Today the Guardian published an article by William Brittain-Catlin, he's the author of Offshore: The Dark Side of the Global Economy
How offshore capitalism ate our economies - and itself
Convoluted networks of tax havens became a model for the abstract financial wizardry that led to the current crisis
In many ways it's an excerpt from his brilliant book but it does shed some light on what we could see in the future. Here's an excerpt:
The new offshore wizardry soon had an impact on the wider world. Up until this time, nation-states had complete control over their economies and finances. That changed. Offshore tax havens put enormous pressure on domestic banking systems to deregulate and liberalise. In turn, onshore banks and monetary authorities tried desperately to control and regulate the new international capital markets that were based offshore. But it was an unequal struggle; governments across the industrialised west eventually repealed their own regulations and let offshore finance wash up and make a home onshore.
Buy the Book Here: Offshore: The Dark Side of the Global Economy
