The Guardian: The real Goldfinger: the London banker who broke the world

[PeterMP]

A long piece on how the unraveling on Brenton Woods has contributed to income inequality.

 

It is nice how they tie in the idea of Goldfinger on how something in the 1950's that required the attention of the UKs top spy today would be considered good business.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/07/the-real-goldfinger-the-london-banker-who-broke-the-world

 

"If you couldn’t find a jurisdiction with the right kind of rules, then you threatened or flattered one until it changed its rules to accommodate you. Warburg himself started this off, by explaining to the Bank of England that if Britain did not make its rules competitive and its taxes lower, then he would take his bank elsewhere, perhaps to Luxembourg.

 

Hey presto, the rules were changed, and the tax – in this case, stamp duty on bearer bonds – was abolished. The world’s response to these developments has been entirely predictable as well. Time after time, countries have chased after the business they have lost offshore (as the US did by abolishing the regulations the banks were dodging when they moved to London), thus making the onshore world ever more similar to the offshore piratical world that Warburg’s bankers created.

 

Taxes have fallen, regulations have relaxed, politicians have become friendlier, all in an effort to entice the restless money to settle in one jurisdiction rather than another. The reason for this is simple. Once one jurisdiction lets you do what you want, the business flows there and other jurisdictions have to rush to change, too. It is the Moneyland ratchet, always loosening regulations for the benefit of those with money to move around, and never tightening them."

[Larry]

A point which I make every time somebody recites the talking point that the way to fix health care is to allow corporations to sell health insurance across state lines (without having to comply with the state's laws). 

 

Or every time I read about some company literally holding a bidding war to see which state will give them the most taxpayer money.