This
is my second postette.
I
read in the article titled They sell sea
shells [not on the sea shore but offshore], The Economist of April 4, 2012, the following:
The
British Virgin Islands (BVI) alone registered 59,000 new firms in 2010. It had
457,000 active companies as of last September—more than 16 companies for every one
of its 28,000 people.
If only India developed such
entrepreneurship!
The
article puts a tremendous positive spin on this entrepreneurship of the people
of BVI – the companies so established, even if they are merely “paper firms”,
help during mergers, help park assets during complicated transactions, and most
ironically, help fend off lawsuits. Lawsuits by whom? The article is so helpful
to the islanders: “…countries with predatory governments or corrupt courts.”
The
negatives, though elided over, caught my attention. The paper companies “can also be [my emphasis; note how what
is actual has been transformed into a potential] misused-for tax evasion, money
laundering, sanctions busting or terrorism.” The truth, as per Robert Palmer of
Global Witness, a campaigning group, is, “’It’s [the shell company] a basic
launderer’s tool’.” Band Box, please take note.
Now,
what is British Virgin Islands? It is a British overseas territory, nominally
independent that falls under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. It is typically through tourism and financial services (of the laundering type, one
may note) that the putative country has become one of the wealthiest in that
region.
So,
on what moral basis can the United Kingdom position itself as the moral arbiter
for the world, wielding the big cane of corruption? The same must apply to all
the other so-called corruption-free countries and societies. After all, all of
them came in to being exclusively on economic rationale, expanding entrepreneurship, scale benefits.
All things like culture, religion, language are all merely add-ons.
Let
us bark up the right tree on corruption.
Raghuram Ekambaram
6 comments:
Scratch morality and savagery bleeds out!
Yeah, religion, culture, etc are add-ons meant to hide the savagery.
And that savagery is economic savagery Matheikal; what else would you call evicting people from the forest that had been their homestead for eons, all in the name of progress and economic growth through exploitation? No, I am not against mining ores, but temper your profit seeking in the interest of expanding your humanity. After all, people of the forest too are PEOPLE, first and foremost.
RE
there are many such places which
offer such facilities.. whatever be their moral or immoral logic..
DS Sir,
If you have the time, please read through the referred article and you will be in for much surprise. Just ask why the state of Delaware is the preferred state for incorporation, just the same as Panama for shipping flag! So, Delaware is as bad as the basket case that is Panama!
RE
UK never cared from where they got their money - in the past (opium) or the present (money dhobi)
But Amrit,you left out the time between opium and cocaine (what and how they got from India)!
What you say is true of other colonizers too, as much if not more than the UK.
Thanks.
RE
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