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zachpruckowski commented on the blog post Senior Officials Wave Their SIGINT Around
BoxTurtle – while 0.1% of GDP sounds low, remember that he also had to graft off enough to make his generals and political minions into millionaires as well. And it ignores yearly expenses – just because Mubarak is running with $2B (if that amount is accurate) doesn’t mean he didn’t graft $5 billion and just blow through $3B during his reign.
Another key differentiator in these estimates is whether or not they include money in the name of family members
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zachpruckowski commented on the blog post In The Year 2525 Or Thereabouts
“The evil that men do live after them, the good is oft interr’d with the bones.” Mark Antony was being sarcastic, but he had a point – 8, 12, 16 years later, people won’t remember the starbursts and the occasional witty comment, they’ll remember the offensive comments and the immortally horrendous Couric interview. Sarah Palin will have a tough slog to get back to neutral – she still has positive approval among Republicans now, but they’re not going to remember all her Dem-bashing “hockey mom pitbull” comments in 2020, whereas Democrats and Independents won’t soon forget (and will be constantly reminded of) “not real americans” or “blood libel”.
