Financial Transparency Coalition

He bought the company, exerted influence, and dictated events to be covered, and he did it all anonymously. Just two weeks ago, all we knew was that a company called NEWS + MEDIA GROUP, LLC purchased The Las Vegas Review Journal, Nevada’s largest daily newspaper. It was reported that an executive from NEWS + MEDIA GROUP told journalists that

Sometimes—even usually—competition is a good thing. It lowers market prices; it sent a man to the moon; and it’s responsible for thousands of Olympic medals. In many cases, competitions–or races–are responsible for innovation, efficiency, and better performance. In these cases, an individual actor’s pursuit of victory leads to the betterment of society, a market, or a generation of athletes. However, sometimes competitions—or races—instead lead to worse outcomes for society. Often called a “race to the bottom,” these kinds of competitions include, for example, international degradations of environmental and labor standards. This kind of race also happens in...

Imagine for a moment that airline security were left up to individual states, rather than the federal government. It’s perhaps not too much of a stretch of the imagination to conclude that different states would adopt different levels of security. For example, some states might require their passengers to provide identification to ensure they aren’t terrorists and pass their bags through x-ray machines to ensure those passengers aren’t trying to load illicit materials onto the airplane. Other states, though, might think it’s advantageous to reduce their security requirements. They might argue that by reducing screening, they could trim down...

You probably already know that the Swiss Alps and tiny Caribbean islands aren’t the only places to hide illicit activities behind a veil of banking secrecy. Maybe you know that tax evaders and money launderers are increasingly looking to Asian centers like Hong Kong and Singapore to store their ill-gotten and government-evading dollars. Maybe you even know that some of the best places to hide your black money aren’t in the developing world or on a remote island. They’re in places like Delaware, London, and Nevada. In Delaware and Wyoming, for example, clients can anonymously set up shell corporations (companies...