According to a recent report in The Guardian (UK), the world’s wealthy have as much as $32 trillion stashed in off-shore accounts.
Why
is all that money stashed in off-shore accounts? The obvious answer is that
it’s avoiding the tax man, of course. The less obvious answer―the answer almost
everyone overlooks―is that it’s cooling the economy and helping to reduce CO2
emissions and other forms of pollution worldwide.
Wait!
What?
That’s
right. Money acts as a lubricant for the economy. When you take away
substantial amounts of lubricant, machinery starts to bog down. If you take
away all of the lubricant, machinery seizes up and grinds to a halt. The
economy works on the same principle; it needs plenty of lubricant (money) to
keep the machinery running smoothly at top speed. When money goes out of the
economy, the economy slows down, contracts and turns sluggish. You know, about like
the global economy is doing right now.
More
money circulating in the economy means more people have more money to spend on
goods and services, which stimulates the economy. When demand goes up,
businesses hire more workers to help them meet the increased demand. Taking
money out of the economy produces the exact opposite effect.
Money
taken out of the economy and squirreled away might as well not exist; certainly
nothing would change if it ceased to exist. Money held in savings represents
economic activity that’s already occurred; as long as that money is held in
savings, it can’t be used to stimulate new economic activity. In terms of the
economy, money is only useful when it’s spent. In terms of the environment, the
opposite is true; unspent money represents reduced economic activity and a
corresponding reduction of industrial pollution entering the environment.
Whether
by intent or as an unintended consequence of rapacious greed, the world’s
wealthy seem to be doing the rest of us a huge favor by reining-in the causes
of global warming. How cool is that?
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