Reuters is reporting that the United States is well on its way to achieving the status of Banana Republic when it comes to corruption in government:

The United States has dropped out of the "top 20" in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics, Transparency International said on Tuesday.

Somalia was judged the most corrupt country, followed by Myanmar and Afghanistan at joint second-worst and then by Iraq, in the Berlin-based watchdog TI's annual corruption perceptions index (CPI).

The United States fell to 22nd from 19th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5 in the 178-nation index, which is based on independent surveys on corruption.

This was the lowest score awarded to the United States in the index's 15-year history and also the first time it had fallen out of the top 20.

In the Americas, this put the United States behind Canada in sixth place, Barbados at 17th and Chile in 21st place.

Just think. If we clean our act up a little bit, we can top Chile! That's sounds like a goal our president can aspire to.

For the record, Denmark, Singapore, and New Zealand topped the list of honest countries.

Source Article.

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I know some sports fans like to keep track of the full detailed standings of all the players, and not just the highlights as presented in the article above, so I looked up Transparency International.

Here's the standings:

There are a few surprises on the list, countries that registered as less corrupt than us, (they probably cheated). But we did beat France and Slovenia (whoever they are).

And when you come down to it, what's wrong with bananas? They're tasty on your corn flakes, they're a good source of potassium, and if you throw the peel in the right place you can cause some pompous ass to take a pratfall, like in the old Three Stooges films.