humanitarian intervention you can believe in

Thanks to Ajay in comments downblog I see that my plan to deal with tax havens is now enjoying wider circulation:

The Obama administration could tell the Caymans—now fifth in the world in bank deposits—to repeal its bank secrecy laws or be invaded; since the island nation's total armed forces consists of about 300 police officers, it shouldn't be hard for technicians and auditors, accompanied by a few Marines, to fly in and seize all the records. Bermuda, which relies on the Royal Navy for its military, could be next, and so on. Long before we get to Switzerland and Luxembourg, their governments should have gotten the message.

Uh-uh. No warnings. Complete tactical surprise is where its at. I mean, lets say we get some of the lads coming back from Iraq to go by boat. The Channel Islands are conceivably on the way back, no?

Comments

[ajay]

We have received reports that the Barclay twins are close to having the capability to pursue weapons of mass destruction program-related activities...

This sounds like a job for a highly-trained regiment of accountants and M&A lawyers.

[Chris Williams]

The putative army of financial liberation even has its own police arm, who have answered (one would assume) 'yes' to the question:
"Does a lack of respect for the Law and decent behaviour upset and annoy you?"

[Nick L]

"Put your hands in the air and back away from the shredder!"

[Fellow Traveller]

Ever read Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net (1988)? It features similar world wide raids on black data havens (crooked international bankers, data thieves and narco-criminals) in the early 21st century (the 2020s I think).

[Fellow Traveller]

"They'd thought they had teeth, in all their corner-cutting crime conspiracies, but their bones were made of glass.

The criminal machine just didn't have it - the gemeineschaft. They were rip-off artists, flotsam, and there was nothing to hold them together, no basic trust. They'd been hiding under the protective crust of the Singapore Government, and now that it was gone the Bank was wrecked. It would take them years to stick it all back together, even if they were willing to try, and the momentum, the world tide, was against them. This place and its dreams were over - the future was somewhere else."

Islands in the Net
p 295 1988 Century Hutchinson

[Fellow Traveller]

Probably makes more sense to read this quote from Islands before the one above:

"The Yung Soo Chim Islamic Bank was a modest little place, 1990s vintage, a mirror-glass office carton, sixty stories high.

There was a line of people outside it a block long. Agent Thirty-six cruised by silently, languidly dodging the automatic taxis. 'Wait a minute,' Laura muttered into empty air. 'I know these people.'

She'd seen them all before. In the Grenada airport, just after the attack. The vibe was uncanny. The same people - only instead of Yanks and Europeans and South Americans, these were Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians. The same mix though - seed-looking techies, and hustlers with vacant money-eyes, and nasty-looking bullshit artists in wrinkled tropical suits. That same jittery, verminous look of people native to the woodwork and very unhappy outside of it...

Yeah. It was like the world had sloughed off a layer of crime in a bathtub, and this city block was its sink trap, full of suds and hair.

Flotsam, floating garbage, to be racked up and tidied away. Suddenly she imagined the quiet and itchy-looking line of people all lined up and shot. The image gave her an ugly rush of joy. She felt bad. Losing control here. Bad vibrations..."

[Barry Freed]

I've said it before (at Alex's blog) and I'll say it here but ajay really needs to start a blog.