Here is a great article in PR Watch on the super rich. You thought that you knew what rich is? This is the way to get to and around London for the Olympics.
At a time when the gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of us is reaching historic heights across the globe, at least $21 trillion (with a “t”) in unreported private financial wealth was recently discovered sitting in secret tax havens.
While it can be difficult to imagine sums so large, consider this: the $21 trillion alone is the amount of the U.S. and Japanese economies combined. That reflects only financial wealth, and not the holdings and investments of this monied elite in mansions, yachts, private jets, etc. According to a recent reports by the Tax Justice Network, “The Price of Offshore Revisited” and “Inequality: You Don’t Know The Half of It,” this staggering disparity is only growing worse.
The report states at the end of 2010, the wealthiest fifty private banks held over $12.1 trillion, up $5.4 trillion from 2005. Three private banks handle the lion’s share of offshore assets — UBS, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs. If these offshore holdings earned a very modest 3% return rate, and the income were to be taxed at 30%, this would generate tax revenues between $190 – $280 billion.
The study is one of the first attempting to measure the hidden wealth. It could be as high as $32 trillion — a staggering sum.
At a time when governments around the world are starved for resources, and we are more conscious than ever of the costs of economic inequality, “This new report focuses our attention on a huge ‘black hole’ in the world economy that has never before been measured — private offshore wealth, and the vast amounts of untaxed income that it produces,” says the author James Henry, who is the former chief economist of the global management firm, McKinsey & Company.
More on London Super Yachts
I think you will find much of the black new money is coming out of India, China and Eastern Europe. The old black money came out of the US Western Europe and Latin America. Where it is going is the next question.
Hopefully people are not so naive to believe that the super rich are don’t control the politics of every western nation and they are in control of tax policy. As Leono Hemsley once said, only the poor pay taxes.
And they have every right to keep it to spend as will or create jobs!
The Tax Justice Network is a radical far left organization determined to turn the world into a Marxist nightmare. Everything they publish is either made up or edited to the point of just being propaganda. Their information is not factual.
The gap between the rich and the rest of us is because most governments in developed countries left of centre. (I am not rich, not even close to rich.)
Most countries run by left of centre governments end up with the widest gap between rich and poor. For example, most European countries have left wing governments and the gap is really wide. (Nordic countries are the exception because their social policies are left of centre, but their economic policies are right of centre.)
Countries like Singapore and Canada have right of centre governments and their gap is small.
Perhaps you should think about what you are writing and stop spreading propaganda.