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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: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:47PM (3 children)
You said:
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)
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)
No. You specifically said, in a declarative mode:
...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:
...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
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?