Swallow the Money
by Colin McGowan
Offshoring money—the concealment of anywhere from tens of millions to many billions of dollars from tax collectors, ex-spouses, federal authorities, and public scrutiny—relies on a network of clandestine systems, and the wealth managers who make it work resemble gnostics more closely than they do ordinary lawyers or accountants. Powerful people don’t want you to understand much of anything, which is why so many of them own newspapers, TV channels, and social media networks, but this is something they specifically don’t want you to know about.
Brooke Harrington’s Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism explains the motivations and methods by which corporations and stinking rich individuals engage in these greedy practices.
You’ve likely read about the Panama, Paradise, or Pandora Papers—huge data leaks revealing the names of many, many rich folks who’ve successfully evaded taxes by stashing their money beyond the reach of governments. But the scheme is not just about naughty celebrities and tax avoidance, Harrington explains. Offshoring is “the platform for an elite insurgency opposed to basic principles like equality before the law, economic stability, free markets, and social solidarity.”
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