Comments on: A fire in the world’s laundromat

By: douglas clark

douglas clark — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 10:14:00 +0000

Someone, it may have been Frankie Boyle, commented on Paris as a place where wealth existed in abundance at the centre and all services, such as cleaning clothes, (Your Laundromat analogy) or any other support was bussed in from increasingly poor suburbs. The point being that when push came to shove, the French State merely closed off the routes to central Paris and said to the rioters ‘go ahead, hurt your own.” . Central Paris thus becoming an enormous gated community. I think some of the residents in Central London would like to adopt a similar model. Perhaps I am wrong, I hope so.

By: After Grenfell: An Alternative to the Housing Crisis - Conatus News

After Grenfell: An Alternative to the Housing Crisis - Conatus News — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 12:34:00 +0000

[…] fraud, and money laundering. According to a report from Britain’s National Crime Agency foreign criminals launder billions of pounds every year by purchasing expensive London properties. Ultimately, our society must step back from our view of […]

By: Adam Ramsay

Adam Ramsay — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 17:01:00 +0000

absolutely. But I think that, for most of the UK, London is at the centre of this process – sucking in capital and pushing out people.

By: Adam Ramsay

Adam Ramsay — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 17:00:00 +0000

thanks! fixed this on Friday 🙂

By: BC

BC — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 13:44:00 +0000

That’s a really interesting article, Jeremy. Thanks

By: Jeremy Fox

Jeremy Fox — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 08:17:00 +0000

Interesting discussion BC. In this case, however, I think the situation is the opposite from the one you propose. The kernel of the City issue is its centuries-old "extra-legal" status. It has been a law unto itself since at least the first Elizabeth or maybe even since 1067 - and at any rate long before anyone had heard of the drug trade or funny money from wherever. The City touts for business regardless of regulation and with impunity precisely because it exists outside the UK regulatory envronment.There's no need for a collusion of customers or latter-day regulatory capture. And, by the way, the Tory party is a notable beneficiary of the system - reportedly receiving at least half its funds from....the City of London.

By: BC

BC — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 17:26:00 +0000

Well no. It’s not a general retail outlet with a varied clientelle, Jeremy. It’s a bespoke service for a very limited number of customers who are all criminals. Where the collusion lies is in regulatory capture where both the City and its customers (who generally have power and influence in their own right) are instrumental in frustrating proper regulation. Even if we were to allow that theirs is not real criminality (which we shouldn’t), they carry out this business knowing full well that people whom even they regard as criminals benefit from it too.

I do agree that the City is the key factor, though.

By: Ally Mountain

Ally Mountain — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 11:25:00 +0000

But this isn’t just about London. I was born in Cirencester and have spent my life being forced to move from one part of the Cotswolds to another by people buying up property. Rent and house prices are extortionate. Rich people talk about their lovely village communities but there’s noone left who has lived there for more than a generation. Daglingworth cemetery is packed with the graves of my ancestors. My mother’s family were farm labourers to the gentry for 1000s of years. But I couldn’t afford to live anywhere near the villages where I used to visit my uncles and aunts. My mother had 13 siblings. But their offspring are scattered to the four winds. I don’t know them. I grew up with a huge extended family. But now I am alone. Because I can’t afford to buy a community.

By: Jeremy Fox

Jeremy Fox — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 20:58:00 +0000

Yes; but that’s merely happenstance – akin to strangers buying at the same store. The service supplier – the laundry – is the key factor.

By: BC

BC — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:01:00 +0000

“…also a crime of course, though of a more genteel kind than the narcotics trade”

There is a view that tax evasion is not a “real” crime because all you are doing is preventing the confiscation of your own money. That is nonsense in its own right of course but it also needs to be added that by sharing the same laundering facility, those who commit the “lesser” crime are in effect in cahoots with the drug peddlers, people smugglers, terrorists and illegal arms traders.

By: David Thomas

David Thomas — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 14:29:00 +0000

Good and necessary- but can you correct “Laudromat”- a niggle, I know but it undermines the seriousness of the article

By: Jeremy Fox

Jeremy Fox — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 10:58:00 +0000

Spot on. But the City’s involvement in laundering the proceeds of mafia crime is only a part of the problem. It also launders – and probably on a much larger scale – the proceeds of tax evasion (also a crime of course, though of a more genteel kind than the narcotics trade). These funds flow through the City to the “UK controlled” tax havens such as the ‘home islands’ – Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Sark, Alderney – and those farther afield such as Gibraltar, Caymans, Bermuda, British Virgin, Turks and Caicos etc. Once the funds are laundered, they may and do return as clean investments, often in real estate. According to tax haven guru, Nicholas Shaxson, in June 2009 the (City) web as a whole held an estimated US$3.2 trillion in offshore bank deposits – about 55 per cent of the global total. And that’s just bank deposits. At the very heart of the fog (with apologies to Dickens) squats the Corporation of the City of London with the Lord Mayor at its head…. Highly recommended: Treasure Islands, Shaxson’s brilliant exposé.