. Or Portugal. Or Hungary. Or Jordan. Etc, etc, etc.