Corporate governance in the West means oversight from regulators, boards of directors, even institutional shareholders. While Asia now has most of these institutions, they are ordinarily not as well established and not as significant in the minds of top executives. Asia is bedeviled by official corruption that reaches far into business. America has less of this, but has in its place considerable financial reporting fraud. Both are very dangerous to the economic success of the nations involved. Graft tends to destroy an economy first by undermining the trust that is required for transactions to occur, and by distorting the economic calculus that underlies sensible business decisions. As it continues, graft destroys the national political entity. Long-established graft is a way of life that is very hard to root out. Politicians promise to eliminate it, but are unable or unwilling to do so.