Excess corruption from concentrated oil wealth costs the world $US200B per year, an amount sufficient to install 100 gigawatts of wind turbine capacity per year - enough power for 70 million US homes - or to other great causes, instead of to oil prince playboy supercars and the like. How can vast wealth not corrupt when it is in the concentrated, inherited ownership of powerful families or clans? Here’s the analysis to show the costs.
Supercars, capable of 200mph, in a city center where traffic rarely moves much faster than walking pace. But if money is no object, “why not?” is the question that, it seems, dozens of oil-rich playboys ask themselves. So, off to London they go, with their crazy cars air-shipped in.
These cars exemplify mind-boggling levels of inequality. Of young men with more time and money on their hands than is beneficial. And the indolence of their plutocrat owners - whose great riches come without commensurate work.
My analysis asks: are countries that gain much of their wealth from fossil fuel extraction more corrupt than other nations? The answer is, for the most part, yes. In fact, we provide a rough estimate - that corruption may cost $200 billion per year.
Full analysis is at THIS LINK