{"id":45693,"date":"2019-07-31T07:17:44","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T06:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=45693"},"modified":"2019-07-31T07:17:44","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T06:17:44","slug":"the-us-government-is-profiting-from-money-laundering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/07\/31\/the-us-government-is-profiting-from-money-laundering\/","title":{"rendered":"The US government is profiting from money laundering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The FT <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a8de3894-afa7-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2?segmentId=778a3b31-0eac-c57a-a529-d296f5da8125\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published this chart this week<\/a>, noting that for the first time the value of US $100 bills in circulation exceeds the value of $1 bills:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/07\/31\/the-us-government-is-profiting-from-money-laundering\/screenshot-2019-07-30-at-21-25-18\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-45694\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-45694\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Screenshot-2019-07-30-at-21.25.18-550x362.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"362\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Screenshot-2019-07-30-at-21.25.18-550x362.png 550w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Screenshot-2019-07-30-at-21.25.18-456x300.png 456w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Screenshot-2019-07-30-at-21.25.18-768x505.png 768w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Screenshot-2019-07-30-at-21.25.18-600x395.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What really interested me is the fact that maybe 80% of these $100 bills are thought to circulate outside the USA.<\/p>\n<p>And then there was this comment:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers has called for the $100 note to be scrapped to frustrate illicit activities, a move reminiscent of the European Central Bank\u2019s decision in 2016 to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/e13cec74-120e-11e6-839f-2922947098f0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/e13cec74-120e-11e6-839f-2922947098f0&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1564583822997000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGF84A0CddfEpXN9M_j9sU2CH9L_g\">stop producing \u00e2\u201a\u00ac500 notes<\/a>\u00a0with the same aim. But the cost of replacing the $100 note with more $50s and the cut in seigniorage, the profits a government makes from issuing currency, have hindered efforts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So the US government ould rather profit from money laundering than take the bills out of circulation.<\/p>\n<p>Which says rather a lot, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FT published this chart this week, noting that for the first time the value of US $100 bills in circulation exceeds the value of<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2019\/07\/31\/the-us-government-is-profiting-from-money-laundering\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,35,55,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economics","category-tax-evasion","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}