Does America have a corruption problem?

Transparency International’s new Corruptions Perceptions Index is out, and it’s bad news for the United States: For the first time, America has slipped out of the ranks of the 20 least corrupt countries, falling below Qatar and ranking just above Uruguay to take the not-so-coveted 22nd spot.

Obviously, anyone’s who’s been to either of those two countries will recognize the absurdity of the ranking (after all, the government Qatar is basically run by one family that also owns or controls a huge swath of the economy — nepotism is not a dirty word here, it’s how you get things done), but it’s a troubling finding nonetheless. The United States has a lot of work to do to overcome its new global image as a bastion of crony capitalism run for the benefit of big banks with political connections.

The news is likely to give a boost to those who argue that the bailouts of large financial institutions were a mistake, rather than a necessary if unsavory measure needed to prevent global economic armageddon.

Other findings of note: Russia is now all the way down at 154th place, near the bottom of the list. Italy also had a bad year, sinking from 63rd to 67th. On the positive side of the ledger, hard-luck Haiti saw its ranking improve from 168 to 146, and tiny Bhutan jumped 13 places to 36th. Failed states took their usual place at the far bottom of the list, with Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, and Somalia filling out the last four slots.

Full rankings below the jump: