The FT has noted: Gordon Brown was on Tuesday battling to contain union demands to tighten the law on the use of foreign workers in
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The Chancellor announced a review of British Tax Havens in the Pre Budget Report. Nothing has been heard since. As Adam Lent says on the
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These are my links for February 2nd through February 3rd:

• Local bonds are happening – This is debt with a purpose

  Real saving. real investment. Real returns. Real pensions.

  That's what we need

• FT.com / UK / Business – Tories warn of ‘too big’ banks – In which case they'll have to intervene in the market, split them up and create new transaction banks, housing banks, commercial banks and investment banks

  Let's hope they do it

• FT.com / Europe – PM asks Iceland central bank chiefs to quit – It took a social democrat backed by the Left and Greens to bring about change

  Why doesn't that surprise me?

• 02-02-2009 – Levin, Dorgan Question Repatriation Lobbying Effort … – Carl Levin is a man of our times

  He understands exactly the double speak of the offshore tax evaders – and takes them head on

  As he does here, challenging a Rupert Murdoch propagated myth

• 'Tax haven Ireland' on Obama's hit list – And I say they're in a state of denial about it

  Which really won't help them

• Construction: Fears for 1,000 jobs » News » This Is Jersey – Jersey's economy has been built on financial services and building offices for that sector

  Now it is tanking

  The builders want state aid

  And there's no tax to pay it

  Not a pretty prospect

• For Rescue Plan, Risks Are Vast in Revaluing Tainted Assets – NYTimes.com – “To date, the banks have stuck their heads in the sand,” said Lynn E. Turner, a former chief accountant for the Securities and Exchange Commission, “and demanded that they be paid the price of good apples for bad apples.”
• :: Manx Radio :: Isle of Man News :: – Isle of Man companies support Mugabe

  What a surprise

• FT.com / World – Little magic left at leading law firms – The lawyers sowed the sees of their own destruction

  Let's not cry too much

• Millions could lose out in online tax error | Self-Assessment | This is Money – This is the Revenue doing their level best to shoot themselves in the foot

  This sort of basic error should not happen

• FT.com / Companies / Banks – Barclays’ credit rating downgraded – "Moody’s on Sunday night downgraded Barclays’ credit ratings, saying it expected the UK bank to record ”significant further losses” on credit-related writedowns."

  Or to put it another way: they don't believe the accounts

• Davos: Don't let crisis breed more corruption – Forbes.com – Tax havens were not mentioned at Davos apparently

  Funny that, in Switzerland

  Funny that. amongst the assembled company

  Do these people have any intention of reforming themselves? I do sometimes doubt it

Look at this: That’s the mountain that has to be moved before we get out of recession. Read more here.

From the Guardian blog by Vince Cable: In the case of the UK-based global banks, we have also painfully discovered in recent weeks that the
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I note that Tim Worstall is persisting in his claims that my methodology used in the TUC report, The Missing Billions, is flawed. I have
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I like this. Hat tip to Dennis Howlett:

The EU has already proposed a serious extension of the EU Savings Tax Directive. Now it is proposing a massive further development: automatic, spontaneous information
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The Guardian has begun its Tax Gap series. And those who spend their whole lives seeking to be negative are already pointing out that in
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