Anthony Martin

Building Your Own Sand Box Anthony Martin

Beginning in the 1960s a Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development of Governments and NGOs, has focused on achieving greater transparency in the global financial system for the benefit of developing countries. A Global Financial Integrity, think tank based in Washington, DC and one of many leaders of the Task Force, estimated that the amount of money that's been draining illicitly out of developing countries into western colonial economies is approximately $900 billion to $1.5 trillion a year. Those cross-border funds were generated as the proceeds of a bribery and theft by government officials (til this day about 3 to 10 percent of the global total market), criminal activity such as drug trades, trafficking, racketeering and commercial tax evasion accomplished primarily through the mispricing of exports and imports is by far the largest component at about 60 to 65 percent of the global total market. Almost all of these shifts constitute a permanent outward transfers. Only a fraction of them return to the countries of origin, even then only as direct investment. This massive transfer of wealth out of the poorer nations over the decades of time has been the most damaging economic condition undermining today's high level of poverty and sustainable growth efforts in these 2nd & 3rd world countries, which are home to 80 percent of the world's population. The enormous transfer of financial resources have been facilitated for decades by a shadow financial system that has expanded globally since the beginning of the 1960s. This system was created originally to move flight capital and tax evading money across borders and has since come to be used by criminals and terrorist financiers as well. And this same shadow financial system is now at the heart of today's global financial crisis. It shields from view the accurate appraisal the depths of the global problem with subprime mortgages and other collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, derivatives contracts, and more.