To answer that question, the OECD used data from a Gallup World Poll conducted in 140 countries around the world last year. The poll asked respondents whether they had experienced six different forms of positive or negative feelings within the last day.

If the World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are the body of globalisation's dark side, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is its head. [2] Although not such a post-Seattle household name as the others, the OECD is the source of the ideology which drives them. It is the crude, lumbering think-tank of the most wealthy nations, bulldozing over human dignity without pause for thought. Its tracks, crushed into the barren dereliction left behind, spell 'global free market'.
source

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a cartel conformed by the countries of the European Union, plus Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Switzerland and the United States. So it is, basically, a club of wealthy countries that includes the members of the G7 who, in turn, have created organizations such as the Financial Stability Forum and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and with decisive influence in the economic organizations of the United Nations.

The genesis of the so-called "black lists" is found in documents of the OECD which evidences that they came to existence as a reaction of its members to the lawful competition that small countries and jurisdictions, aided by the technological revolution, started against the traditional financial centers, mainly England and the United States. Fearing competition, the brains of the OECD designed strategies that may only be called Machiavellian, seeking total destruction of the viability of emerging financial centers. To such end, they resorted to all kinds of imaginable resources, without any moral considerations, among them, the fabrication of fallacies and all sorts of tricks to hinder and discredit their new competitors. These plans, designed in the seventies, were kept secret until the year 2000 when the Committee of Financial Affairs of the OECD decided to make them public in a document called, Improving Access to Bank Information, which may be consulted at the OECD's Internet site ( www.oecd.org). The plot's confession is particularly obvious in paragraphs 36, 37 and 38 of this lengthy document where they state, with the impudence characteristic of their arrogance, that the liberalization of the financial markets was promoted by them as "a response to the threat to financial markets posed by offshore financial centres. Such financial centres in the 1960's and 1970's were able to attract foreign financial institutions by offering a minimally regulated banking system and minimal taxation at a time when technological advances made them more readily accessible. As capital flows to offshore financial centres threatened to undermine the traditional financial markets, a number of regulatory reforms were undertaken to level the playing field between onshore and offshore banking. Exchange controls were eliminated. Some countries established markets to compete directly with the offshore financial centres. In addition, efforts were made to harmonise the regulation of financial markets on a global basis." (36) In paragraph 38, they acknowledge that "although the liberalization of financial markets has facilitated economic growth, it also has increased opportunities for non-compliance with the tax laws. Once most of the non-tax barriers to the integration of financial and capital markets had been removed, individuals and legal entities gained access, at little or no cost, to banking systems around the globe through which to conduct both legitimate and illegitimate transactions. This access has made it easier for them to avail themselves of the benefits offered by jurisdictions that limit access to bank information for tax purposes. It also has made it harder for tax administrations to detect non-compliance unless they have adequate exchange of information with the relevant jurisdictions."
source

Originally posted by tetrahedron
reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

---

Re: thesis.

Many of these countries are European, democrat-socialist, very small (<10 mil ppl) and racially homogeneous.

Correlation is not causality.

Originally posted by tetrahedron
reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

---

Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands are top 3.

Try instituting the same welfare state that 6 million Fins use for 300 million Americans = Scalability disaster.

Originally posted by antonia
reply to post by Romantic_Rebel

---

As for the whole "It can't work in the U.S." thing. I'd agree with that. Most people in the U.S. are so frightened of changed they must have difficulty getting changed in the morning lol. I don't think it's impossible to do here. It would require a serious overhaul of how people think about government in this country though. Humans are our best resource. Instead of wasting our money dropping bombs all over the place perhaps we should consider investing in Humans.