For the Bahrainis and Greeks trying to buy up Mayfair properties, the Russians and now Italians hoping to get their wads out wobbly banking system or the slimy ruling classes avoiding the little local difficulties in Homs or Saudi, welcome to a world where the rich can be discreet without fear of extra judicial killings, paying tax, or any unpleasantness.
There is a new trend of discrete luxe, which provides a way for the cognoscenti to appraise your net worth, without the proles – with their low rent designer gear - getting in on the act. Should the rich feel a little nervous their discretion might slip out of their Hermes bags they can always exchange their rubies and emeralds for fake copies to be worn, just in case the hoi polloi take exception to your rocks.
The conundrum of where to stash the cash is always vexing to the tax avoider - the recent cave in or fondue faint of the Swiss banks at a G20 meeting means they will no longer guard the secrets of their banks as firmly as they once did- the rich are once again searching for tax havens. Montenegro is suggested; here, Russian oligarchs rub shoulders with old European money in a country that has no currency of its own and will soon be transformed into the Monte Carlo of the future. Six hundred and fifty berths for super yachts are planned. If this does not appeal, then try Spain, which has a manana attitude to tax planning. The 'Beckham law' allows multimillionaires to become non residents for the first five years of their stay, saving themselves 25% tax. Never mind the forty per cent youth unemployment, the rich are safe here.
The cherry on the cake is the very generous UK tax regime using a law of 1799 which allows wealthy foreigners to have non-dom status and pay no tax. There are believed to be over 50 billionaires living in London – and aren’t we all the better for it? House prices may quadruple, but there is the trickle down effect – or so rumour has it. Sadly it has not trickled as far as the rioting inner cities, the lumpen proletariat are growing restive. Wherever you look tents are mushrooming, banners unfurling, the unwashed hairy ones are morphing into serial protesters and whisper there is support from pissed off pensioners and distressed middle Englanders – people who are a little hacked off by the discretion of the wealthy who, oh so delicately slip their cash out of their countries leaving the less judicious, the more outre pay their tax bills - more fool them!
The Greeks have a special take on the discretion of the wealthy. During the Nazi occupation of their country in WW2, the Germans discreetly removed all the Greek gold reserves, an amount believed to be worth today around $35 billion, and, you guessed it they won't give it back. Every time I see Mrs Merkle waggle her finger at the profligate and by implication dishonest Greeks, I wonder at the discrete thieving Germans who like the Greeks had massive debts at the end of both World Wars but they they were allowed to repay them slowly to allow their economy to grow. The current German government with all the discretional generosity of the rich do not offer the same facility to their European cousins but instead take on the mantle of post Franco's Spain -the 'gran olvido'- the great forgetting.
Of course the Germans, like the expat tax dodger do not wish the searchlights of the tax payers to shine in their dark corners, because if they pay back Greece for their theft then other countries might remember their money was also stolen under the jackboot. Russia may have some questions to answer too and perhaps all countries, which it is why it is so much more satisfactory for the discreetly wealthy to borrow money at 1.5% and lend it at 7% and let the mugs who pay tax settle the bill.
So, having donned your replica gems, found a place to keep your wealth, just stop looking over your shoulder! Offered to the rich, is the close protection of minders who will keep the disaffected masses well away from you. Worried how these goons will behave as you flit from tax haven to offshore, worry no more for they, 'conduct themselves according to the cultural religious environments in which they are required to work'
But let it not be said that the rich are thick skinned, they care what is said about them. Which is why 'reputation protection' is a must have. These magicians provide a service which can brush all nasties under the carpet and offer to undertake emergency injunctions and are able 'stop whole publications and broadcasts' should cruel and hurtful things be said about their clients.
If you find your friends are holding their noses a little as you approach then these wizards can energetically manufacture their client’s upfall - success in the bag – they offer reputational advancement, because, as we all know, 'your reputation is your most valuable and fragile asset'.
Alright, I hear you say, the rich are good for us. We all benefit from their wealth creation activities. In an excellent article in the Guardian, George Monbiot begs to differ, he asserts the rich became rich by a combination of luck, being born in the right social class and a psychopathic urge to dominate and control. Using statistics he shows that over the past 30 years a handful of people have got their hands on the loot, assisted by neoliberal policies imposed on rich nations by Thatcher and Reagan. He quotes these astonishing figures: from 1979 to 2009, US productivity rose by 80%, the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4%. In roughly the same period, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%.’ The same pattern is seen in the UK, the money earned by the poorest tenth fell by 12% between 1999 and 2009, while the money made by the richest 10th rose by 37%.
So I pity the rich, to live with such fear - the loathing is a given - shuffling their wealth about from tax haven to tax haven, being forced to wear fake gems, terrified their children will go to the 'wrong' school and being afraid that people will say nasty things about them, looking to upfall their reputations at every turn. And especially I pity the smug finger wagging of the wealthy, individuals and countries who blame the poor for being feckless and screw the rest of us oh so discretely.
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