Picking up from yesterday’s conversation, here are some nominations from readers to compete with the Oil-for-food scandal and Derb’s suggestions:

I nominate reunification of Germany. Several months before that West German government “exchanged” East German’s savings at 1:1 rate when the market exchange rate was actually 20:1. The government implicitly recognized that it was really a gift rather than exchange by putting relatively small caps on the amounts to be “exchanged”. I estimate that Helmuth Kohl’s government thus gave away at least $40 billion to induce East Germans to vote for him. It was effectively a Money-For-Votes scheme.

And…

Hello Jonah,
Maybe not inflation wise, but % of GDP.
Wasn’t the pelop….. the war between ancient Sparta and Athens instigated
by an Athenian charlatan spending the common defense fund on public works
for his own aggrandizement ?
I think we have to restrict the definition of scandal to free societies.
How could the Ming dynasty be monetarily scandalous? All the money was
already theirs.

And…

Jonah
One of my favorite scandals involved one of Alexander the Great’s generals.
I believe that it was Eumenes. Hanson can correct me if I am wrong.
Alexander’s conquests pretty well captured the entire Persian treasury.
Now, remember that the Persian fiscal policy was “tax and horde”. Thus, the
treasury consisted of thousands of talents of gold bullion. Alex seized the
tresuries at Babylon and Persepolis. I am away from my references (I am at
work), but I believe that the latter was 10,000 talents. Since a talent is
60 lbs, or perhaps with gold, the equivalent value to 60 lbs of silver,
that’s a lot of gold. Alexander’s fiscal policy was “seize and spend”.
To spend it, it had to be minted into coins. The lucky guy put in charge of
this was allowed to become fabulously wealthy by keeping one out of every
twenty gold coins he minted, or 5%. This was his legal cut. Eumenes is
alleged to have kept for himself 10%. This is how he financed his own
military escapades after the death of Alexander.
Imagine graft on the order of a bonus of 3000 lbs of gold (or silver) in 320
BC.

And…

Jonah,
How about thirty pieces of silver for the life of the Son of God? By my calculations, if we correct for inflation and fluctuations in the price of silver, it would be about a bajillion dollars.