A global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study.
The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined.
The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, and commissioned by the Tax Justice Network.
He said $21tn is a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn.
Sometimes it occurs to me that all of our complex terminologies tend to overcomplicate the simplest and most important things, when sometimes a simple phrase can cut through all the illusory complications.
Truth is the most precious of all human commodities. And the people and institutions who control virtually everything in our world . . .
The most interesting item mentioned in this article about this self-published book from a CIA contractor, is the following:
“ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – Former CIA contractor Jonathan Scherck published a book “containing intelligence-related information” without the CIA's permission and in violation of his secrecy agreements, the United States claims in Federal Court…In the excerpt from his book, Scherck writes: “As I will lay out in much greater detail, I believe the People's Republic of China delivered a turn-key nuclear ballistic missile system to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over the course of several years beginning no later than December 2003. This illicit transfer, a flagrant violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, occurred while Dick Cheney was managing both the intelligence and foreign policy portfolios of the George W. Bush administration.” Scherck says in the book that he worked as a collection management officer in the CIA from mid-January 2005 to April 3, 2007. “I was one of only a few individuals in Washington with access to what was being said overseas at the time about Saudi Arabia's procurement of a new ballistic missile system from China,” according to the book. “I read things, I heard things, I saw things. Admittedly, I did not see all – but I saw enough.”
Phi Beta Iota: He is not making money on the book — it has sold under 500 copies at Amazon, yielding 45% of retail to the author. either the CIA is clueless on how its lawsuits actually promote books that would otherwise remain obscure, or someone on the political side has decided Israel needs an assist in publicizing Middle Eastern threats, however nominal, to Israel.
The article about the Libor scandal, coauthored with Nomi Prins, received much attention, with Internet repostings, foreign translation, and video interviews. To further clarify the situation, this article brings to the forefront implications that might not be obvious to those without insider experience and knowledge.
EXTRACT:
Does this mean that the US and UK financial systems can only be kept afloat by fraud that harms purchasers of interest rate swaps, which include municipalities advised by sellers of interest rate swaps, and those with saving accounts?
The answer is yes, but the Libor scandal is only a small part of the interest rate rigging scandal. The Federal Reserve itself has been rigging interest rates. How else could debt issued in profusion be bearing negative interest rates?
As villainous as they might be, Barclays bank chief executive Bob Diamond, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs are not the main villains. The main villains are former Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs chairman Robert Rubin, who pushed Congress for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the sponsors of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. Glass-Steagall was put in place in 1933 in order to prevent the kind of financial excesses that produced the current ongoing financial crisis.
CONCLUSION:
To sum up, what has happened is that irresponsible and thoughtless–in fact, ideological–deregulation of the financial sector has caused a financial crisis that can only be managed by fraud. Civil damages might be paid, but to halt the fraud itself would mean the collapse of the financial system. Those in charge of the system would prefer the collapse to come from outside, such as from a collapse in the value of the dollar that could be blamed on foreigners, because an outside cause gives them something to blame other than themselves.
Why the House's attempt to save defense spending might flop.
BY WINSLOW T. WHEELER | JULY 19, 2012
It was probably the most ballyhooed congressional hearing on defense for the year. As the monthly economic news continues to show poor job growth, and as the elections heat up, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Buck McKeon, and defense contractor Lockheed-Martin saw a major opportunity to protect the Pentagon budget and their bottom line. On Wednesday, just as the House of Representatives was about to debate the 2013 Department of Defense Appropriations bill, McKeon held a big hearing with Lockheed and other industry representatives to explain why the American economy could not possibly stomach the $55 billion in defense cuts set to occur in January, as required by last summer's Budget Control Act and the failure of the congressional “Super Committee” to cut a broad budget deal.
Al-Alam and Reuters Report Hillary Clinton Convoy Attack in Israel
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor
Veterans Today, 19 July 2012
Israeli radio and Reuters broke the story then went mysteriously silent, an assassination attempt inside Israel, on Secretary of State Clinton.
Soon afterward, Iran’s national network, al Alam went public with a translated version which is being boycotted by news services.
Details on the unsuccessful murder attempt on America’s top diplomat below but first some background.
Possibly responsible for the assassination attempt on Clinton is this tale of deceit by Rep. Michelle Bachmann as outlined by CNN’s Andersen Cooper:
We see this as part of a pattern of escalation by Israel, carefully orchestrated terrorism which may well culminate in an attack on the London Olympics as has been predicted by many. Nothing less could bring about the result Netanyahu desires, a massive US and NATO air attack on Iran, and note this carefully, not an attack on Syria.
The video below describes how Israeli contractors are sabotaging London Olympic security. Highly credible source:
This classic case of blowback ought to give pause to those advocating intervention/regime change in the Syrian Civil War or in Iran — but if history tells us anything it won't change any minds in Versailles on the Potomac.
News from Timbuktu is rare, but these days there is too much of it.
Religious fanatics have been destroying exquisite ancient tombs that are cultural icons of universal value. Women who used to walk freely now fear to leave their homes without veils. Schools, clinics, and banks have been looted and burned.
Militants who embrace the rigid Salafi brand of Islam are on a rampage in Timbuktu and other parts of Mali, an ancient, landlocked North African nation that was once the seat of a trading empire. They are allied with Al Qaeda.
Already they control a thinly populated region larger than Texas. It is not difficult to imagine this region becoming an incubator of terrorism and transnational crime — or to imagine that the United States will react by making Mali the newest front in its ever-expanding drone war.
This catastrophe did not “just happen.” It is the direct result of an episode that may at first seem unrelated: the US-led intervention in Libya last year. Rarely in recent times has there been a more vivid example of how such interventions can produce devastating unexpected results.
