Hacker News Reader

Comment by pbiggar | Hacker News Reader

> The remaining British overseas territories are: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands. There are also two sovereign base areas on Cyprus under British jurisdiction.

Good note at the end

View on HN

And quite a few of those in shady financial dealings. Happily hiding and laundering money for various kleptocrats. It has been noted that, just as the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank.

The British government likes to make various noises about cleaning this up, but there are too many businesses in the City of London making money off the system for there to be much chance of that happening.

> the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank.

Great quip!

There will always be some crime in any financial centre, but I think there's limited evidence that there's proportionally more financial crime going on in London than e.g. NYC or Frankfurt.

The idea that serious evil is necessarily illegal in the first place is probably hilariously naive to begin with.

>there's limited evidence

Because the UK government is trying very hard to look the other way?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com