Richard > Recent Status Updates

Hiding wealth offshore became common, with tax havens in the mid-2010s harboring assets equal to almost 10 percent of the global GDP. It has been estimated that in some countries, including Britain, Spain, and France, the wealthiest 0.01 percent hold as much as 30 to 40 percent of their liquid assets in these havens.”

“For them and many other members of the 1 percent, assets were to be moved wherever they could escape the state's grasp: In Geneva's landlocked "free port," highly protected warchouses stored what was probably the world's greatest art collection-1.2 million pieces, including 1,000 Picassos—and allowed owners to trade or mortgage their art without triggering any estate or sales taxes.

“The story of capitalism is often made from its margins, not its centers.” Sven Beckert

“Capitalism is the only religion without taboos.”
Achille Mbembe

“Marginalist revolution” in economic thought represented “the intellectual enclosure” of European thought about Economics (particularly Marshall’s development of microeconomics and partial equilibrium.) Dehistoricized, mathematized, and ostensibly immune to the machinations of politics economics moved to place itself in the company of the Natural sciences.

America achieved such integration by “relentless war with the continent’s Indigenous people.” European colonial powers meanwhile achieved similar ends via conquering peoples and lands of Asia and Africa. Landlocked Germany - late to the colonial party - would need to achieve similar ends in Europe itself

Interesting insights on German motivation for WW1 with explication of A.D. Chandler’s idea that German industrialists sought “horizontal and vertical integration of their businesses through military means” as a response to the “American danger.”
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