This article mentions how the USA was dropped two points soon after Trump's swearing in. Which leaves the USA (in their estimation) as being the 18th most transparent nation - just ahead of Estonia & France. You can find a link to the study in the middle of this article. http://www.upi.com/Transparency-International-has-US-energy-concerns/2761485442810/ I've been hoping for greater transparency in govt for 30 years now (I'm 51), which I would hope to lead to a shrinking national debt. Perhaps the backlash from Trump's administration will spark those types of changes... www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/thanks-to-trump-scientists-are-planning-to-run-for-office/514229/
The British magazine The Economist reached a parallel conclusion this last week: namely that the US was no longer a "full democracy" and had dropped to a "flawed democracy" (their terms). The bottom line in these studies is that US capitalism is in a state of decline that confuses its people (who were in no way prepared for this), worries them, invites demogoues to feast at the scapegoating possibilities, produced Brexit, trump and other right-wing flailings. Sadly, everything but the system itself - the organization of production into adversarial employers (always a small minority) and employees (always the majority) - can be brought up to express people's anxieties about a system in decline. Progress and solution depends, however, on being able to identify, discuss and reach some consensus about system change as necessary to engage as well.
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