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What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

brookings.edu

11–20 of 188 posts

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#11
post #3

I find it odd that the IRS does a lot of heavy lifting to go after Joe-Blue-Collar but completely seems blind to the thousands of money launderers both individuals and corps. Personally, I think the entire financial system is broken and should be squashed.

You might consider that your "it's all broken" feelings are exactly what is desired by the people who have worked to hamstring the IRS and generally tilt things in their favor.

The more cynical individual voters are about the system, the easier it is for people with money and power to shift outcomes to the ones that benefit them. It's the political equivalent of a FUD strategy.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#14
post #8

Why is Brookings eligible for a .edu TLD?

"Please note: The .edu Cooperative Agreement allows registrants that registered .edu domain names prior to the Agreement taking effect October 29, 2001, to retain those registrations regardless of whether the registrants meet the current .edu eligibility requirements, so long as they renew their registrations and otherwise follow domain policy"

https://net.educause.edu/eligibility.htm

FWIW the Smithsonian also has a .edu address.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#15
Hey everyone, the wording dictates how you are misled.

Think about the alternate title for these benign actions:

Annual Report on Isle of Man financial sector

Hackers breach Cayman National Bank and Trust’s Isle of Man subsidiary, the second of major breaches for this institution

Post-Mortem, Cayman National Bank and Trust breach and client behavior

Aggregating Customer trends sourced from hacked bank, using pytorch

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#16
post #5
post #3

I find it odd that the IRS does a lot of heavy lifting to go after Joe-Blue-Collar but completely seems blind to the thousands of money launderers both individuals and corps. Personally, I think the entire financial system is broken and should be squashed.

Intentional budget cuts and a harder target. https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-ea... > For now, the IRS says, while it agrees auditing more wealthy taxpayers would be a good idea, without adequate funding there’s nothing it can do. “Congress must fund and the IRS must hire and train appropriate numbers of [auditors] to have appropriately balanced coverage across all income levels,” the report…

Budget increases will not increase enforcement of rich, politically connected individuals. It will just increase the number of "low hanging fruit" middle-class people they will go after.

Besides, many of the best tax evasion strategies are legal -- you just need an army of lawyers and a large pile of cash to deploy them.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#17
post #3

I find it odd that the IRS does a lot of heavy lifting to go after Joe-Blue-Collar but completely seems blind to the thousands of money launderers both individuals and corps. Personally, I think the entire financial system is broken and should be squashed.

Yes, lets go back to the old ways. We’ll exchange seashells instead

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#18
post #8

Why is Brookings eligible for a .edu TLD?

Registrars don't enforce TLDs in the way you implicitly assume.

Care to explain or just snark?

As best I can tell, Brookings would not be eligible since the rule change in 2001 but was grandfathered in before this (domain goes back to 1996). It's not clear why they weren't purged with the other non-universities squatting on edu in 2003 - I'd guess Brookings's political connections, frankly.

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#19

I have a conspiracy theory that there are far more rich people than we are lead to believe, also that most of us are just working to prop them up and keep them rich.

I have a conspiracy theory that Forbes created the rich list

Which intentionally does not have despots oligarchs or royals to skew the conversation to a business matter which can get lost in the left/right divide

Re: What lies beneath: Evidence from leaked account data on offshore banking use

#20
post #3

I find it odd that the IRS does a lot of heavy lifting to go after Joe-Blue-Collar but completely seems blind to the thousands of money launderers both individuals and corps. Personally, I think the entire financial system is broken and should be squashed.

There is probably an easier conclusion and that is the cost/benefit analysis of chasing illegal money.

Firstly, a lot of what is happening is legal or at least a grey-area. Secondly with the complexities of multi-juristiction money and 100s of layers of obscurity that a rich person can afford to put between them and their money (legally), would you bother spending 100s of 1000s of dollars looking into it after which you might not find anything that can be prosecuted?

It costs little to look at a much simpler Joe-Blue-Collar worker. Sad but true.

The only way I can imagine it being resolved is by requiring full traceability for all financial transactions so I can literally tell where all the money in an account originated from. Can't see that happening.

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