Somehow, I Become Even MORE Cynical

I know, hard to believe. But it's true.

So, the big boss at the firm tells me (most of them don't ask, they tell. Yeah.) that he wants me to write a short blurb about crackdowns on offshore holding companies as they relate to investments in China. Yeah, I bet you didn't know I know about that. Well, I bet you also didn't know that I wrote a blurb about Hong Kong's preferential treatment of employment rental reimbursement benefits (not allowances). See? There's all these things that I know... For some value of know.

Anyway, he asked me to look into writing the blurb, so I started doing some reading. Since the reading is from things like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, you can imagine the slant towards all those righteous, hardworking business folk who just can't get a break these days. It's so tough that they're no longer allowed to hold these lucrative investments without having to pay any taxes.

Not to get too ideological here, but one thing that really pisses me off is when people and business expend so much effort avoiding taxes. They claim that it's so unfair that they have to pay such a high rate in the US or the UK or elsewhere, and it's just forcing them to "low tax" countries, where the market is allowed to "work". See, the thing that just drives me nuts is that it's such a race to the bottom. And once the shit really hits the fan, who are these people and corporations gonna cry to? Those horrible high tax first world countries.

I remember this article a while ago:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

I feel for the guy getting brain cancer; that's really horrible. And I'm not glad either he or his wife are suffering. What makes me not really care about her situation, though, is that fact that she describes it as this "adult Disneyland" where you "pay no taxes". I know it's just one little element of the story, but when I was reading about those tax dodges today, my mind immediately jumped to this story. This story about how they wanted to live the high life without having to give anything back to society at all. Living tax free. Well, there's a reason that the tax free countries so easily turn into hellholes for people. Taxes truly are the price we pay for civilization (Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, right?).

The more I read today, another thing popped out to me. Everyone referred to these tax avoidance scams as tax "management" or "planning". The only thing that mattered to these people was avoiding as much tax as possible. And frankly, that attitude is so f'ed up. It's basically just them saying "I've got mine, fuck everyone else".

Where do they think innovation comes from? Where do they think research happens?

Man, I really hope I can just go back to working on divorce, or personal injury cases. They drive me less crazy.