MEMO 24.3.02     (fully hyperlinked on the web at: http://www.solami.com/memo24march.htm)

to:     friends of a trustworthy & globally respected Bahamian financial services market
from: Anton Keller, Secretary, Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers
cp. 2580  -  1211 Geneva 2  (t+f: 022-7400362, 079-6047707, swissbit@solami.com)

Cleaning up the OECD from within - through Bahamas as a full member
 

"If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquillity of servitude more than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or arms.  Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains sit lightly upon you,and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams (American Revolutionary Leader), "American Independence," 1 August 1776*

        1.    Like beautiful women & high mountains constituting - not least - challenges to be met & conquered, political power vacuums are there to be filled. History lists many determined individuals who thus made a dent - from Akhnaton to Alexander, from Mohammed to Bin Laden, and from Sadat to (just watch) Gilbert Morris(the Nassau Institute's CEO, professor of international law at Washington's George Mason University, Oxford and Harvard alumni). Indeed, why should unelected bureaucrats - operating behind the back of their own ministers in concert with foreign homologues - be able not only to infiltrate and then hijack such international organizations as the OECD, but get away with it?  So far they did, because instead of us being there, we let them fill the power vacuum and occupy the moral high ground. We now have an opportunity to change all that: by opening the debate on and pushing for full OECD membership for the Bahamas.  And by seeing to it that its representative to the OECD in Paris will effectively defend tax competition, fiscal sovereignty and financial privacy.  Indeed, why should those few incarnating fundamental principles & fighting for individual freedoms not thus be able to slow down, stop and eventually reverse even the most awesome bureaucratic juggernauts and wildcat trains? And why should a learned man who, almost single-handedly, blocked Bahamas‘ recent constitutional referendum to the tune of some 64% of the popular vote, why should this exceptionally gifted and equipped "political animal" not be able to get Bahamas‘ opposition at least into influential positions after the impending general election (May 2)?  Some current trends may thus be reversed, Bahamas' fiscal sovereignty may thus be strengthened by becoming the offshore countries' spokesman at the OECD, with the Bahamas becoming a privileged and at least regionally appreciated key player for channelling foreign investments into the US market with the trade mark of more rather than less financial privacy.

2.    Sir William Allen, Bahamas‘ finance minister was quoted in Bahama‘s Tribune of 15th February 2002 to fully expect to "have reached an agreement with the OECD on a commitment before the February 28 deadline." The pro-fiscal-sovereignty workshop of that same day - organized by Gilbert Morris' Nassau Institute and featuring Richard Rahn – produced considerable echo in the Bahamian press (print, radio and televsion; see my memo of 24.02.02, highlighting our workshop on the OECD & FATF at the May 2-4 Conference on Offshore Tax Planning, Compliance & Money Laundering; for program, international faculty & other details see: www.solami.com/Nassau.htm). Gilbert personally appealed to the outgoing Prime Minister and spoke with both PM candidates on the above alternative course to the planned succumbing to OECD fiscal diktats. Beyond what we‘ve achieved last May with US Treasury Secretary O’Neill’s policy turn on OECD initiatives, the OECD wildcat train thus slowed further. Bahamas risked OECD sanctions by ignoring the above deadline and – as what I’m told from sources within Bahamas‘ finance ministry is in fact a non-commital interim position – it found itself stiffened in its resolve to protect and exercise its fiscal sovereignty by signing a commitment tied to conditions which are almost certainly never going to be fulfilled or to entail any significant change in Bahamian law. Thus, with Richard Rahn, Howard Flight, Gilbert Morris and other comrades-in-arms in and outside of the US, we can and will not only stop this train completely but effectively throw it into reverse gear, 9/11 notwithstanding – provided, of course, we dispose of adequate operational funds in a reliable and timely fashion in order to realise the opportunities developed (e.g. in Nassau, and in Cambridge where we are again invited this fall).

3.    My recommendation thus remains: chip your token today still into the hat of Gilbert Morris (acct #1183802 Barclays Bank PLC, Harbour Bay Plaza, Nassau, Bahamas. routing #00021-248).
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* reproduced from the web at: http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/adam_a29.htm