What do you think?
Rate this book
Economia canaglia. Il lato oscuro del nuovo ordine mondiale
Economia canaglia ci offre un viaggio sconvolgente nel nuovo ordine mondiale, governato da forze economiche oscure che, attraverso incredibili capitali e vaste influenze politiche, stanno cambiando la nostra vita. Le connessioni generate da questo fenomeno, nel mercato globale, sono paradossali: le carte di credito triplicano l'indebitamento dei consumatori; grazie all'entrata in vigore dell'Euro, il Patriot Act americano, che dovrebbe ridurre il riciclaggio del denaro sporco, in realtà lo facilita; il gioco d'azzardo, illegale in molti stati, trova una fantastica zona franca in internet; i farmaci falsi uccidono mezzo milione di persone all'anno nell'indifferenza generale. Perfino la democrazia, che siamo abituati a considerare come valore assoluto, si è trasformata in un moltiplicatore di schiavitù: dal mercato del sesso europeo ai lavoratori delle piantagioni africane, dall'industria della pirateria in Cina alla pesca di frodo nel Baltico, gli schiavi hanno un ruolo fondamentale nello sviluppo dell'economia mondiale. L'economia canaglia è un fenomeno ricorrente nella storia e scatena le sue forze occulte ogni volta che grandi sconvolgimenti indeboliscono i vincoli posti dalla politica. È successo con la Grande depressione del '29, con la Rivoluzione industriale, e oggi, con la fine del comunismo e l'ascesa della globalizzazione, il rischio è quello di spazzare via secoli di conquiste sociali e di trasformare il ceto medio occidentale nel proletariato mondiale. Lo stato-mercato non ha né gli strumenti né la volontà per arginare questo processo, solo il consumatore possiede la forza necessaria. Ma per usarla deve essere consapevole del pericolo che corre. Come nel celebre film Matrix, viviamo oggi in un mondo virtuale creato dai media: intrappolati in una fitta ragnatela di illusioni economiche e politiche, i cittadini alimentano il meccanismo subdolo che li danneggia. Attraverso storie vere, prove, analisi e testimonianze dirette, Loretta Napoleoni si infiltra nelle maglie di questo sistema perverso e segue la pista del denaro fino agli angoli più remoti del pianeta. Dai «ruggenti anni novanta» all'attacco alle Torri Gemelle, dalla costruzione dell'impero economico cinese all'ascesa della finanza islamica fino al disastro dei mutui americani, offre al lettore una chiave originale per capire i mutamenti sotterranei del mondo contemporaneo.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
40 people are currently reading
644 people want to read
About the author
Loretta Napoleoni
24 books85 followersLoretta Napoleoni is the bestselling author of Maonomics, Rogue Economics, Terror Incorporated and Insurgent Iraq. She is an expert on terrorist financing and money laundering, and advises several governments and international organizations on counter-terrorism and money laundering. As Chairman of the countering terrorism financing group for the Club de Madrid, Napoleoni brought heads of state from around the world together to create a new strategy for combating the financing of terror networks.
Napoleoni is a regular media commentator for CNN, Sky and the BBC. She is among the few economists who predicted the credit crunch and the recession, and advises several banks on strategies to counter the current ongoing crisis. She lectures regularly around the world on economics, terrorism and money laundering.
Loretta is also a columnist and writes about terrorism, money laundering and the economy for several European financial papers including El Pais, The Guardian and Le Monde. In the 1990s she was among the first journalists to interview the Red Brigades, the Italian Marxist armed group. She subsequently spent three years interviewing members of other terrorist organizations. In 2003 she interviewed followers of al Zarqawi in both Europe and in the Middle East.
Born and raised in Rome, in the mid 1970s she became an active member of the feminist movement and a political activist. She was a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC and a Rotary Scholar at the London School of Economics. She has a PhD in economics and a Masters of Philosophy in international relations and one in terrorism.
She began her career as an economist, working for several banks and international organizations in Europe and the US. In the early 1980s she spent 2 years in Budapest at the National Bank of Hungary working on a project for the convertibility of the florin that ten years later became the blueprint for the convertibility of the rouble. In he 1980s she worked for a UK registered Russian Bank, Moscow Narodny Bank, which acted as the foreign branch of the Bank of Foreign Trade. This position afforded her a unique insight into the Soviet economy. In 1992 she produced the final documentation for the structure of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD. She teaches a course at Judge Business Schools, Cambridge.
Napoleoni ’s books include Modern Jihad (Pluto Press, London, 2003); Terror Inc. (Penguin, London, 2004); Insurgent Iraq (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2005); Terror Incorporated (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2005); Rogue Economics (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2008); Terror and the Economy (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2010) and Maonomics: Why Chinese Communists Are Better Capitalists Than We Are (Seven Stories Press 2011) . Her latest book is the best seller Islamist Phoenix (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2014). “The IS doesn’t want to destroy. They want to build the 21st century version of the Calliphate and that is what makes them so dangerous”. Her books are translated into 18 languages including Chinese and Arabic. She lives in London and in the US with her husband and their four children.
Napoleoni is currently working at a book linking the post 9/11 Western foreign policy, the kidnapping and refugee crisis. Based upon original interviews with former hostages, negotiators, member of the crisis unit, kidnap owes and refugees, the book will unveil how post 9/11 Western foreign policy is responsible for the birth of a new breed of criminal and terrorist engaged in kidnapping of Westerners and trafficking migrants. Napoleoni defines these people Merchant of Men.
Napoleoni is a regular media commentator for CNN, Sky and the BBC. She is among the few economists who predicted the credit crunch and the recession, and advises several banks on strategies to counter the current ongoing crisis. She lectures regularly around the world on economics, terrorism and money laundering.
Loretta is also a columnist and writes about terrorism, money laundering and the economy for several European financial papers including El Pais, The Guardian and Le Monde. In the 1990s she was among the first journalists to interview the Red Brigades, the Italian Marxist armed group. She subsequently spent three years interviewing members of other terrorist organizations. In 2003 she interviewed followers of al Zarqawi in both Europe and in the Middle East.
Born and raised in Rome, in the mid 1970s she became an active member of the feminist movement and a political activist. She was a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC and a Rotary Scholar at the London School of Economics. She has a PhD in economics and a Masters of Philosophy in international relations and one in terrorism.
She began her career as an economist, working for several banks and international organizations in Europe and the US. In the early 1980s she spent 2 years in Budapest at the National Bank of Hungary working on a project for the convertibility of the florin that ten years later became the blueprint for the convertibility of the rouble. In he 1980s she worked for a UK registered Russian Bank, Moscow Narodny Bank, which acted as the foreign branch of the Bank of Foreign Trade. This position afforded her a unique insight into the Soviet economy. In 1992 she produced the final documentation for the structure of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD. She teaches a course at Judge Business Schools, Cambridge.
Napoleoni ’s books include Modern Jihad (Pluto Press, London, 2003); Terror Inc. (Penguin, London, 2004); Insurgent Iraq (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2005); Terror Incorporated (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2005); Rogue Economics (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2008); Terror and the Economy (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2010) and Maonomics: Why Chinese Communists Are Better Capitalists Than We Are (Seven Stories Press 2011) . Her latest book is the best seller Islamist Phoenix (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2014). “The IS doesn’t want to destroy. They want to build the 21st century version of the Calliphate and that is what makes them so dangerous”. Her books are translated into 18 languages including Chinese and Arabic. She lives in London and in the US with her husband and their four children.
Napoleoni is currently working at a book linking the post 9/11 Western foreign policy, the kidnapping and refugee crisis. Based upon original interviews with former hostages, negotiators, member of the crisis unit, kidnap owes and refugees, the book will unveil how post 9/11 Western foreign policy is responsible for the birth of a new breed of criminal and terrorist engaged in kidnapping of Westerners and trafficking migrants. Napoleoni defines these people Merchant of Men.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
January 30, 2011
This book touched on a wide range of subjects, so it'd be most useful as:
-An introduction to the rogue economy and how it's interweaved with legal goods and services.
-A refresher for readers who've already read about these issues.
Similar books that tackle individual issues in greater detail:
-McMafia by Mischa Glenny, on organised crime
-Knockoff by Tim Philips, on counterfeit goods
-The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier, on global poverty
-The World Food Problem by Howard Leathers, on aid efficacy
-Garbageland by Elizabeth Royte
-Safe by Martha Bear, on security
-Deluxe by Dana Thomas, on luxury goods
------------------------------------------------
Notes I took from Rogue Econs:
-Today slavery is commonly believed to be the product of foreign powers’ exploitation of poor countries; in fact, the opposite turns out to be true: most victims are enslaved and traded by their own compatriots.
-Rogue products penetrate and corrupt traditional economies. When we buy a wedding ring produced with gold mined by Congolese children working for ruthless warlords, smuggled to Uganda, and sold with forged documents of origin by crooked trading companies, we establish a commercial link with the sinister underworld of Africa’s illegal and criminal economy.
-The infamous Arizona Market, in Northwestern Serbia, is well known among international pimps. It resembles a nineteenth-century American gold-rush town, hence the name. Tucked behind a stretch of road nicknamed Arizona Highway, which runs near the Croatian border, the market has been nicknamed the Walmart of Serbia because it was constructed with the support of American troops at the end of the Balkan civil war.
-Israel represents one of the largest importers of Slavic prostitutes and various sources estimate that one million Israelis visit a prostitute every month…Demand is particularly high among Haredim, the most conservative Orthodox Jews, many of whom are regular clients of brothels.
-The glamorizing of prostitution facilitates the luring of Slavic women into the sex industry. Hollywood blockbusters, such as Risky Business and Pretty Woman, project an entirely fictional image of prostitution.
-In 2006, the estimated annual value of global prostitution equalled $52 billion.
-In countries such as the Netherlands, where prostitution has been legalized for decades, the degree of exploitation is lower: there are fewer pimps, prostitutes pay taxes, receive medical and social security benefits, and have police protection.
-A river of dollars flows from America to China, creating a dollar-denominated surplus in the Chinese trade balance. To offset the trade surplus, China runs a capital account deficit with America, i.e. it buys US treasury bonds and increases dollar-denominated reserves…Ironically, China, a communist country, has been financing both the trade and the budget deficit of the US to avoid revaluing its currency, and action that would make its products less competitive in the US. America has welcomed such a strategy to keep consumers and voters happy and the economy afloat.
-When housing prices rise at a phenomenal pace and demand is strong, banks can turn around repossessed properties quickly and even make a profit. Often, bank managers alert developers and buyers, who are their clients, of a forthcoming foreclosure so that these can approach the owner and purchase the property before it is auctioned off by the bank.
-Fictional environments expand in times of harshness because economic degradation erodes civil society and alters people’s perception of their own surroundings.
-It is the increase in salaries, not the return on investment, that is enriching globalization’s superrich. What makes their wealth soar are not sudden jumps of the share prices held in their portfolios, but rising fees received for their work.
-Globalisation expands the market into which a talented individual can apply his or her skills, while technology permits companies to grow ever larger.
-After 1989, the modern ‘leisure class’ moved to London to take advantage of an old Victorian fiscal law. The law was designed to protect the profits of British plantation owners across the empire, from the West Indies to Africa and India. They could maintain British residency and move their domicile, i.e. their fiscal residency, abroad where they had their business. Therefore they were taxed only on the income they brought back to England while the rest was tax free. The identical principle is today applied to new billionaires residing in London. By moving to the UK, people can avoid taxation in their own country on billions of dollars. Only Americans cannot benefit from this law, because the US taxes its citizens on global income.
-The move of hedge funds into the derivatives market is intimately linked with the globalisation of the world economy. In 2005 and 2006, for example, the economic rise of China created an unprecedented commodities boom. Once regarded by the US as a docile manufacturing colony, China is now the world’s largest consumer of steel, copper, and tin, and the second-largest importer of petroleum, helping to push prices to record levels. Against this background, hedge funds have speculated heavily in the commodity markets, pushing prices even higher.
-Until 9/11, the bulk of the $1.5 trillion generated by the illegal, criminal, and terror economies was laundered in the US and in US dollars. Because 80% of this economy is washed clean in cash, money had to physically enter the US. The main entry came through offshore facilities and shell banks located in the West Indies. In Oct 2001, the US Congress approved the Patriot Act, legislation that greatly restricted civil liberties in America. Its financial section drastically reduced money laundering inside the US and in dollars. For example, US banks and register banks can no longer do business with offshore shell banks. In addition, the Patriot Act gave American monetary authorities the right to monitor dollar transactions throughout the world. Today, it is a criminal offence for a US bank or a US-registered foreign bank not to alert the authorities of suspicious transactions in dollars anywhere in the world.
-Since it applied exclusively to the US, it did not curb terrorist financing, criminal activity, ad money laundering abroad. These dirty businesses simply shifted to Europe, where the newly unified European currency offered organisations already involved in money laundering unexpected opportunities for groth.
-Data from the Guardia di Finanza show that from 2001 to 2004, money-laundering activity in Italy increased by 70%.
-The lack of efficiency of the European money-laundering system is particularly apparent in the real-estate sector, because local land laws are not updated to anti-money laundering international standards. In addition, local land registers cannot communicate with each other across borders; therefore it is impossible to verify if somebody has bought properties in different jurisdictions.
-The fall of the Berlin wall did not take the Bulgarian nomenklatura, the core members of the Communist Party, by surprise. In 1982, members of the Bulgarian elite began developing joint ventures with Bulgarian state enterprises and fictitious foreign firms located offshore. To fund these partnerships, they borrowed money from Bulgarian state banks, that was then moved offshore. Between 1987 and 1988, these fictitious joint ventures swallowed about $10 billion of Bulgarian state finances.
-In 2004, when China’s voracious demand for steel exploded, manhole covers started to disappear all over the world. The first displacements were felt in Taiwan, the next were in other neighbourhoods, such as in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. More than 150 covers disappeared during on month in Chicago. Scotland’s ‘great drain robbery’ saw more than a hundred vanish in a few days.
-In the spring of 2006, the French antitrust authority cited several cosmetics companies, including L’Oreal, Chanel, Christian Dior. YSL, Estee Lauder, and Clinique, for colluding in maintaining high prices to the detriment of consumers. The French authorities fined these companies a total of $64 million for breaking EU antitrust laws. The price-fixing tactic they used, called police pricing, involves the cartel’s imposing an identical high retail price in every shop that stocked its perfume. Discounts are fixed by the cartel, and if shops grant higher reductions, they cease to have access to products.
-Italian authorities estimate that one in every two counterfeit products sold globally comes from China.
-Paris is one of the European hubs of the Chinese bogus goods industry and hosts the largest number of Chinese illegal immigrants in the EU.
-Often, criminal gangs, in partnership with Chinese manufacturers based in Europe. Lure the migrants to Europe. Chinese-based organisations supervise the transcontinental shipment of people, while locally based Chinese groups manage the transit points of the human merchandise to the countries of destination. Today, Moscow and Malta serve as the most popular transhipment points.
-Sometimes, the entry to a European country is legal; European governments grant work permits to Chinese workers on the basis of employers’ legitimate requests. After a few weeks, however, these immigrants can be fired and forced to work, often for the same employer, in the black market. In other cases, they reach Europe with regular passports and tourist visas, which are confiscated by the traffickers at the border. Passports and visas are then sent back to China, so that it appears that the ‘tourists’ have returned home. Without regular documents, immigrants must work in the black market to survive.
-In Europe the majority of illegal immigrants end up working in the $80 billion garment industry.
-The Italian authorities have estimated that at least 34% of the vast wealth generated by Chinese enterprises in Italy is tax free and returns to China in cash by way of couriers.
-Often, biopiracy goes unnoticed because it takes place through the complex system of patents. In 2004, the Dutch company Soil and Crop improvements patented teff, a cereal from Ethiopia, and all the derivatives of its flower. Teff is the main staple grain of 80 million Ethiopians. Cosmetics multinationals have skilfully registered many African enzymes, microorganisms, and fungi as their own new beauty products.
-Patent holders across the world, such as the owner of the gene for Hepatitis C, continue to receive millions from research labs around the world.
-According to the WHO, one in every ten pills is counterfeited and sold as the original. Fake medications generate $32 billion in profits and kill about half a million people every year. Most of the victims come from developing countries, where counterfeit medicines are regularly consumed.
-According to the International Medical Products Anti-counterfeiting Taskforce, the proportion of fake medicine in the industrialised world is rising, but it only amounts to about 1%, compared with 70% in countries like Nigeria.
-A tight cartel runs the international diamond industry to prevent diamonds from countries ruled by warlords, such as Sierra Leone, from entering the diamond market. The gold industry is totally unregulated and relies on trading companies scattered around the world.
-DRC gold reserves are among the largest in the world, with most of the country’s mines located in eastern Congo. Miners in East Congo sell their gold to negociants, small traders who constantly mingle in the mines. The negociants bring the gold to Ituri, a major gold market controlled by Congolese war lords. From Ituri, a fleet of smugglers carry the gold to Uganda.
-The cocoa we drink may come from the Ivory Coast, which supplies half the world market. Children and adolescents from even poorer neighbouring countries, such as Mali, trek all the way to cocoa plantations to earn a subsistence salary. Millions of people depend for their sustenance on this parasitic rogue economy. The alternative could impoverish them further, if it does not put them at risk of death. To eradicate the problem, one must also attack the root causes, a task that only local governments can accomplish.
-An estimated 27 million people in the world are enslaved. They produce profits of around $31 billion a year.
-Bananas are the single most profitable item sold by British supermarkets and the profits are split so: 45% to the supermarket, 18% to importers, 15.5% to the plantation company, and 2.5% to the workers.
-Tesco and ASDA are owned by Walmart.
Action Aid suggests that the impact of the banana price war fought in the UK since 2002 has halved hourly wages of plantation workers in Costa Rica, which supplies one out of every four bananas consumed in the UK and Ireland. Workers now earn 33p an hour and are under such pressure to produce that they cannot afford to take time off when planes spray pesticides on the crops.
-From 2003 to 2005, Philip Morris’ total sales went from 40 to 70 billion cigarettes, thanks to the Eastern European and Asian market.
-The Asian population is so much greater than the Western one that a 30% decline in cigarette consumption in the West can be offset by as little as a 2% increase in the Asian market. Japanese Tobacco International owns the rights to sell several brands of Western cigarettes outside the West, and is one of the fastest growing companies in the world.
-In 2005, the Altria Group, a holding company based in NY, became the tenth most profitable corporation in America. It used to be called Philip Morris, a name that is still attached to two of its holdings, Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International. The company also own Kraft Foods.
-Access to the secondary illegal market to the gold currency used in the gaming industry is easy. Legitimate auction sites, such as eBay, host 30 million annually in the trade for goods that exist only in synthetic worlds.
-China is the single biggest market for online gaming. Estimates from the Chinese government set the number of video-game users at 24 million. About one in four Chinese Internet users is a player. The volume of the illegal business has grown so vast and the laundering techniques are so advanced that wholesalers find it impossible to verify the origin of the coins.
-A code number is read by credit cards every time a transaction takes place. In restaurants it’s 321, at petrol stations it’s 496. Online casinos use 777. E-currencies were created to avoid this traceability. The most popular e-currencies are Paypal, Neteller and E-Gold. Unlike Paypal, E-Gold allows account holders to maintain their anonymity. E-Gold is a digital gold currency issued by e-gold Ltd, a company incorporated in Nevis, Lesser Antilles, an offshore facility. It allows people to send specified weights of gold to other e-gold accounts. Only the ownership changes while the gold in the treasury grade vault stays put.
-Online gambling is illegal in many American states, yet people can do it because the servers are offshore. Central America and the Caribbean Islands, places such as Costa Rica, Panama, St. Kitts & Nevis, are popular places for online casinos. Taxes are low, as little as $50,000 a year, plus a small percentage of the annual revenues.
-According to an analyst for Internet Pornography Statistics, yearly internet porn revenue in 2005 was $57 billion.
-According to a study commissioned by the MPA, movie piracy cost Hollywood studios $8 billion in 2006: $3.1 billion were due to bootlegging, $1.82 to illegal copying, and $2.99 to Internet piracy. The leading countries for movie piracy are China, Russia, Britain, France, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Poland, and Mexico. The movie industry loses a potential 93% of its market in China, 62% in Thailand, 51% in Taiwan, and 29% in India.
-Linden dollars have an official exchange rate of 250 to the US dollar. At the end of 2006, the GDP of Second Life reached around $60 million, with an annual growth rate of 15%. Members use credit cards and electronic currencies to purchase Linden dollars. Linden Lab’s currency trader, LindeX, charges a fee for every transaction, while independet traders make money on the spread between buy and sell. Speculation in Linden dollars is very popular among traders.
-One third of all fish consumed in the UK is poached from the Baltic and North Seas. Gangs of Russian Mafiosi supply half the cod purchased as lawful in traditional British fish markets, such as Hull and Grimsby. Russian-owned trawlers operating from the northern port of Muransk, ignoring strict quotas on fishing of cod, red fish and halibut. From this port, an estimated 100,000 tons of cod is poached from the North Sea, above annual 48000-ton quota established by the UK and Norway. The fleets avoid tracking by renting or leasing vessels for a very short time and reflagging them. Flag hopping confuses surveillance authorities. Even when they are caught, coast guards have trouble identifying the owners of vessels because they hide behind shell companies and offshore ventures.
-The Pantagonian tooth fish and the bluefin tuna can sell for up to $10,000 and $15,000 per fish, respectively.
-The international hub for rogue fishing is in Europe, specifically
-Multinationals and governments often employ pirates to carry away dangerous waste. As much as 47% of European rubbish is toxic. According to the UN Environmental Programme, the annual production of e-waste ranges from 20 to 50 million tons. Recyclable refuse heads for India and China, while the non-recyclable refuse ends up in Africa.
-Water pollutants include human hormones, such as estrogens released by women taking birth-control pills.
-Rivers in the US and the UK contain high proportions of phthalates and nonylphenols, chemical that feminise fish. Male fish exposed to such effluent produce a protein called vitellogenin, usually present only in females.
-One in three fish consumed worldwide is farmed. A farm generally has around 10 nets, each containing 15,000 and 80,000 fish each. Antibiotics, antifoulants, and sea-lice treatments are among the pollutants that escape into the sea.
-Most farmed species, such as salmon and tuna, are carnivorous and consume many smaller fish. Production of a pound of salmon requires 5 pounds of oily fishes, such as sand eel, sardines, and herring.
-Maras, or pandillas, originated from Southern California in the 1950s. they existed primarily to protect Hispanic immigrants from members of other ethnic gangs.
-In the globalised world of football, hooligans use the game as a vehicle towards tribalism, and violence and victory dictate the way forward.
-Islamic finance centres on the religious tenets of Islam and allows Muslims to stay compliant with sharia law. Riba, the charging of interest by moneylenders, is prohibited. Gharar, or speculation in any form, is condemned. Money is not supposed to be used a commodity in itself to create more money. Sukuks, or Islamic bonds, are linked to real investments.
-An introduction to the rogue economy and how it's interweaved with legal goods and services.
-A refresher for readers who've already read about these issues.
Similar books that tackle individual issues in greater detail:
-McMafia by Mischa Glenny, on organised crime
-Knockoff by Tim Philips, on counterfeit goods
-The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier, on global poverty
-The World Food Problem by Howard Leathers, on aid efficacy
-Garbageland by Elizabeth Royte
-Safe by Martha Bear, on security
-Deluxe by Dana Thomas, on luxury goods
------------------------------------------------
Notes I took from Rogue Econs:
-Today slavery is commonly believed to be the product of foreign powers’ exploitation of poor countries; in fact, the opposite turns out to be true: most victims are enslaved and traded by their own compatriots.
-Rogue products penetrate and corrupt traditional economies. When we buy a wedding ring produced with gold mined by Congolese children working for ruthless warlords, smuggled to Uganda, and sold with forged documents of origin by crooked trading companies, we establish a commercial link with the sinister underworld of Africa’s illegal and criminal economy.
-The infamous Arizona Market, in Northwestern Serbia, is well known among international pimps. It resembles a nineteenth-century American gold-rush town, hence the name. Tucked behind a stretch of road nicknamed Arizona Highway, which runs near the Croatian border, the market has been nicknamed the Walmart of Serbia because it was constructed with the support of American troops at the end of the Balkan civil war.
-Israel represents one of the largest importers of Slavic prostitutes and various sources estimate that one million Israelis visit a prostitute every month…Demand is particularly high among Haredim, the most conservative Orthodox Jews, many of whom are regular clients of brothels.
-The glamorizing of prostitution facilitates the luring of Slavic women into the sex industry. Hollywood blockbusters, such as Risky Business and Pretty Woman, project an entirely fictional image of prostitution.
-In 2006, the estimated annual value of global prostitution equalled $52 billion.
-In countries such as the Netherlands, where prostitution has been legalized for decades, the degree of exploitation is lower: there are fewer pimps, prostitutes pay taxes, receive medical and social security benefits, and have police protection.
-A river of dollars flows from America to China, creating a dollar-denominated surplus in the Chinese trade balance. To offset the trade surplus, China runs a capital account deficit with America, i.e. it buys US treasury bonds and increases dollar-denominated reserves…Ironically, China, a communist country, has been financing both the trade and the budget deficit of the US to avoid revaluing its currency, and action that would make its products less competitive in the US. America has welcomed such a strategy to keep consumers and voters happy and the economy afloat.
-When housing prices rise at a phenomenal pace and demand is strong, banks can turn around repossessed properties quickly and even make a profit. Often, bank managers alert developers and buyers, who are their clients, of a forthcoming foreclosure so that these can approach the owner and purchase the property before it is auctioned off by the bank.
-Fictional environments expand in times of harshness because economic degradation erodes civil society and alters people’s perception of their own surroundings.
-It is the increase in salaries, not the return on investment, that is enriching globalization’s superrich. What makes their wealth soar are not sudden jumps of the share prices held in their portfolios, but rising fees received for their work.
-Globalisation expands the market into which a talented individual can apply his or her skills, while technology permits companies to grow ever larger.
-After 1989, the modern ‘leisure class’ moved to London to take advantage of an old Victorian fiscal law. The law was designed to protect the profits of British plantation owners across the empire, from the West Indies to Africa and India. They could maintain British residency and move their domicile, i.e. their fiscal residency, abroad where they had their business. Therefore they were taxed only on the income they brought back to England while the rest was tax free. The identical principle is today applied to new billionaires residing in London. By moving to the UK, people can avoid taxation in their own country on billions of dollars. Only Americans cannot benefit from this law, because the US taxes its citizens on global income.
-The move of hedge funds into the derivatives market is intimately linked with the globalisation of the world economy. In 2005 and 2006, for example, the economic rise of China created an unprecedented commodities boom. Once regarded by the US as a docile manufacturing colony, China is now the world’s largest consumer of steel, copper, and tin, and the second-largest importer of petroleum, helping to push prices to record levels. Against this background, hedge funds have speculated heavily in the commodity markets, pushing prices even higher.
-Until 9/11, the bulk of the $1.5 trillion generated by the illegal, criminal, and terror economies was laundered in the US and in US dollars. Because 80% of this economy is washed clean in cash, money had to physically enter the US. The main entry came through offshore facilities and shell banks located in the West Indies. In Oct 2001, the US Congress approved the Patriot Act, legislation that greatly restricted civil liberties in America. Its financial section drastically reduced money laundering inside the US and in dollars. For example, US banks and register banks can no longer do business with offshore shell banks. In addition, the Patriot Act gave American monetary authorities the right to monitor dollar transactions throughout the world. Today, it is a criminal offence for a US bank or a US-registered foreign bank not to alert the authorities of suspicious transactions in dollars anywhere in the world.
-Since it applied exclusively to the US, it did not curb terrorist financing, criminal activity, ad money laundering abroad. These dirty businesses simply shifted to Europe, where the newly unified European currency offered organisations already involved in money laundering unexpected opportunities for groth.
-Data from the Guardia di Finanza show that from 2001 to 2004, money-laundering activity in Italy increased by 70%.
-The lack of efficiency of the European money-laundering system is particularly apparent in the real-estate sector, because local land laws are not updated to anti-money laundering international standards. In addition, local land registers cannot communicate with each other across borders; therefore it is impossible to verify if somebody has bought properties in different jurisdictions.
-The fall of the Berlin wall did not take the Bulgarian nomenklatura, the core members of the Communist Party, by surprise. In 1982, members of the Bulgarian elite began developing joint ventures with Bulgarian state enterprises and fictitious foreign firms located offshore. To fund these partnerships, they borrowed money from Bulgarian state banks, that was then moved offshore. Between 1987 and 1988, these fictitious joint ventures swallowed about $10 billion of Bulgarian state finances.
-In 2004, when China’s voracious demand for steel exploded, manhole covers started to disappear all over the world. The first displacements were felt in Taiwan, the next were in other neighbourhoods, such as in Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. More than 150 covers disappeared during on month in Chicago. Scotland’s ‘great drain robbery’ saw more than a hundred vanish in a few days.
-In the spring of 2006, the French antitrust authority cited several cosmetics companies, including L’Oreal, Chanel, Christian Dior. YSL, Estee Lauder, and Clinique, for colluding in maintaining high prices to the detriment of consumers. The French authorities fined these companies a total of $64 million for breaking EU antitrust laws. The price-fixing tactic they used, called police pricing, involves the cartel’s imposing an identical high retail price in every shop that stocked its perfume. Discounts are fixed by the cartel, and if shops grant higher reductions, they cease to have access to products.
-Italian authorities estimate that one in every two counterfeit products sold globally comes from China.
-Paris is one of the European hubs of the Chinese bogus goods industry and hosts the largest number of Chinese illegal immigrants in the EU.
-Often, criminal gangs, in partnership with Chinese manufacturers based in Europe. Lure the migrants to Europe. Chinese-based organisations supervise the transcontinental shipment of people, while locally based Chinese groups manage the transit points of the human merchandise to the countries of destination. Today, Moscow and Malta serve as the most popular transhipment points.
-Sometimes, the entry to a European country is legal; European governments grant work permits to Chinese workers on the basis of employers’ legitimate requests. After a few weeks, however, these immigrants can be fired and forced to work, often for the same employer, in the black market. In other cases, they reach Europe with regular passports and tourist visas, which are confiscated by the traffickers at the border. Passports and visas are then sent back to China, so that it appears that the ‘tourists’ have returned home. Without regular documents, immigrants must work in the black market to survive.
-In Europe the majority of illegal immigrants end up working in the $80 billion garment industry.
-The Italian authorities have estimated that at least 34% of the vast wealth generated by Chinese enterprises in Italy is tax free and returns to China in cash by way of couriers.
-Often, biopiracy goes unnoticed because it takes place through the complex system of patents. In 2004, the Dutch company Soil and Crop improvements patented teff, a cereal from Ethiopia, and all the derivatives of its flower. Teff is the main staple grain of 80 million Ethiopians. Cosmetics multinationals have skilfully registered many African enzymes, microorganisms, and fungi as their own new beauty products.
-Patent holders across the world, such as the owner of the gene for Hepatitis C, continue to receive millions from research labs around the world.
-According to the WHO, one in every ten pills is counterfeited and sold as the original. Fake medications generate $32 billion in profits and kill about half a million people every year. Most of the victims come from developing countries, where counterfeit medicines are regularly consumed.
-According to the International Medical Products Anti-counterfeiting Taskforce, the proportion of fake medicine in the industrialised world is rising, but it only amounts to about 1%, compared with 70% in countries like Nigeria.
-A tight cartel runs the international diamond industry to prevent diamonds from countries ruled by warlords, such as Sierra Leone, from entering the diamond market. The gold industry is totally unregulated and relies on trading companies scattered around the world.
-DRC gold reserves are among the largest in the world, with most of the country’s mines located in eastern Congo. Miners in East Congo sell their gold to negociants, small traders who constantly mingle in the mines. The negociants bring the gold to Ituri, a major gold market controlled by Congolese war lords. From Ituri, a fleet of smugglers carry the gold to Uganda.
-The cocoa we drink may come from the Ivory Coast, which supplies half the world market. Children and adolescents from even poorer neighbouring countries, such as Mali, trek all the way to cocoa plantations to earn a subsistence salary. Millions of people depend for their sustenance on this parasitic rogue economy. The alternative could impoverish them further, if it does not put them at risk of death. To eradicate the problem, one must also attack the root causes, a task that only local governments can accomplish.
-An estimated 27 million people in the world are enslaved. They produce profits of around $31 billion a year.
-Bananas are the single most profitable item sold by British supermarkets and the profits are split so: 45% to the supermarket, 18% to importers, 15.5% to the plantation company, and 2.5% to the workers.
-Tesco and ASDA are owned by Walmart.
Action Aid suggests that the impact of the banana price war fought in the UK since 2002 has halved hourly wages of plantation workers in Costa Rica, which supplies one out of every four bananas consumed in the UK and Ireland. Workers now earn 33p an hour and are under such pressure to produce that they cannot afford to take time off when planes spray pesticides on the crops.
-From 2003 to 2005, Philip Morris’ total sales went from 40 to 70 billion cigarettes, thanks to the Eastern European and Asian market.
-The Asian population is so much greater than the Western one that a 30% decline in cigarette consumption in the West can be offset by as little as a 2% increase in the Asian market. Japanese Tobacco International owns the rights to sell several brands of Western cigarettes outside the West, and is one of the fastest growing companies in the world.
-In 2005, the Altria Group, a holding company based in NY, became the tenth most profitable corporation in America. It used to be called Philip Morris, a name that is still attached to two of its holdings, Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International. The company also own Kraft Foods.
-Access to the secondary illegal market to the gold currency used in the gaming industry is easy. Legitimate auction sites, such as eBay, host 30 million annually in the trade for goods that exist only in synthetic worlds.
-China is the single biggest market for online gaming. Estimates from the Chinese government set the number of video-game users at 24 million. About one in four Chinese Internet users is a player. The volume of the illegal business has grown so vast and the laundering techniques are so advanced that wholesalers find it impossible to verify the origin of the coins.
-A code number is read by credit cards every time a transaction takes place. In restaurants it’s 321, at petrol stations it’s 496. Online casinos use 777. E-currencies were created to avoid this traceability. The most popular e-currencies are Paypal, Neteller and E-Gold. Unlike Paypal, E-Gold allows account holders to maintain their anonymity. E-Gold is a digital gold currency issued by e-gold Ltd, a company incorporated in Nevis, Lesser Antilles, an offshore facility. It allows people to send specified weights of gold to other e-gold accounts. Only the ownership changes while the gold in the treasury grade vault stays put.
-Online gambling is illegal in many American states, yet people can do it because the servers are offshore. Central America and the Caribbean Islands, places such as Costa Rica, Panama, St. Kitts & Nevis, are popular places for online casinos. Taxes are low, as little as $50,000 a year, plus a small percentage of the annual revenues.
-According to an analyst for Internet Pornography Statistics, yearly internet porn revenue in 2005 was $57 billion.
-According to a study commissioned by the MPA, movie piracy cost Hollywood studios $8 billion in 2006: $3.1 billion were due to bootlegging, $1.82 to illegal copying, and $2.99 to Internet piracy. The leading countries for movie piracy are China, Russia, Britain, France, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Poland, and Mexico. The movie industry loses a potential 93% of its market in China, 62% in Thailand, 51% in Taiwan, and 29% in India.
-Linden dollars have an official exchange rate of 250 to the US dollar. At the end of 2006, the GDP of Second Life reached around $60 million, with an annual growth rate of 15%. Members use credit cards and electronic currencies to purchase Linden dollars. Linden Lab’s currency trader, LindeX, charges a fee for every transaction, while independet traders make money on the spread between buy and sell. Speculation in Linden dollars is very popular among traders.
-One third of all fish consumed in the UK is poached from the Baltic and North Seas. Gangs of Russian Mafiosi supply half the cod purchased as lawful in traditional British fish markets, such as Hull and Grimsby. Russian-owned trawlers operating from the northern port of Muransk, ignoring strict quotas on fishing of cod, red fish and halibut. From this port, an estimated 100,000 tons of cod is poached from the North Sea, above annual 48000-ton quota established by the UK and Norway. The fleets avoid tracking by renting or leasing vessels for a very short time and reflagging them. Flag hopping confuses surveillance authorities. Even when they are caught, coast guards have trouble identifying the owners of vessels because they hide behind shell companies and offshore ventures.
-The Pantagonian tooth fish and the bluefin tuna can sell for up to $10,000 and $15,000 per fish, respectively.
-The international hub for rogue fishing is in Europe, specifically
-Multinationals and governments often employ pirates to carry away dangerous waste. As much as 47% of European rubbish is toxic. According to the UN Environmental Programme, the annual production of e-waste ranges from 20 to 50 million tons. Recyclable refuse heads for India and China, while the non-recyclable refuse ends up in Africa.
-Water pollutants include human hormones, such as estrogens released by women taking birth-control pills.
-Rivers in the US and the UK contain high proportions of phthalates and nonylphenols, chemical that feminise fish. Male fish exposed to such effluent produce a protein called vitellogenin, usually present only in females.
-One in three fish consumed worldwide is farmed. A farm generally has around 10 nets, each containing 15,000 and 80,000 fish each. Antibiotics, antifoulants, and sea-lice treatments are among the pollutants that escape into the sea.
-Most farmed species, such as salmon and tuna, are carnivorous and consume many smaller fish. Production of a pound of salmon requires 5 pounds of oily fishes, such as sand eel, sardines, and herring.
-Maras, or pandillas, originated from Southern California in the 1950s. they existed primarily to protect Hispanic immigrants from members of other ethnic gangs.
-In the globalised world of football, hooligans use the game as a vehicle towards tribalism, and violence and victory dictate the way forward.
-Islamic finance centres on the religious tenets of Islam and allows Muslims to stay compliant with sharia law. Riba, the charging of interest by moneylenders, is prohibited. Gharar, or speculation in any form, is condemned. Money is not supposed to be used a commodity in itself to create more money. Sukuks, or Islamic bonds, are linked to real investments.
December 27, 2015
يحتوي الكتاب على معلومات غزيرة جداً، تحفظي كان على كثرة المقابلات التي تم إدراجها في هذا الكتاب ومع ذلك أتفهم الحاجة الملحة لمثل هذه المقابلات لهذا النوع من الكتب
أعجبتني وجهة لوريتا نابوليوني المحايدة، فهي على عكس الكثير من الكتاب الغربيين، لم تنحاز ضد أو مع أي فكرة من الأفكار المطروحة في كتابها، بل كانت تشرح وتوصف وتعطي رأي حيادي، خصوصاً فيما يتعلق بنظام التمويل الإسلامي،
فقد كان المقطع الذي تم طرحه فيما يتعلق بنظام التمويل الإسلامي جيد جداً حتى أني نسيت في بعض المقاطع أني أقرأ كتاب مترجم لكاتبة غير مسلمة
بعض المقاطع كانت تشدني أكثر من غيرها وخصوصاً فيما يتعلق بالثروة المائية والصيد غير المشروع، وعلى الرغم من أهميتها، إلا أن هذا المقطع من الكتاب ممل نسبياً على عكس باقي المقاطع،
من أهم الإيجابيات في هذا الكتاب جودة التوثيق، فيكاد لا تمر صفحة دون وجود مرجع وهذا يعطي مصداقية عالية للكتاب
أنصح بهذا الكتاب لدارسي الاقتصاد وأي شخص يهتم بكيفية سير الأنظمة المالية والاقتصادية العالمية
أعجبتني وجهة لوريتا نابوليوني المحايدة، فهي على عكس الكثير من الكتاب الغربيين، لم تنحاز ضد أو مع أي فكرة من الأفكار المطروحة في كتابها، بل كانت تشرح وتوصف وتعطي رأي حيادي، خصوصاً فيما يتعلق بنظام التمويل الإسلامي،
فقد كان المقطع الذي تم طرحه فيما يتعلق بنظام التمويل الإسلامي جيد جداً حتى أني نسيت في بعض المقاطع أني أقرأ كتاب مترجم لكاتبة غير مسلمة
بعض المقاطع كانت تشدني أكثر من غيرها وخصوصاً فيما يتعلق بالثروة المائية والصيد غير المشروع، وعلى الرغم من أهميتها، إلا أن هذا المقطع من الكتاب ممل نسبياً على عكس باقي المقاطع،
من أهم الإيجابيات في هذا الكتاب جودة التوثيق، فيكاد لا تمر صفحة دون وجود مرجع وهذا يعطي مصداقية عالية للكتاب
أنصح بهذا الكتاب لدارسي الاقتصاد وأي شخص يهتم بكيفية سير الأنظمة المالية والاقتصادية العالمية
January 23, 2009
This book is a classic case of an author taking on more than he/she should. Napoleoni posits that "rogue economics has resurfaced because the world is experiencing a profound transformation, perhaps the biggest in history." Yet, she doesn't really drive that point home because she gets caught up in far too many case studies. In 336 pages, she discusses the manifestation of rogue economics in Eastern European prostitution, the Italian mafia, Post-Wall Berlin, communist China, virtual worlds, fishing and pirates, and the world of sports. I had a hard time finding an intelligible string between these examples.
The silver lining was that I finished this book the week that President Obama was inaugurated. Napoleoni believes that nations need to work together to instate policy because when they fail to do so, the unintended result is rogue economics. Lets hope the Obama administration can do that!
To sum up, this book will not leave you with a lot of concrete knowledge that you can use in thinking about or discussing economics. It will, however, help you to start thinking more globally about the subject.
The silver lining was that I finished this book the week that President Obama was inaugurated. Napoleoni believes that nations need to work together to instate policy because when they fail to do so, the unintended result is rogue economics. Lets hope the Obama administration can do that!
To sum up, this book will not leave you with a lot of concrete knowledge that you can use in thinking about or discussing economics. It will, however, help you to start thinking more globally about the subject.
October 4, 2016
كتاب يتحدث عن الوجه الاخر لعالم التجارة و الاقتصاد ، كتاب جميل وممتع و مواضيع مختلفة ومتنوعة ، والحقيقة تشعر بالصدمة لبعض المواضيع التي كنت تجهلها
العبودية المعاصرة :
العبودية ب كل أشكالها ستجدها في ثلاجتك فالمواد الغذائية التي لا تقتصر على الفاكهة واللحم وحسب بل وتشمل السكر والقهوة أيضا والتي وضعتها اليد العاملة المسترقة في متناولنا فلعل تفاحة تناولتها على الفطور قام بقطفها ميغل احد العبيد المكسيكيين الذين حررهم ائتلاف عمال وهي منظمة امريكية ، وميغيل يقطف الفواكه تحت الحراسة في الولايات المتحدة وكان قد سافر ليكسب مالاً يسدد به نفقات علاج ابنه ذي الاعوام الستة المصاب بالسرطان ، ولكن انتى به الأمر عبداً لصاحب العمل
ولعل فنجان الكاكاو الذي تشربه وأنت تتصفح الجريدة أو تشهد أخبار الصباح قد جاءكم من ساحل العاج الذي ورد هذا المشروب الى اسوق العالم ، يشق أولاد مراهقون من بلدان مجاورة أشد الفقراء مثل مالي طريقهم إلى مزارع الكاكاو لكسب معاش يقيم أولادهم فينتهي بهم المطاف في أغلب الأحيان بالعمل عبيداً في المزارع القصية
العبودية المعاصرة :
العبودية ب كل أشكالها ستجدها في ثلاجتك فالمواد الغذائية التي لا تقتصر على الفاكهة واللحم وحسب بل وتشمل السكر والقهوة أيضا والتي وضعتها اليد العاملة المسترقة في متناولنا فلعل تفاحة تناولتها على الفطور قام بقطفها ميغل احد العبيد المكسيكيين الذين حررهم ائتلاف عمال وهي منظمة امريكية ، وميغيل يقطف الفواكه تحت الحراسة في الولايات المتحدة وكان قد سافر ليكسب مالاً يسدد به نفقات علاج ابنه ذي الاعوام الستة المصاب بالسرطان ، ولكن انتى به الأمر عبداً لصاحب العمل
ولعل فنجان الكاكاو الذي تشربه وأنت تتصفح الجريدة أو تشهد أخبار الصباح قد جاءكم من ساحل العاج الذي ورد هذا المشروب الى اسوق العالم ، يشق أولاد مراهقون من بلدان مجاورة أشد الفقراء مثل مالي طريقهم إلى مزارع الكاكاو لكسب معاش يقيم أولادهم فينتهي بهم المطاف في أغلب الأحيان بالعمل عبيداً في المزارع القصية
September 14, 2024
A solid overview of a lot of evil things that happen in the world and stem from globalization, but no real solutions are offered and there is not an in depth coverage of any issues. Some of the issues have a very simplified view of the problem and the root causes. It is a good starting point for further reading.
February 18, 2015
Have you read any good Economics book , lately ?
The book is “ ROGUE ECONOMICS” and the author’s Loretta Napoleoni .
It’s a tell-all economic tale of what happens when ‘Economy’ breaks away from ‘Politics’, and how all of hell’s doors are opened . If it were a movie, it would be a mixed genre. A bit on the Tarantino side and a lot on the Matrix trilogy , with the rythm of a “Bourne Ultimatum”.
From the Russian and Chinese mafias, the Italian n’dranghetta, money laundering, patents and corporations, to paypal and e-Gold and “Second Life” with its avatar inhabitants, Linden dollars and surreal real estate transactions, it’s a 21st century wild west story of international pirates ( both virtual and nautical), fish sweatshops, hooligans, Plato, politics and Football ( understand as soccer). It’s also about the slums of Nigeria and about how Africa would be better off, if ‘they’ just stopped paralyzing her with pseudo economic aid; Amazing figures and facts, as well as statistical data that will keep your head spinning. Guaranteed. The book amasses stupefying numbers, page after page, shedding on the light in the darkest alleys of the globe. The author brilliantly connects the dots, in a most surprising, highly ingenious, and most unbiased and delightful manner. The book is filled with fascinating statistics that will make you wonder...“The notion that people today smoke less than twenty years ago is an illusion. On the contrary… , Western tobacco multinationals have become richer than oil companies… In 2005, Philip Morris, whose best selling brand is Marlboro, made $4.6 billion profits in the USA and $7.8 billion internationally, higher than small countries’ GDP… a 30 percent decline in cigarette consumption in the West can be offset by as little as a 2 percent increase in the Asian market...”. Here’s more : “ More people die in plane crashes caused by faulty parts than perish in terrorist attacks, yet the trade in illegal parts is ignored by politicians” and also this : “ Bananas are the single most profitable item sold by British supermarkets… almost half goes to the supermarket ( 45 percent), importers pocket 18 percent, the plantation company garners 15.5 percent, and the workers receive 2.5 percent “ .
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg !
This economic thriller will keep you on your toes from beginning to end. And what an end ! Insightful, prophetic, unusual and undeniable. A unique book that captures the immediacy of the global economic concerns with an unprecedented analysis of the facts. It is not a freak economics view of the world, nor is it one that claims the world is flat, hot, and crowded: it's more rich, more complex and simpler too ; A category by itself that shines with unadulturated sharpness, lucidity and character. Napoleoni combines extraordinary reporting skills and a most powerful analysis to create an adrenaline filled book about today's Economy. And in the process, she paints a picture of today's world with the most artistic angles and shades. It's a thrill watching a maestro at work. Her book is a satellite view from space, but not taken by a satellite, rather an unusually skilled photographer. But I won’t spoil the surprise . All I’ll say is that the epilogue has to do more with “Magic markets” than “Matrix markets” , not to forget ‘nanotechnology’. But as Loretta says, “that’s a topic for another book”.
And the saga continues…
“ROGUE ECONOMICS”: it’s a pure intellectual treat! Adrenaline for your mind…
An enlightened and enlightening treaty of today’s global economy.
Caution : HIGHLY ADDICTIVE
The book is “ ROGUE ECONOMICS” and the author’s Loretta Napoleoni .
It’s a tell-all economic tale of what happens when ‘Economy’ breaks away from ‘Politics’, and how all of hell’s doors are opened . If it were a movie, it would be a mixed genre. A bit on the Tarantino side and a lot on the Matrix trilogy , with the rythm of a “Bourne Ultimatum”.
From the Russian and Chinese mafias, the Italian n’dranghetta, money laundering, patents and corporations, to paypal and e-Gold and “Second Life” with its avatar inhabitants, Linden dollars and surreal real estate transactions, it’s a 21st century wild west story of international pirates ( both virtual and nautical), fish sweatshops, hooligans, Plato, politics and Football ( understand as soccer). It’s also about the slums of Nigeria and about how Africa would be better off, if ‘they’ just stopped paralyzing her with pseudo economic aid; Amazing figures and facts, as well as statistical data that will keep your head spinning. Guaranteed. The book amasses stupefying numbers, page after page, shedding on the light in the darkest alleys of the globe. The author brilliantly connects the dots, in a most surprising, highly ingenious, and most unbiased and delightful manner. The book is filled with fascinating statistics that will make you wonder...“The notion that people today smoke less than twenty years ago is an illusion. On the contrary… , Western tobacco multinationals have become richer than oil companies… In 2005, Philip Morris, whose best selling brand is Marlboro, made $4.6 billion profits in the USA and $7.8 billion internationally, higher than small countries’ GDP… a 30 percent decline in cigarette consumption in the West can be offset by as little as a 2 percent increase in the Asian market...”. Here’s more : “ More people die in plane crashes caused by faulty parts than perish in terrorist attacks, yet the trade in illegal parts is ignored by politicians” and also this : “ Bananas are the single most profitable item sold by British supermarkets… almost half goes to the supermarket ( 45 percent), importers pocket 18 percent, the plantation company garners 15.5 percent, and the workers receive 2.5 percent “ .
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg !
This economic thriller will keep you on your toes from beginning to end. And what an end ! Insightful, prophetic, unusual and undeniable. A unique book that captures the immediacy of the global economic concerns with an unprecedented analysis of the facts. It is not a freak economics view of the world, nor is it one that claims the world is flat, hot, and crowded: it's more rich, more complex and simpler too ; A category by itself that shines with unadulturated sharpness, lucidity and character. Napoleoni combines extraordinary reporting skills and a most powerful analysis to create an adrenaline filled book about today's Economy. And in the process, she paints a picture of today's world with the most artistic angles and shades. It's a thrill watching a maestro at work. Her book is a satellite view from space, but not taken by a satellite, rather an unusually skilled photographer. But I won’t spoil the surprise . All I’ll say is that the epilogue has to do more with “Magic markets” than “Matrix markets” , not to forget ‘nanotechnology’. But as Loretta says, “that’s a topic for another book”.
And the saga continues…
“ROGUE ECONOMICS”: it’s a pure intellectual treat! Adrenaline for your mind…
An enlightened and enlightening treaty of today’s global economy.
Caution : HIGHLY ADDICTIVE
December 7, 2017
La coppia che non ti aspetti, democrazia e schiavitù: al diffondersi della prima aumenta la seconda: come si spiega questo (apparente) "paradosso"?
Passo di Adam Smith da imparare a memoria, p.36.
"Per la politica regolamentare il mercato diventa sempre più difficile (ce ne siamo accorti). E i problemi di un paese possono innescare una reazione a catena (contagio?) con conseguenze devastanti per molti altri (ce ne accorgeremo)".
"Con la fine della Guerra fredda il mercato spezza le catene della politica. L'economia diventa una forza canaglia ed è pronta a ridisegnare il mondo secondo le sue regole".
"I pericoli del nazismo vengono gravemente sottovalutati da una popolazione che ha perso la capacità di distinguere tra fantasia e realtà". E' diventato un frame (quasi) comune.
"Oggi la disparità dei redditi è a livelli da Medioevo", mantra n.2.
Capitolo 3 La fine della politica promette molto bene.
Scoprire così senza preavviso il significato di 'ndrangheta: andragathia, ovvero fedeltà e coraggio virile.
"La politica, come la libertà di scelta, resta quindi la sola forza in grado di impedire il dilagare dell'ingiustizia economica e sociale. Nel cuore della critica della Arendt a Marx c'è infatti il ferreo rifiuto opposto dalla filosofa all'assoggettamento della politica alla produzione. Per la Arendt è vero il contrario: l'economia è solo uno strumento per migliorare la politica, accrescere il benessere collettivo ecc. ecc. (p.74).
Detto altrimenti si rifiuta l'idea (oggi dominante) della politica ancilla dell'economia.
Passando al concetto di "morte della politica" invece: "le speranze incrollabili della Arendt nascono dalla convinzione (condivisa da Gramsci) che la politica resta una dimensione naturale dell'uomo".
Curioso che si parli di "deserto", per definire la situazione in cui la politica sparisce: il deserto cresce.
Dallo stato-nazione allo stato-mercato, ovvero dalla politica all'economia canaglia. Chi vincerà?
Domanda retorica: abbiamo un vincitore, e non siamo noi/voi.
Strepitoso il IV capitolo: trascendentalismo modellizzante occidentale VS immanentismo impermanente cinese.
Cap. V: la citazione di Victoria Beckham (sic!) si poteva anche evitare.
"Parigi ospita il più alto numero di immigrati cinesi illegali dell'UE".
Cap. IX: "Invece di condurre campagne elettorali che poggiano sulla proposta di un progetto, sul racconto della propria visione del futuro, i politici si riducono a dire quello che la gente vuole sentire. La politica non è più il terreno per lo scontro delle idee, ma un ring dove si misura il successo delle strategie di marketing dei sondaggisti (...). Oggi sono gli swing consumers/voters, cioè quei consumatori/elettori indecisi, che oscillano tra un partito e l'altro, a determinare l'esito delle campagne elettorali. Loro sono il referente politico per eccellenza".
Cap. X: nonostante Cassirer e Habermas relegati in nota, e grazie a Popper e Bergson, il capitolo più "filosoficamente politico". Finora.
Poteva mancare Belluscone? "L'ascesa politica di Silvio Berlusconi, il grande manipolatore di miti (...), il cui ingresso nell'Olimpo della politica italiana è stato sapientemente orchestrato sfruttando i codici tribali del gioco del calcio, che rappresenta una dimensione di mito che accomuna la maggior parte degli italiani". Da cui deriva il "dobbiamo odiare il calcio". E non serve nemmeno impegnarsi troppo.
Cap. XII: la finanza islamica salverà il mondo (?). "L'Islam sottoscrive i valori tribali tradizionali come il forte senso di appartenenza, l'obbligo di aiutare gli amici bisognosi e l'accettazione dell'autorità dei leader religiosi".
"Il tribalismo di stato è alieno al nazionalismo laddove lo stato è costruito attorno all'identità nazionale del popolo: lo stato è l'espressione della sua identità. Il tribalismo di stato fascista è esattamente l'opposto: l'identità nazionale diventa l'espressione dello stato fascista che a sua volta è il cuore della nazione". Come direbbe Giovannone "non c'ho hapito un ...".
"La democrazia viene derisa quale causa di tutti i mali subiti dall'Italia postbellica".
Passo di Adam Smith da imparare a memoria, p.36.
"Per la politica regolamentare il mercato diventa sempre più difficile (ce ne siamo accorti). E i problemi di un paese possono innescare una reazione a catena (contagio?) con conseguenze devastanti per molti altri (ce ne accorgeremo)".
"Con la fine della Guerra fredda il mercato spezza le catene della politica. L'economia diventa una forza canaglia ed è pronta a ridisegnare il mondo secondo le sue regole".
"I pericoli del nazismo vengono gravemente sottovalutati da una popolazione che ha perso la capacità di distinguere tra fantasia e realtà". E' diventato un frame (quasi) comune.
"Oggi la disparità dei redditi è a livelli da Medioevo", mantra n.2.
Capitolo 3 La fine della politica promette molto bene.
Scoprire così senza preavviso il significato di 'ndrangheta: andragathia, ovvero fedeltà e coraggio virile.
"La politica, come la libertà di scelta, resta quindi la sola forza in grado di impedire il dilagare dell'ingiustizia economica e sociale. Nel cuore della critica della Arendt a Marx c'è infatti il ferreo rifiuto opposto dalla filosofa all'assoggettamento della politica alla produzione. Per la Arendt è vero il contrario: l'economia è solo uno strumento per migliorare la politica, accrescere il benessere collettivo ecc. ecc. (p.74).
Detto altrimenti si rifiuta l'idea (oggi dominante) della politica ancilla dell'economia.
Passando al concetto di "morte della politica" invece: "le speranze incrollabili della Arendt nascono dalla convinzione (condivisa da Gramsci) che la politica resta una dimensione naturale dell'uomo".
Curioso che si parli di "deserto", per definire la situazione in cui la politica sparisce: il deserto cresce.
Dallo stato-nazione allo stato-mercato, ovvero dalla politica all'economia canaglia. Chi vincerà?
Domanda retorica: abbiamo un vincitore, e non siamo noi/voi.
Strepitoso il IV capitolo: trascendentalismo modellizzante occidentale VS immanentismo impermanente cinese.
Cap. V: la citazione di Victoria Beckham (sic!) si poteva anche evitare.
"Parigi ospita il più alto numero di immigrati cinesi illegali dell'UE".
Cap. IX: "Invece di condurre campagne elettorali che poggiano sulla proposta di un progetto, sul racconto della propria visione del futuro, i politici si riducono a dire quello che la gente vuole sentire. La politica non è più il terreno per lo scontro delle idee, ma un ring dove si misura il successo delle strategie di marketing dei sondaggisti (...). Oggi sono gli swing consumers/voters, cioè quei consumatori/elettori indecisi, che oscillano tra un partito e l'altro, a determinare l'esito delle campagne elettorali. Loro sono il referente politico per eccellenza".
Cap. X: nonostante Cassirer e Habermas relegati in nota, e grazie a Popper e Bergson, il capitolo più "filosoficamente politico". Finora.
Poteva mancare Belluscone? "L'ascesa politica di Silvio Berlusconi, il grande manipolatore di miti (...), il cui ingresso nell'Olimpo della politica italiana è stato sapientemente orchestrato sfruttando i codici tribali del gioco del calcio, che rappresenta una dimensione di mito che accomuna la maggior parte degli italiani". Da cui deriva il "dobbiamo odiare il calcio". E non serve nemmeno impegnarsi troppo.
Cap. XII: la finanza islamica salverà il mondo (?). "L'Islam sottoscrive i valori tribali tradizionali come il forte senso di appartenenza, l'obbligo di aiutare gli amici bisognosi e l'accettazione dell'autorità dei leader religiosi".
"Il tribalismo di stato è alieno al nazionalismo laddove lo stato è costruito attorno all'identità nazionale del popolo: lo stato è l'espressione della sua identità. Il tribalismo di stato fascista è esattamente l'opposto: l'identità nazionale diventa l'espressione dello stato fascista che a sua volta è il cuore della nazione". Come direbbe Giovannone "non c'ho hapito un ...".
"La democrazia viene derisa quale causa di tutti i mali subiti dall'Italia postbellica".
March 4, 2019
تكشف "لوريتا نابوليوني" الخبيرة في قضايا غسيل الأموال وتمويل الإرهاب، في كتابها هذا النقاب عن قضايا كبرى معاصرة تؤرق بال العديد من الحكومات والأفراد في شتى أنحاء العالم، وذلك، بتسليطها الضوء على ما يسمى في عصرنا الراهن بإعادة صياغة العالم الحديث على يد القوى الاقتصادية الكبرى، التي لا تتورع عن تغيير العالم وتسييره حسب أهوائها ومصالحها، وذلك عبر شبكة واسعة من الأوهام السياسية والاقتصادية التي يقع ضحيتها ملايين الناس العاديين الذين يسقطون في شرك عالم الاستهلاكية الخيالي. وتقدم الكاتبة عدداً من الأمثلة التي تؤكد أن الاقتصاديات المشبوهة في عالم اليوم ليست استثنائية، وإنما هي قوى شريرة مستشرية في صميم وجودنا الاجتماعي تنشب مخالبها باستمرار في المجتمعات التي نحيا فيها. وهنا تعمل الكاتبة على تعريف القارئ على عملية تشكل هذه الاقتصادات وما شابها من صدامات وعلاقات على المستوى السياسي والاقتصادي على مر الدهور والأيام. تأتي أهمية الدراسة من كونها تقدم منظوراً جديداً للعديد من المشاكل المستعصية على الحل في وقتنا الراهن. وعبر توضيح القاسم المشترك بين تجارة الجنس المزدهرة في أوروبا الشرقية، وفضيحة القروض العقارية في أميركا، وصناعة السلع المقلّدة في الصين، وإحسانات المشاهير لإفريقيا، ومتاجرة القراصنة البيولوجيين بدماء البشر، واجتياح عصابات مزارع الأسماك أعالي البحار، والورشات الإلكترونية التي نجمت عن ألعاب مثل "ورلد ووركرافت"، نكتشف معاً كيف انقلبت الاقتصادات المشبوهة إلى إمبراطوريات عالمية، قارعة ناقوس خط تحوّل الكثير من الأنظمة إلى نظام الاقتصادات القائمة على مبادئ الشريعة. وأخيراً تستنتج الكاتبة في ختام دراستها أنه "سيقوم على حكم النظام العالمي الجديد محور خفي يمتد من بكين إلى كيب تاون، ولا تكون أوروبا وأميركا طرفين فيه، في حين أن أفريقيا والشرق الأوسط سيقدمان الموارد الضرورية لقيادة اقتصادية عالمية جديدة". ومن ثم يأتي دور "تقنية الناتو لتعزز هذا السيناريو".
October 3, 2017
Questo libro a me ha spiegato che se il mondo è brutto, violento, ostile, desolante, lo è perchè esiste la razza umana. Non essendoci il timore di una ecatombe naturale a breve, le diverse razze (o vogliamo chiamarle tribù?) nei quattro angoli del globo fanno il possibile per annichilire la motivazione all'esistenza alle razze/tribù contigue. Lo fanno con la violenza, lo schiavismo, i disvalori, creando una situazione disagiata per tutti gli esseri viventi, animali compresi. Noi (*ognuno di noi*) siamo in una di quelle razze, e facciamo - consapevolmente o no - la nostra parte. L'autrice ha informazioni su tutto, e per tutti. Davvero brava. Tra i libri di attualità meriterebbe cinque stelle per il suo valore informativo e culturale.
March 21, 2025
Napoleoni's book initially looks like a well-researched pop politco-economic explainer that tries to illuminate how uncontrollable economic flows lead to individual impoverishment when unleashed by globalization. It is strongest in its initial chapters, making interesting connections between disparate historical phenomenon like the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the growth of prostitution and gangs elsewhere - these were better supported by available research. However, the book starts to fizzle out towards the end when the author gets into drawing more speculative connections between the spread of tribalism as a reaction against globalization and other socio-economic woes, and tribal finance embodied in Malaysian Islamic finance and Chinese state capitalism as salvatory for economics, which seemed to lack much theoretical or historical support. It felt like a tenuous grasping at possibilities, and the arguments and reasoning became less focused.
August 7, 2020
Incoherent.
Uncritical use of terms; unfocused arguments; introduction-to-economics cliches. As far as I can tell, 'rogue' economics is not 'capitalism's new reality', it is simply capitalism in all its predatory glory.
Uncritical use of terms; unfocused arguments; introduction-to-economics cliches. As far as I can tell, 'rogue' economics is not 'capitalism's new reality', it is simply capitalism in all its predatory glory.
October 22, 2012
أشكر الكاتبة لوريتا نابوليوني على كتابها هذا, فقد كشفت فيه العديد من الخُدع الّتي تُسيّر الإقتصاد العالمي اليوم, سمّتها الإقتصادات المشبوهة, كيف لتجارة الرقيق الأبيض و المخدّرات و المَضاربة و القرصنة ... كيف استطاعت هذه الإقتصاديات المشبوهة أن تبني بعض الأمم و تهدم أخرى.
خَلُصت لوريتا في الأخير إلى أنّ الحلّ يكمُنُ في ضرورة البدء بتطبيق التّمويل الإسلامي كبديل للنّظام الإقتصادي الحالي الّذي أثبث ضُعفه و إضعافَهُ للمستوى المعيشي للانسان, اقتصاديا, أخلاقيا, سياسيا و على مختلف الأصعِدة.
كتابٌ لا يُملّ بصراحة :)
خَلُصت لوريتا في الأخير إلى أنّ الحلّ يكمُنُ في ضرورة البدء بتطبيق التّمويل الإسلامي كبديل للنّظام الإقتصادي الحالي الّذي أثبث ضُعفه و إضعافَهُ للمستوى المعيشي للانسان, اقتصاديا, أخلاقيا, سياسيا و على مختلف الأصعِدة.
كتابٌ لا يُملّ بصراحة :)
September 17, 2015
Excelente leitura.
Traz uma boa visão sobre os rastros causados pelas quedas dos regimes comunistas e as ilusões da globalização.
Gostei particularmente da abordagem sobre a economia Islã e a tese da volta do padrão dinar ouro.
A autora utiliza um tom profético, mas deixa a desejar sobretudo nos números. Fiquei curiosos para ler seus outros livros.
Traz uma boa visão sobre os rastros causados pelas quedas dos regimes comunistas e as ilusões da globalização.
Gostei particularmente da abordagem sobre a economia Islã e a tese da volta do padrão dinar ouro.
A autora utiliza um tom profético, mas deixa a desejar sobretudo nos números. Fiquei curiosos para ler seus outros livros.
November 25, 2024
كتاب بديع، غزير المعلومات و الحقائق .اسلوب الكاتبة في تناول مجمل مواضيع و أفكار الكتاب كان منظما و شيقا، و الترجمة أيضا كانت رائعة. أنصح به وخاصة لدارسي الاقتصاد و المهتمين به .
April 22, 2016
لم أفهم الكثير حقيقة..
فقط تكشفت لي أوجه جديدة من قبح العالم الذي نعيش فيه!
فقط تكشفت لي أوجه جديدة من قبح العالم الذي نعيش فيه!
June 23, 2020
Worth reading for it's breadth of economics issues, but frustratingly shallow when it came to developing any kind of thesis. It is almost as if Napoleoni became sidetracked by all of the violations (of human rights, environmental care, and economic responsibility ) at the expense of developing a thesis. I was sometimes lost: how was yet another transgression and violation linked to the so called rogue economics that she describes, or does "rogue economics" simply refer to any loop hole in the economic system that allows something "bad" to happen?
The thesis seems to be that the collapse of communism led to nations collapsing into chaos and political anarchy. If politics or governing systems do not keep pace with and guide privatization, then countries suffer - although why the obvious solution implicit in this problem - government regulation of the market- isn't considered is not clear. Instead we are told that the dismantling of the soviet block was the beginning of the end.
Napoleoni argues that "the absence of a idealogical dichotomy" in the global economy means that political loyalties can push mythologies to further economic and political agendas.
Her solution- the Islamic financial system - which we encounter in the final chapter, is not discussed in any convincing depth. Tantalizingly, Napoleoni tells us that in Islamic finance, the charging of interest by moneylenders is prohibited and that speculation in any form is condemned because money is not seen as commodity in itself to create more money. Sukuks, or Islamic bonds, are linked to real investments. Beyond this, however - surely there are criticisms to be heard about this system of finance as well - the discussion stops. And exactly how Islamic finance is going to cure all aspects of rogue economics such as slavery and overfishing, is never explained.
The thesis seems to be that the collapse of communism led to nations collapsing into chaos and political anarchy. If politics or governing systems do not keep pace with and guide privatization, then countries suffer - although why the obvious solution implicit in this problem - government regulation of the market- isn't considered is not clear. Instead we are told that the dismantling of the soviet block was the beginning of the end.
Napoleoni argues that "the absence of a idealogical dichotomy" in the global economy means that political loyalties can push mythologies to further economic and political agendas.
Her solution- the Islamic financial system - which we encounter in the final chapter, is not discussed in any convincing depth. Tantalizingly, Napoleoni tells us that in Islamic finance, the charging of interest by moneylenders is prohibited and that speculation in any form is condemned because money is not seen as commodity in itself to create more money. Sukuks, or Islamic bonds, are linked to real investments. Beyond this, however - surely there are criticisms to be heard about this system of finance as well - the discussion stops. And exactly how Islamic finance is going to cure all aspects of rogue economics such as slavery and overfishing, is never explained.
July 22, 2019
While the book contained a lot of interesting and eye-opening stories, throughout the book I had two recurring problems that kept popping up. One on a small scale and the other on a big one.
First, I encountered a few insignificant but obvious errors in small details that I happen to know about. This always makes me wonder about he much bigger things I don’t.
The bigger problem is the author’s tendency to connect all problems to the fall of the Berlin Wall, even when sometimes acknowledging that before that event life might not always be rosy either. This seems to ignore the fact that most people are better off now then they were a century ago. That is not to say all is well today, as the book makes abundantly clear, but putting the fall of the Berlin Wall as the start of ‘when things went wrong’ feels, at best, arbitrary.
But while these points were always present, they never turned me off the book. However, near the end it really falls apart for me. It might be easy to laugh, with the full benefit of hindsight, about the shining role in future economics the author assigned to Malaysia, in the wake of the 1MDB scandal. But already in 2008 it should have been clear that the Sheiks of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf would not quite turn out to be the champions of a more inclusive economy. The final theory suffers from the one that often described communism: great in theory but completely disregarding the fact that it involves people in practice.
In all, this is a book that is great in signaling problems, but average in identifying the causes and terrible in its proposed solutions.
First, I encountered a few insignificant but obvious errors in small details that I happen to know about. This always makes me wonder about he much bigger things I don’t.
The bigger problem is the author’s tendency to connect all problems to the fall of the Berlin Wall, even when sometimes acknowledging that before that event life might not always be rosy either. This seems to ignore the fact that most people are better off now then they were a century ago. That is not to say all is well today, as the book makes abundantly clear, but putting the fall of the Berlin Wall as the start of ‘when things went wrong’ feels, at best, arbitrary.
But while these points were always present, they never turned me off the book. However, near the end it really falls apart for me. It might be easy to laugh, with the full benefit of hindsight, about the shining role in future economics the author assigned to Malaysia, in the wake of the 1MDB scandal. But already in 2008 it should have been clear that the Sheiks of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf would not quite turn out to be the champions of a more inclusive economy. The final theory suffers from the one that often described communism: great in theory but completely disregarding the fact that it involves people in practice.
In all, this is a book that is great in signaling problems, but average in identifying the causes and terrible in its proposed solutions.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 27, 2024
فإنها معركة الشيطان وبها ينصب رايته كان هذا جزءا من حديث رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم عن التحذير من السوق فما بالك بأن العالم كله الذى نعيشه بكل تفاصيله تحول إلى سوق كبير كل شىء فيه مباح
عند سقوط جدار برلين سقطت معه الأنظمة الاشتراكية فى أوربا الشرقية ثم تفكك وانهار الاتحاد السوفيتى وبدأ صعود العولمة منذ التسعينات وإلى الآن ومع اقتصاد السوق وقيمه فكل شىء يمكن المتاجرة به
الكتاب يتحدث عن الاقتصاديات المشبوهة والتى تمثل النسبة الأكبر من حجم الاقتصاديات فى العالم اليوم وتأتى المؤلفة بذكر هذه التجارات ونسبة الأرباح التى تُدرها على من يتعامل فيها فالدعارة وسوق الأسلحة والمخدرات والإباحية والغش التجارى وصيد الأسماك الممنوع كلها مكونات للاقتصاد العالمى صحيح أنها لا تُذكر وتتوارى خلف الستار لكنها تمثل الجزء الأكبر من اقتصاد السوق حاليا
تبدع المؤلفة فى حديثها عن الاقتصاد الصينى وملاءمته لثقافته وحضارته وماذا قدمه ماو إلى الصين وكذلك فى حديثها عن التدهور الذى أصاب روسيا بعد انهيار الاتحاد السوفيتى وسقوط نظامها الاقتصادى فى يد الأوليغارك وأيضا عند عرضها لحالة المواطنين الأمريكان فى ظل ثقافة القروض التى اجتاحت أمريكا والتى تسببت فى كارثة 2008
مواضيع مثل تحكم السوق فى السياسة والانتخابات هو موضوع يحتاج لمزيد من البحث والدراسة وعرضته المؤلفة بشكل جذاب وكذلك تداخل كرة القدم والفن وتقاطعهم مع السياسة
المؤلفة تفاءلت واحتفت بشدة بالتجربة الماليزية وفكرة التمويل الإسلامى وعرضت لفكرة الدينار الذهبى كبديل مستقبلى لتحكم الدولار فى موازين الاقتصاد العالمى وتتنبأ بأن المستقبل سيكون لاقتصاد الصين والهند والبلدان المسلمة مثل ماليزيا وغيرها من دول الخليج وذلك بسبب ما أسمته القبلية المعاصرة ووجود بديل يناهض اقتصاديات العولمة المشبوهة
عند سقوط جدار برلين سقطت معه الأنظمة الاشتراكية فى أوربا الشرقية ثم تفكك وانهار الاتحاد السوفيتى وبدأ صعود العولمة منذ التسعينات وإلى الآن ومع اقتصاد السوق وقيمه فكل شىء يمكن المتاجرة به
الكتاب يتحدث عن الاقتصاديات المشبوهة والتى تمثل النسبة الأكبر من حجم الاقتصاديات فى العالم اليوم وتأتى المؤلفة بذكر هذه التجارات ونسبة الأرباح التى تُدرها على من يتعامل فيها فالدعارة وسوق الأسلحة والمخدرات والإباحية والغش التجارى وصيد الأسماك الممنوع كلها مكونات للاقتصاد العالمى صحيح أنها لا تُذكر وتتوارى خلف الستار لكنها تمثل الجزء الأكبر من اقتصاد السوق حاليا
تبدع المؤلفة فى حديثها عن الاقتصاد الصينى وملاءمته لثقافته وحضارته وماذا قدمه ماو إلى الصين وكذلك فى حديثها عن التدهور الذى أصاب روسيا بعد انهيار الاتحاد السوفيتى وسقوط نظامها الاقتصادى فى يد الأوليغارك وأيضا عند عرضها لحالة المواطنين الأمريكان فى ظل ثقافة القروض التى اجتاحت أمريكا والتى تسببت فى كارثة 2008
مواضيع مثل تحكم السوق فى السياسة والانتخابات هو موضوع يحتاج لمزيد من البحث والدراسة وعرضته المؤلفة بشكل جذاب وكذلك تداخل كرة القدم والفن وتقاطعهم مع السياسة
المؤلفة تفاءلت واحتفت بشدة بالتجربة الماليزية وفكرة التمويل الإسلامى وعرضت لفكرة الدينار الذهبى كبديل مستقبلى لتحكم الدولار فى موازين الاقتصاد العالمى وتتنبأ بأن المستقبل سيكون لاقتصاد الصين والهند والبلدان المسلمة مثل ماليزيا وغيرها من دول الخليج وذلك بسبب ما أسمته القبلية المعاصرة ووجود بديل يناهض اقتصاديات العولمة المشبوهة
September 19, 2020
3.5 Interesting facts, foggy interpretations
the book briefly describes many interesting and diverse examples of the dark (or mainly unknown) sides of the global economy in a simple way, and as such it is generally a nice reading.
This being said, there are many missing, unexplained and/or aprioristic points which in my opinion weaken the argumentations and claims made by the author. Here a few:
- Despite fascinating (and frightening), the alleged causal link between democracy and the increase in slavery claimed in the prologue is not at all supported by any clear or sufficient evidence.
- To what does "rogue economics" actually refer to? Is it unconstrained market economy / capitalism? looks like it is some kind of foggy - though appealing - entity assumed to exist and that somehow lives of its own but that in fact it is never clearly defined in the book.
- What can be done to transform the "rogue" side of economics into a virtuous one? Is the author actually endorsing or just stating the future evolution of global socioeconomic order as she foresees in the Epilogue?
- In many cases, the book just states some alarming features and quirks of the current economic status quo (which is interesting per se, especially for someone ignorant of the filed like me) but somehow lacks an analysis (or guess) of the causes other than "the fall of Berlin's wall", as well as proposals to overcome this situation.
the book briefly describes many interesting and diverse examples of the dark (or mainly unknown) sides of the global economy in a simple way, and as such it is generally a nice reading.
This being said, there are many missing, unexplained and/or aprioristic points which in my opinion weaken the argumentations and claims made by the author. Here a few:
- Despite fascinating (and frightening), the alleged causal link between democracy and the increase in slavery claimed in the prologue is not at all supported by any clear or sufficient evidence.
- To what does "rogue economics" actually refer to? Is it unconstrained market economy / capitalism? looks like it is some kind of foggy - though appealing - entity assumed to exist and that somehow lives of its own but that in fact it is never clearly defined in the book.
- What can be done to transform the "rogue" side of economics into a virtuous one? Is the author actually endorsing or just stating the future evolution of global socioeconomic order as she foresees in the Epilogue?
- In many cases, the book just states some alarming features and quirks of the current economic status quo (which is interesting per se, especially for someone ignorant of the filed like me) but somehow lacks an analysis (or guess) of the causes other than "the fall of Berlin's wall", as well as proposals to overcome this situation.
August 21, 2025
Classic economics describe things as they ought to work but when capitalist systems are gamed, you get Rogue Economics. Classic economics describe relationships but quite often doesn't pan out as the model explains such as GFC, quantitative easing but where was the inflation at that time as per monetary supply economics? Models do behave badly and people behave worst, but not everyone or all of the time. Published in 2008, I learned some things about the fall of the Berlin Wall and its consequences especially in Europe from this book. Some others such as politicians who are basically the new emperors that have no clothes but strut about like peacocks is known to us all. The last chapter on Economic Tribalism is particularly poignant in 2025 and it will be interesting if the fate of Mussolini will be the epitaph of the current US president. The epilogue has a number of predictions most of which haven't panned out (it is 17 years later) but predicting the future is like playing tennis on a cruise ship in a large swell.
September 30, 2025
"ظَهَرَ الْفَسَادُ فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِي النَّاسِ لِيُذِيقَهُم بَعْضَ الَّذِي عَمِلُوا لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ" الروم - ٤١
هذه الاية تكاد تنطبق على وضع الاقتصاد العالمي الان و ما ينطوي عليه من مظالم و مفاسد تستعصي على الحلول من داخل المنظومه ، بل يستوجب نظام بديل و حلول هذا النظام البديل لا اقول يستلزم ثوره بل يستلزم حربا اشد شراسه من الحربين العالميتين، فأباطرة الفساد لن يستسلمو ببساطه ، فجشعهم لا حدود له. و التغيير لن يكون بالشكل السلمي على الصعيد الاقتصادي بل يجب له اولا من قوة تحميه كي يجد له ارضا ينبت فيها و لا شك ان الترسانات العسكريه و من خلفها محركوها من اباطرة المال لن يترددو عن استخدام اقذر الاسلحة لسحق اي تجربه خارج سياق منظومتهم، ولكن ".... وَاللَّهُ غَالِبٌ عَلَىٰ أَمْرِهِ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ" يوسف - ٢١
هذه الاية تكاد تنطبق على وضع الاقتصاد العالمي الان و ما ينطوي عليه من مظالم و مفاسد تستعصي على الحلول من داخل المنظومه ، بل يستوجب نظام بديل و حلول هذا النظام البديل لا اقول يستلزم ثوره بل يستلزم حربا اشد شراسه من الحربين العالميتين، فأباطرة الفساد لن يستسلمو ببساطه ، فجشعهم لا حدود له. و التغيير لن يكون بالشكل السلمي على الصعيد الاقتصادي بل يجب له اولا من قوة تحميه كي يجد له ارضا ينبت فيها و لا شك ان الترسانات العسكريه و من خلفها محركوها من اباطرة المال لن يترددو عن استخدام اقذر الاسلحة لسحق اي تجربه خارج سياق منظومتهم، ولكن ".... وَاللَّهُ غَالِبٌ عَلَىٰ أَمْرِهِ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ" يوسف - ٢١
May 25, 2020
Un libro necessario per capire i meccanismi del mondo odierno (l'Economia, what else?), trovo solo un po' discutibili le tesi finali dell'autrice.
Una nota, peccato che certi testi vengano letti sempre da troppe poche persone, mentre il resto del mondo si lascia ipnotizzare dai vari Grandi Fratelli, Isole Famose ecc.ecc. ma se l'orchestra continua a suonare speriamo che la nave non si chiami "Titanic"
Una nota, peccato che certi testi vengano letti sempre da troppe poche persone, mentre il resto del mondo si lascia ipnotizzare dai vari Grandi Fratelli, Isole Famose ecc.ecc. ma se l'orchestra continua a suonare speriamo che la nave non si chiami "Titanic"
November 8, 2025
Alcuni spunti interessanti: per esempio una sintesi di cosa accade dopo la caduta del muro di Berlino nel blocco sovietico e come gli oligarchi hanno preso il potere, oppure una spiegazione dell’economia islamica e del dinaro d’oro del periodo ottomano e suo potenziale ritorno.
Alcune aree un po outdated tipo second life o tema moneta elettronica (ormai abbondantemente sorpassati).
Alcune aree un po outdated tipo second life o tema moneta elettronica (ormai abbondantemente sorpassati).
December 19, 2017
Loretta's books are much better than ordinary and she claims her repute in this one too! I have been studying economics for long but this book presents the other side of the moon and that's devastating!
August 16, 2023
Analisi amara e molto interessante delle gravissime ingiustizie su cui si basa l’economia globale. Il libro ha una quindicina d’anni, che però ancora non permettono di capire se le previsioni fatte in chiusura si avvereranno o meno.
March 22, 2025
كتاب ولا اروع 👌🏻
يشرح بعض اقتصادات الظل مثل تجارة الرقيق في القرن العشرين و البضائع المقلدة او سرقة الملكيات الفكرية وكيف تؤثر على اقتصادات دول بالسلب
اعجبني حديثها عن الاقتصاد الاسلامي و عن سبب تأخر قارة أفريقيا رغم المساعدات المالية الضخمة
كتاب ممتع و يكشف كثير من خفايا الاقتصاد
يشرح بعض اقتصادات الظل مثل تجارة الرقيق في القرن العشرين و البضائع المقلدة او سرقة الملكيات الفكرية وكيف تؤثر على اقتصادات دول بالسلب
اعجبني حديثها عن الاقتصاد الاسلامي و عن سبب تأخر قارة أفريقيا رغم المساعدات المالية الضخمة
كتاب ممتع و يكشف كثير من خفايا الاقتصاد
August 8, 2017
Very interesting and well written book about economic and social topics.
December 19, 2018
Sophomoric arguments abound. Crude writing throughout.
March 16, 2020
She has done a good research to come out with some authentic report reagarding the black economy that runs parallel but to support and commit a crime.
September 22, 2022
Un testo fondamentale per capire il percorso storico che ci ha portato a questo tragico momento storico, fatto di scelte politiche, economiche e culturali, per nulla casuali.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews