The World Bank has clued in to the fact that many Eastern Europeans prefer to work in the "shadow economy" — that is, off the books and out of sight of tax men, inspectors and other assorted bureaucrats. This has the World Bank very concerned, for a variety of reasons — some convincing, and others, not so much. By the way, World Bank Employees are exempt from income taxes.

The illegal trade in kidneys has risen to such a level that an estimated 10,000 black market operations involving purchased human organs now take place annually, or more than one an hour, World Health Organisation experts have revealed. Evidence collected by a worldwide network of doctors shows that traffickers are defying laws intended to curtail their activities and are cashing in on rising international demand for replacement kidneys driven by the increase in diabetes and other diseases.

For as long as there have been laws, there have been black markets to sell whatever those laws prohibit -- drugs, guns, whatever Han Solo was shipping on behalf of Jabba during his smuggler days. But not every law is as clear-cut as "machine guns and heroin are bad," and not every black market item is as menacing as those. In fact, you'd be utterly baffled to see what's getting traded in the shadows these days, considering it includes things like ...