Essays & Op-Eds
Why Tax Havens Are Political and Economic Disasters
2016, The Atlantic
Whatever benefits might come to a country entering into the tax-haven business, it seems to be a Faustian bargain. Most are afflicted by the “finance curse,” becoming repressive, undemocratic and economically precarious.
Keywords: finance curse, Cook Islands, Panama, Luxembourg
Panama Papers: The Real Scandal Is What’s Legal
2016, The Atlantic
The Panama Papers gave many their first glimpse of the dirty secret of offshore finance: the system makes legally possible activities that many people would consider criminal. While the leak exposed opportunistic and often unethical behavior by world leaders and celebrities, most broke no laws. This is why there have been so few prosecutions based on offshore leaks, and even fewer convictions.
Keywords: Panama Papers, Mossack Fonseca, offshore finance
Under Anklage: De Rige Reagerer med Vrede (Under Attack: The Rich React with Anger)
2016, Politiken
The ultra-rich are ultra-sensitive to criticism; the Panama Papers has caused them to lash out in anger.
Keywords: Panama Papers, elites
Trust Me with your Money
2016, Aeon Magazine
This article examines the unusually close relationship between wealth managers and their clients–a form of elite service almost unique in its intensity.
Keywords: wealth management, professions, elites, inequality
Europeans Are Flying Across the Atlantic to Participate in Black Friday
2015, The Atlantic
In Denmark, my neighbor and my pharmacist both board planes on Thanksgiving Day and fly eight hours to New York just to shop American Black Friday sales. Our holiday has become an international spectacle, like the running of the bulls for shoppers.
Keywords: shopping arbitrage, Black Friday, consumerism
Inside the Secretive World of Tax-Avoidance Experts
2015, The Atlantic
A sociologist realized that if she were ever going to understand global inequality she would have to become one of the people who helps create it. So she trained to become a wealth manager to the ultra-rich.
Keywords: elites, offshore finance, ethnography
With Current Crisis, a Monster Emerged
2008, Philadelphia Inquirer
Like Dr. Frankenstein, the architects of subprime mortgages and derivatives created a monster whose complex workings they didn’t understand—one that laid waste to innocent lives.
Keywords: 2008 financial crisis, subprime mortgages, complexity theory
Investor Beware | Money and Moral Hazard
2001, American Prospect
How proposals to privatize Social Security and “run the country like a business” fundamentally misunderstand the very different purposes and constituencies served by governments and businesses.
Keywords: Social Security, privatization, moral hazard, risk, Bush