Books
**Coming January 2023**
In four parts, Invisible Trillions reveals how capitalism today functions outside the control of democracy and how we can link the two once again. Acknowledging the corruption and complacency of our institutions, Raymond W. Baker walks readers through covert financial operations, their instigators, and their impacts. He also argues for replacing financial secrecy with transparency via mechanisms such as mandated disclosure around corporate and financial entities and operations.
Raymond Baker’s Capitalism’s Achilles Heel was the first book to attempt an explanation of the whole of the offshore problem, especially how offshore is so detrimental to capitalism. His own disgust with offshore began in Nigeria, where he was horrified by how the offshore system – or infrastructure — was used to spirit money out of Nigeria by foreigners and Nigerians alike, with the Nigerian oil boom subjecting the country to what is sometimes referred to as the “resource curse.”
A remarkable debut by one of America’s premier young reporters on financial corruption, Casey Michel’s American Kleptocracy offers an explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known. American Kleptocracy examines just how the United States’ implosion into a center of global offshoring took place… and how those on the front-line are trying to restore America’s legacy of anti-corruption leadership—and finally end this reign of American kleptocracy.
Nick Shaxson’s classic focuses in particular on the role of the U.K. and its Territories and Crown Depencies as huge players in the offshore game. His chapter on the City of London is a must read – one comes away understanding how offshore is embedded at the heart of global finance and maintained with elegance and panache by snakes in suits. Part of de-creating offshore is seeing through the fancy suits and cufflinks to the moral rot and criminality.
Peroni-swilling Oliver Bullough has written the latest blockbuster on our subject. Praised by Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and countless others, Oliver’s book describes offshore as a network that is everywhere. “This is the story of wealth and power in the twenty-first century. It isn’t too late to change it.” We agree. It must be de-created.
In his forceful follow-up to Moneyland, Oliver Bullough unravels the dark secret of how Britain placed itself at the center of the global offshore economy and at the service of the worst people in the world. Butler to the World reveals how Britain came to assume its role as the center of the offshore economy. Written polemically, but studded with witty references to the butlers of popular fiction, it demonstrates how so many elements of modern Britain have been put at the service of the world’s oligarchs.
The Panama Papers are absolutely historic. Never before has the offshore system/infrastructure been laid bare to this extent in such dramatic fashion, with story after story of the bad things that are possible using offshore structures. Anonymous corporate structures are a huge part of this story, as the Panamanian law firm at the center of the story was specialized in setting up these anonymous structures. All about concealment.
Naim’s book focuses on criminals – “How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy” – the books describes in detail how “real criminals” doing really nasty stuff – like drug trafficking, human trafficking, killing people – use the offshore system too. Lots about counterfeiting too, and business fraud of various sorts.
Tom Burgis wrote an earlier book, The Looting Machine, that describes how offshore has facilitated the looting of for the most part poor African countries – so called “developing nations” – of course the problem is that they are not developing, and offshore is a bit part of the problem.
John Cassara’s Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows: Following the Money and Value Trails is the first book to take a hard look at our anti-money laundering (AML) track record. Written primarily from a law enforcement perspective, the book examines old and new money laundering methodologies. It exposes threats, enablers, and facilitators. Making the case for an AML paradigm shift, the book offers alternative steps forward.