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posted by CoolHand on Monday October 15 2018, @05:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-rich-getting-richer dept.

Understanding 'Moneyland' — the offshore world of the super-rich

Many of the world's problems — from declining public services to corruption — can be explained in two words: offshore wealth. That's according to investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, who is working to unravel the intricate global web of money and power. To try and de-mystify the idea, Bullough came up with his own word: Moneyland. "I invented 'Moneyland' to try and get my own head around this problem, basically," he says.

[...] One of the greatest stumbling blocks in addressing the issues around offshore tax havens, Bullough says, is that the very term is relatively ambiguous and generally difficult to conceptualise. "'Offshore' isn't a place, it's not the British Virgin Islands or Hong Kong or whatever," he says. "'Offshore' just means not here; elsewhere. It's a legal construct that essentially means something can hide without being anywhere in particular."

To try and de-mystify the idea, Bullough came up with his own word: Moneyland. "I invented 'Moneyland' to try and get my own head around this problem, basically," he says. Moneyland — also the name of Bullough's book on the issue — makes up roughly 10 per cent of the world's wealth, he says. "If you look at its economy, it is the third biggest economy in the world after America and China, it's absolutely massive." Bullough declares London to be the likely capital of Moneyland, followed closely by New York. According to Oxfam, the top three-and-a-half dozen people in the world this year owns the same amount of stuff as the bottom 3.5 billion people in the world.

How far does the Gini curve have to bend before something snaps?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday October 15 2018, @05:37PM (25 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 15 2018, @05:37PM (#749148) Journal

    Who the fuck thinks Trump is anything but an artifact of increasingly terrible material conditions for most people plus stupid as fuck voters who can't see who actually caused their problems?

    And if it were just the US, there's lots of excuses, but extremist political parties are rising everywhere. Either that or centrist shits like Macron, who continue pretending average wellbeing reflects overall wellbeing which created the situation in the first place, thus fueling the next radical extremist.

    Because the rich are awful greedy fucks who no one holds to account, us regular people are gonna end up killing each other.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Monday October 15 2018, @05:42PM (23 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Monday October 15 2018, @05:42PM (#749154) Journal
    "Because the rich are awful greedy fucks who no one holds to account, us regular people are gonna end up killing each other."

    That's a shitty way of looking at it, and clearly untrue.

    Many of the rich may indeed be awful greedy fucks - but so are many of the poor. Don't fall into the fallacy of the excluded middle.

    There are two ditches to fall in and we encourage everyone to pick one. Either;

    Be a 'progressive' who can't believe anyone with more money than him could possibly have gotten it without stealing it or;

    be a 'conservative' who can't believe anyone with less money than him could possibly have any excuse besides their own laziness and poor decisions.

    They're both wrong; deeply and tragically wrong.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Monday October 15 2018, @05:53PM (11 children)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday October 15 2018, @05:53PM (#749158) Journal

      Many of the rich may indeed be awful greedy fucks - but so are many of the poor.

      It's irrelevant. The greedy non-rich person isn't hiding their money offshore, avoiding their contribution to the government services that help make our society work. The non-rich's I-really-want-money is focused on things like "how the hell am I going to pay my rent and eat and get medical care.

      There are two ditches to fall in and we encourage everyone to pick one.

      Now you are falling into the fallacy of the excluded middle.

      • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:29PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:29PM (#749257)

        There are very few rich people. Rounding to the nearest percentage, 0% of the population is rich. There are no rich people.

        There are lots of poor people. The ones who are awful greedy fucks are actually making an impact through violence and destruction. A non-trivial percentage of the population (perhaps 5% to 15%) is breaking into cars, sneaking off with valuables from stores, threatening others with bodily injury to grab wallets, etc.

        These people matter. Non-existent people don't matter.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:12AM (1 child)

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:12AM (#749308) Journal

          Non-existent people don't matter.

          When those "non-existent" people hold much of the available wealth, and their greed prevents that wealth from working within the system, it turns out they do matter. A lot.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:09PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:09PM (#749570)

            Wealth is not as diversely owned as people think. You can have 99% of the money supply but not 99% of wealth. If they were to try to use all of that money at once it would cause inflation.

            The rich don't have as much wealth as you'd think. They just have more money.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:59AM

          by deimtee (3272) on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:59AM (#749374) Journal

          Depends on what percentage you use.
          If you go by % of people who are rich*, you are right.
          If you go by % of wealth owned by rich people, you are dead wrong.

          *Let's define rich as having 1000 times the median wealth. I would bet serious money that the 0% of people who are 'rich' own more than 80% of all wealth.

          --
          If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @11:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @11:03PM (#749271)

        Greedy non-rich people are sucking on the welfare teat.

      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:26AM (4 children)

        by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:26AM (#749362) Journal
        "The non-rich's I-really-want-money is focused on things like "how the hell am I going to pay my rent and eat and get medical care."

        And, in some cases, how am I going to get drugs and party the night away...

        as another already pointed out, there are a LOT more poor people, and some of them do indeed misbehave in ways that cost us all quite dearly.

        "Now you are falling into the fallacy of the excluded middle."

        How do you figure that?
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:47PM (3 children)

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:47PM (#749590) Journal

          How do you figure [now you are falling into the fallacy of the excluded middle]?

          You said:

          There are two ditches to fall in and we encourage everyone to pick one.

          This is a false dichotomy; which is the same fallacy [wikipedia.org]. Why? Because there are quite a few more than two "ditches" to fall into. There's the "everyone who is rich got it legitimately" one, the "everyone who is poor is there by no fault of their own" one, the "those people are sinners and deserve what they get" one, the "they use drugs so I don't have to care about them" one, the "they are a member of my clique/club so they can do no wrong" one, the "they aren't a member of my clique so they can do no right" one, the "it's okay to say anything at all about those people" one, and so forth, on for a long list of cultural and social failures.

          • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:57PM (2 children)

            by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:57PM (#749615) Journal
            In other words you missed my point, and now try to claim it as your own?

            Yes, it's a false dichotomy, *as I pointed out* by calling it /the fallacy of the excluded middle/. As you then pointed out, the terms are essentially synonymous.

            "There's the "everyone who is rich got it legitimately" one, the "everyone who is poor is there by no fault of their own" one, the "those people are sinners and deserve what they get" one, the "they use drugs so I don't have to care about them" one, the "they are a member of my clique/club so they can do no wrong" one, the "they aren't a member of my clique so they can do no right" one, the "it's okay to say anything at all about those people" one, and so forth, on for a long list of cultural and social failures."

            Absolutely. There are many distinct positions if you really look at people, though you seem to be quoting some that are particularly difficult to take seriously. But watch the media, watch politics, you'll see how those get roughly sorted out into teams as if it were recess at elementary school. Red and blue, roughly as I described, however many finer distinctions actually get lumped together under the umbrella. Watch how "we" as a culture encourage everyone to pick a ditch and then dig in, growing only more extreme (and thus more intractably opposed to the ditch on the other side) as time goes on.

            Because if the "we" of the correct color don't dig in better, don't fight harder, don't push harder... well we're all going to be oppressed by the folks of the wrong color, the wrong opinions, and that would be absolutely awful! The harder we fight, the more reason we have to fight, the more unthinkable civil peace becomes.

            This is all a distraction from real problems, but at the same time it becomes a very real, and very huge, problem itself.

            The alternative; in a liberal democracy, the power of the central state is supposed to be quite limited, so that it's not an existential crisis to see people of the wrong color elected. They can do little harm and we can wait for the next election. If they exceed their constitutional power, they're arrested, impeached, and the system continues on more or less undisturbed. That's how it's supposed to happen.

            The problem; over time, the limitations on the state, both legal and customary, have been deeply eroded. In practice, the Federal government that was really just supposed to handle a few things that no one else could do effectively, can do virtually anything the party in power wants to do - and get away with it. The courts have compliantly invented powers out of thin air, or by such ruses as feigning the inability to comprehend the commerce clause and so on, so that very few legal barriers remain. And even more ominously, in terms of custom, of culture, of the line where violations would spark mass outrage - well a great many people don't believe there should be any limitations at all anymore. Anything can be justified, if you can construct just the right 'facts' and avoid hard questioning. And many people these days, people of both colors, seem to take it for granted that the state should be able to do anything that's justified in their mind. The ends justify the means. And we give ourselves over to this divisive, tribal sort of thinking, where anything that makes the other party weaker is /ipso facto/ good, no matter what damage it does to the body as a whole.

            That this thinking is dangerously wrong is something previous generations have learned at great cost. I'm afraid we're about to learn it yet again.
            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
            • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:28PM (1 child)

              by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:28PM (#749634) Journal

              In other words you missed my point, and now try to claim it as your own?

              No. You specifically said, in a declarative mode:

              There are two ditches to fall in

              ...and there aren't. There are more. You didn't say "it is false to presume that there are two ditches to fall into", you said "there are two ditches to fall in."

              My point was, and remains, that your declaration was false.

              If you meant to say something else, that's fine, just say so. But go back and read your own words: that's what you wrote.

              Further, your point WRT the excluded middle was:

              Many of the rich may indeed be awful greedy fucks - but so are many of the poor. Don't fall into the fallacy of the excluded middle.

              ...one which I agree with, as far as it goes (but not with the implication that this is even close to equally bad.) But it's not the point you made afterwards which I responded to with the assertion that you had presented same type of fallacy, which was a claim that there were "two ditches to fall in", and those ditches were not that the poor and rich were greedy, but rather that they were progressive and conservative extremist mindsets.

              Your original post reads to me as if it were trying (and definitely failing) to cast that poor people were greedy and so this was comparable to rich people being greedy; clearly, this is disingenuous right out the door (and that's why I called you on it) as the obvious and toxically excessive greed of the rich is far more consequential than the arguably necessary greed of most of the poor who are just trying to make it to the next goalpost, which is always near — all too near.

              Do you understand where I'm coming from now?

              • (Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:29AM

                by Arik (4543) on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:29AM (#749813) Journal
                "No. You specifically said, in a declarative mode: "There are two ditches to fall in""

                I said that immediately after warning the reader to avoid the fallacy of the excluded middle. Having given that advice, I proceeded to give another example of that fallacy. I'm sorry if my style is above your reading level, perhaps you would prefer those of RealDonaldTrump.

                "...and there aren't. There are more."

                And why would you expect statements labeled as fallacious to be literally true? Or to put it another say, yeah, and?
                --
                If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:05PM (#749620)

        "to the government services that help make our society work"

        lmao! yeah right. wake the fuck up!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday October 15 2018, @05:59PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 15 2018, @05:59PM (#749159) Journal

      The middle fucking sucks, and is how we got here.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @06:23PM (3 children)

      by sjames (2882) on Monday October 15 2018, @06:23PM (#749166) Journal

      Looks like you fell into a trap as well. There are plenty of progressives and other more left leaning people who have a much more nuanced understanding. They know there is a trend for the very wealthy not coming about their wealth honestly.

      Most recognize that there are also greedy poor people, but also recognize that their contribution to the current problem is minuscule, just like their current net worth.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @07:31PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @07:31PM (#749191)

        But we gotta virtue signal and keep the class war going!!!

        Virtue signalling, not just for hair dying liberals.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @07:48PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @07:48PM (#749197)

          It seemed for a while that the class war might be over. However, the 60s happened, and all was not well, so certain people decided to begin the disinformation campaign of a new class war with the Kerner Commission report. Few months later in June, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Finally, in August, there was that fateful Democratic National Convention.

          The working class has been in denial that they are under assault ever since.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @09:06PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @09:06PM (#749220)

            Yup. Propaganda is a helluva thing. I still have hopes that the internet will help us fix things, but until people realize that centralized control is the problem we won't get any solutions. The only way a private corporation can fix this is by creating a decentralized network with a central backbone of servers. It would need to be censorship proof and encrypted.

            I think we'll get there pretty soon, and then online reputations will be developed where (hopefully) skilled investigators will be the new aggregators along with algorithmic aggregators. Trust will be earned instead of assumed. Ok, that is an optimistic outlook but it is possible.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday October 15 2018, @07:50PM (3 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday October 15 2018, @07:50PM (#749198)

      Be a 'progressive' who can't believe anyone with more money than him could possibly have gotten it without stealing it

      I'm as progressive as they come, and I don't believe *everybody* richer than me stole it. For example, most doctors, top-firm lawyers, superstar athletes, and the top actors are quite a bit richer than me, and they earned much of that by doing highly skilled work with the sweat of their own brow.

      That's not how people end up super-rich though.

      Compare, say, LeBron James (who is definitely rich, but not a billionaire) to Steve Ballmer (who's among the richest people in the world). To get the kind of money LeBron has he has to come up with $6200 every waking hour of his adult life, whereas for Ballmer you're looking at $220,000 every waking hour of his adult life. Which means that Ballmer's rate is about 40 times LeBron's. All available evidence is that LeBron worked and continues to work his butt off, and is at or at least near the top of a highly demanding and highly demanded profession. Meanwhile, Ballmer did not do a good job of being CEO of Microsoft (just look at the stock price - it's done a lot better both before and after Ballmer was in charge). Based on that, it's reasonable to conclude there's a reason that Ballmer is worth 40 LeBron's that has nothing to do with either merit or effort or skill.

      And the reason is staring you right in the face: LeBron got his money mostly from the work he does, by stepping out onto the court and playing professional basketball. By contrast, Ballmer got his money mostly from the work that other people did, from Tim Patterson to all the worker-bee developers to the army of company lawyers to the Chinese teenagers assembling XBoxes. And while Ballmer wasn't exactly "stealing", I think it's fair to question whether rewarding him as much as he was for the work that other people did is the most efficient system humans could come up with.

      Of course, another big chunk of the super-rich simply inherited the money as well. Again, this doesn't seem like the most efficient system we could come up with: The work that the Waltons could have done had they not inherited a life of leisure were lost, and the resources used to sustain the Waltons' lives of leisure could have been allocated to other potentially more useful activities.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @09:13PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @09:13PM (#749222)

        Totally accurate.

        I think the reason CEOs get such massive payouts is due to the criminal-capitalist corporate ethics. They are the ones that get the rope around their necks if something goes wrong, and with the sheer number of shitty things these massive corporations do it becomes a serious liability. So, pay them insane amounts to compromise ethics and wear a giant target 24/7.

        We need a functional UN and that will require it to have the dominant military force on the planet. Hahahahaha, yeaaah, that'll happen any day now!

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @11:17PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @11:17PM (#749281)

          I think the reason CEOs get such massive payouts is due to the criminal-capitalist corporate ethics. They are the ones that get the rope around their necks if something goes wrong

          But they don't. They get golden parachutes.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:08PM (#749624)

          yeah, so they can rape and sex worker traffic with global impunity! yay!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @11:57PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @11:57PM (#749296)

      > Many of the rich may indeed be awful greedy fucks - but so are many of the poor.

      And some of the poor (and not so poor) are in the cash economy, not paying taxes the old fashioned way by not reporting income. Any idea how much money is "off the books" in USA? This https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175361658/trillions-earned-under-table-as-more-work-off-radar [npr.org] from ~5 years ago suggests that the shadow economy is $2 Trillion/year.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @02:01PM (#749526)
        If they're genuinely poor it's going to take way more than few million of them for their unpaid taxes per year to be equivalent to Apple's "tax savings" per year.

        So I'm not going to care about how little the poor pay in taxes.

        Some might say it's fine for companies to avoid taxes if they can but to me there does seem to be some dishonesty involved if a company can publicly claim it made X billions to shareholders, creditors, etc; buy stuff with some of the billions but turn around and tell the tax departments around the world that it made practically zero.

        If you or I tried to do the same thing we'd probably be in prison.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:50AM (#749348)

    Who the fuck thinks Trump is anything but an artifact of increasingly terrible material conditions for most people plus stupid as fuck voters who can't see who actually caused their problems?

    Not me.

    Bow explain to me what does a guy on record for 35 years as speaking against offshoring have to do with this story, other than being the only solution regular people habe to the fucking priblem of "free" trade.

    Yes the term "free" is used most ironically by assholes who came up with the idea.