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Looking at Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2012, it's clear that corruption is a major threat facing humanity. Corruption destroys lives and communities, and undermines countries and institutions. It generates popular anger that threatens to further destabilise societies and exacerbate violent conflicts - and as is clear from the chart below, the red (more corrupt perceptions) are creeping across Europe. The Corruption Perceptions Index scores countries on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). While no country has a perfect score, two-thirds of countries score below 50, indicating a serious corruption problem in the world. The US ranks 19th - perceived as more corrupt than the UK, Japan, Barbados, and Hong Kong (but less corrupt that France). In Transparency's words: "Corruption amounts to a dirty tax, and the poor and most vulnerable are its primary victims."