Tip for reading list: Havens of the super rich

Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back is British journalist Oliver Bullough’s story.

Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back is British journalist Oliver Bullough’s story of the mega rich and the overseas tax havens in which they stash their cash — British Virgin Islands, Guernsey, Panama, Liechtenstein, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, St Vincent and the Grenadines, etc.

It is a world created out of “Maltese passports, English libel, American privacy, Panamanian shell companies, Jersey trusts… all add(ed) together to create a virtual space… (with) laws (from) anywhere that are most suited to those wealthy enough to afford them at any moment in time”.

The book, says its review in The New York Times, “is strong on passion” and a brilliant uncovering of the scope of hidden money — however, “whether that represents an existential threat to democracy remains an unresolved, and crucial, question”.