Friday, July 31, 2015
Donald Trump Is Into Real Estate
You can't get too rich doing real estate. To get really rich, you have to go into high tech. Too late, Trump.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
ब्रिटेन का Cyber Colonization संभव है
शशी ठरूर जी के भाषण के बाद तो मेरा तो खुन खौल रहा है। मेरे को तो ये famine deaths के बारे में मालुम ही नहीं था। मेरे को तो मालुम था अंग्रेजो ने और तो और खुद गांधी जी को फर्स्ट क्लास ट्रेन के डिब्बे से उतार दिया, बेइज्जती की, गांधी जी को बहुत बुरा लगा, और उन्होंने आजादी की ठान ली। ये चर्चिल तो हिटलर स्टालिन का बाप निकला। It is unconscionable.
ब्रिटेन का Cyber Colonization संभव है। सिर्फ प्रश्न ये उठता है कि किया जाए या नहीं किया जाए। ईमानदारी से पुछो तो I am very tempted. लेकिन temptation एक चीज होती है, करना ना करना अलग।
लेकिन भारत को २०५० तक में २४० ट्रिलियन डॉलर वाली अर्थतंत्र बन जानी चाहिए, इसमें तो कोइ confusion नहीं है। सब लोकतंत्र एक जैसे नहीं होते। लोकतंत्र के जो basic values होते हैं जैसे कि free speech और diversity. बेलायत तो बेलायत खुद अमरिका से प्रतिस्प्रधा करना है भारत को तो प्रतिस्प्रधा वहाँ पर है। भारत को अमरिका को surpass करना है तो अमरिका में कालों के साथ जो सुलुक होता है वैसा भारत में मुसलमान के साथ नहीं होनी चाहिए। मुसलमान को प्रत्येक तह पर involve करो। Housing से ले के सब जगह पर। विश्व शक्ति बनाएगा भारत का मुसलमान। Per capita income में जिस दिन भारत के हिन्दु और मुसलमान एक से हो गए उस दिन भारत नंबर एक विश्व शक्ति बन गया।
ब्रिटेन का Cyber Colonization संभव है। सिर्फ प्रश्न ये उठता है कि किया जाए या नहीं किया जाए। ईमानदारी से पुछो तो I am very tempted. लेकिन temptation एक चीज होती है, करना ना करना अलग।
लेकिन भारत को २०५० तक में २४० ट्रिलियन डॉलर वाली अर्थतंत्र बन जानी चाहिए, इसमें तो कोइ confusion नहीं है। सब लोकतंत्र एक जैसे नहीं होते। लोकतंत्र के जो basic values होते हैं जैसे कि free speech और diversity. बेलायत तो बेलायत खुद अमरिका से प्रतिस्प्रधा करना है भारत को तो प्रतिस्प्रधा वहाँ पर है। भारत को अमरिका को surpass करना है तो अमरिका में कालों के साथ जो सुलुक होता है वैसा भारत में मुसलमान के साथ नहीं होनी चाहिए। मुसलमान को प्रत्येक तह पर involve करो। Housing से ले के सब जगह पर। विश्व शक्ति बनाएगा भारत का मुसलमान। Per capita income में जिस दिन भारत के हिन्दु और मुसलमान एक से हो गए उस दिन भारत नंबर एक विश्व शक्ति बन गया।
Monday, July 27, 2015
18% Growth Rate For Bihar?
That is mind blowing. An 18% growth rate is mind blowing. कौन से घाट का पानी पीते हैं नीतिश? उस पानी को bottling करो।
अमरिका बेलायत ने कभी ४-५% से ज्यादा किया नहीं। वही है कि दशकों तक ४-५% करते रहो तो बहुत हो जाता है। तो जब चीन ने १०% करना शुरू किया तो पहला रिएक्शन था, "चीनके बन्दर, हम ने तो कभी ५% से ज्यादा किया नहीं और ये कह रहे हैं हम १०% कर रहे हैं? जरूर झुठ बोल रहे होंगे।"
१८% ---- ये तो बौखला देने वाली नम्बर है।
लालु ने जब रेलवे में बम्पर मुनाफा दिखाया तो लोग बौखला गए थे, पश्चिमी देश के लोग कहने लगे, "ये कौन सा मॉडल है? हमारे किताबों में कहीं है ही नहीं।" कि इतना बड़ा फ़ौज है भारतीय रेलवे के पास। कमसेकम ३ लाख लोग तो काम कर ही रहे होंगे भारतीय रेलवे के लिए। वर्षों से, दशकों से पश्चिमी देश के लोग रिपोर्ट पर रिपोर्ट लिख रहे थे, सुझाव दे रहे थे, कि भारतीय रेलवे को मुनाफे में ले जाना है तो कंटनी छंटनी करो। Downsizing करो। लोगों को नौकरी से दफा करो। तो लालु ने वैसा कुछ किया नहीं, "I am a man of the people" कहते रह गए। तो किसी को कोइ होप नहीं था कि कुछ होगा। लालु मजाकिया आदमी, लोगों को इंटरटेन करते रहेंगे --- कुछ ऐसा expectation था। लेकिन लालु ने बम्पर मुनाफा दिखा दिया। सबको आश्चर्य हुवा। उसके बाद ममता आयी, तो फिर से भारतीय रेलवे घाटे में चला गया।
अभी भी लोग ठीक से समझ नहीं पा रहे हैं, आखिर लालु ने किया तो किया क्या? आंकड़े तो हैं। क्या किया वो तो है। सबके सामने है। लेकिन कैसे किया? लोग फोर्मुला अभी तक ढूँढ रहे हैं, मिल नहीं रहा है। और लालु है कि बता नहीं रहे हैं।
और ये नीतिश का १८% ---- मेरा तो शर चकरा गया ---- आखिर कैसे? कैसे हुवा? कैसे किया आपने?
ये दोनों बिहार के जादुगर। हात की सफाइ मारते रहते हैं।
अगर बिहार १८% कर सकती है तो बाँकी भारत को १५% तो करना ही होगा। थोड़ा आप लोग भी तो करो।
Bihar has developed in last one decade: Nitish
the state recorded a growth rate of
17.99 percent
at current price during 2014-14. In 2004-05, the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) was Rs.77,781.16 crore, which increased in 2014-15 to Rs.402,282 crore. ..... The plan expenditure was Rs.3,124.32 crore in 2004-05, which increased to Rs.43,931.61 crore,an average increase of 31.95 percent. ...... In the education sector, children in the age group of 6 -14 years were brought to school. "There were 12 percent children out of school in 2005 which now has been reduced to 1.72 percent," Nitish Kumar said. ...... He said 40 lakh children studying in class 9 received money for buying cycles. ..... Nitish Kumar said the vaccination under regular immunization was 18.6 percent in 2005, which now had increased to 78 percent. This figure is higher than the national average. ...... "The state government has constructed 66,508 km major and rural roads in the last decade. Similarly, 5,431 major bridges were constructed to improve connectivity." ....... The per capita consumption of electricity in the state increased from 70 kWh in 2005 to 203 kWh in 2015. ...... "In November 2005, average availability of power was 6 to 8 hours in the urban areas and 2 to 3 hours in rural area. But in 2015, the average availability of power in urban area is 22 to 24 hours and 15 to 16 hours in rural areas," Nitish Kumar said.
Bihar’s development record under Nitish Kumar
Kumar seems to have maintained his good track record in his second term. Bihar’s performance on many socio-economic indicators after 2005, when Kumar took over, is not only better than its own performance in the previous decade, but also of comparable states or the national average. Among the states we have taken for comparison with Bihar are Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.......... Bihar’s economic growth has been impressive under Kumar’s tenure. The average annual growth of Bihar’s economic output was the highest among selected states. Its performance in agriculture was second only to Madhya Pradesh......... Writing before the 2010 assembly elections, economist Swaminathan Aiyar attributed the economic turnaround of Bihar to improved law and order situation under Kumar. A look at the National Crime Records Bureau data shows significant reduction in crimes such as dacoity and robbery under Kumar’s tenure. ....... Bihar’s high growth can be mainly attributed to the fact that it started on a lower base. ...... Bihar has cut leakages from the public distribution system, which came down from 75-90% during the 2000s to less than 25% in 2011-12. ....... Bihar has also witnessed the second highest reduction in poverty among these states. ..... Reviving public health facilities was another of Kumar’s priorities. Although the share of health and education spending as a share of the gross state domestic product came down from 6.3% to 4.7% between 2005-06 and 2013-14, in absolute terms, there was a more than three-fold increase. The spending also appears to have been done more efficiently. ..... Bihar has managed to bring down infant mortality rates (IMR) at a faster pace than the national average. IMR is the number of dead children under one year per 1,000 live births. Although the state’s IMR is still higher than all-India levels, the gap reduced after Kumar took over. ...... One of the most popular schemes Kumar started was giving bicycles to school-going girls. This and several such efforts seem to have paid dividends in the education sector as Bihar recorded the highest improvement in retention rates among this group of states. Retention rates are defined as a percentage of students who manage to reach grade V after having enrolled in grade I. ...... Despite this progress, Bihar remains among the poorest states in terms of per capita income. Its rank in social development is close to the bottom. ..... BJP, his main opposition, is also claiming credit for the same. After all, JD(U) and BJP were in an alliance from 2005 to 2013, when Kumar walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) opposing Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial candidature. The NDA swept the 2014 elections when Kumar and Yadav were not together.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
FDR Was No Keynesian
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| John Maynard Keynes Русский: Джон Мейнард Кейнс Türkçe: John Maynard Keynes (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
What I call globoeconomics, I have been calling since 2008, I don't have the economics/finance background to put a theoretical spin to, but the political part of it is fairly obvious. Here too perhaps the dog can wag the tail. You build a genuine world government, and globoeconomics will flow out of it.
Defense Budget: Too Big
The 4%
A Fan Of Israel
Guns Are Insanity
Shashi Tharoor: Impressive Speech At Oxford
लालु यादव: मौसम वैज्ञानिक
Climate Change Is For Real
Barack Obama Is Biologically Superior
Barack Obama Should Create And Lead A Genuine World Government
How To Make Peace With Pakistan
Putin
Political Reform For China
Climate Change, Terrorism, Poverty, World Government
2001, 2002, 2008: Cycle Of Violence
न्यु यर्क मेरा होमटाउन
So Much For The Butterfly Effect
Modi: A Force Of Nature
Elon Musk's Hyperloop And India
Barack Obama In Kenya
Obama's 'homecoming' to Kenya highlights economic boom
Better stocktaking methods and new software have helped cut delivery times to supermarkets from two weeks to two days and sales have grown by 50 percent ..... Obama's visit reveals Washington's desire to fix ties with Kenya - East Africa's top economy and a partner in the fight against religious radicals - after they slumped while President Uhuru Kenyatta faced international charges of crimes against humanity. ....... Obama also faces pressure from rights organisations to use his popularity to address Kenya's problems with corruption, media freedom, and the battle against militants from Somalia's al-Shabab group, who have spilled blood in a shopping mall, a university campus among other targets. ...... bullish about Kenya's economy, which grew by 4.9 percent in the first quarter of 2015. It is one of the world's fastest-growing markets and part of a long-term expansion across sub-Saharan Africa that is building a middle class of new consumers. ...... "The UN projects that over 1.8 billion children will be born in the next 35 years across Africa. That's a huge market that's available for anybody serving the baby industry, everything from diapers to baby food. There is lots of opportunity" ....... technology start-up firms in its western suburbs seek to build on such successes as the mobile phone money transfer system, M-Pesa. The innovation hub along Ngong Road has been dubbed Silicon Savannah. ...... "You can feel the confidence in Nairobi these days, a sense of swagger and bravado on the part of Kenyan elites" ........ "A sense that Kenya, for the first time since independence, really does have its destiny in its own hands and does have options in terms of who it chooses to partner with internationally" ...... The US president has an 80 percent approval rating there and is lauded as "our son" ..... he will not visit his ancestral village Kogelo, the site of his father's grave, amid al-Shabab security concerns. ....... Obama appears dismayed that he will be tied to his security detail and motorcade, rather than be free to meet with distant relatives, such as his step-grandmother Sarah Onyango Obama ...... visiting Kenya as a private citizen is probably more meaningful to me than visiting as president because I can actually get outside of a hotel room or a conference centre ....... Upon arrival, he will meet his Kenyan counterpart, Kenyatta, whose presidential bid Washington lobbied against because, at the time of the election in March 2013, he faced International Criminal Court charges over his role in the 2007-08 post-election violence. ........ The court dropped all charges against Kenyatta in December. ...... Kenya's economic boom is part of a wave of modernisation and entrepreneurship that is sweeping sub-Saharan Africa and challenging deep-rooted prejudices that the continent is forever blighted by poverty, war, disease, and corruption. ........ "The pundit's pendulum will not always swing from Afro-pocalpyse to Afro-optimism" ........ "There will essentially be a mixed bag of billionaires emerging at the same time as we see people risking their lives to reach Europe across the Mediterranean. They will exist side by side, in much the same way we as see the super-rich and a homeless population in Washington DC"US holds summit with African heads of state
Afua Prempeh says she will never wash her frock again. She was hugged by Michelle Obama during a feel-good event for young African go-getters in Washington last week, and Prempeh does not want the US first lady's impressions to be rinsed away. ...... the allure that the Obamas retain in Africa, despite their waning approval ratings at home. The couple's charisma, together with President Barack Obama's Kenyan lineage, will be used to full effect at the first US-Africa Leaders Summit ...... "I'm still recovering from the excitement of hugging Michelle," says Prempeh, 28, a Ghanaian environmentalist who won a six-week study tour in Florida. ...... "The Obamas are a symbol of hope, that people can look beyond the colour of my skin or the fact that I'm a woman." .......... a continent where Europe and China are bigger traders. ...... Almost 50 African heads of state plan to attend Monday's three-day summit on business, security and governance. The four dozen presidential motorcades circling downtown Washington could cause traffic gridlock reminiscent of Nairobi, Lagos or Johannesburg. ...... European Union trade volumes with Africa hit $200bn in 2013. China's rocketed from $10bn in 2000 to more than $170bn in 2013. In recent years, US-Africa trade has stagnated at about $60bn. ........
Africa's population could eclipse China and India with two billion people in 2050, consisting of one quarter of the world's working-age population.
....... A bigger US footprint in Africa is far cheaper than pivoting to Asia ......... a small bit of effort now could mean better market access and closer economic ties in 25 years, when Africa will be better positioned to buy the goods and services that America is best at producing." ...... The US may lag in trade, but it has more African diplomatic posts than any other country and is stealthily expanding its military presence. Last month's revelations of US secret military advisers in Somalia added to the list of known hotspots where US trainers, spies, drones, and commandoes operate. ...... Visiting leaders cannot trumpet their feats in the plenary speeches of typical multi-lateral events. Worse still, they won't have one-on-one time with Obama, unlike the guaranteed presidential face time at Beijing's triennial Africa meets. ........ Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan were not invited. ...... Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta appeared on the guest list because he cooperated with the International Criminal Court over his role in the ethnic bloodletting of 2007-08. ...... Adebayo Alonge, 27, said it will be tough to use the skills he gained at Yale University to grow his business distributing low-cost drugs across Nigeria's countryside.
If Donald Trump Runs As An Independent
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| speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on February 10, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The Donald has been seen uncomfortable with question answer sessions. As in, why me?
Saturday, July 25, 2015
नरेन्द्र मोदी और "काला धन"
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| English: Logo of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Category:Goldman Sachs (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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....... his $21tn is actually a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn. A trillion is 1,000 billion. ....... His study deals only with financial wealth deposited in bank and investment accounts, and not other assets such as property and yachts. ..... the super-rich move money around the globe through an "industrious bevy of professional enablers in private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries. ...... "The lost tax revenues implied by our estimates is huge. It is large enough to make a significant difference to the finances of many countries. ...... "From another angle, this study is really good news. The world has just located a huge pile of financial wealth that might be called upon to contribute to the solution of our most pressing global problems," he said. ......... the impact on the balance sheets of 139 developing countries of money held in tax havens that is put beyond the reach of local tax authorities. ....... since the 1970s, the richest citizens of these 139 countries had amassed $7.3tn to $9.3tn of "unrecorded offshore wealth" by 2010. ...... Private wealth held offshore represents "a huge black hole in the world economy," Mr Henry said. ....... Mr Whiting, though, urged caution. ...... if tax havens were stuffed with such sizeable amounts, "you would expect the havens to be more conspicuously wealthy than they are". ...... At the end of 2010, the 50 leading private banks alone collectively managed more than $12.1tn in cross-border invested assets for private clients ...... The three private banks handling the most assets offshore are UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs ...... Less than 100,000 people worldwide own about $9.8tn of the wealth held offshore. ....... it was difficult to detail hidden assets in some individual countries, including the UK, because of restrictions on getting access to data. ..... A spokesman for the Treasury said great strides were being made in cracking down on people hiding assets......He said that in 2011-12 HM Revenue & Customs' High Net Worth Unit secured £200m in additional tax through its compliance work with the very wealthy........ He said that agreements reached with Liechtenstein and Switzerland will bring in £3bn and between £4bn and £7bn respectively.Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, research reveals
The world's super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy. ...... sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts to construct an alarming picture that shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system. ...... Comedian Jimmy Carr became the public face of tax-dodging in the UK earlier this year when it emerged that he had made use of a Cayman Islands-based trust to slash his income tax bill. ...... Despite the professed determination of the G20 group of leading economies to tackle tax secrecy, investors in scores of countries – including the US and the UK – are still able to hide some or all of their assets from the taxman....... large investors usually hold in cash .... "Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people. ...... for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich." ...... 10 million individuals around the world hold assets offshore, according to Henry's analysis; but almost half of the minimum estimate of $21tn – $9.8tn – is owned by just 92,000 people. And that does not include the non-financial assets – art, yachts, mansions in Kensington – that many of the world's movers and shakers like to use as homes for their immense riches. ..... "If we could figure out how to tax all this offshore wealth without killing the proverbial golden goose, or at least entice its owners to reinvest it back home, this sector of the global underground is easily large enough to make a significant contribution to tax justice, investment and paying the costs of global problems like climate change" ........ estimates of the cumulative capital flight from more than 130 low- to middle-income countries over almost 40 years, and the returns their wealthy owners are likely to have made from them. ......In many cases, , the total worth of these assets far exceeds the value of the overseas debts of the countries they came from.
...... The struggles of the authorities in Egypt to recover the vast sums hidden abroad by Hosni Mubarak, his family and other cronies during his many years in power have provided a striking recent example of the fact that kleptocratic rulers can use their time to amass immense fortunes while many of their citizens are trapped in poverty. ...... Oil-rich Nigeria has seen more than $300bn spirited away since 1970, for example, while Ivory Coast has lost $141bn. ...... Assuming that super-rich investors earn a relatively modest 3% a year on their $21tn, taxing that vast wall of money at 30% would generate a very useful $189bn a year – more than rich economies spend on aid to the rest of the world. ......... standard measures of inequality, which tend to rely on surveys of household income or wealth in individual countries, radically underestimate the true gap between rich and poor. ...... both the very wealthy and the very poor tend to be excluded from mainstream calculations of inequality. ...... "There is rarely a household from the top 1% earners that participates in the survey. On the other side, the poor people either don't have addresses to be selected into the sample, or when selected they misquote their earnings – usually biasing them upwards." ...... Globalisation has exposed low-skilled workers to competition from cheap economies such as China, while the surging profitability of the financial services industry – and the spread of the big bonus culture before the credit crunch – led to what economists have called a "racing away" at the top of the income scale. ....... The surveys that are used to compile the Gini coefficient "simply don't touch the super-rich" ..... some experts believe the amount of assets being held offshore is so large that accounting for it fully would radically alter the balance of financial power between countries. .......... "the wealth held in tax havens is probably sufficiently substantial to turn Europe into a very large net creditor with respect to the rest of the world." ........ In other words, even a solution to the eurozone's seemingly endless sovereign debt crisis might be within reach – if only Europe's governments could get a grip on the wallets of their own wealthiest citizens.
The 4%
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| speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on February 10, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
This is not a good sign. The leading people running to be America's next President don't feel it is possible to take America back to a 4% growth rate. They are feeling the squeeze. The problem is nothing new. It all goes back to 2008.
Economists did not see the Great Recession coming. And once it hit, they did not have remedies. You can't keep at zero interest rates. Because if another recession hits, you have nothing left to throw at it.
My diagnosis back in 2008 was, just like the Great Depression added macroeconomics to the arsenal, before that there was only microeconomics, now was the time to add a new layer on the top, called globoeconomics. Did not happen.
A genuine world government is the only cure to Climate Change, and terrorism, the two big menaces most heads of state fumble around. Add to that poverty and disease. But that might also make way for the globoeconomics.
Here's just one symptom: money is not supposed to just sit around. It is supposed to get invested and give returns of 5-10%.
Tax havens: Super-rich 'hiding' at least $21tn
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....... his $21tn is actually a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn. A trillion is 1,000 billion. ....... His study deals only with financial wealth deposited in bank and investment accounts, and not other assets such as property and yachts. ..... the super-rich move money around the globe through an "industrious bevy of professional enablers in private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries. ...... "The lost tax revenues implied by our estimates is huge. It is large enough to make a significant difference to the finances of many countries. ...... "From another angle, this study is really good news. The world has just located a huge pile of financial wealth that might be called upon to contribute to the solution of our most pressing global problems," he said. ......... the impact on the balance sheets of 139 developing countries of money held in tax havens that is put beyond the reach of local tax authorities. ....... since the 1970s, the richest citizens of these 139 countries had amassed $7.3tn to $9.3tn of "unrecorded offshore wealth" by 2010. ...... Private wealth held offshore represents "a huge black hole in the world economy," Mr Henry said. ....... Mr Whiting, though, urged caution. ...... if tax havens were stuffed with such sizeable amounts, "you would expect the havens to be more conspicuously wealthy than they are". ...... At the end of 2010, the 50 leading private banks alone collectively managed more than $12.1tn in cross-border invested assets for private clients ...... The three private banks handling the most assets offshore are UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs ...... Less than 100,000 people worldwide own about $9.8tn of the wealth held offshore. ....... it was difficult to detail hidden assets in some individual countries, including the UK, because of restrictions on getting access to data. ..... A spokesman for the Treasury said great strides were being made in cracking down on people hiding assets......He said that in 2011-12 HM Revenue & Customs' High Net Worth Unit secured £200m in additional tax through its compliance work with the very wealthy........ He said that agreements reached with Liechtenstein and Switzerland will bring in £3bn and between £4bn and £7bn respectively.Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, research reveals
The world's super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy. ...... sifting through data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and private sector analysts to construct an alarming picture that shows capital flooding out of countries across the world and disappearing into the cracks in the financial system. ...... Comedian Jimmy Carr became the public face of tax-dodging in the UK earlier this year when it emerged that he had made use of a Cayman Islands-based trust to slash his income tax bill. ...... Despite the professed determination of the G20 group of leading economies to tackle tax secrecy, investors in scores of countries – including the US and the UK – are still able to hide some or all of their assets from the taxman....... large investors usually hold in cash .... "Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people. ...... for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich." ...... 10 million individuals around the world hold assets offshore, according to Henry's analysis; but almost half of the minimum estimate of $21tn – $9.8tn – is owned by just 92,000 people. And that does not include the non-financial assets – art, yachts, mansions in Kensington – that many of the world's movers and shakers like to use as homes for their immense riches. ..... "If we could figure out how to tax all this offshore wealth without killing the proverbial golden goose, or at least entice its owners to reinvest it back home, this sector of the global underground is easily large enough to make a significant contribution to tax justice, investment and paying the costs of global problems like climate change" ........ estimates of the cumulative capital flight from more than 130 low- to middle-income countries over almost 40 years, and the returns their wealthy owners are likely to have made from them. ......IMF ReportIn many cases, , the total worth of these assets far exceeds the value of the overseas debts of the countries they came from.
...... The struggles of the authorities in Egypt to recover the vast sums hidden abroad by Hosni Mubarak, his family and other cronies during his many years in power have provided a striking recent example of the fact that kleptocratic rulers can use their time to amass immense fortunes while many of their citizens are trapped in poverty. ...... Oil-rich Nigeria has seen more than $300bn spirited away since 1970, for example, while Ivory Coast has lost $141bn. ...... Assuming that super-rich investors earn a relatively modest 3% a year on their $21tn, taxing that vast wall of money at 30% would generate a very useful $189bn a year – more than rich economies spend on aid to the rest of the world. ......... standard measures of inequality, which tend to rely on surveys of household income or wealth in individual countries, radically underestimate the true gap between rich and poor. ...... both the very wealthy and the very poor tend to be excluded from mainstream calculations of inequality. ...... "There is rarely a household from the top 1% earners that participates in the survey. On the other side, the poor people either don't have addresses to be selected into the sample, or when selected they misquote their earnings – usually biasing them upwards." ...... Globalisation has exposed low-skilled workers to competition from cheap economies such as China, while the surging profitability of the financial services industry – and the spread of the big bonus culture before the credit crunch – led to what economists have called a "racing away" at the top of the income scale. ....... The surveys that are used to compile the Gini coefficient "simply don't touch the super-rich" ..... some experts believe the amount of assets being held offshore is so large that accounting for it fully would radically alter the balance of financial power between countries. .......... "the wealth held in tax havens is probably sufficiently substantial to turn Europe into a very large net creditor with respect to the rest of the world." ........ In other words, even a solution to the eurozone's seemingly endless sovereign debt crisis might be within reach – if only Europe's governments could get a grip on the wallets of their own wealthiest citizens.
Solar is almost there. I think we are at the cusp of solving the energy crisis. Which means, we should be able to bring forth another era of high growth rates across the world. But a new global layer in politics and economics has to be imagined for that to happen.
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