Is this the best STEP can do?

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The following is typical of the pro-tax haven letters in the FT today:

Sir, Avinash Persaud is right that “the attack on offshore centres is a politically seductive distraction from the thorny task of making regulation better” onshore (“Look for onshore, not offshore scapegoats”, March 5). The critics of offshore financial centres who like to vilify them as centres for iniquity forget that centres such as Jersey have higher regulatory standards than London and New York.

‚Ķ‚Ķ‚Ķ‚Ķ

The attack on offshore threatens to undermine the free movement of capital at the heart of free trade and is another face of the spectre of protectionism.

David Harvey,

Chief Executive,

Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners,

London SW1, UK

Note that last paragraph in particular. Isn’t it amazing? The world’s banking system has collapsed due to the ‘free movement of capital’ in the form of the slicing and dicing of the sub-prime debt of the USA and elsewhere through tax havens in such opaque form that uncountable sums have now disappeared but here are the offshore lawyers arguing that to stop just that is protectionism.

For heaven’s sake, how much cost do you need to impose on the world before you think we might have a counter-claim? And we’re not even doing that. We’re not even asking for the money back — because you can’t pay it, we know. We’re only trying to stop you bringing the world to its knees again. Isn’t that fair?

This sort of drivel (for that is what it is) was widely associated with the politically unacceptable and unelectable Right in the US and UK during the years up to 2007. To see it in the FT from a body that claims to be a professional association of good standing is staggering.

But I guess it makes my job easier if this is the standard of response we’re going to face.


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