I think I am understanding the Bloomberg phenomenon as a political implication of what I call "the Canada Paradox" in my book. For those who haven't bought it (including Americans, who I haven't really met half way by publishing it there yet), that is the strange fact that ...
... Canada is an extremely high-trust society, but it has a very high level of securities fraud. In fact the paradox is only apparent - Canada has a lot of fraud *because* it is such a high trust society. Canadians don't immediately suspect anyone, and assume that some who ...
... wears a suit and speaks politely is probably honest. It's a great time-saver for them, and since most Canadians *are* honest, it lets a lot more business get done than in somewhere like Lebanon, where you only deal with someone if you know their family back to 500BC...
... anyhoo, American progressive politics is still very honest, on the whole. So people can be offered a load of cash by a billionaire running for office, and they don't think "hang on, is this a bribe? am I being bribed here?" because they have no experience of bribery...
... What they do have experience of, is running nonprofit and political organisations, and therefore of keeping big donors sweet. So they do what they're used to, and the system works just as efficiently as a more blatant quid pro quo version does in emerging markets.
... the book's called "Lying for Money", btw, and since an American publisher has paid money for it, it will presumably be imminent as soon as the flow of more profitable and interesting Trump-related opportunities dries up.
