Why Does My Dog Crawl Under Everything

8 billion euros do not pay taxes (at least) / Gerardo Rivas Rico *

The figure tide, but it has been estimated by the World Bank more than eight billion euros are safe in tax havens without their owners pay a single penny of public funds in their respective countries . Caches are a quarter of global private wealth, according to International Monetary Fund.

To show a single button on the Cayman Islands, with 52,000 inhabitants and an area of \u200b\u200babout 260 square miles, 600 banks are installed, operating 2,200 hedge funds and pension is estimated to handle more than half a billion euros and is domiciled and serving some 44,000 companies. The ethereal "markets" has a name but remain anonymous.

Builders unscrupulous traffickers, terrorists, corrupt politicians and dictators of Third World countries share their spoils with large multinational companies through complex financial engineering of dubious legality, divert much of their financial surpluses to these caves.

To put this figure of 8 billion euros in one dimension understandable, do a simple calculation for which we will consider, by the difficulty of debugging data-all the money he takes refuge in these centers Prosecutors alleged provenance was legal, that is clearly not applicable in criminal proceedings as bribery, smuggling or the systematic looting of public coffers, and that, therefore, the only irregularity of this wealth not be taxed in the countries in which it is generated.

us apply for it the standard rate of corporation tax in force in our country 30% - of total resources to the respective conjured away treasuries and obtain an amount of 2.4 billion euros.

Once this calculation, to better understand the resulting figure, which remains incomprehensible, put it in relation to total resources that the European Union and the International Monetary Fund will have to spend on plans the rescue of European countries have pointed out, amounting to 270 billion euros (110 Greece, 85 Ireland, 75 Portugal). However, this comparison shows that with taxes left to pay the existing resources in tax havens could save up to nine times the three European countries.

Put another way, surely no citizen of a country of the Western world had been forced, as it is to be-to see their pay reduced, frozen their pension or benefits renounced major welfare state for the reason that there are imbalances between revenues and expenditures.

In 2007, before therefore of the economic crisis, the International Monetary Fund had estimated that these funds are taxed more than enough cover the Millennium Development Goals, that is, eradicate poverty and sustainable human development would get before the year 2015.

This scenario suggests that the elimination of tax havens should be the priority actions of politicians in the world and, only after they disappeared, sacrifices may be required to suffer most from the consequences of a crisis in which pregnancy did not have any responsibility.

While these financial caves persist with the blessing of the world authorities, we do not talk about budget adjustments that have to support our dwindling savings requirements of a "market" which, in addition to not pay taxes, try to continue enriching at the expense of our hardship. While so, is incubating a social revolution whose consequences I dare not predict. Hopefully! I was wrong.

(*) Gerardo Rivas Rico has a degree in Economics

Cheesecake With Powdered Sugar And Canned Milk

inadmissible solidarity! / Federico Mayor Zaragoza *

1) The responsibilities of those who evade their tax-sharing democratically and make everyone have access to a system of Social Security and health care, free education, a quality basic services ... .- depositing their money in "offshore" jealously guarding the identity of the depositories. It is a collective shame. Europe is "pearl" of countries whose major source of income is unsupportive funds from tax evaders.

When the "big bailout" of financial institutions in distress, in November 2008, the plutocrats of G -20 assured the honest taxpayers, now, it would regulate the international banking system and would end once the tax havens ... but failed, once again, promises.

This unfortunate situation should punish the states, the social harm involved, and regulate it by a strengthened United Nations and endorsed by all peoples.

Recently, some news highlighted the thousands of English who have deposited in Swiss accounts. Well known ... because if it is "normal" must be able to be transparent ... and, if it is hidden, is because it is not cleaned wheat.

2) Those who promote or acquiesce in an underground economy ... that often are the most aerate the number of unemployed, whose balance "official" includes a high percentage of workers "without VAT ". Another way employers lack of solidarity that should be completed urgently.

3) Those who relocate production in excess of greed, like Spain when it was used were "developing country" -. There has been a huge outsourcing production to countries where labor is much cheaper (and in many cases working in intolerable working conditions and human).

4) Those who declare less than their share, using tricks (including legal ...)

We are being harassed by a systemic crisis, and the irreducible beneficiaries of globalization are constantly try to stay and become entrenched.

a very rapid response is required citizens to be finished after the tax havens to bring out the hidden economy in order to re-locate the production is not justified, even in environmental terms, in places as distant from the consumer.

All

solidarity, problems are solved. Otherwise, follow the leaders rounded up by an opaque market and protected, and politicians make empty promises in the electoral mind, knowing that later, if they achieve power, will have to do as they send the system ... or ridicule, these leaders as they move on flights of low cost but then apply drastic reductions in education grants and raise taxes ...

lack of solidarity, no. The people no longer accept them.

(*) Former director general of UNESCO

Are Lap Band Procedures Covered By Ohip

Nobody goes to jail / Joaquín Estefanía

A friend tells me: the second part of Inside Job (the documentary that tells the Great Recession) is in the April issue of the English edition of Rolling Stone. In fact, after the cover that recalls the anniversary of the death of Jim Morrison appears a long article entitled A prison with Wall Street, with a summary that reads: "The financial criminals brought down the world economy, but the system is doing more to protect them than to prosecute them."

The thesis of the film and the article by Rolling Stone agree: no one has paid for their outrages with jail, and has saved the money of citizens, both banks and bankers. The author of the text is Matt Taibbi, familiar to those who have followed the ups and downs of the crisis, because in 2009 he published another long article on Goldman Sachs in the same journal, which caused a sensation. It described the investment bank as "a great vampire squid", whose role has been very active in all financial crises of recent decades. With a twist: his men, always in the highest positions of the U.S. government with both Democrats and Republicans have manipulated from within the same financial regulation and securities markets.

Taibbi immediately draws the reader's attention with the start of the article: "Nobody goes to jail. That's the mantra of the era of financial crisis, which has seen nearly every major bank and Wall Street financial companies embroiled in scandals that have impoverished millions of people and destroyed billions of dollars of wealth world and no one has gone to jail. No one but Bernie Madoff, a famous and flamboyant con artist whose victims were to be other people rich and famous. "

To Taibbi, committed fraud are crimes that involve an intellectual choice, committed by people who and are rich and have all the social benefits that can hold and act according to a very cynical calculation: we steal what we can and then see if the victims are able to claim their money through a captive bureaucracy. These mob attacked the very definition of the property, which depends in part on a legal system that has equally defend all claims in this case.

The journalist argues in his article to replace the system of fines which are theoretically punishes those who defraud (as people who committed the abuses that are never paid, the banks have defrauded shareholders often use the money to pay these bills with the law) by imprisonment. And gives an example with one of his betes noires: "You put Lloyd Blankfein [chief executive of Goldman Sachs] six months in jail and all this shit is over."