Sums it up. As above so below ... Archived Message Posted by Tomski on June 3, 2019, 2:55 pm, in reply to "See in particular comments by 'Mark' below this piece. Vivid vignettes of the banality of evil. NOM" I am still trying to get my head around how these scams are more or less out in the open. To describe it as extraction capitalism sounds sophisticated but in fact it is just grubby gangsterism. Until I saw the Spider's Web I didn't realise how these methods of extraction work here. Saw your contribution in the comments section, basically saying there is no wriggle room any more. The Final Act : ). Mark's comments: mark Over a period of time, I got to know many people in the world of finance and business generally. It seemed to me that about 99% of what went on was bent. It was quite rare to find things that were above board. One of these was a very pleasant young chap who worked for a commercial bank. He was a money launderer. He set up a “branch” for the bank on a tiny Caribbean island. The “bank” was a shack at the end of an airstrip. Small aircraft would land and a passenger would get out and deposit a Samsonite suitcase full of cash. After a time, the passengers no longer bothered to get out. They would just beckon him over and hand over the suitcase through the plane window, with the engines still running. They were mainly twin engined light aircraft.Eventually, the planes didn’t even bother landing. They just lobbed the Samsonite suitcases out of the plane as they passed over. He soon had an impressive collection of Samsonite suitcases. He just had to watch out to avoid getting whacked round the head by a suitcase “bomb.” He laundered money all over the world. I knew someone else with impressive accountancy qualifications who worked for a large multinational mining company. He was the Bribes Officer. His job was to pay the bribes to foreign heads of state. He’d phone up the recipient to tell him, “Good morning, Mr. President, I’ve just deposited another $5 million in your Swiss account.” He knew most of the African and Third World leaders personally. The funny thing was, he was extremely religious and strictly observed the Sabbath. He wouldn’t do anything like play football on a Sunday. Another wealthy businessman I knew made a fortune by re importing British drugs. It took me some time to understand his business model. Drug companies, like Wellcome, produced drugs in the UK. Some of their production was sold in the UK, to the NHS. Some of it was sold abroad. They charged the NHS three times as much as their foreign customers. So he bought up drugs that had been sold abroad, re imported them to the UK, and sold them to the NHS at a big mark up, but for less than they were being charged. He made a lot of money for himself, and everybody seemed happy with the arrangement, including presumably the UK taxpayer, who was none the wiser. I thought at first he was buying seconds, or stuff past its sell by date, but it wasn’t. It was exactly the same. Etc. Message Thread: Only little people pay taxes - Tomski June 2, 2019, 7:50 pm See in particular comments by 'Mark' below this piece. Vivid vignettes of the banality of evil. NOM - Rhisiart Gwilym June 3, 2019, 7:30 am Sums it up. As above so below ... - Tomski June 3, 2019, 2:55 pm That mining company was Glencore. Nm - Shyaku June 7, 2019, 1:31 am   Searching