From time to time I inveigh against the overblown financial services industry of this country, grown fat in some large part by sucking wealth out of the rest of us. And, inter alia, hoovering up an unhealthily large proportion of our brightest and best to spend their time moving money around rather than doing stuff which is more obviously useful. Like brewing better beer or building better houses. Or running the Department for Work and Pensions (a rebadged version of what used to be called the Department of Social Security). So today, prompted by an article in the Guardian on 5th October which I have finally gotten around to reading, I have ordered up a copy of a new book by Nicholas Shaxson (reference 1).
A cosmopolitan journalist, born in Malawi and presently resident in Berlin, on something of a crusade against the iniquities of financial services industries across the world. Something of an expert on the role of tax havens in all this; a role which does not extend, it seems, to making sure that all the inhabitants of tax havens get a fair share of their ill-gotten gains. Plenty of poor people, for example, in Jersey.
Proof positive of the allegation that we all tend to read stuff which looks to reinforce our pre-existing prejudices.
Reference 1: The Finance Curse: How global finance is making us all poorer – Nicholas Shaxson - 2018.
Reference 2: Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil - Nicholas Shaxson - 2007. An earlier tale about how being resource rich may not be such a good thing after all. Here Angola, but presumably the same sort of tale as might be told about Venezuela, another resource rich country which is in a bit of a mess.
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