Tax Havens: Hidden hand in the financial crisis

simplerobbdotcom,

Let's expand the picture.

Tax havens are a regression. Their use grows from a unique sense of entitlement and appeals to an implied sense of persecution. 'I enrich this unworthy nation! Why must I be plundered by taxes! The horror!'

To which we reply, boo hoo.

For decades a mindset grew which disdained law, denied the merit of collective security and collective benefit, AKA civilization, in favor of straight pandering to personal and institutional rapacity.

Classically we know this divides a population between monarchy and peasants. Put country simple it is inherently suicidal for any democracy. This was well appreciated in a Constitution which only recently became a "god damn piece of paper."

Self-serving reasoning looks like this: screw the government, screw everybody. Paying taxes, like paying retail, is for suckers. I don't care about the protections and benefits taxes provide - I alone shouldn't have to pay. Find a way to dodge the system, by whatever means and however crooked, I'll support you.'

This opt-out is not just a seductive free ride at others' expense, but an anti-democratic schism in a coherent republic. Given time and opportunity people see that the optimum path to wealth is criminal, and they begin to so identify. Why take the risk? Why not? The family needs a better house, bigger car, a 6-star holiday (cue swelling strings) and that's good for America! .Sis Boom Bah.

That this attitude contains within it the destruction of every empire - that's not really newsworthy, is it? As Bush One realized, using the word "prudence" just looks wimpy, not smart.

To much later gnashing of teeth the adoption and promotion of mindless selfishness was not as Mr. Greenspan predicted. No 'market mechanism' existed to keep greed from driving us subordinate lemmings straight over the cliff together. The idea that we were safer trying to 'screw unto others' led us to the freefalling disaster we're in right now.

We have witnessed an epoch of economic Puritanism which counted on hubris in the creation of a cult with privileged membership in an exclusive club of people who considered themselves essential. The usual media proselytizers beavered away with a fatuous supportive neo-marxist spin – 'Business Leaders of the world: unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!'

A blind prophecy: by "unfettering business" it would make us all trickle-down richer. Forever.

But by opting to save pocket change on taxes, off-shore jobs, downsize quarterly to inflate profits, move entire essential industries to competitors' countries, in reality we screwed ourselves, lost trillions, and now face exactly the prospects that sharing responsibility for state maintenance prevented for prior generations. We were told that Destiny was at work. At last means had been found to perpetuate growth, albeit self-parasitically, by selling off the state's internal organs.

J. K. Galbraith (in one of his lighter moods) claimed that putting more than 2 businessmen at the same table was bound to result in a conspiracy to defraud the government, the population, or both. Let's be clear, the idea that CEOs would never price-fix, profiteer, bribe auditors, own politicians, monopolize vital sectors, and swindle whoever they could, was never inconceivable in Washington. What deregulation did was encourage the worst to do their worst, unfettered.

What swept over business was a kind of insane contagion. Corruption was blossoming everywhere in the corporate world, fighting it was futile, better to be more corrupt than less, and thus improve the odds of surviving.

With this we chose a fool's gambit and fools still labor to keep selling it.

Result? We all pay more, for far longer, for having bought the lies that conned the insecure and credulous into final disgrace if not ruin - to save a few bucks..

I never said it wasn't a problem Avery. I was asking if it's the actual/#1 source to the problem which I think no it's not. I blame the CEOs for their terrible management and judgment. Stay safe.

simplerobbdotcom asks,

"I guess Offshore Accounts is the source to our problems?"

Great question. Here's one for you.

How exactly have Offshore Accounts ever done anything to help America or anywhere else? (When such accounts aren't being used for money laundering or hiding stolen assets?

Oh wait, rich people and crooks can guarantee that the poor have to compensate the government by paying higher taxes!

That's working just great these days isn't it!

I guess Offshore Accounts is the source to our problems?

The lesson is obvious - when crooks provide a way to dodge taxation, people, in increasing numbers, will use it to the detriment of the entire country. Not just here, but everywhere.

Make an international law to shut down all tax shelters. Prosecute, fine, and jail people who attempt to use them. Give major jail time to those who persist in abusing the tax system.

Currently there is zero disincentive to stop people from defrauding the government - meaning us.

We've already seen both the damage done by this scam and those who most rely upon it. In a fair system paying taxes is an obligation of citizenship and to skirt it is a crime.

If you live in the U.S. and make your money in the U.S. why should you have the option of sending your money off on a tax free vacation? The people that cheat on their taxes are the same ones that never contribute to charities. That would be the top one percent. You can't take it with you. Invest in your country.

Ronald Reagan_heads believed that wealth would TRICKLE DOWN....but it NEVER did.

Guess where those 'tax cuts' materialized!

OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS.

This money was NEVER available for re-investment in the US in ways that would have stimulated the economy, created jobs or, in any way, benefited ANY ONE but the upper one percent of the nation's population.

The facts are that EVERY GOP 'tax cut' was followed by a recession. Reagan's infamous tax cut of 1982 was quickly followed by a recession of some two years or more. It was the worst and deepest since the Coolidge-Hoover depression of 1929.

Now ---can we AT LAST put to rest the STUPID idea that GOP tax cuts trickle down?

I told you before! Should we play the game, "Where is the money?"

The Bush administration obviously did not give one shit about this situation. Clearly, it is a critical piece of the solution to getting the US and World economies back on track. The US government, and the governments of those countries in which the tax havens exist are complicit, and it MUST STOP.