
The Hidden History of the World’s Top Offshore Cryptocurrency Tax Haven
The Bahamas represents how global capitalism can go very right, and very wrong, at exactly the same time. On Jan. 3, as Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in New York on charges stemming from the collapse of one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, the FTX debacle became, once again, a U.S. story. The Bahamian backdrop to the last days of FTX has faded into the background. But the torrid affair between what was once touted as the leading edge of financial technology, or fintech, and the Bahamas—a nation of 400,000 people, spread over some 700 islands, 50 miles or so offshore of Florida—is not merely incidental. It highlights the way in which the wider Caribbean region has repeatedly functioned as a Frankenstein laboratory of global capitalism. The Caribbean was the first region of the world to feel the full force of Western conquest and plantation slavery. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Bahamas was a legendary base for piracy and smuggling. The 20th century brought the rise of American power and the struggles

American hubris
The US is addicted to greatness – and haunted by its loss. Great powers, both past and present, are haunted by three interconnected preoccupations: they are tempted by a sense of national superiority and claims to manifest historic destiny. Those pretensions tend to provoke fears of decline, which then give rise to projects of rebirth. The European empires that once fancied themselves great, most notably the British and French, are extreme examples. As France decolonised after 1945, Charles de Gaulle made “grandeur” a watchword of national policy. For the British elite, despite the increase in standards of living, decline was an obsession throughout the postwar period. Under the sign of “cool Britannia” and Tony Blair’s embrace of Europe in the 1990s, that shadow lifted. But since the banking crisis of 2008 and the Brexit referendum of 2016, the question has returned with ever-greater force. While the Brexiteers promise a “global Britain”, the average standard of living in Britain is declining for the first time in modern history. Nationalist bluster about “Britannia unchained” obfuscates a cool-eyed

The G-20 Proved It’s Our World Government
At a time of global conflict, world powers showed that cooperation can actually work. Ahead of time, the script for the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, seemed to write itself. A grouping conceived in the heyday of globalization was meeting in person for the first time under the shadow of the new Cold War. China and Russia would clash with the United States and its allies. Ukraine would hog center stage. Indonesia made no secret of the fact that it feared that the interests of the rest of the world—sometimes dubbed the new nonalignment—would take second place. There were moments in Bali that did conform to this script. Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to attend. Russia was at first represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who gave pugnacious press conferences in which he denounced Ukrainian fascists and brandished conspiracy theories about U.S. biolabs. Then Lavrov departed and Russia’s representation was reduced to the finance minister, effectively the junior tier of the G-20. When the missiles landed in Poland, the Indonesian president was obliged to delay

The west’s limited support for Ukraine fails to measure up
Europe and the US may sincerely want Kyiv to prevail over Moscow but they are failing to match ends with means. Read the full article at Financial Times

Ones & Tooze: The Miracle of Poland
Poland has had an incredible economic rise since the collapse of communism, even as its government has become increasingly illiberal. Are the two things connected? Or contradictory? Adam and Cameron dig in. Also on the episode: The economics of marriage. Find more episodes and subscribe at Foreign Policy.

Chartbook #196 The Closing of the Cocoa Frontier
This Valentines day, Americans gifted each other in the order of 58 million pounds of chocolate, much of it wrapped in 36 million heart-shaped boxes. It was a particularly busy period for the global chocolate industry, which in 2020 processed c. 5 million tons of cocoa beans into chocolate confectionary, generating around 130 billion dollars in revenue. The cocoa-chocolate business is an agro-industrial complex that

Three ways to read the ‘deglobalisation’ debate
Proponents of business as usual and the new cold warriors are too confident of their ability to predict the future. Read the full article in the Financial Times

An arms race on industrial policy is the last thing Europe needs
Making a fuss over America’s Inflation Reduction Act is gratuitous and counterproductive. Read the full article at the Financial Times

Regulators can’t keep turning a blind eye to crypto craziness
Stopping a hyped-up project that promises to disrupt the status quo requires decisiveness and courage Read the full article at the Financial Times
Chartbook
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Look out for Adam’s next book, Carbon, out in 2023.

Discussion with Wolfgang Schäuble

WEF 2020: Why Protests Are An Integral Part Of Democracy

GZERO World with Ian Bremmer – Is a 2nd Great Depression Coming?
Ones & Tooze: Move Over Elon Musk
Ones & Tooze: The Economics of Dating Apps

The Hidden History of the World’s Top Offshore Cryptocurrency Tax Haven
The Bahamas represents how global capitalism can go very right, and very wrong, at exactly the same time. On Jan. 3, as Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded

American hubris
The US is addicted to greatness – and haunted by its loss. Great powers, both past and present, are haunted by three interconnected preoccupations: they

The G-20 Proved It’s Our World Government
At a time of global conflict, world powers showed that cooperation can actually work. Ahead of time, the script for the G-20 summit in Bali,

The west’s limited support for Ukraine fails to measure up
Europe and the US may sincerely want Kyiv to prevail over Moscow but they are

Ones & Tooze: The Miracle of Poland
Poland has had an incredible economic rise since the collapse of communism, even as its

Chartbook #196 The Closing of the Cocoa Frontier
This Valentines day, Americans gifted each other in the order of 58 million pounds of

Three ways to read the ‘deglobalisation’ debate
Proponents of business as usual and the new cold warriors are too confident of their
Chartbook
Sign up below for Adam’s bi-weekly newsletter, which includes economic data, images, & stories that matter.
Look out for Adam’s next book, Carbon, out in 2023.

Discussion with Wolfgang Schäuble

WEF 2020: Why Protests Are An Integral Part Of Democracy

GZERO World with Ian Bremmer – Is a 2nd Great Depression Coming?
Ones & Tooze: How India’s Adani Group Lost Billions Overnight
Ones & Tooze: Are Tanks Really a Game Changer in Ukraine?
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