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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 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.

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    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
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