Endless Cycle of Corruption

QUESTION: I read your articles on Capital flows regularly and I appreciate how you interlace different concepts together.
Where is the money?

European rulers essentially drained the Asia/Africa of their resources in the last 400-500 years. With all of it piped into Europe, it should have sustained the population for way more time than what we see.

Did it get utilized or was it financially mismanaged or lost in wars? Was it a population mismanagement or an governance issue? If the Asia/Africa don’t have the resources…Europe doesn’t have it? Where is it?

– PR

ANSWER: It always seems to be mismanagement more than anything. The downside of a “representative” form of government (Republic) is that those who “represent” the people as their full-time career are subject to bribes. A Democracy is more direct insofar as the career people in government are the bureaucrats who are subject to review by the people. As long as they are not career politicians, then they will perform more of a check and balance against the corruption that always takes place in every type of political system. Career politicians accept money from lobbyists BECAUSE they continually need funds to run in the next election. It is an endless cycle of corruption.