@wolfgang59 said
Tell us how that works then.
Okay I've watched it and it expands on hints and murmurings spoken by others earlier.
In a nutshell as Britain saw the last vestiges of its Empire go down the gurgler, their never surrender plan B was to create tax havens in some of its last still remaining outposts of Empire. Exotic locations like the British Virgin Islands, were to become 'secrecy jurisdictions' a bit like what happens in Switzerland stays in Switzerland,...cuckoo!
So the best part was that if you were incorporated and had offices in the City of London, you could offshore large amounts of money in these Tax Havens, ' secrecy jurisdictions', call them what you will, and use that money to fund, finance, sponsor, anything you wish without the inconvenience of the vat man sticking his nose in your business.
As more and more financial institutions and blue chip companies herd about this, they made a bee line for the City of London to set up shop . Over time the City oversaw the financialisation of the British economy which in the 80's saw a boom in easy credit and the export of jobs from first world to developing world (China).
The issue is, because the smart money set designed these jurisdictions to be as opaque as possible, it's virtually impossible to know who has what funnelled away where.
The problem that the program points to is that all this quasi legal arrangements effectively rob the public purse and over time it gets harder for the Government to balance it's books and obligations and the services that tend to get cut first are usually health and education.
That's about, but you could watch it and make up your own mind...