Book for politicians and for people who wants to keep themselves informed (mark: 10 out of 10)

• Books for politicians and for people who wants to keep themselves informed
  • This is a good starting point to understand much of the global economy (and its crisis). More than a starting point, a complete overview
    • Treasure Islands
      by Nicholas Shaxson
      

Treasure Islands by Nicholas Shaxson

A quick summary[Do not read! Otherwise, you would spoil your reading]

Lemhan Brothers was implicated in tax haven, so it wasn't clear how much money it has.
Tax haven undermine trust
Pressure on swiss banks is the only way to succeed against bank secrecy
If you lower the rate of interests, capitals flew overseas in order to search for higher returns.
Free flow of capitals goes together with financial crisis, while financial constraints result in high rate of growth (4%)
Industrial capitalism wants low interest rates, financial wants high ones
Eurodollars, euromarket: european money invested in dollars, offshore.
US print money and owe their debts in US dollars, which they can print.
100 dollars with a forced requirement of keeping 10% become 1000. Banks create money.
Depositors in offshore banks accept lower interest rates. Reserves (investors capital) are the buffer which allow banks to lend 10 or 20 times the deposits (liabilities) in loans (assets).
Why developing countries are so poor
How offshore are at the foundation of monopolies
Jack Blum fought BCCI
Usury (it is allowed in Delaware and elsewhere in US) is what contributed most to 2007-2010 financial crisis, because it is an incentive for banks to propose CC usage (with debts against houses)
LLP: no accountability, that's the issue, especially when auditors companies becomes LLP
LTCM: hedge funds which nearly broke US banking system in 1998
Solution proposed: tax the land rent with an higher tax rate where the rent is unearned, tax on the base of sales. And many others.



Some notes based on a discussion about the ideas of the book with the Knight Pivot.

Financial companies are not evil, finance is different from tax evasion. There are many honest hedge funds. Much of the money simply stay in the tax haven and so they are not taxed, fairly, till they are not brought to countries which charge taxes.
The speculation made through the transactions intraday are useful to increase the value of the companies: Monclair is selling stocks on the market at a lower price because all the fashion companies have low quotations because of the asymmetric tax which impacts just euro-countries companies.





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