Olympics Security - The Cat Has Emerged From The Bag

The story below popped up on the BBC News Online – England – London page today, apparently arising from the Radio 4 “Today” programme as an incidental comment. It did not make the national news or listings, perhaps it might have made the provincials nervous.


Resolute readers of this blog will have seen it all before, although in a much fuller explanation. Tuesday 12 May was when I posted “2012 Olympic Security Costs”. This item was written at the end of last year and I had given it some circulation although to no effect. Why is the London media so coy about this one? It is one reason why the government needs all these stringent security and control laws and regulations


Quote


'Huge challenge' of 2012 security


The 2012 Olympics and Paralympics are likely to present the UK's "greatest security challenge" since World War II, Home Office minister Lord West says.


The level of terrorist threat at the London Games is expected to be severe, the second-highest level, he added. Lord West is reviewing the best way to protect built-up areas, transport systems and national infrastructures from terrorist attacks.


"We do not underestimate the scale of the Olympics challenge," he stressed. Speaking at a conference in London on Olympic security, he said it was important to ensure measures were not so heavy-handed that they frightened people away from the Games. "The Olympics and Paralympics are about sport and not security.


"We want the world to be inspired by sport in London, and our security plans have to strike a balance between visible security and the welcome that we want." Lord West went on: "There is no doubt that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games promises to be the greatest Games in history - and possibly the greatest security challenge the UK has faced since the Second World War."


'Clarity needed'


Shadow security minister Dame Pauline Neville Jones, who is attending the conference, said that the role of the armed forces during the Games must be confirmed. In January, Gen Sir David Richards - who is now head of the Army - told MPs that "the sooner we get clarity, the better" on the Olympic security process.


Dame Pauline believes the Army should have a role at the Games, but stressed this did not necessarily mean that soldiers should conduct high-profile patrols. "What I understand at the moment is that there is agreement that they should be part of it, but they haven't yet been told what they are going to be doing," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "That's one of the reasons I think General Richards wants to know. "He has to factor that in to what he's doing with his men in 2012."


A Home Office spokesman said that the armed forces were expected to provide additional specialist support and back-up to police and other security teams at the Games. Two senior staff from the Ministry of Defence have already been seconded into roles on the planning team for Olympic security, he said. He added that "a lot of work is going on" to make arrangements for the Army.


Unquote


We truly live in a weird world. An irritable old man with a cheapo computer left with only his thoughts, can beat the whole panoply of State and security in realizing the blinding obvious, and without a penny of bonus.

Flight Information - The UK Is Cancelled

It is reported that British Airways and Iberia Airlines are discussing a merger. This is shorthand for yet another substantial UK company going offshore and under foreign ownership, with the money coming from certain trusts, private equity, and a raft of other international investors from here and there.

So what will they call the new airline?

Spanish Fly?

Fiscal Problems - First The Bad News - Second The Worse News

From The Bear’s Lair – Martin Hutchinson
Prudent Bear Dot Com – 10 November 2009
Article - “Which Big Country Will Default First?”

Below are three extracts from an interesting article, dealing with the six major economies, the USA, Japan, Britain, Germany, China, and France. They do not make happy reading for the UK.

Extract One

The worst budget balance of the three deficit countries is in Britain, where the forecast budget deficit for calendar 2009 is a staggering 14.5% of GDP. Furthermore, the Bank of England has been slightly more irresponsible in its financing mechanisms than even the USA Federal Reserve, leaving interest rates above zero but funding fully one third of public spending through direct money creation. Governor Mervyn King has a reputation in the world's chancelleries as a conservative man of economic understanding.

He doesn't really deserve it, having been one of the 364 lunatic economists who signed a round-robin to Margaret Thatcher in 1981 denouncing her economic policies just as they were on the point of magnificently working, pulling Britain back from what seemed inevitable catastrophic decline. King's quiet manner may be more reassuring to skeptics than the arrogance of "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke, but the reality of his policies is little sounder and the economic situation facing him is distinctly worse.

Extract Two

Britain has two additional problems not shared by the United States and Japan. First, its economy is in distinctly worse shape. Growth was negative in the third quarter of 2009, unlike the modest positive growth in the U.S. and the sharp uptick in Japan. Moreover, whereas U.S. house prices are now at a reasonable level, in terms of incomes (albeit still perhaps 10% above their eventual bottom), Britain's house prices are still grossly inflated, possibly in London even double their appropriate level in terms of income.

The financial services business in Britain is a larger part of the overall economy than in the U.S. and the absurd exemption from tax for foreigners has brought a huge disparity between the few foreigners at the top of the City of London and the unfortunate locals toiling for mere mortal rewards. A recent story that the housing market for London homes priced above $5 million British pounds was being reflated by Goldman Sachs bonuses indicates the problem, and suggests that the further deflation needed in U.K. housing will have a major and unpleasant economic effect.

The other question to be answered for all three countries is that of political will. If as is certainly the case in Britain, deficits at the current levels will lead to default (albeit not for some years since the country's public debt is still quite low), then to avoid default tough decisions must be taken. Britain is in poor shape in this respect. Its current prime minister, Gordon Brown, is largely responsible for the underlying budget problem, having overspent during the boom years, largely on added bureaucracy rather than on anything productive or value-creating.

However, the opposition Conservatives, likely to take power next spring, are led by a center-leftist with a background in public relations and no discernable backbone or principles. Britain has a history of such leaders, which it has managed to survive – the ineffable Harold Macmillan, in particular, who wanted to abolish the Stock Exchange and contemplated nationalizing the banks when they raised interest rates, was a man of outlook and temperament very similar to David Cameron's. Macmillan was notoriously prone to soft options that postponed economic problems, firing his entire Treasury team in pursuit of soft options in 1958 and leaving behind an appalling legacy of inflationary bubble on his retirement in 1963.

If Cameron is truly like Macmillan, his government's response to economic and financial disaster will be one of wriggle rather than confrontation. With neither party providing solutions to an economic crisis, the British public is likely to discover that, unlike in the crisis of 1976, no solutions will be found. Default (doubtless disguised as with Argentina as "renegotiation") would in that case inevitably follow.

Extract Three

We'd all better hope the urge for fiscal responsibility hits London, Washington and Tokyo pretty damn soon.

Comment

Does anyone know where I can get hold of some cowrie shells?

Olympics 2012 - Watch The Birdie

High in the last tree in Hackney sat a large bird with a distinct scowl hovering around its beak. Vinnie the Vulture was feeling peckish. But it was raining hard and all the human heads below had hats, hoods, plastic covers, or caps. Vinnie had hoped for a nice bright shiny bald head to take a quick bite of chewy skin from. “A bald man a day keeps the doctor away!” his mother Vileda had always said to urge him to eat a healthy diet. Vinnie had never known why his mother had been given this name but suspected that her parents had thought it to be one of those upper class names that defy explanation. There are few female names that begin with a “V”, and as everybody knows, all vultures must have a name beginning with “V”.

The long arcing branch shuddered, and Vinnie was peeved when he realised another bird had taken up station beside him. It was Sue the Sparrow, and it was especially annoying to have her endless mindless chatter. After twittering on for what seemed an age about the exchanges she had had with what seemed to be every bird in London, she then asked a direct question. “Have you thought of going vegetarian?” she asked Vinnie. He nearly fell off the branch.

But clinging on for a moment he asked the obvious question “How in the stratosphere do I tell a human who eats meat from one who doesn’t?” “Well, the vegetarians sort of slouch and look aimlessly about them.” Sue said this in such a positive and knowing way that Vinnie knew she was simply retailing some gossip from Winnie the Woodpecker, the most unreliable bird in London. Winnie had developed a taste for large cannabis plants and their insect life in the belief they would make her happy, and because of a shortage of woodpecker friendly trees in the area since the Mayor of London had chopped so many down to make seats of local timber for the coming Olympic Games to save the rain forests, and to economise on street sweeping. “Anyhow,” said Sue, “I eat insects who eat only plants and they are lean and tasty enough.”

Vinnie had heard enough and it was time to eat, so he flapped off the branch making it bounce so hard that Sue was propelled in the direction of the block of flats that was infested with feral cats. “Serve her right!” thought Vinnie as he hovered over a bright new City tower for a short time, inspiring the toiling workers in the offices below. They worked seven days a week for a speculative financial fund, and a sighting of Vinnie was held to be a good omen of a business disaster that would be to their advantage and a prosperous early retirement.

It was Saturday, and there were there football matches to be played. One was at West Ham United, and a full house was promised for the game against Arsenal. A West Ham United home game always ensured a good supply of human body parts left lying around after the two teams’ supporters had discussed the legitimacy of the result. But a vulture had to be quick to grab them before the purveyors of hot dogs and sandwiches hoping to stock up for the coming week. The mortal remains of Arsenal supporters made a splendid meal for the discerning scavenger. They fed on rich food and fat meat and the expensive wines they liked to consume meant that they were always well marinated.

Normally he would head for the Palace of Westminster where a naked researcher left tied to a railing might be found as an offering to The Gods for failing to convert fanciful fictions into convincing facts. But it was one of the many very long vacations needed by the politicians to add to their pension funds and the researchers went to internet café’s to huddle together over instant messenger conversations with journalists, who unlike their employers paid good money for the information and insights they had to offer.


So Vinnie decided to head East hoping for a decent meal behind the goal at the north end. He had gone only a short way when he saw crowds of howling humans fighting for access to buses. It was Liverpool Street Station, closed again without warning, and tens of thousands of ticket holding travellers were left to find another way home.

Because the railway was expected to be in perfect order for the Olympic Games, the Mayor of London had decreed that Liverpool Street Station be kept as free as possible from the inconvenience of passengers in the meantime. Vinnie had no interest in trains, in spite of an ancestor’s affection for the steam locomotive 61672 “West Ham United” that had worked the Norwich line so many years ago and provided organic food by regularly mowing down railway labourers on the tracks.

He was looking for casualties that would be found in the mayhem below. The Railway Disturbances when all the London termini had closed for three months to be decorated with the Olympic Logo at the same time that the London Underground closed for the re-branding of lines in the sponsors names, had provided food for thought for Vinnie. It was inevitable, of course, that the conversion of the District Line to The Coca Cola Experience had become more generally known as The Coke Line

It was not long before a prime young human became available. The Armed Response Squad had arrived and had begun to put travellers out of their misery. The Mayor of London had recruited the most active gun gangs into the Squad, which at a stroke of the ballpoint brought about a major decrease in gun crime, and an increase in the numbers of crimes solved, more or less. It also helped to cull the dissenting groups and ensure that the Olympics opinion polls looked good without resort to the more obvious forms of manipulation.

The Burger Bar riots by the YOB (young obese) because of huge price rises following the shift to biofuels in agriculture had created some bad publicity. The Mayor had lobbied hard for cheap aviation and motor fuels because the Olympic Games required the wealthy spectators from far and wide able to afford the ticket prices. The propertied and political-media classes claimed that their way of living was in danger and there had been falls in the advertising revenues of the life style supplements.

There had been protests amongst others who had no hope of attending the Games. Those on social security had protested also when part of their benefits had been withheld as compulsory purchases of lottery tickets for added funding for the Games. That the money had gone on lottery tickets was not the issue, much of their benefits already were spent on tickets. It was that the prizes for the compulsory benefit entries consisted of free tickets to the early rounds of the Flatwater Canoeing, Graeco-Roman Wrestling, Trampoline and Softball events, transport not included. This “Big Idea” of the Mayor’s had been accepted too readily by the government.

There was a clatter of sound a short time after Vinnie had begun to work on his meal. It was Sue the Sparrow again. She seemed to have lost a leg and a great many feathers. “You bastard!” she shrieked. “You should have said big bastard. Bastardy is a necessary condition of vulture culture” growled Vinnie. “We don’t do anthropomorphic posturing like you lot.” He continued to rip out a liver; it was badly scarred like most of those of the younger generation humans, but had a certain exotic flavour that vultures appreciated. Sue put on her clever cheeky look which was supposed to endear her to others, “those men with guns will get you and we won’t be warbling with woe like what we did with Cock Robin!”

Vinnie closed one eye, “Birds with red breast make attractive targets, just like sparrow with one leg.” Sue ignored him and began to hop towards the Squad cheeping in friendly tones. She was met with a rain of slugs from their Uzi Automatic Weapons. The Mayor had decreed that London must shed its past in time for the Olympics. Cockney Sparrows were history or rather in Sue’s case to become clouds of particles blown away on the wind, with a little help from the Uzi’s.

Having enjoyed his canapé of liver, Vinnie took off quickly, and wondered why the Squad had left him alone. At first he flapped gently about the luxury developments and new hospitals in Stepney that the Mayor had requisitioned for homes and physiotherapy facilities for all the athletes and sports people recruited from abroad to be naturalised citizens of the UK in time for the Games. Many tasty samples were to he had. The weightlifters were slow to move and big enough to promise a successful swoop. Bulgarians were a premium source of protein, but the Ukrainians had a dangerous tendency to react very violently and very quickly.

By following the new Olympic Way being bulldozed through the poorer districts, a motorway needed for the competitors and elite guests, Vinnie was soon wheeling above the Boleyn Stand at Upton Park, and saw that another vulture was perched there. He settled a short distance apart hoping this did not mean competition and then realised it was a female, indeed Vitriola, the Toast of Tottenham, famed for her beauty, at least amongst vultures. She preened a little and then gave Vinnie a full sighting of her reproductive parts. Vinnie realised he was no longer alone and could soon be father of his own flock. As vultures said in Essex, his homeland, this was an offer he could not refuse.

The question was where would they settle? It would have to be a suitable roost for a rapidly growing family of several generations, and therefore need to be somewhere else than West Ham United where many of the fans could hit a fast moving striker at fifty yards with a half empty water bottle. Little vultures would be easy pickings. The other sporting stadia were just as bad. Chelsea was the worst, where not only the players, but the wildlife had to endure a continuing rain of celery sticks from demented fans, sundry celebrities and senior members of the government. As for places further away, he had once met a veteran vulture, a survivor of the horrors of Twickenham who could not bear to croak about it. It wasn’t just being stuffed live that was the worst; it was what they used for the stuffing.

As her dowry Vitriola had good news for Vinnie. She had seen it in a newspaper whilst she had rested on the shoulder of a trapped commuter on Finsbury Park Station. The Mayor of London had decreed the vulture to be the symbol of the new age, and they were not just a protected species, but now were an integral part of the body disposal industry enabling large savings on cemeteries, now mostly training centres for the coming Olympics, and by displacing cremation enabling the Mayor to meet the London carbon emission targets in time for the Games. The Armed Response Squad had adopted the vulture as its symbol. Even the City of London had decided to co-operate and had declared itself to he the international home of vulture funds, with huge tax breaks for the predators of the world of business, and consequently the major, almost the only, source of lending for the Government.

Eagles and Lions were out; the Vultures and Rats were in, and the 21st Century had really arrived. Soon it would be 2012 with the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games, and the disasters that would ensue would make London a land free for vultures. Vinnie and Vitriola pecked each other affectionately on the necks. There was only one way to go; they rose into the air, scattered their droppings on the Arsenal supporters, and headed for the great new stadium to the North West. As they flew towards the rays of the setting sun, the light gave a golden sheen to their talons. It would be the only gold that Britain would enjoy in the whole of the Games to come.

Financial Affairs - The Return Of The Red Shadow

There have been a number of suggestions in the last few months about whether the government might abandon the pound and join the Euro zone. Up until recently, I have thought that this could be unlikely in the run up to an election, because of the obvious disadvantages to a party attempting to recover support. If Labour did retain power, then would be the time to make that move, whether or not it was in any manifesto or conflicted with electoral promises.

Those with fewer teeth and less hair will recall that during 1987 and 1988 Nigel Lawson, then Chancellor of the Exchequer attempted to shadow the Deutschmark in the money markets in the attempt to prepare the UK for admission to the then European Exchange Rate Mechanism that preceded the introduction of the Euro. It has been said that Margaret Thatcher, being busy with world affairs, poll taxes, and Defence was not aware of this, and was less than happy when she found out. So the UK went into the ERM later at the wrong rate and then, inevitably, crashed out.

What has made me change my mind is what is not happening, which is often more important than what is. Things which should be happening in the markets, money, currency, finance, trade and the rest are not moving either as they should or according to most known economic principles, notably Keynesian. Which brings me to Goodhart’s Law.

To quote Wikipedia:

Although Goodhart's law has been expressed in a variety of formulations, the essence of the law is that once a social or economic indicator or other “surrogate” measure is made a target for the purpose of conducting social or economic policy, then it will lose the information content that would qualify it to play such a role. The law was named for its developer, Charles Goodhart of the LSE and formerly a Chief Adviser of the Bank of England.

The law was first stated in a 1975 paper by Goodhart and gained popularity in the context of the attempt by the UK government of Margaret Thatcher to conduct monetary policy on the basis of targets for broad and narrow money, but the idea is considerably older. It is implicit in the economic idea of rational expectations. While it originated in the context of market responses the Law has profound implications for the selection of high-level targets in organisations.

It has been asserted that the stability of the economic recovery that took place in the United Kingdom under John Major’s government from late 1992 onwards was a result of “Reverse Goodhart's Law”: that, if a government's economic credibility is sufficiently damaged, then its targets are seen as irrelevant and the economic indicators regain their reliability as a guide to policy.

Unquote

What I believe is happening now is that between them the Government and the Bank of England have a policy of “Shadow The Euro” that they are not admitting to, and by managing the markets for long enough, they can persuade the major powers in Europe that the pound joins the Euro Zone at something near parity, possibly below. The time to spring this on an unsuspecting public would be perhaps at the turn of the year, with the announcement maybe during Hogmanay, unless there was a high profile disaster or death that might prove convenient.

This would happen because Gordon Brown will have given up on the chances of Labour retaining power. Entry into the Euro Zone would create an impossible situation to address in the event of a hung Parliament and would continue by default. If the Conservative Party were to win, then they really would be faced with a Scorched Earth economic situation, as well as having a divisive effect within their own party. As for the Scottish National Party, between the Lisbon Treaty and the Euro Zone, they would be hamstrung in the event of “independence” and faced with some ugly and expensive choices.

Another worry is seeing the wreckage around the whole of government arising from the incompetence and failures of this administration, it is quite possible that they will botch the whole business of shadowing the Euro, and the consequences could be severe. If they did enter the Euro, then it is almost certain that they will to do so at a level that could be catastrophic for the long term UK economy.

We have learned very recently that the senior figures in the Labour party in the early 1980’s, notably Comrades Foot and Kinnock, who has drunk deep in the wells of Brussels, are alleged to have asked the Soviet Union for support to overturn the Thatcher Government. They were encouraged by the TGWU and other unions, who were Communist infiltrated and assisted by the KGB.

These unions had key influence in a number of Constituency Labour Party organisations and could determine who would be selected as candidates for Parliament. One was Dunfermline East in 1983, and to borrow Lenin’s term, the “useful idiot” they selected was Mr. Gordon Brown. To add a touch of spice to this has been the recent suggestion from Russia that the New EU has the Soviet Union as its model.

Which rather makes Gordon “The Red Shadow” of British Politics.

Parliament, Government & The Way We Live

At the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday 3rd November, there was an interesting conjunction of events. Outside there was a group of Sex Workers, possibly GMB members, demonstrating over the recent tragic Ipswich cases and demanding more police protection and support where necessary in a trade that has it dangers.

Inside, in Committee Room 10 there was a meeting between Carlex, the Campaign Against Retirement Leasehold Exploitation, and Parliamentarians to discuss the serious problems arising in that field for the aged and vulnerable currently being ripped off by an oligopoly of major property and financial speculators supported by the nationalised RBS. Like everything else in life on earth it is possible to find the links. Follow either the money or the food chain.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries much was made by social reformers and others with ethical and moral interests of the fact that the major property owners were to be found prominent amongst the owners of the worst slums, and premises used for people and sex trafficking of every kind. In London, they were reckoned to be the chief purveyors, indirectly and without quite realising it, of some of the nastiest practices in personal and money terms. Also, they were often aristocrats of high standing with a major influence in the House of Lords and in government and the Church Commissioners of the Church of England

This same elite, largely The London Mediocracy and political class of its day also was amongst those most responsible for the workhouses filling with the infirm and aged; establishments which did not hesitate to exploit their labour. In the early years of 21st Century, thanks to New Labour, large areas of central urban communities are becoming new slums, in which social housing is farmed out to a range of managers and financial entities. The waves of migration have brought the return of slavery, some of it for the sex trades, to function with other sex workers, largely working out of leasehold rented properties.

With this comes burgeoning crime and violence, and the pauperisation of the lower classes to the benefit of a small group of speculators, financiers, large estate owners, some still in aristocratic hands, and inevitably, the Church Commissioners. We have a number of new Lords, ironically named Life Peers, who have done very well in property, through their personal contacts, who are party to the whole sorry business, mimicking the rapacity of the old landlords of an earlier generation.

If you follow the money and the food chain, you will find that the same oligopoly of property people have also taken control of Retirement Leasehold housing, with a wonderful armoury of means of extracting the savings and income of the very aged and vulnerable at their disposal, all legal thanks to our new Lords and masters who have been so helpful to them. There is an effective monopoly in leasehold property management services. They also own the freeholds on which rents and charges are increasing exponentially.

They own the insurers which leaseholders are compelled to use, competition laws do not apply here, (they do not actually pay out on claims, moreover by dint of financial cut and shuffle they seem to reinsure their own liabilities, which is unusual, but that is another story). They own the in house security and communications service for which leaseholders pay rather more than market price, again stuff any notions of competitive tendering, as with repairs and maintenance.

They have set income stream targets for their property management service companies which seem to have been benchmarked from their most profitable end of the commercial market, notably high turnover retailers, high density social housing, and developments which yield high returns from sex workers. There is something very New Labour and Cool Britannia about all of this typified by pictures of fat ministers mauling their female underlings. One fat minister has done well in property.

For those with a spooky turn of mind the owners of the Freeholds of the Leaseholder Retirement Developments have taken on large debts on the basis of securitised assets and income streams. According the a Channel 4 news report, which had been thoroughly gone over by their lawyers, one income stream relates to charges on the sale and transfer of properties, and in the conditions for the securitised debt, figures were given for the estimated mortality rate in Leasehold Retirement developments.

The figures, I think, based on historical calculations of expectation of life, have turned out to be too “optimistic” or “pessimistic”, depending on whether you are the one whose mortality is in question or the financier borrowing the money who has failed to meet the mortality target. Few developments are reaching their mortality targets.

So in some cases when an emergency occurs out of the development’s manager’s hours, and paramedics, ambulances, sometimes police arrive, the security and communications service, for which the leaseholders paid handsomely, flatly refused to let them in unless they had the code. They did not have the code because the service kept changing it, but did not tell the police and ambulance authorities. When asked to the service also refused to contact the ambulance and police Control Rooms to verify status.

Remember, we are dealing with the very aged, a number with serious medical issues or terminal conditions, who are not in a position to take part in the debate. When someone admits the medic’s they are then threatened that they are in breach of their leaseholds. This is not accurate, of course, anymore than many of their charges or accounts are accurate, but this is the way things are done now, again with the full support and blessing of the government.

Perhaps the sex workers and the old needing care and support should join forces, after all, they are fighting the same people who are exploiting them for the same reasons, and who do not care whether they live or die.

Tony Blair - Squids In

Here is an interesting combination of items. The first needs no explanation, it is taken from The Daily Mail and shows Tony Blair and his business empire, much of which will be located in places where it is possible to maximise the tax advantages, and much to do with financial matter. The second found at The Automatic Earth relates to the housing bubble he created. Remember that the bigger the mortgages the greater the total interest payable and also the additional charges imposed by the financial entities involved.

Below is taken from the Tax Justice Network site and sets out their findings on Tax Secrecy. This is the world that Tony and Gordon have created, and for which you and all your families will be paying for generations to come. And you will not get a share of the profits.

The results of the 2009 Financial Secrecy Index .

Finally, the time has come to reveal the names of the secrecy jurisdictions that we have ranked according to both their lack of transparency and their scale of cross-border financial activity. For the first time ever, and based on far stronger criteria than those used by the OECD, we can now announce the world’s leading secrecy jurisdictions.

Nothing like this has ever been done before.
Our new index assesses each jurisdiction on an opacity rating – how secretive the jurisdiction is – combined with a weighting according to size. We put special emphasis on the opacity score. Read more here.

And here we go . . .
Counting down from number 5, we have, at number 5, the City of London in the United Kingdom, the world's largest financial centre, and the state within a state that sits like a spider at the centre of a web that includes exactly one half of all 60 secrecy jurisdictions ranked on the Index. Its satellite jurisdictions work hard to hoover up dirty money from around the world, and channel it into London. Did the sun ever really set on the British Empire? Despite ranking as the most transparent of the secrecy jurisdictions we surveyed, London operates on such a vast scale, and is so politically unaccountable, that it has the potential to do more damage than the vast majority of its competitors.

At number 4, the Cayman Islands combine a truly appalling Opacity Score of 92 per cent - meaning they were awarded a credit on only one of the twelve indicators used for our assessment - with a massive scale of operation. Cayman authorities are also among the world’s leading ‘tax haven deniers’. On the basis of our evidence, they should now stop relying on spin and get their house in order instead.

Few will be surprised to see Switzerland coming in at third position. Swiss bankers have earned themselves a dreadful reputation for furtiveness, political manoeuvring, and the blackest secrecy. Shame on them for scoring a brutal 100 per cent on their opacity assessment, and for constantly trying to wriggle out of cleaning up their act. And shame on the Swiss government, for tolerating this. They need to understand that the global zeitgeist is firmly against them.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ranks number two on the index. While not such a big player in private banking as Switzerland, Luxembourg hosts a massive hedge fund activity which attracts investors from around the world. TJN recently visited the Grand Duchy and met various bankers. Like their counterparts in other secrecy jurisdictions, they like to portray themselves as guardians of privacy. What they do not say is that it is the privacy of rich élites that they care about – that is, élites in other countries who want to evade paying their taxes.

And now for the big winner of the competition for the world’s most important secrecy jurisdiction . . . . .
Step forward Delaware and the United States of America. Ranked alongside 59 other secrecy jurisdictions, Delaware's commitment to corporate secrecy, and resolute lack of cooperation and compliance with international norms, places it at head of the new Financial Secrecy Index.

(We are measuring something slightly more complicated than the state of Delaware in isolation. As with our closely related Mapping the Faultlines project, we refer to USA (Delaware.) Click here for more on this.)

Most ordinary people would never consider this jurisdiction alongside Bermuda, Monaco and Grand Cayman as a secrecy jurisdiction. Yet its Opacity Score is as bad as the Cayman Islands’ score, and the sheer scale of operations places it well ahead of the rest. Its status reveals a brazen contradiction at the heart of the American free market. Properly functioning markets depend on transparency and symmetric access to information, but secrecy jurisdictions like Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada purposefully set out to undermine market transparency.


So there you go, have a nice day.