It would be common sense if you mean the government funding more stings and enforcement, but this wasn't your point and certainly the more complex and large government becomes the more opportunities for criminal behavior and fraud. Of course it might be cheapest just to increase or pay a bounty for those who blow the whistle on stuff like this.

As Madison says if men were angels government wouldn't be necessary, so common sense of this sort might hold that there is no way to believe that there is a way to end stuff like this in the first place.

Of course forensic economists and some pretty nice math programs really have made flagging corruption like this easier...small ball cheating within statistical parameters can probably be hidden, but crocks get greedy and complacent. They will get caught eventually...common sense holds that one way to stamp it out is to come down really hard upon instances of it, and toss cruel and unusual punishment to the wind...this is unlikely to happen...but even here common sense might be somewhat wrong in the case of the uber forensic economist Madoff himself, the judge tossed the book at him, but now he has no incentive to play ball, and since Madoff knows more about Nasdaq and the markets than almost anyone else the lawyer who is trying to sue him is down to posturing and bluffs. But the fact that the good reputation and respect accorded to doctors in society allows them opportunities to game the system, is common sense even if trust no one is not practicable.

It is rather strange that the answer to crime is more enforcement, more government and more lawyers, and integrity increases in value as these substitutes increase in cost.

Yes. My husband is in the same business as Madoff and what that guy did was vicious. The enormity of it is staggering. Yet, all he had to do was lie on the miles of paperwork. Crime prevention in that industry consists of drifts of paper, which reminds me of something from Orwell: The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. The mass of words and paper, meant to bolster honesty, actually offers cover to the dishonest. Sifting through all the information to find inconsistencies and untruth is a huge job. Yes, offering rewards for honesty to point to dishonesty would be much cheaper than more ineffectual regulation.

There are no substitutes for sincerity, honesty, virtue.

Then there isa kind of legislative corruption, that is not considered corruption at all, but rather Congressional constituency protection and support. The article is about the defense bill before Congress.

Roughly $2.75 billion of the extra funds -- all of which were unanimously approved in an 18-minute markup Monday by the House Appropriations Committee -- would finance "earmarks," or projects demanded by individual lawmakers that the Pentagon did not request.

Honestly, which is worse, a Congressman like John Murtha nabbing 5 million in exchange for a $3500 campaign contribution or the medicare fraud mentioned above?