Once again, it's relative. It's not just corruption that matters, it's also economic power. Germany, for example, is ranked above the US at 14 in the CPI. Howev

Once again, it's relative. It's not just corruption that matters, it's also economic power. Germany, for example, is ranked above the US at 14 in the CPI. However, the US is ranked 4th in ease of doing business, while Germany is 20th. Economic power is also somewhat based on productive might (GDP, basically). If it weren't then we'd expect New Zealand to be the economic center of the world. Are we really going to argue that New Zealand is the economic center of the world? The only entity I see which even comes close to matching these figures is the EU as a single entity. However, recent events have shown us that the EU is not a single entity.