Thank you, you've made a very good point. I knew about that, and from the information I've seen, you're absolutely right about the shocking amount of money extraction in such systems. Well, so long as government *has* any money, given the rhetoric that everybody wants to throw out government--and I daresay somehow the corruptioneers will manage to maintain enough of a government for that.
It just drives it all the harder toward a rigidly segregated crime/police state, of course.
*gaaah!*
Do we have any counter-pressures mitigating against any of this?