Treasure Islands - Nicholas Shaxson [1]
TREASURE ISLANDS
Uncovering the Damage of
Offshore Banking and Tax Havens
NICHOLAS SHAXSON
TREASURE ISLANDS
Copyright © Nicholas Shaxson, 2011.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States–a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-0-230-10501-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Shaxson, Nicholas.
Treasure islands : uncovering the damage of offshore banking and tax havens / Nicholas Shaxson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-230-10501-0
1. Tax evasion—United States. 2. Tax havens. 3. Banks and banking, Foreign. I. Title.
HV6344.U6S53 2011
364.1’338—dc22
2010035424
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Letra Libre, Inc.
First edition: April 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE An Offshore Awakening
CHAPTER 1 Welcome to Nowhere: An Introduction to Offshore
CHAPTER 2 Technically Abroad: The Vestey Brothers, the American Beef Trust, and the Rise of Multinational Corporations
CHAPTER 3 The Opposite of Offshore: John Maynard Keynes and the Struggle against Financial Capital
CHAPTER 4 The Great Escape: How Wall Street Regained Its Powers by Going Offshore to London
CHAPTER 5 Construction of a Spiderweb: How Britain Built a New Overseas Empire
CHAPTER 6 The Fall of America: How the United States Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Offshore World
CHAPTER 7 The Drain: How Tax Havens Harm Poor Countries
CHAPTER 8 Resistance: In Combat with the Ideological Warriors of Offshore
CHAPTER 9 The Life Offshore: The Human Side of Secrecy Jurisdictions
CHAPTER 10 Ratchet: How Secrecy Jurisdictions Helped Cause the Latest Financial Crisis
CONCLUSION Reclaiming Our Culture
Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN without the help of a great many people around the world. First I must thank John Christensen, who has worked tirelessly with me on this book, and who deserves much of the credit. (Any mistakes, though, are mine.) Alongside him stand several leaders in this field, each of whom has provided remarkable help and insights, and each of whom has contributed in a range of ways. This group, in alphabetical order, includes Jack Blum, Ray Baker, Richard Murphy, Ronen Palan, Sol Picciotto and David Spencer. Special mention must also go to Paul Sagar and Ken Silverstein for their terrific contributions on the history of the British spiderweb and on Delaware, respectively.
A number of others deserve great thanks too, for their time and their help in specific areas. They are Jason Beattie, Rich Benson, Richard Brooks, Michèle, Elliot and Nicolas Christensen, Andrew Dittmer, Sven Giegold, Maurice Glasman, Bruno Gurtner, Mark Hampton, Jim Henry, Dev Kar, Pat Lucas and her merry team, Mike McIntyre and his brother Bob, Andreas Missbach, Matti Kohonen, Markus Meinzer, Prem Sikka, Father William Taylor, and Geoff Tily.
I couldn’t have got this far without Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown, and I would also like to give special thanks to the staff at Palgrave Macmillan, at Random House, and to Dan Hind. Second last, but by no means least, a particular thank you to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, and the Tax Justice Network, which made all this possible. And finally, I would like to offer my thanks, appreciation and respect to all those in the tax havens who have spoken out against the consensus, sometimes at great personal risk.