Hot Money and the Politics of Debt, Third edition

Investigates the world of offshore finance, capital flight, money laundering, and tax evasion. The author details the origins of "hot money", explains how corporations and governments have become hostage to it, and discusses the price the world is currently paying for this problem, e.g. Third World debt, international terrorism, etc. The Third Edition Of Hot Money And The Politics Of Debt Is An Updated Examination Of The Most Intractable Problems Currently Facing The World Economy: The Simultaneous Emergence Of Hot Money And Of A Massive, Growing, And Ultimately Unrepayable Debt Imposed On The World's Poor Countries.--book Jacket. Introduction / Michael Hudson -- 1. Capital Flight In The Jet Age -- 2. Eurodollars And Nonsense -- 3. Red Ink And Black Gold -- 4. Sheikhs In Sombreros? -- 5. Putting The Money Changers Back In The Temple -- 6. Of Dope, Debt, And Dictatorship -- 7. Playing Russian Roulette With The Polish Debt -- 8. Paradise Lost? -- 9. What Went Down With The Belgrano? -- 10. Born-again Banking -- 11. On Coca-collateral And The Andean Debt -- 12. Country Of Convenience -- 13. Some Like It Hot -- 14. Birds Of A Feather... -- 15. Swiss Contributions To Economic Development -- 16. Good Neighbor Switzerland -- 17. Economics For The Moral Majority -- 18. Buddy, Can You Spare A Billion? -- 19. What's Better In The Bahamas? -- 20. Ghost Companies And Haunted Banks -- 21. Capital Punishment -- 22. Taking Stock -- 23. Flight Of Fancy -- Postscript : The Permanent Bull Economy -- Afterword : On Whom The Toll Tells. R.t. Naylor. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. A ball of hot money rolls around the world. It seeks anonymity and political refuge. It dodges taxes and sidesteps currency controls. It rolls through offshore shell companies and secret bank accounts, phoney charities and fraudulent religious foundations. It is kept rolling by white-collar criminals, gun-runners, drug dealers, insurgent groups, scam artists, tax evaders, gold and gem smugglers, and, not least, secret service agents plotting coups and financing revolutions. R.T. Naylor explains the origins of this pool of hot and homeless money, its origins, its uses and abuses, how the world of high finance, corporate and governmental, became hostage to it, and the price the world is paying and will continue to pay until the hostages are released. This book was one of the first, and remains the most comprehensive, to dissect the world of offshore finance, capital flight, money laundering, and tax evasion. Once a subject of concern principally to tax authorities and finance ministries, since the September 11, 2001 hot and homeless money has now become a central preoccupation for police forces and intelligence services around the world.

In modern banking practice and technology, money flies anonymously from one account to another across the globe. Whose money is it in the first place? Whose money does it become? Naylor (economics, McGill U.) examines the fabled wealth of the shadows, its disappearance and reappearance in offshore finance, and the "pillars of business integrity" who created and control the system at the core of the global economy. He describes the Meyer Lansky school of economics, the system whereby a nation's capital turns into its debt, the financial influence of drug peddling and other illegal sources of capital, and the ramifications for developing nations who founder in the streams of capital while developed nations hold them down. In this edition, Naylor updates his data and adds new examples to reflect recent changes and events. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"The third edition of Hot Money and the Politics of Debt is an updated examination of the most intractable problems currently facing the world economy: the simultaneous emergence of hot money and of a massive, growing, and ultimately unrepayable debt imposed on the world's poor countries."--Résumé de l'éditeur