taxes between matrimony patrimony and paradise... who wants to be a patriot.

      Meet us in paradise.
Three stories, three centuries and the same background.

1. The XVI century
The Vatican had the Fugger in the Renaissance:
Jakob Fugger offered to lend count Albrecht the money needed to buy his 3rd diocese. Fugger launched an indulgence campaign on behalf of St Peter’s project for the Vatican. Half the cash raised would go to the Vatican and the other half would pay back his loan in favour of Count Albrecht.
Martin Luther had a say on that.....

2. The XIX century
The USA had their “robber barons”:

the Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Gould, ... and above all Morgan,  since 1867
Adjectives we could use to describe them:

• bold, 
• guileful, 
• ruthless
•  inhibited by restraints of  conscience
• ................

Sometimes with related cases of moral hipocrisy
when they show the tip of 
the corruption iceberg such as 
from tax evasion to money laundering,
from drug trafficking to arms funding

but
What about the Hispanic branches 
on this side of Europe....

Born in Santander or Majorca,
but it could have been anywhere...

Judge for yourself

3. The XX century

Mr E. Botín - Banco Santander SA  since 1857

news_01
In 2011, the Botín family paid about EUR200 million in back taxes to avoid charges of tax evasion (for the last punitive years) against Mr. Botín and 11 of his relatives involving a Swiss investment account inherited from his father. Spain’s national court closed a tax fraud investigation focused on the family, without bringing charges.

news_02
The origin of the investigation of the Botín family dates back to 2006, when an HSBC Private Bank employee stole data on 24,000 clients who held secret accounts with the lender. The employee subsequently gave the information to the French authorities.


Mr J. March - Banca March  since 1926

(2010) news _03  The Guardian  
March started life as a local banker for Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands. His colourful past allegedly included pig-trading, smuggling and the secret refuelling of submarines (and general profiteering) during the first world war. 

(1961) News_04. TIME He was dubbed "the last pirate of the Mediterranean".

 the world's most mysterious and powerful billionaire. Shrewd and ruthless, the shadowy figure of Juan March has floated across the face of Europe for more than half a century, bringing public officials low, underwriting dictators, helping to finance two world wars 

Gue$$ what I need?

Have you seen this old joke of a university student writing a letter to his parents asking for some money?

Dear Mom and Dad,
Gue$$ what I need? Plea$e $end $ome $oon.
Be$t wi$he$,
Your $on
His parents later wrote back:

Dear Son,
Love,
Mom and Dad

Financial Joke No7!

Univer$ity life i$ $o wonderful! Cla$$e$ this $e$$ion are intere$ting, my cla$$mate$ are the be$t! But after $pending all my ca$h on Chri$tma$ pre$ent$, I am in a little need for $ome $pending money for book$ and $uch. But don't want to $end the wrong $ignal$ home.

  Love   Your $on 

After deliberating a while, this was the draft of their appropriate response: 
  Dear Son: 
NOt much to NOtice here on the NOrth side of town since you left for NOrthwestern. NObody doing NOthing Noble. Enjoyed having you home for Thanksgiving in NOvember and Christmas.

NOthing is the same since you left. Loved your NOte; write aNOther one when you have time. 

   Have to go NOw.    Mom & Dad

source: http://www.jokebuddha.com/Pending#ixzz2F5993Qyq

    Dear Dad 

Univer$ity life i$ really great and I’m beginning to enjoy it. Even though I’m making lot$ of new friend$, I $till find time to $tudy very hard. 

I already have $ome $tuff and I $imply can't think of anything el$e I need, $o if you like, you can ju$t $end me a $imple card a$ I would love to hear from you.  

Love,  

Your $on Moi$he

(#659)  and ArNOld's reply :)

    Dear Moishe I kNOw that astroNOmy, ecoNOmics, and oceaNOgraphy are probably NOt  eNOugh to keep even an hoNOurs student busy. But do NOt forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a NOble task and one can never study eNOugh. NOthing much is happening here. Please write aNOther letter soon. Bye for NOw.
Love your father,    ArNOld

Money is part of the game: what money can buy

Money is time, time is money, the proverb goes. But ...
Most people don't spend much time wondering what money is, their major concern is how much they have, and how to get more. In economics (properly understood), the answer to the question - what is money? - consists of three words: Money is a "medium of exchange". That's all. Yet the conception of a "medium of exchange" ranks below only language (with its corollaries - speech and the written word) as the greatest intellectual discovery in history. Without language, the exchange of anything but the most rudimentary ideas is impossible. Without money, the production and exchange of anything is not difficult, or time consuming, or inefficient, it is IMPOSSIBLE!

Here we have three quotes on money:

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
Jonathan Swift All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.Spike Milligan A man has one hundred dollars and you leave him with two dollars, that's subtraction.
Mae West 

What Is Money?

Some of these news are fake, some true... But can you spot the forged ones? (key below)

NEWS1. “A Manhattan woman has sued a $19,000-a-year preschool her daughter attended, arguing that the program failed to adequately prepare her daughter for the test required to enter New York City’s hypercompetitive private school system.

The suit, filed by Nicole Imprescia on Friday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, said the York Avenue Preschool had not fulfilled its stated commitment to prepare her 4-year-old daughter, Lucia, for the intelligence test known as the E.R.B. “The school proved to be not a school at all, but just one big playroom,” the suit claimed.  (to be read in the globalsociology blog.)

NEWS2. Should UK join the euro, if £1 ends up worth €1? 

As the pound meanders towards parity with the euro, should we abandon the good ship sterling? There’s been a renewed call for hooking up with our continental neighbours’ currency in recent months, and the issue has hit the headlines again after one oposition leader pointed out current financial policy was doing the pound no favours. 

It seems crazy to have a pop at a person who wants to be the next man in charge of the economy, because he pointed out what is glaringly obvious – the pound is a bit rubbish at the moment. In some ways this is good. It should help our businesses to export more, but for many it's something to be cheesed off about. 

POUND = quid

NEWS3.  The currency sign for the popular quid is £, which is usually written with a single cross-bar, as on sterling bank notes, though  a double cross-bar (₤) is also sometimes seen. The pound sign derives from Librae in Roman £sd units (librae, solidi, denarii) used for the three items. Finally the British currency system got decimal. Believe it or not 1965   The Board of Trade and the Confederation of British Industry declared their full support for metrication and decimalisation. The Metrication Board was set up in 1969 and currency decimalisation took place on Decimal Day, 15 February 1971. Norman Davies shows that opposition to metrication aroused passionate feelings in a number of


disparate quarters.  One group, BWMA, believed that compulsory metrication constituted an 


attack on British culture and a breach on civil rights. 


DOLLAR = buck

NEWS4. At the start of the year, one buck  would get you 1.17 Canadian dollars, which was a pleasant surprise to American tourists, including the man who exclaimed, "I had no idea those people up north had their own money."

Our more ecological money, the 100-euro note,  to illustrate our piece of news on the euro:

NEWS5. Fighting fire with fire: 

IT WAS the Great Fire of 1666 that prompted the establishment of London’s modern fire brigade, organised at first by private insurers, but later coming under public management. In Paris, on the initiative of Louis XV, the pompiers have been fighting fires since 1733. Few Europeans today could imagine a city without a public firefighting service, or a home without fire insurance. But when the architects of the single currency built the euro, they thought that sharing the risk of disaster might merely encourage recklessness and even arson. Better than this moral hazard was to make each country master of its own fate. Why should those living in brick houses save the feckless in their wooden huts? 

NEWS6. Canada Boldly Goes With New Five Dollar Coin  THE ROYAL CANADIAN MINT– Canada is ready to phase-in the country’s first five-dollar circulation coin. Gaining approval and royal ascent for the proclamation authorizing the issue and prescribing the composition, dimensions, and design of the new coin has been a long trek, but with Canada’s continuing mission to reduce the amount of paper money in circulation, a five-dollar coin was the next step. To coin a phrase, “It was only logical.”  

For some humour related issues :

Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

For the pronunciation of the euro (great diversity indeed, see wikipedia here)

Mind you, the bestest joke, the symbol of Dollar is ..... correct which spelling does not include any "S"!!!!! 

KEY: these news are fake, news 4 & 6.

some are true: news 1, 2, 3 & 5.