reSee.it
Token #42107
Subscribe To The Free @reSeeIt Newsletter
Details
| Token ID | reSee.it #42107 |
| ๐ Link | https://x.com/_/status/1739724825453580684 |
| Token URI | ipfs://bafybeicccqr4tvhekmxo5a44j3c6xse7jycyktp5cbsnni4kjn7o7kynjq |
| Saved Media | ipfs://bafybeidzfku3nvp42cb527hq7wt2ptd7lo45ehqm6eowfwhfrtrncs42za |
| Conversation ID | 1739724825453580684 |
| Posts In Thread | 2 |
| Thread Post IDs | |
| Tweet Created | |
| Author | @KuwlShow |
| Author Name | Rob Cunningham | KUWL.show |
| Author Profile | https://x.com/KuwlShow |
| Chain | Polygon |
| Tweet Saved | |
| First Archiver | @Zer0LM |
| Contract Address | 0xe16ebd042074b7c971d62e544146d141c725f618 |
reSee.it
Token #42107
Subscribe To The Free @reSeeIt Newsletter
reSee.it AI Summary
Understanding the lies and deceptions that enslave us is crucial to reclaiming our power. We stand on the verge of a new birth of freedom. Knowledge is power, and together, we can defeat our enemy. A documentary called "The Spider's Web" exposes the secret financial empire in the City of London, where global wealth is hidden in offshore islands. Transparency and accountability are essential for freedom. #KUWL #Liberty #Respect #Honor #Truth #Justice #Freedom #Law #Purpose #Destiny #Love #Joy #Abundance #Wealth #Reason #XRPL #DLT #XRPArmy #Crypto #Gold
Thread Text
@KuwlShow - Rob Cunningham | KUWL.show
๐ฌ A Short #KUWL Premier ๐ฅ โThe Modern Era Beast System & Our Road to Renewal and Greatness.โ When we understand the game, the lies, the deceptions and the false narratives that enslave us, we all win. Knowing our enemy is the essential step to defeating our enemy. Knowledge is Power and We The People the world over are reclaiming our power, together. Weโre standing at the precipice of a new birth of freedom! @X #KUWL #Liberty #Respect #Honor #Truth #Justice #Freedom #Law #Purpose #Destiny #Love #Joy #Abundance #Wealth #Reason #XRPL #DLT @Ripple #XRPArmy @digitalassetbuy @linqtoinc @Crux41507251 @GenFlynn
Video Transcript AI Summary
In this video, the speaker discusses the flaws of the current monetary system and the impact it has on society. They explain that the money we use is essentially fake and has no intrinsic value. The speaker argues that we work for free because the money we are paid costs nothing to produce. Additionally, they highlight how the system further exploits us through taxation, inflation, debt, and interest. The speaker suggests that the solution lies in transitioning to a sound money system, eliminating registration processes, reducing taxation, abolishing usury interest, and embracing free energy. They emphasize the importance of understanding the power dynamics behind money and reclaiming our agency.
Speaker 0: Hello, everyone. Hope you had a, an amazing Christmas. I hope it was everything that you wanted it to be. I want to chat a little bit about my take on this Modern era based system. It's what we call money, the monetary system.
And I want to outline this as clearly as I can. And I hope this video brings you a lot of value and understanding as to the nature of the war, what's causing so much global friction where we're headed. I want to outline kind of the B system and then I want to hopefully give some hope at the end as to how it's going to be brought down and what it's going to be replaced with. But let's talk about money for just a second. First of all, we have to understand that right now, we live in a world of fake money.
It does not exist. It basically is a construct in our mind. We've been programmed to accept fiat money, which has an intrinsic value of 0. It's worth nothing. It costs nothing for the central bankers of the world to just introduce money into the system.
It used to be a little bit of the cost of ink and paper to print something on a physical currency. Now it's just a digit on a computer screen. I mean, 97% of the money in this world is digital. It doesn't cost anything. So let's think about that for a second.
If fake money costs 0 to produce, The value of it is basically 0. We go to work 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week, and Basically, we're paid a value of 0. I mean, it really doesn't cost anyone anything to pay us what they print out of thin air. So our labor is therefore free for those that create the money. I wish it stopped there, but it doesn't.
So we give away our life. We give away our time, our efforts, our talents, our blessings, our treasures, our creativity, and they provide us something that cost them absolutely nothing to produce. If it stopped there, that would be one thing, but it doesn't. On top of this, them giving us something that they create out of thin air, they then take away or they add a debt to the nothing that they gave us for our effort. They take away by taxation.
They take away through theft called inflation. They take away through debt and interest being charged on the Thing that cost them nothing to produce and nothing to generate, but yet charges 6%, 7%, 8%, 9%, 10% on something that cost them nothing to produce. So think about this. To make one matter worse, they then have us go and consume Assets, homes, cars, land, property, Stocks and register those assets. Registration, Regis means king.
When we go and we register our houses, our cars and our property and our land, we're Transferring title of ownership to the king, the crown corporation. So we worked for free. They gave us something that cost them nothing and then the negatives start piling up to put us into slavery: inflation, taxation, regulation, registration, interest. This entire system is the B system. We constantly have on the forefront of our mind and in our hands the thought of money, do I have enough, am I going to make enough, is it diversified enough, how much can I afford?
Are they going to take it away? Are they going to steal it from me? Are they going to sue me? This entire construct of living and constantly thinking from a mindset of scarcity, from a standpoint of ignorance because we've not been trained what money is and what property is and what value is. We just kind of accept what we're told and we go along.
I find it unbelievably Noteworthy to consider that the law book, the Bible, the number one topic, money, materialism. More than any other topic, more than 40% of the law book is about money. The teachings of this danger, the teachers of the teachings of what it's supposed to be. And then you look at our society, and we are largely a financially ignorant in society. Why would the number 1 most topical issue in the bible The money with its dangers and its usage and the thing it it require money requires us to worship it.
The only thing other than god that requires our time and attention and constant focus and constant love and lust and misuse And management and thought and diversification and tax minimization and all the things that we do, we live our lives thinking that Money, money, money, money, money. The more money, the more happiness. Yet, we're a financially ignorant society, we don't understand it. Is that by design or is that by accident? How in the world can it possibly be that the number one most topical thing in the law book is money, and yet we go through 12 or 16 years of formal government training and don't know a damn thing about money.
We don't know a gun to the butter. We don't know where it comes from. We don't know what Its use cases, we don't know why it was created in the 1st place. We just accept what we accept because that's the way the They don't want us to understand how the game is played and how the wool is pulled over our eyes. So The narrative is one massive lie.
That's the B system. It's what we were born into it, Trust and tradition, we accepted it. So we are labor harvested sleighs trained to give our working lives to central bankers and governments. They give us nothing plus debt, plus liabilities, plus basically chains. And if we Question, object, look for an alternative.
We're domestic terrorists. We're radicals. We're breaking the narrative. We're conspiracy theorists, and we have to be censored and silenced because the last thing that people that created this modern era B system, what is massive understanding that it's 1 big fraud. So how do we fix this?
How do we get out of this? Well, the good news is, is there isn't there is a way out, and this is what the war is all about. Number 1 is inflation. Inflation dies with sound money. When we have collateral like gold or silver, they can't be just produced into the ethersphere with a click of a button.
Basically, inflation goes away. It goes to almost zero. The number one theft of our lives and our lifestyle And our ability to accumulate wealth is the invisible tax called inflation. When we go from fiat money to sound money, We get rid of inflation and we get rid of that theft. Number 2, registration.
Instead of registering all our property in essence through trickeration of Admiralty Law and our lack of understanding how these contracts work. When we go to common law, we get rid of the registration process so we no longer transfer our homes and our cars and our property, our titles, our stocks and our bonds and our, you know, assets to the king, The City of London, the Crown Corporation, we get to keep it and then we get to pass it on to our offspring and our great grandchildren. Taxation. Taxation is just a modern day theft. We're supposed to have unalienable rights.
We're not supposed to be taxed. The government is supposed to work for us, not us, work for the government. When we can get taxation down to a very low, flat number, a minimal number. Our country operated without an income tax from its birth until 1913. We don't have to have an income tax.
Our life and our efforts and our talents, our souls do not need to have a lien put on them by narcissistic freaks in the global swamp. Usury interest, Many nations, United States Arab Emirates, Middle East, interest is illegal. You're just not allowed to be charged because it's usury. It just you have to create more money out of thin air in order to charge the interest and pay people Ungodly interest rates, which is earned through our time, effort and labor and our life, we have to give more of our life to pay interest on something that a bank issued that cost the bank nothing to issue, but then we have to work like Crazy and pay 8% or 9% on a mortgage for 30 years to a banker who printed money out of nowhere And they get their capital back plus interest. It's insane.
The clawback, How long and for how many generations have we all worked as tax slaves and debt slaves? How long have they harvested our life, our talent, our blessings, our energy, our efforts and taking it away through inflation and debasement and taxation and registration and interest. Where are those hoarded riches stored now? Why do not why do 1% of the people on 99% of the wealth. So when this is rectified, and it will be rectified, when we go back to a fair monetary system.
There's a lot of scumbags, a lot of narcissists that have stolen our wealth. We're gonna get it back. It's gonna be redistributed. Lastly, free energy. Think of the concept, Global warming is a lie.
Energy is abundant. Nikola Tesla approved it. We could have wireless. We could have electric. We could have in the ether sphere, in the atmosphere, we could have free communications and free energy without there being a meter attached to what is already abundantly free.
Think about the amount of wealth that pours back into We The People and every nation on earth if energy was free and we didn't fight wars over it. And we didn't believe the lies that we're running out of energy and humans are the biggest threat to planet Earth. What follows this video is a 10 minute clip, the modern Air B System. Please, please, please, I pray that you'll watch this 10 minute clip. Special shout out to Michael Corey.
He shared this movie with me. I clipped out About 10 minutes of an hour and 40 minute documentary that Michael shared with me. I will link below, the entire video, but I clicked 10 minutes to reinforce the last 10 minutes or 12 minutes I've just spoken with you about this very topic. Please understand, when we say or you hear the concept, follow the money, That's what this entire war is about. He who owns the gold rules the world.
He who creates the money rules the world. They buy the militaries, they buy the media networks, they fund the pharmaceutical companies, they train the children, They run the courts. They create the narrative because they own all the assets to create the narrative. We are in a narrative war. And when we understand that, We understand who we are and whose we are.
We'll start to get our agency back. We'll get our authority back. We'll get our dominion back. We'll get our ability to self govern. We'll understand that they flipped the tables on us and they decided that we were the property and they were the owners of the property and nothing could be further from the truth.
So I love you all. I hope this little narrative has helped maybe bring some light or some clarity or some understanding. Please comment below if you'd like to, you know, share your insights or have any questions for me. God bless and happy new year.
@KuwlShow - Rob Cunningham | KUWL.show
๐ฌ Part 2 - The Modern Era Beast System & The Secret Financial Empire in the City of London ๐ฅ This short video is a segment derived from the complete 77 minute documentary โThe Spiderโs Webโ available, here: https://x.com/vltra_mk/status/1712571213132730737?s=46&t=g3KFj0yVu9g1Mto6v5TGwQ Thank you, @Vltra_MK, for sharing this documentary with the world! And thank for your leadership and service to the world. You will be remembered for decades to come! @BlackberryXRP @UCantFindNemo @Jryck791 @DecentFiJC @Biz_Shrink @ninoboxer @elonmusk @TheQNewsPatriot #Crypto #Gold #Transparency #Accountability #Freedom
Video Transcript AI Summary
The City of London is a unique financial district with its own government, police force, and courts. It has special privileges and exemptions from British laws. The City of London Corporation, a private company, runs the city and its lord mayor is separate from the mayor of the rest of London. The city's power and influence have been a subject of speculation, with some believing it can shape British policy. The City of London also plays a role in offshore banking and secrecy. Trusts are a key part of the secrecy structures used to hide the identity of offshore assets and allow offshore wealth to flow back into global markets.
Speaker 0: The City of London, London's financial district, is a peculiar place. It has been called a city within a city, a state within a state. It is run by an organization called the City of London Corporation, a private company that performs all the functions of a local council with a private police force and private courts.
Speaker 1: Those of you who aren't from the UK, some of you even who are, might not be aware just how weird a thing The little city of London is within the big the big London. The city of London is, an a separate entity to, the wider London. And it has its own, head, the lord mayor, who's distinct from the mayor, who runs the rest of London.
Speaker 0: Every November, the city stages the Lord Mayor's show, the world's oldest civic procession.
Speaker 1: The city of London has long had this curious legal status Because, back in 10/66, when William the Conqueror came over, the city was one of the only portions of England that he failed to And he struck a deal with the city in 10/67 that allowed them to continue functioning.
Speaker 0: To this day, the city of London is exempt from numerous laws that govern the rest of Britain. Dumped from numerous laws that govern the rest of Britain. Its political system derives from the Middle Ages. The city's electorate is dominated not by its residents, but by the private businesses operating within the city. Its lord mayor is selected by the heads of medieval guilds.
Speaker 2: They have a a representative in the House of Commons Called the Remembrancer. Apart from the clerks of the court of the House of Commons, he's the only unelected person there.
Speaker 1: All other lobbyists have to stop, you know, in the lobby. They're not Allowed past the lobby.
Speaker 0: The City of London has a permanent representative in the House of Commons, whose role is to report back to the City of London Corporation, and to lobby parliament on behalf of the city.
Speaker 3: The corporation of London, clearly, it's a uniquely unique interesting phenomenon that should have attracted, many political scientists, political economists, and economists. But I don't know of anyone who has studied systematically the corporation in London and its impact On policy or economic policy. So we can only surmise. Some people, assume or surmise that the corporation in London is extremely powerful, It is able, in one way or another, to shape, British policy, particularly within financial matters.
Speaker 2: Clement Attlee, the prime minister after the Second World War, had had had something to say about the state of London Corporation.
Speaker 1: He did. Yeah. So over and over again, we have seen that there is, in this country, another than that which has its seat at Westminster. The city of London, a convenient term for a collection of financial interests, is able to assert itself against Government of the country. Those who control money can pursue a policy at home and abroad contrary to that which has been decided by the people.
Speaker 4: These small Territories, the last remnants of the British Empire, which are still overseas territories today, they are still the last remnants of the British Empire. There are 14 of these overseas territories. 7 of them are Bona Friday tax havens, including the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, some of the biggest tax havens in the world today, are still British.
Speaker 0: With access to large amounts of offshore money, the euro market grew rapidly. By 1980, it had reached $500,000,000,000. By 1988, $4,800,000,000,000. And by 1997, nearly 90% of all international loans were made through this market. The British Empire had sunk, leaving hardly a trace behind.
But the City of London adapted and survived. At the heart of the City of London stands the Bank of England. The Bank of England is not just a central bank. It is also a financial regulator. At the demise of empire, The Bank of England used this regulatory authority to help attract the world's banks to London.
In 1972, the Bank of England issued a license to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which set up its head office in London. Within 10 years, BCCI grew into the 7th largest bank in the world. 10 years later, BCCI was bankrupt.
Speaker 5: The deputy director of the CIA, Richard Kerr said late today that the CIA did use BCCI to support CIA activities overseas.
Speaker 0: But BCCI had not just collaborated with the world's intelligence services. It had also engaged in extensive financial fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing. Today, there are more banks in London than in any other financial center.
Speaker 4: In Britain, nobody goes to jail. No bankers go to jail. They generally don't. They are A protected species, and that is part of the offshore business model of the UK is to say, we will protect you. We will bring your money here.
We will look After you, we're not gonna put you in prison. We'll let you do what you want.
Speaker 0: Light touch regulation was one way of attracting business to London. Another was secrecy. From the 19 sixties onwards, City of London institutions began to establish offshore branches in former outpost of the British Empire. Their aim was to create offshore centers with strong secrecy legislation in order to attract capital from across the globe.
Speaker 4: Swiss banking secrecy is the most famous, the most well known. You know, you put your money in a Swiss bank, and they won't they promise not to tell anybody. And that's one kind of secrecy. But another kind of secrecy, Which is very British is the trust. And the trust is a very, slippery, complicated, and devious mechanism.
Trusts emerge, the legend has it, from the time of the Crusades when the knights would go off and fight in foreign lands and they would leave their assets In the care of trusted stewards. What trusts do ultimately is they play with the concept of ownership. Ownership is not such a simple thing. So the settler, the knight in this case, would hand over the assets to Someone who these days would be called a trustee, it's often a lawyer. Legally, you are separated from those assets.
They're not yours anymore. There's a barrier. You can't be taxed on them. You can't be nobody's gonna find anything about your connection to these assets.
Speaker 0: In Britain's offshore jurisdictions, No qualifications are necessary to be a trustee. Anyone can set up a trust and act as a trustee. There is no registry of trusts. There are no bodies to certify that a trust has been set up.
Speaker 6: The only persons who know about the creation of this agreement are The trustee and the settler, there's no obligation to register it. There is no financial reporting Obligation of trusts. They are not required to put annual statements onto account anywhere. So, actually, trusts are, To all intents and purposes, invisible arrangement
Speaker 0: Trusts are the basic building block of Anglo Saxon secrecy, and they form the basis from which complex offshore structures are created. Every secrecy jurisdiction offers a specific set of services From trusts to shell companies to secret bank accounts and nominee directors. The combination of these services into complex structures spanning multiple jurisdictions, enables the creation of secrecy structures that are almost impossible to penetrate.
Speaker 4: An offshore structure will often have a trust kind of sitting at the top of it. The trust will be here managing the assets, Kind of controlling the assets. Underneath it, the trust will own some shell companies. Each one might be in different jurisdiction. So you might have a trust in 1 jurisdiction whose trustees are somewhere else, whose beneficiaries are somewhere else, which owns Offshore companies somewhere else.
Each of these companies might then own assets so that they might own, you know, a bank account, a a racehorse, a yacht, It's a painting, a portfolio of shares or whatever.
Speaker 0: There are numerous variations of trusts and offshore secrecy structures. There are offshore lawyers whose work entails the creation of ever more complex and obscure structures. The aim of these structures is to hide the identity of the owners of offshore assets and allow offshore wealth to be recycled back to global markets.
@Vltra_MK - Michael Rae Khoury
"The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire | The Secret World of Finance" ๐จ A MUST WATCH ๐จ The City of London financial interests created a web of secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth is hidden in British jurisdictions and Britain and its dependencies are the largest global players in The Secret World of Finance.
Video Transcript AI Summary
The video discusses how Britain transformed from a colonial power to a modern financial power and how this transformation has shaped the world. It highlights the role of the City of London as the world's biggest global financial center during the British Empire. As the empire declined, the city also declined, leading to the creation of offshore financial centers in British overseas territories. These secrecy jurisdictions attracted money from around the world, leading to the financialization of the UK and the growth of the offshore system. The video also exposes the corruption and lack of transparency in the offshore world, with politicians and elites benefiting from tax evasion and financial secrecy. The offshore system has had a negative impact on developing countries, depriving them of tax revenues and perpetuating inequality. The video calls for greater transparency and regulation of the offshore system. (150 words)
Speaker 0: The British soldier. All around the globe, you'll find him From Gibraltar to Hong Kong. Everywhere he stands against the threatening years, Staunch symbol of our common will to order.
Speaker 1: The British Empire, the largest empire the world has ever known. For over 300 years, Britain ruled, Its army is conquered, and its bankers proclaimed the might of its currency. But one day it all began to fall apart. 1 by 1, Countries declared their independence from Britain, and no amount of force could reverse the tide. As British elites saw their wealth, privileges and empire disintegrate, they began to search for a new role in a changing world, and they found one in finance.
This is a film about how Britain transformed from a colonial power To a modern financial power and how this transformation has shaped the world we live in. In the days of the British Empire, The City of London was the world's biggest global financial center.
Speaker 2: The City of London was the kind of beating financial heart of the British Empire. The historians Cain and Hopkins call it the governor of the imperial engine. All these countries in the empire, used to use the sterling currency, and the City of London was kind of the financier of this. So not just inside the sterling zone, but outside the sterling zone as well.
Speaker 1: As Britain's empire declined. So too did the city of London.
Speaker 3: 1 British army truck is bombed, killing 2 soldiers and wounding 12. As rioting comes daily more widespread on Cyprus. Young people of high school age take an increasing part in the violence. Here, a group of girls are being dispersed after a rock throwing battle with British military police.
Speaker 1: With the decline of empire, British commercial interests across the globe were under threat. In 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.
Speaker 3: A new Middle East Crisis arises as president Nasser of Egypt tells a wildly cheering crowd in Alexandria that Egypt has seized the internationally owned Suez US Canal.
Speaker 2: France and Britain issue
Speaker 3: a 12 hour ultimatum. Within hours of its Britain's warplanes are winging their way to Egypt, and its bombers attack 5 key cities, including Cairo.
Speaker 1: The United States was opposed to the invasion and put pressure on Britain and France to withdraw their troops.
Speaker 4: There will be no United States involvement in these present hostilities. It is our hope and intent this matter will be brought before the United Nations general assembly. There, the opinion of the world can be brought to bear in our quest for a just end to this tormenting problem.
Speaker 1: Britain was humiliated. The Suez Crisis signified the end of Britain's role as one of the world's major powers.
Speaker 5: Following the crisis, there was a run on the sterling on the UK pound. Some people suspect that the American government was encouraging this run on the UK pound.
Speaker 1: As financiers withdrew their money from Britain, The value of the pound decreased. To protect the value of the pound, Britain limited the bank's overseas lending.
Speaker 5: They were not able to invest abroad. And obviously, they were unhappy. And we don't know exactly the context, but it's very clear that the banks or their representative made a representation to the Bank of England, which in itself was dominated by representative from the banking industry. It seems that they have reached an agreement which was never written. That if the banks, intermediated between 2 non residents in a foreign currency, in that case, dollar that this particular intermediation, this particular deal will not be considered by the Bank of England under its own jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: The banks began to create a market for dollars in London called the London Eurodollar Market. To So I'm just wondering if you could just give us a quick overview of the business. The Bank of England, the UK regulator, declared that the London Euromarket accounts were not in London. They were elsewhere, and therefore, it had no responsibility for regulating them.
Speaker 6: It's about providing a legal space in which you pretend activity is taking place. And the importance of that is that you pretend it's not taking place in the economy where it really is taking place. So you're taking activity from Place where it's regulated and taxed and pretending that it's happening elsewhere. Now where doesn't really matter. It's just elsewhere.
Speaker 1: When American banks realized that London offered the ability to avoid US regulations, They moved their international operations to the city. Around the same time as American banks were moving their international operations to London, another new kind of financial space began to emerge, Far away from London, in Britain's overseas jurisdictions, the last remnants of empire.
Speaker 2: Back in the sixties, the Cayman Islands was a complete backwater. The stories go that mosquitoes were so thick In the air, sometimes they're enough to suffocate cows. That's a legend that you hear about the Cayman Islands. I don't know how true it was. But it was there was nothing happening there.
Speaker 1: Accountants and lawyers from London arrived in the Cayman Islands and other British dependencies and began to draft a set of financial secrecy laws and regulations. Because these jurisdictions' main selling point was secrecy, they were called secrecy jurisdictions.
Speaker 2: What the Cayman Islands was doing was straightforwardly illegal activity. Drugs money was coming in in huge quantities, Tax evasion, whatever whatever you wanted, you could have it.
Speaker 1: The Bank of England was observing the developments from London And noted in a report marked secret dated 11th April 1969. We need to be quite sure That the possible proliferation of trust companies, banks, etcetera, which in most cases would be no more than brass plates manipulating assets outside the islands, does not get out of hand. There is, of course, no objection to their providing bolt holes for nonresidents. But we need to be sure that in so doing, opportunities are not created for the transfer of UK capital to the non sterling area outside UK rules.
Speaker 2: These small territories, the last remnants of the British Empire, which are still overseas territories today, they are still the last remnants of the British Empire. There are 14 of these overseas territories. 7 of them are bona fide tax havens, including the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, The British Virgin Islands, some of the biggest tax havens in the world today, are still British.
Speaker 1: With access to large amounts of offshore money, The euro market grew rapidly. By 1980, it had reached $500,000,000,000. By 1988, $4,800,000,000,000. And by 1997, nearly 90% of all international loans were made through this market. The British Empire had sunk, leaving hardly a trace behind.
But the city of London Adapted and survived. The City of London, London's financial district, is a peculiar place. It has been called a city within a city, A state within a state. It is run by an organization called the City of London Corporation. A private company that performs all the functions of a local council with a private police force and private courts.
Speaker 7: Those of you who aren't from the UK, some of you even who are, might not be aware just how weird a thing the little city of London is within the big the big London. The city of London is, an a separate entity to, the wider London, And it has its own, head, the lord mayor, who's distinct from the mayor, who runs the rest of London.
Speaker 1: Every November, the city stages the Lord Mayor's show, the world's oldest civic procession.
Speaker 7: The city of London has long had this curious legal status because, back in 10/66, when William the Conqueror came over, The city was one of the only portions of England that he failed to conquer, and he struck a deal with the city in 10/67 that allowed them to continue functioning.
Speaker 1: To this day, the city of London is exempt from numerous laws that govern the rest of Britain. Its political derives from the Middle Ages. The city's electorate is dominated not by its residents, but by the private businesses Operating within the city. Its lord mayor is selected by the heads of medieval guilds.
Speaker 8: They have a a representative in the House of Commons called the Remembrancer. Apart from the clerks of the of the House of Commons. He's the only unelected person there.
Speaker 7: All other lobbyists have to stop, you know, in the lobby. They're not allowed past the lobby.
Speaker 1: The City of London has a permanent Representative in the House of Commons whose role is to report back to the City of London Corporation and to lobby parliament On behalf of the city.
Speaker 5: The corporation of London, clearly, it's a uniquely unique and Interesting phenomena that should have attracted, many political scientists, political economists, and economists. But I don't know of anyone who has studied systematically the corporation in London and its impact on policy or economic policy. So we can only surmise. Some people, assume or surmise that the corporation in London is extremely powerful and is able, in one way or another, to shape, British policy, particularly within financial methods.
Speaker 8: Clement Attlee, the prime minister after the Second World War, had had something to say about the state of London Corporation.
Speaker 7: He did. Thank you. So over and over again, we have seen that there is, in this country, another power than that which has its seat at Westminster. The city of London, a convenient term for a collection of financial interests, is able to assert itself against the government of the country. Those who control money can pursue a policy at home and abroad contrary to that which has been decided by the people.
Speaker 1: At the heart of the city of London stands the Bank of England. The Bank of England is not just a central bank. It is also a financial regulator. At the demise of empire, the Bank of England used this regulatory authority to help attract the world's banks to London. In 1972, the Bank of England issued a license to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which set up its head office in London.
Within 10 years, BCCI grew into the 7th largest bank in the world. 10 years later, BCCI was bankrupt.
Speaker 9: The Deputy director of the CIA Richard Kerr said late today that the CIA did use BCCI To support CIA activities overseas.
Speaker 1: But BCCI had not just collaborated with the world's intelligence services. It had also engaged in extensive financial fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing.
Speaker 10: BCCI constituted international global crime of a level that boggles the mind.
Speaker 11: Financing terrorism. The Bank of England knew it, says the report. But instead of supervising it properly, it tried to prevent the bank's collapse.
Speaker 10: I I'm saying very directly that the Bank of England had sufficient information in front of it to close BCCI 15 months earlier than it did, millions of depositors were hurt in that process.
Speaker 1: Numerous whistle blowers from BCCI had contacted the Bank of England. Yet the Bank of
Speaker 2: England did
Speaker 12: nothing. The Bank of England had plenty of time to intervene and investigate, But it did not do so because the tradition at that time, which still survives, is that a well, actually, you know, you have to just Kinda send hints and talk over lunch tables with the chaps, regulating other chaps, and all would be well.
Speaker 1: Robin Lee Pemberton, the governor of the Bank of England at the time of the collapse of BCCI commented, the present system of supervision has served the community well. If we closed down a bank every time we found an incidence of fraud, you would have rather fewer banks than we do at the moment. London was a place for banks to engage in business that was not allowed Where senior bankers did not have to worry about the consequences of their actions. This is one of the reasons why today there are more banks in London than in any other financial center.
Speaker 2: In Britain, nobody goes to jail. No bankers go to jail. They generally don't. They are a protected species, and that is part of the offshore business model of the UK is to say, we will protect you. We will bring your money here, and we will look after you.
We're not gonna put you in prison. We'll let you do what you want.
Speaker 1: Light touch regulation was one way of attracting business to London. Another was secrecy. From the 19 sixties onwards, City of London institutions began to establish offshore branches in former outpost of the British Empire. Their aim was to create offshore centers with strong secrecy legislation in order to attract capital from across the globe.
Speaker 2: Swiss banking secrecy is the most famous, the most well known. You put your money in a Swiss bank and they won't they promise not to tell anybody. And that's one kind of secrecy. But Another kind of secrecy, which is very British, is the trust. And the trust is a very, slippery, complicated, And devious mechanism.
Trusts emerge, the legend has it from the time of the Crusades when the knights would go off and fight in foreign lands And they would leave their assets in the care of trusted stewards. What trusts do ultimately is they play with the concept of ownership. Ownership is not such a simple thing. So the settler, the knight in this case, would hand over the assets to Someone who these days would be called a trustee, it's often a lawyer. Legally, you are separated from those assets.
They're not yours anymore. There's a barrier. You can't be taxed on them. You can't be nobody's gonna find anything about your connection to these assets.
Speaker 1: In Britain's offshore jurisdictions, No qualifications are necessary to be a trustee. Anyone can set up a trust and act as a trustee. There is no registry of trusts. There are no bodies to certify that a trust has been set up.
Speaker 13: The only persons who know about the creation of this agreement are The trustee and the settlor. There's no obligation to register it. There is no financial reporting obligation of trusts. They're not required to put annual statements onto account anywhere. So, actually, trusts are, To all intents and purposes, invisible arrangements.
Speaker 1: Economist John Christiansen was an economic adviser to the secrecy jurisdiction of Jersey For 10 years.
Speaker 13: We're not talking about a few million. We're talking now about 1,000,000,000. 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of copper, which apparently belong to nobody. For tax purposes and for other purposes, they belong to nobody. Everything, works of arts, gold bullion, horse racehorses, cars, real estate, Not just financial assets, but a whole load of nonfinancial assets belong to these trusts, sitting there, belonging to nobody.
Now think that one through, because we are talking about maybe as much as $50,000,000,000,000 of assets sitting offshore behind these instruments.
Speaker 14: Well, the Cayman Islands are among several British overseas territories who have signed a new information exchange agreement with Britain and the rest of Europe to tackle tax evasion. The countries are now required to automatically provide details of the ownership of bank accounts and how they're used. Cayman became the 1st signatory last week.
Speaker 15: It's important that the Cayman Islands should be recognized as the 1st overseas territory to sign such an agreement with the United Kingdom. And I think this importantly reflects The constructive approach that the Cayman Islands has taken in delivering our shared objective of rooting out Tax evasion.
Speaker 13: The trust lies at the core of the British secrecy model. They don't use banking secrecy. The Swiss use banking That's why the Brits are doing this.
Speaker 1: Trusts are the basic building block of Anglo Saxon secrecy, and they form the basis from which complex offshore structures are created. Every secrecy jurisdiction offers a specific set of services. From trusts to shell companies to secret bank accounts and directors. The combination of these services into complex structures spanning multiple jurisdictions
Speaker 2: will often have a trust kind of sitting at the top of it. The trust will be here managing the assets, kind of controlling the assets. Underneath it, the trust own some shell companies. Each one might be in a different jurisdiction. So you might have a trust in 1 jurisdiction whose trustees are somewhere else, Whose beneficiaries are somewhere else, which owns offshore companies somewhere else.
Each of these companies might then own assets so that They might own, you know, a bank account, a a racehorse, a yacht, a painting, a portfolio of shares, or whatever.
Speaker 1: There are numerous variations of trusts and offshore secrecy structures. There are offshore whose work entails the creation of ever more complex and obscure structures. The aim of these structures is to hide the identity of the owners of offshore assets and allow offshore wealth to be recycled back into global markets.
Speaker 16: We're looking on the amount of money, being administrated from tax havens. You see that it is a curve going like this, all the talking we have been doing along with other wonderful people fighting against tech savants has not changed anything. You know? It is the world where you say, go on talking and go on talking. You're interesting me, and I'm going on doing what I want to do.
We know everything today because we have had the Panama Papers. We have seen it, and we are not able to upon it. And we are not able to act upon it because this system is really protecting the few people that are having benefit from it. And these are, in percentage very few people, but they are powerful. And I see in the Panama committee that I'm sitting in, The only thing that could change this is to have a public accessible register of the beneficial ownership of trusts and of all kind of companies.
It is easy.
Speaker 1: The Panama Papers are a collection of leaks from the offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. Mossack Fonseca is the 4th largest offshore law firm. The other 9 of the 10 largest offshore law firms are registered in British overseas jurisdictions. When countries complain to Britain about the activities run out of its offshore havens, Britain claims that these places are independent and that there is nothing it can do.
Speaker 13: I've heard time and time again from officials in Berlin and in Paris and in Washington and in other countries that they've been told by the British government that, yes, they're well aware of what's going on in Jersey, and they think it's very unfortunate, but they don't have the powers to intervene. Well, that's a straightforward lie. They do have the powers to intervene. They just choose not to.
Speaker 2: Britain plays this kind of game of pretending when it suits them to pretend that these places are independent. At the end of the day, Britain, appoints the governor, appoints lots of senior people in these places. They're responsible for foreign relations and defense, and also they can veto their legislation as well. So Britain has a massive degree of control. Basically, it is controlling these places, allowing them a but a political space.
Speaker 1: During his time as economic adviser to Jersey, John Christensen frequently Travel to London for talks with various British government departments.
Speaker 13: As economic adviser, I had a lot of contact with different departments. Traditionally, UK governments have tried not to interfere in the domestic affairs or places like Jersey. So it happens in a more subtle sort of way. You can go and talk to someone either at the Home Office or the Treasury, And they'd say, we're not actually particularly keen on this piece of legislation. It might be a good idea if you didn't go down that route.
And over a cup of tea, that's quite a strong signal. That's a signal, go back to the island and say, they don't want you to do this.
Speaker 1: The British government prefers not to interfere overtly. Instead, it communicates its desires through informal discussions. There is no paper trail or official statement. Discussions take place behind closed doors.
Speaker 2: The relationship So these places have with London is is very much, about the British establishment and people understanding each other. I mean, Anybody who knows who is British or knows British British people knows that communication between us is often very subtle, and You have to kind of know the codes when people say stuff. I mean, a lot of irony involved and, a lot of, Kind of codified language for British establishment that, people kind of understand how it works. And I think that is very much the case with the British relationship with the tax havens. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: By keeping its power hidden, Britain is able to claim that these jurisdictions are politically autonomous.
Speaker 17: Independence for KMAD is not on government's agenda. That's the message being sent to the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. Attorney Steve Macfield will be representing government at the UN meeting. The committee was set up to help colonies around the world on the road to independence. But mister MacVeal says he'll be making it clear that Cay man is not ready for that transition.
Speaker 18: And that message is done. The premier, his cabinet, his party has No mandate from the people of the Cayman Islands to seek independence. That is the message that I will be carrying.
Speaker 1: When the Bahamas declared independence from Britain in 1967, the offshore bankers relocated to the Cayman Islands, And continued their business from there. It was the British connection that reassured bankers and their clients that their money was safe.
Speaker 2: This British bedrock, that is what has allowed these places to become so trusted by the financial services industry and and offshore and all these people.
Speaker 1: In reality, much of the wealth administered in Britain's offshore havens is controlled from London.
Speaker 13: The city of London, by and large, likes to do its really dirty work outside London. They might, heaven forbid, Be a a regulator who actually takes the job seriously and starts to prosecute them for fraud in London. So better to do the frauds offshore in Gibraltar or Jersey, where there's much less risk that a serious prosecution will ever happen.
Speaker 1: Deals are often discussed and concluded in London, but then registered offshore for tax transparency and regulatory purposes.
Speaker 2: What they allow the city to do is to get involved in dirty business. But then when the scandal hits To say, well, they're kind of independent, there's nothing we can do about those places, that's that's not us, that's that's tax haven activity, and we're We're the city, you know, we're we're not involved in that kind of stuff. So it's an incredibly kind of convenient relationship.
Speaker 13: The city of London has shaped the the way in which Jersey, Guernsey, and the British overseas territories have developed as tax Havens. I I see these places of the Frankensteins created by by the city of London.
Speaker 1: Today, the UK is the world's largest provider of international financial services.
Speaker 6: The UK has an almost unique role in global finance. And if you look at data, the kind of Data that we've constructed in the financial secrecy index, you can see the relative shares of each country in The global provision of financial services exports, that's financial services to non residents. Now there are 2 big centers, And everything else is quite small in comparison.
Speaker 1: The 2 large centers are the United States, with around 19% of the global market, and the United Kingdom and its offshore jurisdictions, which have around 25% of the global market.
Speaker 5: And if you add to that, other jurisdictions, ex colonies. But recently, dependent fairly recently. By which I mean Hong Kong, Singapore, maybe even Dubai and Bahrain, and Cyprus, then you reach a figure of nearly 40%. And I think that figure represents better the position of London in the global financial market.
Speaker 2: The soldiers left, the administrators left all the colonies, but they still kept a significant degree of control over the flows from these former, the former parts of empire and the rest of the world. So you could describe it as a second empire. Britain's 2nd empire, sort of hidden financial empire, spanning large parts of the globe.
Speaker 1: At the time of the British Empire, the city of London was the world's largest global financial center. Not only Britain's colonies but also independent countries did their banking in London and used the empire's currency for trade and financing. As the Empire declined, so too did the City of London. The UK. So the UK is a very good example of the UK.
So the UK is and the creation of secrecy jurisdictions gave banks access to large amounts of cheap money. International banks from across the globe set up branches in London and Britain's offshore jurisdictions in order to take advantage of this new system.
Speaker 16: This system has taken the place of the occupation, I mean, up till 62, for France. I don't know for England, but at the same time, England were physically present in India, for instance, or in in, other colonies. And when you look at the money flows through the tax havens, They are increasing when we withdraw from the colonies. We are still plundering developing countries as former colonial powers.
Speaker 1: Wealthy individuals, organized crime, and corporations shifted their wealth offshore in exchange for secrecy and no tax. And as countries around the world began to deregulate and open their economies, It became ever easier to do so. Today, as much as half of all global offshore wealth whose flight capital flows mostly into the modern British spider's web.
Speaker 13: I think it's no coincidence that Britain's offshore empire emerged more or less at the same time as the collapse of the formal empire. We tend to think of Africa as being a huge net debtor to the rest of the world, but That was the extent of their debts at the end of 2008, a 177,000,000,000.
Speaker 1: The debt of Sub Saharan African nations stood at a $177,000,000,000 in 2008. Yet the wealth these countries elites had moved offshore and
Speaker 13: $944,000,000,000. Do the maths. Far from being a net debtor, Africa, Sub Saharan Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: As capital moved offshore, African nations borrowed money from international banks at high interest. Over time, these debts became so great that they may never be repaid. Secrecy jurisdictions were starving developing nations of their wealth and their tax revenues.
Speaker 19: For a long time, a lot of developing countries, including recently Ecuador, have been trying to set up a UN tax body, which is of a higher value than what is currently there, which is the UN tax committee. And every time this has happened, it has gotten blocked. During the Financing for development process in Addis Ababa last year. I think it was the UK and the US that blocked attempts Again, to set up this, World Tax Organization. So why would they not want to have democratic Decision making in global decisions on how tax gets collected across borders.
I don't understand this. As long as we have cross border activity that involves both criminal and legal activity. As long as we're unable to separate the 2, this is going to continue to be a problem.
Speaker 1: Western nations block attempts to provide greater transparency of international financial flows and the implementation of global standards for the collection of tax across borders whilst elites in developing nations
Speaker 16: And this is true for the copper in Zambia, for the for the gold in Mozambique or in Mali. They have benefited the company that extracted and their shareholders. It has benefit the corrupt elite in the country.
Speaker 2: In developing countries, the offshore system of tax havens has facilitated the looting of these countries by their elites. It has enabled them to steal the money and keep it safe somewhere else.
Speaker 6: Illicit financial because the anonymity that drives them creates incentives for people in positions of power to be corrupt. This is why there's a group of countries where development progress is so difficult. It's that the incentives of individuals and the ability to pursue them through all the mechanisms that underpin in the shit flows outweigh the type of mechanisms that in that lead you to a powerful representative effective state that can start to deliver development.
Speaker 1: Worldwide, and flows into large Western nations like the United States and Britain and enables their currencies to stay strong whilst developing nations currencies remain weak. But illicit flows into Western nations also had another unexpected side effect. The economies of the United States and Britain began to financialize. The origins of this financialization or deindustrialization go back to the 19 sixties.
Speaker 3: Anti war demonstrators protest US involvement in the Vietnam War in mass marches, rallies, and demonstrations. President Johnson, meanwhile, let it be known that the FBI is closely watching all antiwar activity.
Speaker 1: In the 19 sixties, US economist Michael Hudson was working at Chase Manhattan Bank on Wall Street as Chase's balance of payments economist.
Speaker 20: During the 19 sixties, the United states, balance of payments deficit was entirely a result of foreign military expenditures.
Speaker 1: Dollars were flowing out of the United states as a result of the cost of the Vietnam War. The United States attempted to prevent the dollars flowing to Vietnam from being deposited in foreign banks.
Speaker 20: The government asked Chase to set up a branch in Saigon during the Vietnam War. And as you can imagine, it didn't have, windows. It was sort of a fortress. It lost money, but, the government, went to chase because it said if you don't get This, money that's being thrown off by, the military in, Vietnam, then it's gonna go into French banks. It'll get to general de Gaulle, and you know what is gonna do every month.
He's gonna cash it in for gold. That's what the United States is trying to stop.
Speaker 1: The US was not successful in stopping the outflow of money, so it began to hatch a different plan. In 1967, Michael Hudson was handed a memo by a former state department employee.
Speaker 20: In 1967, I was given by a former state department employee, in the elevator at Chase Manhattan, a memo from the state department urging that Chase Manhattan Would, take the lead in helping the United States become the Switzerland of the world, meaning the flight capital. The state department, through Chase asked me to estimate how much money do you think is available if America were to become the new Switzerland? And how do we do it? The plan was to organize offshore banking centers, in the Caribbean and elsewhere. And the hot money wouldn't come directly in the chase because that wouldn't be, nice and, very illegal.
What happened was that, the Latin American criminals, other criminals, drug dealers, all sorts of organized crime would put their money in the offshore Caribbean banks, and these offshore banks would then, deposit the inflow In the head office.
Speaker 1: By moving offshore dollars back into the United States, the US was able to stop the outflow of dollars and support the value of its currency.
Speaker 20: Every country looks to its foreign exchange rate. And, the foreign exchange rate is not only imports and exports, it's capital movements. And if you look at the International monetary funds, monthly international financial statistics. You have sort of a steady balance of trade, a steady immigrants remittances. What goes up and down are called errors and omissions.
What the United Nations and, the IMF call errors and omissions our flight capital. It's the, the reason that it's omitted is, they don't like to really look at this. In the 19 thirties, Roy Ovid economist for the US commerce department wanted to include, criminal movements in the balance of payment statistics, and, congress got Very upset. I I I was told in Washington, the cut the, argument was we're a Christian country. We don't wanna crime.
It's just don't look at it, and, they they forbid him to, include, criminal money in the balance of payments. I guess now You call it errors and omissions. You don't call it, criminal inflow and outflow.
Speaker 1: In the 19 sixties seventies, Britain was faced with a similar dilemma as the United States. Money was flowing out, and this decreased The value of the pound. Britain realized that it too could support the value of its currency by opening its domestic markets to the 1,000,000,000 1,000,000 of dollars passing through its offshore havens. But just as in the United States, this had an Unexpected side effect.
Speaker 20: The British banks, today, just as in the 19th century, don't put their money into, British manufacturing. They put their money into real estate speculation, into financial speculation, foreign currency trade. So, the financialization of London has, helped deindustrialize the country because it's enabled, Sterling to be supported by this huge inflow of Hot money. This inflow of, drug dealing money and criminal money and, tax evasion money all over the world, that is going to London instead of going to Switzerland, Liechtenstein, or the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: With the silent backing of the United States, Britain's offshore havens grew rapidly. And before long, the offshore system developed into the world's dominant international financial market. Few were aware how this market functioned. In 1986, economist John Christensen went offshore to investigate. He applied for a position at the Jersey office one of the world's major accounting firms.
Speaker 13: But Deloitte and Touche, I was, I was working in what's called company and trust administration, straightforward offshore stuff. I went offshore specifically to work in that area because that's where you're dealing with the offshore companies, the shell companies, the offshore trusts, and you're administering them. That way, I could I could see from working inside, a big global accounting firm, exactly what the clients were doing. I had complete access to all the client files. And over the course of my period of working with Deloitte Touche, I investigated over a 100 of their clients offshore, and this is what I found.
There were some insider traders, some market rigging, some avoiding disclosure of conflict of interest, illicit arms trading, illicit political campaign donations, contract kickbacks, bribery, fraudulent invoicing, trade mispricing, and, at the bottom, tax evasion. Okay? This is what the clients were doing. The basis of a sample of the clients that I looked at, Not a single client was involved in what I would regard as genuinely legitimate activity. They were all involved in some kind of tax dodging or, worse.
Speaker 16: I met with Karl Levin. He used to be an American Senator, And he made a lot of inquiries into private banking, asking question to the bankers. What do you think the percentage is among your clients that are using these companies for legitimate purposes, and the answer was, I believe that 99.9% of my Clients are using these companies for illicit purposes. This is a reality. This is American bankers telling what they are doing.
And it's exactly the same thing with, UK bankers helping their clients to have accounts in Panama or in Bermuda or in Cayman Islands.
Speaker 1: Secrecy jurisdictions are heavily used for fraudulent and gray area financial activities, areas where secrecy is not just desirable, but a necessity. Legitimate financial activity Has no need for the secrecy offshore havens provide, nor a desire to pay the high fees offshore banks and law firms charge. In public, these jurisdictions claim they are transparent and their financial services sectors are engaged in legitimate financial activities.
Speaker 21: Our economy is not based on secrecy. It's, it's based on transparency. It's based on a sound regulatory environment. It's based on good governance and good government, with the British government, legal system. That's what our, financial institutions are based on.
Speaker 17: Well, tonight we have a response from the head of Cayman Finance after a group of US based anti tax evasion activists Announce plans to travel to Cayman to draw attention to what they feel is corporate tax evasion. Finance Chairman Mr. Richard Cole says he's encouraging the group to visit And says our financial sector has nothing to hide.
Speaker 22: I would say if anybody wants to come to Cayman to find out what what's coming, you know, what what we do here, Come on down. We have no secrets here.
Speaker 2: When I went to the Cayman Islands, back in 2008, I think it was. I called the government spokesman. He said, okay, we have had an order from on high that nobody is allowed to speak to you. You are off limits.
Speaker 1: In 2011, journalist Nicholas Schaxson released Treasure Islands, a groundbreaking book about the offshore system.
Speaker 14: The author of a series of international media reports says he would welcome a debate with Cayman finance chair Tony Travers. Mr. Travers recently called Nicholas Jackson, an imbecile with the understanding of an of an 11 year old. There are always going
Speaker 23: to be the politics of envy. Now the politics of envy are exacerbated by, imbeciles who don't actually understand what's going on in the Cayman Islands. I
Speaker 1: The Cayman Islands is the 5th largest financial center in the world. It hosts 80,000 registered companies, over 3 quarters of the world's hedge funds and $1,900,000,000,000 in deposits. It has a population of 60,000, roughly equivalent to New York's homeless population. A strange mixture of characters populate the offshore world. British ex public schoolboys, Members of the world's intelligence services, global criminals, assorted lords and ladies, and bankers galore.
With so much at stake for so many wealthy and powerful individuals, it may come as no surprise that Britain's offshore havens have developed their own curious mechanisms to prevent information from leaking out.
Speaker 13: For many people who work off Sure. And you don't like what they're doing. It's very hard indeed to dissent, because they will be attacked personally with a degree of viciousness, which is quite extraordinary. Most of the time, the the the instruments of suppression are relatively sophisticated. You won't get promotion by doing this or your family won't like it.
Speaker 2: It's not generally, let's Slam them in prison. That's far too crude. We are talking about very substantially, you know, the establishment, the British establishment in in these cases. The the mechanisms are very, very subtle. Sort of ostracism is is is one way of doing it.
Mechanisms for, you know, if someone tries to to blow the whistle, you find all sorts of methods that aren't the might you know, Just fire them. You give them far too much work to do. You steer them in a different direction.
Speaker 1: One person who is intimately familiar with how suppression works offshore is former Jersey senator and health minister, Stuart. In 2009, he leaked a report on a rogue nurse suspected of killing patients at Jersey's Hospital.
Speaker 24: It all came to a head during a state's debate on Tuesday 10th March. Senator Stuart Syvray brought the sitting to a standstill, claiming senator Jimmy Pershard sworn at him and told him to go and top himself. Senator Peirchard denied the claim saying, I absolutely refute that. But less than a week later, he was forced to admit he'd lied. Senator Peirchard has now admitted that on another occasion, he Did tell senator Stuart Zivray to go and do everyone a favor and slit his wrists.
Speaker 25: I was, Arrested at my house 1 morning, by, 6 plainclothes police officers. There were another 2 specialist data search police officers on hand and also another 2 police officers in full body armor of one of those battering rams they're kind of using drugs rates. So 10 police officers descended without a, without a search warrant. The property was turned over from top to bottom. All of the computers were seized and searched.
All kinds of Private constituency data was stolen by the police.
Speaker 1: Shortly after we began filming, a police officer exited the police station. As he hurried past, he grinned at the camera. The officer was on his way to test The sirens on his motorbike, which he did at intervals throughout much of the remainder of the interview.
Speaker 25: When it came to prosecuting,
Speaker 1: Stuart Syvret was prosecuted under the data protection law.
Speaker 25: When the authorities were prosecuting me, I claimed that this This was a legitimate public interest disclosure defense, and I, with an expert witness, was able to produce a set of reports that effectively Floyd, the prosecution case.
Speaker 1: In reaction to this, the magistrates ruled that Stuart Sidre's defence case, that he had leaked the report in the public interest, would no longer be admissible, But continued to prosecute him all the same without a defense case. Over the past 7 years, Stuart has been repeatedly taken to court and imprisoned 3 times. He does not know when or if the persecution will end, nor does he know when he will find himself behind ours again.
Speaker 25: To look at Jersey from the outside, it looks like it's got a prosecution system. It looks like it's got a court and a legislature, but none of it's real. It's a Potemkin village. None of these systems in Jersey meet the tests of being objective of being objective will actually functioning properly.
Speaker 13: The experience that Stewart Sivray had is, you know, he's perhaps at the at the blunt simply suppressed and taken to court on trumped up charges.
Speaker 25: Carry on 10 to the internet. They might report. This is the kind this is the kind of how oppression happens in Jersey, you see. All kinds of metal things get done to harass people, you know, even they don't often go to the kind of extremes that they did against me in actually arresting me and putting me in prison. But, the authorities use all kinds of other lesser little Methods to interfere with people, kind of sabotage things, you know, obstruct people, make life difficult for people.
You know, if you annoy the establishments in Jersey, you won't get a job here. You know, you know, your children won't get decent jobs. You know, that's kind of how how it
Speaker 13: I went to Jersey in, March 2009 with with Nick Schachsel. About 24 was after we arrived in Jersey. We were there for several days. Nick said, did you know that have you noticed that we're being followed? Ever since we arrived in At the airport, we've been followed.
He said, don't look now, but we're being followed now. Turns out he was quite correct. We Were being followed. And I found that very disturbing, very disturbing indeed.
Speaker 1: They have a saying in Jersey. If you don't like it here, there's always a boat in the morning. Jersey finance promotional literature States, Jersey represents an extension of the City of London.
Speaker 13: It's where the City of London chooses to do mainly the activities which they couldn't do in London itself.
Speaker 8: We're here to just talk about this one company called Appleby. I'll just what they say on their website. Members of the firm, Appleby, have gone on not only to political office, but also, in a number of centers, Bermuda, Jersey, the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands to senior judicial office. So, essentially, they're boasting of the fact that their staff and their partners have a real interchange between the people that are in power in these offshore financial centers.
Speaker 1: The same lawyers and accountants who set up and administer offshore trusts also occupy senior political positions. In Britain's offshore world, most politicians are in business. They lobby for business and promote business interests. They draft, refine, and pass legislation. Politicians sit on the boards of the companies they are supposed to
Speaker 26: There is no place for dirty money in Britain. Indeed, there should be no place for dirty money anywhere. The challenge I'm laying down for every country today is to root out the rot of corruption to ensure transparency over what your own companies are doing, require transparency for foreign companies in your country too, And work with us to spread this approach to transparency around the world.
Speaker 1: In public, British politicians claim they are cracking down on secrecy jurisdictions and corruption. But in practice, they Do the opposite.
Speaker 13: And when I talk to politicians in Brussels, they say that they've had more lobbyists from London and including politicians, to come to them to protect the city of London's interests than they've had every other European member state combined, which gives you some idea of the extent to which British
Speaker 14: We begin with our big story. Keyman's efforts to ensure transparency in its financial sector is being recognized by the international community. Earlier this week, the UK's prime minister David Cameron told parliament that the tax haven label placed on It's crown dependencies and overseas territories is unfair.
Speaker 1: Many British politicians have personal and business ties with the City of London and British secrecy jurisdictions. Former British prime minister, David Cameron's father, Ian Cameron was an expert in offshore funds and was involved in offshore trusts from the 19 eighties onwards.
Speaker 27: At this courthouse behind me here in Synch Helia, we found this. It's a document called a Grant of Pro debate, and it's attached to the English will of none other than Ian Cameron, David Cameron's father.
Speaker 13: Hi, Mark. How are you? Good to see you.
Speaker 27: Ian Cameron was certainly a wealthy man. In 2009, his personal fortune was estimated by researchers for the Sunday Times Rich List at ten ยฃ1,000,000. Yet, when Ian Cameron died in 2010, his estate was much smaller than might be expected, just ยฃ2,700,000.
Speaker 13: In many cases, it's the politicians, and their cronies, and their families, and so on, and the business people who sponsor the political parties, who using these offshore services themselves. So they've got no personal interest in closing it down. If they wanted to close it down, they could do it tomorrow. The fact of the matter is they don't want to do it because they themselves are complicit with the process.
Speaker 2: If you come from the same kind of background, you know the right people, Then all the kind of legal niceties of will will often fall away. You can get away with doing all sorts of things that they wouldn't just let any old And, you know, if you came knocking on the door saying, can you set up an offshore company to do this? They'd tell you to get lost. But if you're part of the networks, you can do these kinds of things. So that's a very important part of the, part of the whole system.
Upper class British public school kind of, establishment that has been there since, you know, for centuries.
Speaker 1: The British establishment, an old boy's network of privileged elites, From administrators of Empire into financial handlers for the global elite and multinational corporations. As more money flowed offshore, societies around the globe began to feel the impact of the offshore world.
Speaker 16: The reality is not What you believe that, your prime minister has, the power to to decide on the future of your country? The power is hidden here.
Speaker 6: We have country after country around the world where the lack of financial Transparency about taxation, about ownership, about corruption has undermined the extent to which governments deliver representative policy making for their citizens. You know, we have extreme cases like the hiding of tax evasion by people in finance ministries in Greece, in France. But we also have This system that in general is geared towards anonymous company ownership, the anonymous ownership of properties across London, of half of the land in Do we really think that any circumstances in which governments work better, in which markets work better, in In which the distribution of income and assets is better, when we allow so much to be hidden. Who wants to not know who you're doing business with, who wants their government to have people working for it or to be led by direction for the world.
Speaker 16: We need the citizens to understand what is happening, that they are the ones who is carrying the burden, and that, some individuals having the power are exonerating themselves. Ordinary people are paying taxes. Rich people are not. So this is inequality, and it is leading up to populism because it shows so clearly that the people today leading the world are not able to take care of the interest of ordinary people.
Speaker 2: Back in the sixties and you know, tax evasion or or pushing back against taxation. It was kind of seen as anti establishment. So, you know, Rolling Stones and, Phil Collins, all these people kind of going offshore, going away. It was seen as a sort of rebellious thing to do. And if you Fast forward to the present day, now that is the establishment.
The offshore system is the establishment.
Speaker 1: Today, offshore is the way elites and multinational corporations conduct their affairs. Tax evasion is the way business is done.
Speaker 13: This kind of sophisticated cheating requires a huge infrastructure. We like to Talk about the pinstriped infrastructure of highly educated people who think it is their right to help others to cheat societies.
Speaker 28: We have a new mafia in town. It does not actually shoot people, does not put bullets in their kneecaps, But this trade is just as deadly. It deprives people of opportunities to have health care, education, Security, justice, and, essentially, a fulfilling life.
Speaker 1: Accountants form the backbone of the offshore system. They administer the structures that allow individuals and corporations to shift their money offshore and evade taxes.
Speaker 28: There are about 2,500,000 professionally qualified accountants on this planet. About 330,000 are in the UK.
Speaker 12: Well known people, well dressed, well fed, highly paid of sitting in city center offices, and they are paid to dream up tax avoidance schemes for individuals and for corporations.
Speaker 28: We can all elect a government which says, vote for us. We will give you better health care, better education, better security. Next day, accountant says, sorry about that, folks. You elected this government, but we actually got a tax avoidance scheme. The Amazons and the Google won't be paying any taxes in your jurisdiction.
Too bad you voted for it, but actually, you're gonna get something else.
Speaker 12: So it's a crazy world that part of the business model at big accountancy firms is how to deny public the services by erosion of tax revenues. And these firms are then rewarded with government funded contracts. And the same firms are then advising, go local governments and the central government. And the same firms then report on the company accounts and tell us all is well.
Speaker 28: When I argue this with a price order house Partner in a face to face debate. He said, Professor Sikai, you never give us credit for anything. We generate 1,000,000 of dollars of revenues, And we have lots and lots of satisfied clients. What is your problem? And my response was very simple.
That's the language of drug pushers and pimps.
Speaker 1: In Britain, a new breed of civil servant was rising to the top. One such civil servant was Dave Hartnett, Who rose to the top of HMRC, the UK tax authority. Dave Hartnett had a new way of collecting tax. Deals would be negotiated on an individual basis behind closed doors. In the case of the largest clients, Dave Hartnett frequently led the negotiations himself.
British Telecom was one of the first companies through the programme And received a refund of over ยฃ1,000,000,000. BT's chief executive, Ben Theveian wrote, earnings per share up 14% And nice to know that we have a ยฃ1,000,000,000 credit from the taxman. Dave Hartnett claimed this approach was more efficient.
Speaker 29: Litigation in the courts is really phenomenally expensive in this day and age all over the world. And I think it's to be avoided where possible. And the art is to persuade people to pay by strength of argument and the like.
Speaker 1: After protests erupted in 2011, the treasury select committee questioned Dave Hartnett. Dave Hartnett claimed he could not give any information due to taxpayer confidentiality.
Speaker 29: What in statute prevents you from disclosing information to parliament? All my advice, mister so far has been that, I am prevented, and my colleagues are prevented, by the Act and by the decision of the commissioners.
Speaker 1: Dave Hartnett failed to mention that the legal advice he had received stated that the disclosure of information was at the discretion of the head of HMRC. The head of HMRC was Dave net himself.
Speaker 28: Just like the mafia has penetrated the state, accountancy firms have also penetrated the state. The head of anti avoidance in the UK, tax authority, is from one of these firms. The newly appointed chairman of her majesty's revenue and customs, which is a tax authority, is a partner from KPMG. Their partners have penetrated the state. They are running the treasury.
Speaker 1: Britain's financial services industry had penetrated the state and began to shape its laws for its own benefit.
Speaker 13: The degree of capture political capture by the City of London, by the big banks and the big law firms, is so enormous that the politicians have effectively become their spokespersons.
Speaker 1: With the government unwilling to act in the interest of the public, a group of protesters confronted Dave Hartmut at a private event in Oxford.
Speaker 30: Hi, everybody. I'm sorry to interrupt. It's gonna take a few moments of your time. Here tonight to present today's hidden awards is the Lifetime Time achievements award for services to corporate tax planning.
Speaker 31: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 20: David has
Speaker 30: been a great friend in the industry, a great friend to many of us over the years, and, you know, really, we just can't thank him enough What he's done
Speaker 31: And obviously, it was at Vodafone. You know, it saved us 1,000,000,000, off our tax bill. And our friends at Goldman Sachs as well, we've also
Speaker 30: Saved just 1,000,000 2025 1,000,000
Speaker 3: in a These people are trespassers and intruders.
Speaker 31: And I know you've had problems with actually,
Speaker 2: this has done
Speaker 3: a lot more and they will go soon. Destroyed. We will depart immediately before we set the dogs on you.
Speaker 13: Okay. Go.
Speaker 30: I'm sorry. Please You're
Speaker 1: After his retirement, Dave Hartnett moved to the private sector. One of his positions was at accountancy firm Deloitte where he advises foreign governments on corporate taxation. Dave Hartnett is a companion of the Order of the Bath, an honor bestowed on him by the British monarch.
Speaker 12: We have former, Lear ministers acting as advisers to Accountancy firms. Accountancy firms provide jobs and consultancies for potential ministers. To my mind, really, it's an indication of corrupt structures. People are buying and selling influences. When a mere former minister works for an accountancy firm, he's not providing any accounting knowledge.
Is opening political opportunities home and abroad. That is what they are doing.
Speaker 13: I hope by now you'll share my views that I don't trust most bankers, I don't trust most lawyers, I don't trust most accounting firms. I actually think they're engaged in a conspiracy against public interest.
Speaker 1: In Britain, secrecy and complexity in finance and government Help to obscure corruption in public office. Financial structures are often so complex that even after they are publicly revealed, They are not widely recognized for what they are. An example of this is PFI, the private initiative.
Speaker 32: PFI is private finance initiative. It is a way of funding public infrastructure, Things like hospitals, schools, roads and bridges, but financing them via the private sector rather than historical method, which is via central government. Over a period of 30 or 40 years, the amounts of kind of repayment costs will be sort of 3 or 4 times higher overall than if you borrowed it from central government in the 1st place. So it's basically a giant accounting scam. Once the PFI policy has been set up, you find that the big four accountancy firms were actually, Paid members of staff within the treasury department, who were then actually going around and selling and advising upon the implementation of PFI by public authorities.
Speaker 12: Effectively saying, come to us, and we will show you how to derive the most benefit from it. In other words, how to Perhaps exploit the legislation. Even the offices
Speaker 32: of the state tax authority are now owned offshore. HMRC, which is the the tax collector here in the UK, their offices are owned in Bermuda by a company called Make These Steps, it's quite incredible.
Speaker 1: The company that owns the PFI contract to run HMRC's head office, borrowed money from offshore investors at 15% interest. Because the interest was so high, the company was losing money. Therefore, it did not pay tax. In 2011, HMRC could not prove that any PFI company was paying any tax in the UK.
Speaker 32: I think we need to have a serious conversation about the the role of government in this whole debacle and how much our government is being penetrated by Big banks and accountancy firms and, ultimately, in whose interest it operates. The reason we were protesting outside the Africa PPP conference is that we wanted to make sure that Citizens back in Africa should hear about the fact that such policies have been a complete failure here in the UK. We know that these products are not being marketed to African countries in their own best interests. The only motivation is to spread the reach of financial services into new markets. It's all being promoted in the interests of the City of London.
What you're seeing is Basically, a second form of colonization. You've had, initially, occupation resource extraction. You know, And through that process, you know, countries like Britain, which have had a a large offshore empire, have developed significant networks. And now are those networks being used to promote and exploit financial services?
Speaker 1: The city of London was was the beating financial heart of the British Empire. As Britain's empire declined, the city transformed itself from a hub Operating the financial machinery of empire into a global financial centre. Former insignificant outposts of empire became the basis for a spider's web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and funnelled it to the city of London. Today, 25% of international finance is conducted on British territory. Almost half of the world's secrecy jurisdictions are under British protection.
Up to half of all offshore wealth may be hidden in Britain's offshore havens. Financial services is how Britain's elites make their money. And it is also where former government ministers, senior civil servants, and retired from Mi5 and Mi6 receive lucrative consulting positions after their time in public service. Together, they have transformed Britain and its dependencies into the world's largest tax haven, Harming development throughout the world, and turning Britain itself into a country that serves, above all, the interests of its elites.
Post Media
Details
| Token ID | reSee.it #42107 |
| ๐ Link | https://x.com/_/status/1739724825453580684 |
| Token URI | ipfs://bafybeicccqr4tvhekmxo5a44j3c6xse7jycyktp5cbsnni4kjn7o7kynjq |
| Saved Media | ipfs://bafybeidzfku3nvp42cb527hq7wt2ptd7lo45ehqm6eowfwhfrtrncs42za |
| Conversation ID | 1739724825453580684 |
| Posts In Thread | 2 |
| Thread Post IDs | |
| ๐ Post Created | |
| Author | @KuwlShow |
| Author Name | Rob Cunningham | KUWL.show |
| Author Profile | https://x.com/KuwlShow |
| Chain | Polygon |
| ๐ Post Saved | |
| First Archiver | @Zer0LM |
| Contract Address | 0xe16ebd042074b7c971d62e544146d141c725f618 |