Convenient Untruths: The False Narrative That Offshore Finance Is A Cause Of Widening Inequality In The UK

Thomas Piketty’s "Capital In The Twenty-First Century" had the good fortune to popularise wealth inequality as a policy issue at a time when austerity dominated western fiscal policy following the global financial crisis and where policy makers have been happy to distract and divert attention from policy failings by pointing at the bogeyman of offshore finance. Dr Andy Sloan's webinar addresses how offshore finance as the cause of widening global wealth inequality is an emotional and seductive narrative.  Its premise and accompanying facts have been accepted with very little critique.  So seductive the cause, so self-evident the case, that the facts go unchecked, data unverified and unreconciled.  The 'evidence' of the tax campaigners is repeated ad nauseum, without critique.  'Facts' are whatever campaigners deem them to be. Improved prescriptions in social policy is not served by a false diagnosis and thus the motivation to set out a true presentation of the facts.