* * * Previously published as Secrecy World * * * The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture from Director Steven Soderbergh, Starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, and Antonio Banderas Two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter takes us inside the world revealed by the Panama Papers, a landscape of illicit money, political corruption, and fraud on a global scale. A hidden circulatory system flows beneath the surface of global finance, carrying trillions of dollars from drug trafficking, tax evasion, bribery, and other illegal enterprises. This network masks the identities of the individuals who benefit from these activities, aided by bankers, lawyers, and auditors who get paid to look the other way. In The Laundromat , two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Jake Bernstein explores this shadow economy and how it evolved, drawing on millions of leaked documents from the files of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca—a trove now known as the Panama Papers—as well as other journalistic and government investigations. Bernstein shows how shell companies operate, how they allow the superwealthy and celebrities to escape taxes, and how they provide cover for illicit activities on a massive scale by crime bosses and corrupt politicians across the globe. Bernstein traveled to the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and within the United States to uncover how these strands fit together—who is involved, how they operate, and the real-world impact. He recounts how Mossack Fonseca was exposed and what lies ahead for the corporations, banks, law firms, individuals, and governments that are implicated. The Laundromat offers a disturbing and sobering view of how the world really works and raises critical questions about financial and legal institutions we may once have trusted.

Louis D. Brandeis was a Supreme Court Justice and a patriot. He wrote "Other People's Money and How Bankers Use It" to warn the American people about the greedy bankers that control the United States and drive us into financial ruin. The book attacked the use of investment funds to promote the consolidation of various industries under the control of a small number of corporations, which Brandeis alleged were working in concert to prevent competition. Brandeis harshly criticized investment bankers who controlled large amounts of money deposited in their banks by middle-class people. The heads of these banks, Brandeis pointed out, routinely sat on the boards of railroad companies and large industrial manufacturers of various products, and routinely directed the resources of their banks to promote the interests of their own companies. These companies, in turn, sought to maintain control of their industries by crushing small businesses and stamping out innovators who developed better products to compete against them. Brandeis supported his contentions with a discussion of the actual dollar amounts--in millions of dollars--controlled by specific banks, industries, and industrialists such as J. P. Morgan, noting that these interests had recently acquired a far larger proportion of American wealth than corporate entities had ever had before. He extensively cited testimony from a Congressional investigation performed by the Pujo Committee, named after Louisiana Representative Arsène Pujo, into self-serving and monopolistic business dealing. Chapter V of the book ("What Publicity Can Do") contains in its opening section a well-known line that has frequently been cited in support of regulation through disclosure obligations: "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."

2014 Reprint of 1959 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The organization of the book is simple and logical, the style extremely lucid and readable. In proposing measures of reform, the author e examines the current money and credit structure to see how it works, examines the role that government should play, and what criteria should guide the use of powers granted the monetary authorities. An essay and a powerful theoretical statement from an economist who would go on to dominate his field for the next thirty years.

This book focuses on the legal issues confronting foreigners doing business in Taiwan and reports on the legal aspects of international trade and investment in the country. Mitchell Silk achieves a balance between the scholarly and practical aspects of each of the topics covered in Taiwan Trade and Investment Law by providing indepth insight into both theory and practice. Topics examined include taxation, technology transfer, banking and financial services, trademark law, and environmental protection issues.