A year ago today's TJN blogger wrote an article for The American Interest magazine entitled Putin, the U.S. and the City of London: The Much-Too-Special-Relationship. It made the bold statement: “The truth is that the City of London is a greater potential threat to the national security of the … [Read more...]
Financial Regulation
How the ‘competitiveness’ dogma made banks corrupt
We've come across an interview in The Atlantic with Stephen Platt, an expert on financial crime prevention, contained in an article entitled How Dirty Money Gets Into Banks. As much as anything, we've taken it as an excuse to reproduce this fabulous cartoon in Britain's Private Eye magazine, which … [Read more...]
HSBC, tax evasion and the link to lax financial regulation
Two quotes of the day, both from an article by Prof. Bill Black, a former U.S. bank regulator: "Taxes were once termed the price we paid for civilization, but they now represent the price the wealthy brag to each other about refusing to pay as they pillage civilization." Quite so. And then, … [Read more...]
Quote of the day: City of London and financial fraud
One of a long line of "quotes of the day: this one from 2013, but still relevant today The “race to the weakest supervisor” did not occur only within the U.S. Brooksley Born and a former senior SEC official have confirmed to me that UK regulators directly pitched U.S. financial firms to relocate … [Read more...]
Bono: Tax Haven Salesman for the Celtic Paper Tiger
We've been (almost) biting our TJN tongues on Mr. Bono's latest outburst since the weekend. We were waiting for this to come out. Cross-posted from Naked Capitalism, with permission. We've tweaked a couple of words here and there. Bono: Tax Haven Salesman for the Celtic Paper Tiger By Nicholas … [Read more...]
The nonsense of shareholder ownership
Neoliberals claim that shareholders are the owners of companies. This is nonsense, argues Austin Mitchell MP and Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex in this joint paper published in Left Foot Forward. … [Read more...]
Shadow banking: why tax havens increase financial risks
From a 2013 paper by Thomas Rixen, another set of arguments why tax havens have helped generate financial risks. The paper itself argues that financial regulatory competition - core TJN fare - is much overlooked. He focuses on: "an aspect that has so far been under-analyzed in the … [Read more...]
Kansas/Missouri: local ceasefire in U.S. tax border war?
Last year the St. Louis Post-Despatch published an editorial entitled Missouri Senate declares class war against citizens, looking at tax subsidies being showered on businesses in an effort to lure them away from neighbouring Kansas - which, in turn, has been showering subsidies on businesses to … [Read more...]
Letter on derivatives: stop the offshore race to the bottom
Wall Street banks trade perhaps half of their derivatives activities through foreign banks. For them, foreign jurisdictions are an obvious escape route from U.S. financial regulations. Last June, Marcus Stanley of Americans for Financial Reform wrote: … [Read more...]
Renting Judges for Secret Rulings in Delaware
Back in 1974 William Cary wrote a widely cited article about Delaware in the Yale Law Review, where he stated: "a pygmy among the 50 states prescribes, interprets, and indeed denigrates national corporate policy as an incentive to encourage incorporation within its borders, thereby increasing its … [Read more...]
Guernsey milking and the offshore stock exchange
The International Advisor magazine has just reported: "Guernsey chief minister Peter Harwood resigned today, in the wake of publication of a critical article in the current issue of the British satirical and investigative publication, Private Eye." This refers to an excellent report entitled … [Read more...]
