Analysis

Details: Written by GAO Audit; Created: 07 September 2011

Audit of the Federal Reserve Reveals $16 Trillion in Secret Bailouts

The first ever GAO(Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill(HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve's nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander's webpage earlier this morning.

Details: Written by Daniel Hennessey; Created: 06 September 2011

$33 Billion Illicitly Left Libya between 2001-2009, Says Global Financial Integrity

Details: Written by Transparency International; Created: 06 September 2011

As Libya prepares for the future, what are financial centres doing to stop the flow of stolen assets from dictators? The following is adapted from a speech made by Transparency International’s vice-chair, Akere Muna, in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania.

Details: Written by Richard Murphy; Created: 15 August 2011

David McNair of Christian Aid has an article under the first part of the above title in the Guardian today .

David is right to draw attention to the toxic nature of a new deal between Germany and Switzerland – but the UK is also set to sign such a deal very soon.

I wrote about this in May, saying the following , and nothing has changed since:

The FT reported today that the UK is to shortly sign a new tax deal with Switzerland. As it said:

Details: Written by David McNair; Created: 15 August 2011

German tax dodgers with money hidden in Swiss banks can sleep easy tonight. For the German government this week initialled a beggar-thy-neighbour deal that undermines years of diplomatic work to penetrate Switzerland's globally corrosive banking secrecy. The agreement, which is due to be signed by both governments over the next few weeks, sees Germany accepting a paltry $2.8bn upfront from the Swiss banks said to hold some $276bn of Germans' undeclared wealth.

Details: Written by Ann Hollingshead; Created: 15 August 2011

There is a lot about the world that defies explanation. But if we do know one thing it’s that the world is a complicated place. That answers aren’t always obvious. That you have to look at short-run and long-run dynamics, with the full inter-play of all the forces, to truly begin to understand why things in our world happen as they do.

Analysis

16 Trillion $ in Secret Bailouts

Qaddafi’s Libyan Loot Likely Lost

$33 Billion Illicitly Left Libya between 2001-2009, Says Global Financial Integrity

Should Banks Profit From Dictators’ Money?

As Libya prepares for the future, what are financial centres doing to stop the flow of stolen assets from dictators? The following is adapted from a speech made by Transparency International’s vice-chair, Akere Muna, in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania.

Helping the tax evaders evade

Germany has set back the fight against tax evasion

Forces behind Famine

New paper from Stephan Schulmeister

Why can fraud not be discussed?

Tackle Illicit Financial Flows for the New Bottom Billion

America the Unequal