Britain's Corbyn-panicked oligarchs are shifting money offshore

Since the Thatcher years, the UK has built itself into a powerhouse money-launderer, selling financial secrecy to the world's most corrupt and vicious looters; but with a Labour victory looking more likely with each passing day, the super-rich of Britain are starting to panic.

Managers of private trusts -- the preferred financial secrecy vehicle for tax-free intergenerational wealth-transfers (notoriously used by the Duke of Wellington to transfer £9 billion tax-free to his son) -- are moving those trusts offshore.

But that capital flight isn't easy. The British Overseas Territories in the English Channel, the Caribbean and the Spanish coast are a natural choice, because they enjoy the stability of the strong British state without collecting the taxes that are needed to keep the state powerful enough to protect the money hidden there.

But a Corbyn/Labour majority in Parliament could very well see those British Overseas Territories brought to heel and forced to disclose the beneficial owners of all the money they're hiding -- not just in service to British justice, but also to reveal the hidden assets looted by corrupt foreign oligarchs and dictators to the people they stole it from.

So that leaves British oligarchy with a conundrum: other tax havens are weak, corrupt and unstable -- the kinds of state you get when you starve the tax-coffers, in other words -- and hiding your money there is a bet on the local dictator not converting all your assets to a hyperinflationary currency, pocketing your money, and daring you to sue him in the courts he owns. Read the rest