Does the SSB muzzle prevent you from talking about this part of the economy, as well? -g- Some interesting stats:
<<< Well, the United Nations tries to monitor the international drug trade, and their estimates are on the order of $400 to $500 billion---half a trillion dollars a year--- in trade alone, which makes it higher than oil, something like 10 percent of the world trade. Where this money comes goes to is mostly unknown, but general estimates are that maybe 60 percent of it passes through US banks. After that, a lot goes to offshore tax havens. It's so obscure that nobody monitors it, and nobody wants to. But the Commerce Department every year publishes figures on foreign direct investment, where US investment is going, and through the '90s the big excitement has been the " new emerging markets " like Latin America. And it turns out that a quarter of US foreign direct investment is going to Bermuda, another 15 percent to the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, another 10 percent to Panama, and so on. Now, their not building steel factories. The most benign interpretation is that it's just tax havens. And the less benign interpretation is that it's one way of passing illegal money into places where it will not be monitored. We really don't know, because it is not investigated. >>>
november.org
Tom |
