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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?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @09:36PM
I think my grandmother was murdered for around $100,000, by her own daughter - my mother.
When people will lie, steal, and kill each other over petty amounts like $100K, what will they do for larger amounts?
I was just writing to bar associations, this morning ...
===== snip =====
Dear Bar Association LRS personnel,
I am seeking the services of a competent, diligent and patient lawyer.
My grandmother, Mary Horvath, lived at 112 Washington Terrace, there, in Bridgeport, for over half a century.
My mother, alas, was not a dutiful daughter and, effectively, abandoned her grandparents, moving west and never coming back. We all know this is a huge problem, there, on the East Coast.
I was an occasional visitor - and so when my grandparents locked themselves out of the house on New Year's Eve, in late 1999, just before the millenium, I was the one they requested to fly out, from the West Coast, to rescue them.
When I returned to the West Coast I began pressuring my mother to come east with me, to visit her parents, and to help them in their last years. My mother, herself, was, at this time, retired, and not lacking in funds.
(At this point I should add that, although I did not know it at the time, I now believe that my mother was tentatively diagnosed with early stage dementia, and that my older brother was appointed as her conservator. This information was concealed from me by both parties.)
It took eight months, but, finally, in August, 2000, my mother and I visited Bridgeport.
While we were there, my mother and my grandmother had a huge fight, in Hungarian. I asked my grandfather what they were arguing about, and he said, "The will."
(From this conversation, I infer that there was a legitimate will in existence, at that time.)
At this point, my grandmother, perhaps hearing me ask, switched into English and said, to my mother, "But you have so much, and he has so little!" ... then they switched back into Hungarian.
I thought, at the time, that my grandmother was referring to her son, from her FIRST marriage, who lived in Hungary, and whom my mother and grandmother had traveled to Europe, to meet, a few years before (just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I think).
The next day, my mother persuaded me to distract grandmother upstairs for fifteen minutes while she "did something" downstairs. She had done the same for me, a few days before, when we had replaced an inoperable microwave oven in the kitchen, and so I did not think anything of it.
We then left, a few days later, and returned to the West Coast.
Six weeks later I was called by Bridgeport police, who, with the fire department, had broken in to rescue my grandfather, and had found my grandmother, dead, on the floor, in the hall, with indications that she'd been lying there for three days.
Less than 72 hours later I was in Bridgeport, with my mother.
In the kitchen was a safe that I had not even known existed. It was sitting on the table, I think. Open. Empty. It was the first thing I saw that didn't belong. I'd never seen it before. I took a photograph. It was the first of hundreds of photographs I took, documenting the state of affairs that I found, and worked to correct, there, at 112 Washington Terrace.
The police thought it was a burglary gone bad, at first, but were unable to find any doors unlocked. Everything was secure. They were forced to the conclusion that whatever happened, had only involved Grandmother.
I interpreted the empty safe as a message. But I didn't know what it meant or whom it was intended for.
My mother set me to work cleaning the house and looking for the will.
We never found the will. I spent six months looking for it - six months I was never compensated for, I add.
When we returned to San Francisco, my mother evicted me from both the residence on the East Coast and the residence on the West Coast.
The San Francisco eviction ended up being heard before the Presiding Judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. I did not reference events on the East Coast because I did not understand their relevance, myself, yet.
During the hearing it was claimed that my mother had lied to her own lawyer by not disclosing to her lawyer that it was her son that he was evicting - make of that what you will.
My older brother, the conservator, declined to involve himself. I would argue that this was retaliation for old grudges rather than diligent exercise of his duties but because he and his actions lie outside of your jurisdiction I would prefer to confine this discussion to the actions of my mother.
It took me over fifteen years to understand what happened - for excellent and documented reasons that I am happy to go into, separately ... but I now believe that my mother stole my grandmother's will from the safe, using the safe combination that my grandmother had given her, against emergencies - the safe that she, my mother, knew existed, in the kitchen, concealed in the pantry, covered by a sheet - so as to insure that she, my mother, would inherit ... she, and no one else.
If this is a true analysis, then my grandmother's death was a form of murder, insofar as my mother caused my grandmother's death; and it is in everyone's interest to see the record corrected.
My grandmother's death was not an accident.
She did not die of old age.
She was killed.
By her own daughter.
For money.
In passing, I would like to point out that evidence suggests that my mother, and her lawyer, concealed the existence of her own older brother from the probate court, as well as the true cause of her mother's death.
I would like to engage the service of a lawyer to evaluate revisiting the death of my grandmother, with an eye towards providing more evidence to the court, perhaps leading to a different conclusion.
If we do not document these sorts of boundary cases and enforce the law then we will only see an increase in this sort of behavior; and, indeed, unless I am terribly mistaken, we already do.
And who speaks for my grandmother? Her own daughter abandoned her. Her other grandsons abandoned her. I am the only one who seems to care about the truth.
There is no statute of limitations on murder. Unfortunately, my mother, herself, is also deceased. But that should not stop us from determining what did NOT happen.
Please advise me on what I should do next.