Half and half

The Tax Justice Network has recently made the calculation that the corruption industry cost us about $30 trillion over the past 15 years - about half the entire world's gross domestic product.
'So for every $1 of output, 50 cents is being siphoned off in bribes and other illicit payments.' Alexander Lebedev - ex Russian billionaire writing in 'his' Evening Standard (1 September.)

Lebedev goes on;
'Between 2000 and 2011, just from China $3.97 trillion is thought to have disappeared, much of it the profits of corruption, channelled into secretive financial offshore financial havens. From Russia the figure is close to $1 trillion. In the EU the total lost is put at $1.2 trillion ($150 billion from Italy alone.)'
'Sadly' he adds 'London is at the very epicentre of this web.'

Leaving aside the 'no editing of the owners copy' privilege that Lebedev obviously makes use of in his article, his proposal is to create a new agency; an international anti corruption force. He estimates it would need a budget of $70 million a year and 'at its head I would appoint someone of global credibility and stature.' Who might that be we all wonder?

Lebedev (of course) misses the point. The whole developed and developing capitalist world now has the stature of one of those third world kleptocrcacies that the Bullenden boys so like to denounce.