Money laundering is a massive global problem. Billions in illicitly-earned money is laundered every year, often through reputable banking systems.
The transactions are often made to look legitimate, in order to avoid suspicion from law enforcement agencies. Criminals then infuse billions of dollars of black money into the stream of commerce and business, corrupting financial institutions and officials.
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had a 20-year pact with the mafia for protection and help with his business interests in exchange for millions of euros in payment, alleged Italian judges in a new judicial report released last week.
The leader of the People of Freedom (PdL) party was implicated in a Palermo court after his long-time associate Marcello Dell’Utri had been convicted recently for his mafia connections.
Women lipstick made in China could contain high levels of lead that have been linked to causing high blood pressure, joint pain and poor memory loss in adults, warned officials from the Philippines on Sunday, urging consumers to avoid unregistered lipstick brands and be wary of imitation products purporting to be legitimate brands.
The Philippines Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the advisory over the weekend after observing that many of these products were being sold widely on the streets of many urban areas without the agency’s approval.
China’s great rebalancing act has begun. But how successful and orderly the rebalancing process will be will depend on how realistic the government are in their growth projections. What is clear is that China can no longer accommodate 7-8 percent annual growth if it truly hopes to cure its severe domestic imbalances.
The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group of emerging economies have agreed to contribute $100 billion to a currency reserve pool that will guard against future financial shocks, such as the recent mass exodus of cash from emerging markets caused by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s most recent quantitative easing program.
Even with broad and prolonged support for raising taxes on the rich, tax reform regularly ranks near the bottom of America’s priority list. According to a Bloomberg poll, only 4 percent of respondents saw tax reform as the most important issue of the year (2012).
America’s love-hate relationship with taxation is hardly news. The country was birthed in a tax-induced revolution. The selection of its governments, as well as the difference between its two main political parties, has consistently revolved around tax issues.
In U.S. history, difficult times have translated to periods of xenophobia, isolationism and protectionism, from the anti-Chinese legislation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to the anti-Japanese sentiments in the late 1980s. Today, America’s lingering economic weakness has hardened public opinion on international trade policies and anti-China advocates are exploiting that negative sentiment in their quest to make China a convenient scapegoat for America’s systemic problems.
The gloom and doom surrounding India’s economic crisis has been “overplayed”, said chief economist at the World Bank Kaushik Basu on Monday, dismissing rumours that that India will need to seek a line of credit from the International Monetary Fund to help fix the economy.
The Federal Reserve warned on Monday that some of the country’s largest banks still fall short in areas critical to risk management and capital planning, raising speculation that banks could be pushed to increase their capital or curtail dividends and share buybacks to satisfy regulators.
While the United States had added more jobs in recent months than economists had been expecting, several studies suggest that the U.S. labour market has lost at least 3 million well-paid “good jobs” forever. The bulk of new jobs being created is in fact a huge swathe of part-time work which offers no long term security and is generally low paid work – nothing there to fuel a consumer-led recovery.
