Original author here, If you look a little more carefully the thing that killed us was an actual physical infrastructure problem. Mineral rights were a nightmare, but we were humping our way thru it bit by bit.

Interconnection was limited because the wires they thought were in the ground were not what was actually there. (well, had degraded)

This was more of a "atoms are hard" kind of issue.

If you give them the money after they do the favor, it’s legal, the supreme court said so. Plus, apparently trump feels that bribing foreign officials is essential to American competitiveness so FCPA is going unenforced. Welcome to the future.

capital in capitalism.