The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World

Journalist Abrahamian (The Cosmopolites) analyzes how the rules of wealth can be manipulated worldwide. Her book begins where she grew up: Geneva, Switzerland, where she realized that having a certain income or status allowed a person to operate outside of nominal rules. But that’s certainly not the only place that occurs, according to her illuminating investigation. Her book shows that numerous porous borders and special zones exist around the world and benefit many wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations. A visit to the island of Svalbard made her see, for example, that it’s nominally controlled by Norway but with little actual oversight. There are also many “freeports,” warehouses for valuables that stay there for indeterminate amounts of time, forever “in transit” to avoid being taxed. She asserts that Swiss banks are like black holes that make money “disappear” for its wealthy owners, two-thirds of whom are not Swiss. Her book also details the way Dubai and Luxembourg can unaccountably shelter enormous amounts of wealth.