hide their money.
https://www.amazon.com/Secrecy-World-Investigation-Illicit-Networks/dp/1250126681
Last Nov. NPR broadcasted Terri Gross interviewed Reporter Jake Bernstein who helped the release of panama papers and is the author of the book " Secrecy World". Click the 1st link above, you can listen to the interview.
Key info and fact:
- Shell company: an anonymous company used to open a secret bank account for the purposes of tax avoidance or tax evasion and keeping illegal business activities - secret. In some places like Cyprus, they actually sell companies with bank accounts attached, so that you wouldn't even need to open a bank account because your anonymous shell company would come with a bank account already ready to go.
- the richest 1% of the world's population now owns more than half of all global wealth. The fortunes of billionaires have grown by 7-8 % / yr, while total wealth has grown at just 3%. And part of the reason is this secrecy world. This global elite lives by a different set of rules than the rest of us, they can do so because of the secrecy world. As Leona Helmsley infamously said, "we don't pay taxes, only the little people pay taxes."
- US loses about $70 billion a year due to the shifting of corporate taxes to tax havens. And that's the money could go to schools, infrastructure, police, and health care, etc. But it's not. Instead, it's disappearing in the Caymans or the Bahamas or Bermuda or places like that.
- 13 Trump admin. members, advisers and major donors are on the newly released paradise papers. Reminded me of this infamous speech:
“My entire life, I’ve watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn’t the kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They’re morons.”
—?Donald Trump, New York Times, 1999, “Liberties; Trump Shrugged”
