How the Kleptocrats’ $12 Trillion Heist Helps Keep Most of the World Impoverished

[lordsummerisle]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/03/how-the-kleptocrats-12-trillion-heist-helps-keep-most-of-the-world-impoverished.html

[Octafish]

1. Tax the cheats, heavily.

Offshore loot also represents money made from trafficking in drugs, guns and people. So...what can we do about it?

On My Mind

Tax Offshore Wealth Sitting In First World Banks

James S. Henry
07.01.10, 09:00 AM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated July 19, 2010

Let's tax offshore private wealth.

How can we get the world's wealthiest scoundrels--arms dealers, dictators, drug barons, tax evaders--to help us pay for the soaring costs of deficits, disaster relief, climate change and development? Simple: Levy a modest withholding tax on untaxed private offshore loot.

Many aboveground economies around the world are struggling, but the economic underground is booming. By my estimate, there is $15 trillion to $20 trillion in private wealth sitting offshore in bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios, completely untaxed.

SNIP...

This wealth is concentrated. Nearly half of it is owned by 91,000 people--[font color="green"]0.001% of the world's population[/font color]. Ninety-five percent is owned by the planet's wealthiest 10 million people.

SNIP...

Is it feasible? Yes. The majority of offshore wealth is managed by 50 banks. As of September 2009 these banks accounted for $10.8 trillion of offshore assets--72% of the industry's total. The busiest 10 of them manage 40%.

CONTINUED....

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0719/opinions-taxation-tax-havens-banking-on-my-mind.html

Not only would that money balance the budget, erase the debt and fix the nation and world's problems from hunger and homeless to energy and education; it would free humanity to do better things than make war all the time.

If the rich complain, explain what Louis XVI thought of tumbrils.

[Rex]

2. The plutocracy must keep going like a well oiled machine. Day in and day out.

We can all become homeless and die on the streets, as long as the plutocracy keeps steaming along killing millions in it's wake while redistributing the wealth into the hands of a select few...that is what we are worth to the Owners, nothing.

[Octafish]

3. Guess which Swiss bank turns up a LOT in the Panama Papers?

https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160404-banks-lawyers-hide-assets.html

Austerity for us, Old Soul.

[Rex]

5. Ha I was just told the other day Rothschild are old news not worthy of a glance.

Um...no...still gobbling up the resources the rest of us scavenge for daily.

Wow Luxembourg takes first and second place? UK, France, Scotland, Switzerland, Iceland?, and the wonderful Rothschild playing with nations...up there with the big kids!

[Octafish]

9. It is complicated.

They're all nice people.



Hillary Clinton, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Bill Clinton, Lynn Forester de Rothschild (left to right).

A historic photo:



Baron de Rothschild (left) and Prescott Bush, sharing a moment and a bit o' information in this small world.

Both families, for the record, have historic links to slavery.

Personally, I think the world of the Rothschild family and its founder. Darryl Zanuck did a great cinematic dramatization via hagiography in 1934 that details how the family rose and used its fortune to advance freedom for all, helping finance Wellington and the British monarchy over the dreadful and French nutjob Napoleon:

My problem comes in the present day, when those with means are using their fortunes to advance their own freedom at the expense of all.

[Initech]

6. Every dollar stored in an off shore bank account should be taxed 250%.

Minimum.

[hill2016]

7. your proposal doesn't make sense

what if a US citizen goes to work in Canada and opens an account there? Or his daughter goes to Canada to study and he opens an account to pay for her expenses? Or he buys a winter ski lodge in Canada and uses the account to pay for collect rental?

[Initech]

8. Yeah I should have clarified business and not individual.

[Nye Bevan]

10. What if a business located near the Canadian border does business in both countries?

So as well as a US dollar bank account in the US they maintain a Canadian dollar denominated bank account in Canada?

[Initech]

11. Yeah I should probably rethink this one.

I meant to say this was about people who store their money in Cayman Islands tax shelters.

[harrose]

4. $2.3T of that alone can be traced to Donald Rumsfeld...

... when, on the day before 9/11, announced that $2.3T was "missing." I'm sure it all ended up in some Rethugs' bank accounts.