Excerpted from Thom Hartmann's newest book, Screwed; The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class -- And What We Can Do About It

The occasional instances of corruption in the private sector are dwarfed by those of government bureaucracy

Corporations are now providing services that the army used to do. Yet these corporations bring people over from the United States and pay them more than $100,00 a year, whereas the army starts privates at $25,282. It doesn't make any sense economically. Because the army can't actually command private contractors, ther's no real accountability. This lack of accountability doesn't just affect the financial cost of using private contractors for military work. There's a cost to democracy as well.