Major Banks Help Clients Hide Trillions in Offshore Tax Havens
James Henry: US media and politicians mostly ignore massive
untaxed wealth that big banks help rich move to tax havens
About a year ago, a friend of ours, Sony Kapoor, who we've
interviewed many times on The Real News Network, told a story of
when he went to work at Lehman Brothers. He walked in the
personnel office, and they gave him his forms to fill out and
that, and then the person said to him, "Do you want to set up
your account in the Cayman Islands, or would you like us to help
you with it?" Well, obviously, Sony and others at Lehman were
not the only ones setting up accounts in places like the Cayman
Islands. A new study has estimated the amount of money stuck in
these bank accounts, away from taxation by governments, anywhere
from twenty-one to maybe thirty, thirty-two trillion dollars.
Now joining us is the author of that study, James Henry. He's an
economist, an attorney, an investigative journalist, who's
written extensively abou