Flying High

There has been a flurry of comment in some of the media about the impending takeover over Europe by Germany. Here we go again is the response of many especially those with long memories. So what is the source for this?

For those interested it was likely to be an article picked up from the German web site The Local, Germany’s news in English, which relayed Herfreid Munkler’s article on “The Need for a Centralization of Power”.

This suggested that democratization of decisions at national level was a potential for disaster and Europe’s elite should get their act together fast and do the necessary to save Europe for Germany and at least to save Germany.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,773071,00.html

What was it that Martha Stewart said before she was arrested in 2004 for dodgy tax dealings? “Only the little people pay tax.”? In parallel with this call to the great and good, or may be not so good it is being argued that the German approach to dealing with tax avoidance and evasion in relation to Switzerland is not quite what it seems to be.

In the UK similarly things are not quite what they seem to be and it is amazing how the information only turns up by accident. But with most of government policy at the moment seeming to be the products of accidents this is not a surprise. One choice gem is that those flying in on private jets recently have not had to bother with border controls at all.

Quite unlike the little people nervously wondering whether the passport sold to them in a bar in Bucharest will pass the officials. It seems only right, therefore, that the officials dealing with the hoi polloi should stop checking any passports in the name of social equality.

However, the little person still could find himself not welcome, but if you have millions there is no problem, come on in, we need you. More to the point if you can persuade a bank, maybe Barclays, to lend you the money on the basis of assets claimed to exist in a tax haven this will be OK as well.

That the fortune claimed may be the result of either pushing money round accounts or the gentle art of money laundering would be an invasion of privacy to ask about. This may be why the UK is said to be the biggest criminal money laundry in the world.

Our politicians of both left and right have told us that these are just the chaps we need to keep our finances afloat, and keep our sporting and certain entertainment facilities amongst the most desirable in the world. Where would we be without them?

What worries me is the closeness of these people to the elite group that are supposed to be taking charge of Europe and all our taxes and spending. In fact they are so close as to be almost indistinguishable.

It might explain why some of the property investments lately discovered to be bought with their expenses by people in Parliament seem to be located in “red light” districts.

Knock, knock, who’s there?

Off Shore On Shore

In Colchester today, home to the military prison that so many of my comrades attended for their intensive group therapy sessions, the Tax Justice Network members are conferring on how nations can retain their taxable incomes in the face of the flight of the rich and the corporations to tax havens.

In the meantime the Cobden Centre, link below, has an article taking the view that as Greece, Ireland and Portugal are facing such hopeless situations the only real answer is to default and start all over again.
http://www.cobdencentre.org/2011/07/the-consequences-of-the-impending-national-bankruptcies/

Amongst the other candidates for defaults of one kind or another are the USA and the UK. In the USA we had the interesting sight of an international football match where the home side at Los Angeles were roundly booed and jeered by the great majority of the crowd who supported the visiting team.

They were Mexico who had very large numbers of Mexican migrants at the game because the population of California is increasingly Latin or Hispanic. Given the problems of California how long might it be that those of Latin origin take the view that the current financial problems had little to do with them and they decide to secede from the Union?

Would they join with Mexico, with all its issues? Perhaps it is time for a revival of a Monarchist party in Spain who want out of the Euro and Europe, to reorder their national finances and to embrace in a world union with those of their former colonies who are also troubled financially.

In the UK it is difficult to know what is really going on. Could those meeting in Colchester perhaps rouse the descendants of the ancient Iceni to rebel as their ancestors did against the might of Rome and march on London? Or form an Eastern Association on Cromwell’s lines to deal with a corrupt elite?

Many of those in Colchester Military Prison years ago were from Quartermaster’s stores, indeed a surprising proportion.

They knew a lot about off shoring in their time.