Capitalism's Achilles Heel Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System [Paperback]

For over forty years in more than sixty countries, Raymond Baker has witnessed the free-market system operating illicitly and corruptly, with devastating consequences. In Capitalism’s Achilles Heel, Baker takes readers on a fascinating journey through the global free-market system and reveals how dirty money, poverty, and inequality are inextricably intertwined. Readers will discover how small illicit transactions lead to massive illegalities and how staggering global income disparities are worsened by the illegalities that permeate international capitalism. Drawing on his experiences, Baker shows how Western banks and businesses use secret transactions and ignore laws while handling some $1 trillion in illicit proceeds each year. He also illustrates how businesspeople, criminals, and kleptocrats perfect the same techniques to shift funds and how these tactics negatively affect individuals, institutions, and countries.

Prologue 1

CHAPTER 1 Global Capitalism: Savior or Predator? 11

PART I Illegality: We Like the Money 21

CHAPTER 2 Playing the Game 23

The Dirty-Money User Manual 24

You're in Business 47

CHAPTER 3 Dirty Money at Work 48

The Corruption Industry 49

The Criminal Component: Drugs, Thugs, 88

and Terrorists

Global Commerce and Tax Evasion: Coin of the Realm 133

CHAPTER 4 Magnitudes and Misunderstandings 162

How Much Money? 162

A Failure Rate of 99.9 Percent 173

Well-Intentioned Efforts 174

The Patriot Act 177

Dirty Money Is on the Rise 182

Chasing Terrorists' Money 183

Ill-Intentioned LoopholelÃ-