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newstyle
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Posted: Saturday September 24th, 2005 14:08 |
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British tax havens 'help cheat Third World out of billions'
Conal Walsh
Sunday September 18, 2005
The Observer
Christian Aid is demanding that the British government crack down on UK-owned offshore financial havens which are accused of helping tax dodgers cheat the developing world. The charity estimates that tax evasion and offshore banking secrecy cost third-world governments up to $500 billion a year in lost revenues. Its demand for action coincides with last week's United Nations summit and with Tony Blair's declared wish to alleviate poverty in Africa.
Britain is singled out for criticism because many leading havens - including Jersey, Guernsey, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands - are UK territories or dependencies.
The UK government has a unique responsibility,' said Andrew Pendleton, Christian Aid's policy adviser. 'Of the world's 72 tax havens, 35 are British territories or Commonwealth members. Tackling global evasion will take a lot of international co-operation, but it would be fitting for Britain to take the lead.'
In a report written by Pendleton and published last week, Christian Aid says that systematic tax dodging by rich individuals and multinational companies with offices in poorer countries is dragging these countries further into economic decline.
The charity claims that evasion is made easy by the havens, which offer low tax rates as well as minimal disclosure requirements. This allows tax dodgers to move money offshore illegally without fear of detection.
Corrupt politicians have used the same banking secrecy laws to divert public funds into private offshore bank accounts.
Christian Aid, which conducted its research in partnership with the pressure group Tax Justice Network, cites statistics showing that tax receipts in African and Latin American countries are proportionately much lower than in the developed world, and that they have continued to sink in recent years.
'Tax is the forgotten issue in the debate about how to tackle poverty,' Pendleton said. 'If these leaks could be plugged, poor countries would not be so reliant on handouts.'
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,15709,1572862,00.html
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COLTRANE
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| Joined: | Wednesday June 2nd, 2004 |
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Posted: Sunday September 25th, 2005 03:49 |
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@NS
another Capitalist Money Madness
Do people know how much Ibrahim Babangida;s money is keeping Morgan Stanley(UK ) afloat? This makes goos news to read but the bottom line dont expect the changes in Laws so there could be a transparent finacial service in UK ..why because of the influence big business have on government
the fact that transnational corporations and their agendas have come to dominate cultural, political, and economic life on a global scale can hardly be disputed. These powerful corporations have used national governments and government-created international bodies to create a legislative and institutional regime that accedes to and actively promotes and implements a "free-market" ideology and poverty, social and political disintegration, and environmental degradation are the main consequences of this global corporate ascendance be it in Britain or Burkina faso
and we all know that the ability of corporations to penetrate the political and cultural sectors of our society is hardly a late twentieth century phenomenon. Despite the founders' efforts to contain corporations by explicit and revocable state charters, emerging industrialists in the America for example post-Civil War era became powerful enough to sway legislators and the judiciary to act in their behalf. Not only did corporations generally gain rights to perpetuity, but the Supreme Court declared corporations to be legal persons entitled to the same rights as ordinary citizens, in addition to limited liability. By the late 1920s capitalism had largely emerged triumphant over worker and community interests. Consumerism was instilled as the only legitimate avenue for realizing individualized "freedom."
We all know that a form of democratic pluralism existed among the civil, governmental, and market sectors of society in the post-WWII era, but any such sectorial accommodation was mostly an aberration that came about only because of the necessity to solve the twin crises of the Great Depression (caused by corporate-led economic excess in other words:CAPITALIST MONEY MADNESS ) and WWII. Any social accord that may have existed was shredded as corporations, backed by the Reagan administration, renewed their assault on the working class and relentlessly pursued self-interested global strategies. Over the last two decades, middle-class jobs have been lost, median pay has stagnated, and austerity has been imposed on the less fortunate as a profound upward redistribution of wealth and income has occurred.
Globally, the structural adjustment measures(SAP;s) forced upon developing nations by the World Bank and the IMF to qualify for loans, ripped the fabric of those societies and have actually increased indebtedness to First World bankers. Trade agreements and administrative bodies, such as the WTO, are designed to eliminate local restrictions on investments by international firms and barriers to the free movement of goods between nations. The freedom for capital to move freely among nations has also fueled rampant financial speculation unrelated to productive investment. Unconscionably, no one is safe anywhere even American taxpayers have been forced to bailout those engaged in extracting wealth from the developing world.
Free market ideology is used to justify the gutting of the social and legal structures of nations. But it is a disingenuous view. Free market activities posited by Adam Smith involve local, individual economic actors, none of whom have the power to control the marketplace. Unregulated market activities by huge economic entities can result in market coercion. For example, monopolistic firms can externalize costs, that is, they are powerful enough to force societies to pay for the social and environmental side-effects of their activities. For example, labor and environmental regulations are often ignored with impunity with society picking up the pieces
The impact of corporations acting as legal persons cannot be overemphasized Corporations overwhelm actual citizen political participation and free speech by the extent and intensity of their political lobbying and media controlling efforts. Corporations and the rich, in a form of legalized bribery, basically fund political campaigns. They also heavily sway public opinion through public relations front organizations, conservative think-tanks, and the control of the major media. The dependency of the media on advertising dollars virtually guarantees presentation of views that are compatible with corporate interests, not to mention the fact that the huge media empires are themselves transnational corporations with no interest in harming broader corporate interests.
corporations have largely "colonized" the common culture. Television is the main media outlet for the inculcation of business-friendly values, which emphasizes the avid pursuit of consumption. Even political activity has become mostly the marketing of pleasing candidates. The message is incessantly and subtly delivered that a free market system is self running and stabilizing and needs little or no political interference. Of course, the reality is far different. Corporations have infiltrated government at all levels with the sole purpose of ensuring that governments take an active role in supporting the corporate agenda, or pro-business regulation. In addition, governments are left to deal with the unprofitable aspects of society or side-effects of corporate actions. The net effect is a democracy hardly worthy of the name.
Free market propaganda has to be countered and a regime of regulating big business through governmental controls must be instituted. Is there any hope for this? For some here in blacknet I think lmpw that the Seattle protest and other citizen demonstrations show that the democracy-killing initiatives of the WTO have not gone unnoticed. In addition, it has been claimed that 25 percent of the population belongs to a cultural grouping called "Cultural Creatives," who can be expected to oppose insensitive corporate agendas.
Talk about Living in the Matrix.....at least we know we have a choice btn BLUE or RED pills
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“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.� -Malcolm X
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defyfear
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| Joined: | Tuesday September 6th, 2005 |
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Posted: Sunday September 25th, 2005 17:17 |
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Coltrane
Talk about Living in the Matrix.....at least we know we have a choice btn BLUE or RED pills
I don't really care about the actual money involved because its the path chosen that i seek out. These corporations choose to hide wages from their origins to faraway lands seem to continue on a path of self serving interest. Since the demand keeps growing on dependence of these corporation, I dont see a man-made economic Depression in site. I see a world where us humans giving up our humanity to these corporations to live in the image of comfort. Survival of the most comfortable. There is no longer rules that these corporations follow. There use to be limits on how much a government uses its own resources but too bad for the US when former President Lyndon Johnson, who Martin Luther King's family identify as a prime suspect in the killing of the civil rights leader, and its no secret that Lyndon Johnson hated King for his alledged ties to Communist and opposition to the Vietnam War, run up a huge bill from his failed Vietnam War and Great Society measures which forced Nixon to take the US off the gold standard and into using live subjects which of course are US taxpaying citizens. That was the end of the US being the number one creditor nation to becoming the number one debtor nation. If you have a debt to owe, it is best you pay. And that is what we as a country are doing paying off past generations and leadership mistakes. You can see transformations of society from this path. Before just one man was needed to feed and house his whole family and still had enough to pursue something worthwhile. Now it takes a man and woman together to barely house and feed the who family and have enough for their children's future and their retirement. Work hours have increased in the west with little or no overtime (check out President Bush says about overtime and federal employees) and people in general are taking on more tasks at work that use to be only suited for one. A computer should be helping in this situation but even the computer needs live input. And the live input is getting tired and stress out. Also seeing children and teenagers worry like adults about money and the future is very troublesome. We are heading in a path of self destruction. But there is no alternative for the great many of us, except to continue going forward into this mess and watching out for dead bodies. I have hope and do see some folks making a way for themselves.
We had something similar between the US Mexico and Citibank which received public Congressional hearings. Despite the brilliant minds in Washington, no one wanted to probe deep into this matter.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/family/citibankaffair.html
Standards for the elite do not apply to the non-elite.
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newstyle
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Posted: Sunday September 25th, 2005 23:55 |
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Talk about Living in the Matrix.....at least we know we have a choice btn BLUE or RED pills
I think we invariably choose the blue pills, even those of us who at times have put the red pill in our mouths are compelled to spit it out and replace it with the blue pills. This is the contridiction in our lives I believe we must all face, we are aware of the short comings of the system but continue to contribute to it. It seems to me to take the red pill and swallow it is to be branded an extremist, terrorist or both. To question these societies in which we live and to find them wanting is seen as “ungrateful� at best and crazy and dangerous at worst. Lazie-faire capitalism does not go hand in hand with democracy; it rather undermines the democratic process. I am aware of the need for the profit motive in development, but unregulated markets that hold above all greed as the core and goal of humanity in a free market utopia is a fallacy.
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