Rise of a New Kleptocracy: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World | Tom Burgis

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Business, Government

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2020

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Episode 160 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tom Burgis, an investigations correspondent at the Financial Times who is also the author of Kletopia, a book that chronicles the world of dirty money, with its complex web of criminals, money launderers, and politicians who enable it.

In recent decades, we have witnessed in the West the rise of a new kleptocracy that knows no boundaries and obeys few laws, which is enabled by a sort of political consensus to loot. This looting has become so pervasive that the money extracted by its members is enough to buy the political power needed to change the laws and loot some more. It's a self-perpetuating cycle of fraud, criminality, and widespread corruption of the very systems of liberal, democratic capitalism that these kleptocrats depend upon for their survival.

Unfortunately, the conduits through which we learn about this phenomenon are themselves often held captive, to one degree or another, by these same forces. The more obvious their looting becomes and the more our elected officials choose to ignore or divert our attention away, the more radicalized and susceptible the electorates become to the promises of candidates who seek to fill the vacuum of trust left by our politicians with power.

In their conversation today, Demetri and Tom discuss the nature of this problem and why it poses such a serious threat to the very systems that it seeks to exploit.

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Episode Recorded on 10/19/2020

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode of Hidden Forces is made possible by listeners like you.
0:04.4	For more information about this week's episode or for easy access to related programming
0:09.7	visit our website at hidden Forces. I.O. and subscribe to our free email list.
0:16.4	If you listen to the show on your Apple Podcast app, remember, you can give us a review.
0:21.5	Each review helps more people find the show and join our
0:24.9	amazing community. And with that, please enjoy this week's episode. And the What's up, up, everybody? My guest on this episode of Hidden Forces is Tom Burgess.
0:54.8	Tom is an investigation's correspondent at the Financial Times and he is also the author of
0:59.3	Kleptopia, which is a book that chronicles the world of dirty money with its complex web of
1:05.8	criminals money launderers and politicians who enable it. The reason that I wanted to
1:11.9	have Tom on and why I think this conversation is important
1:15.1	is that it seems to me that what we've been seeing in recent decades is not only a rise
1:21.1	in corruption but really the rise of a new international kleptocracy.
1:27.0	A kleptocracy that knows no boundaries that plays by a completely different set of rules,
1:33.0	and which is enabled by a sort of political consensus to loot.
1:37.0	And this looting has become so pervasive
1:40.0	that the money extracted by these individuals and their corporations and front companies
1:46.0	is enough to buy the political power to stack the legislatures to change the laws to loot
1:51.3	some more. In a self-perpetuating cycle of fraud, criminality, and widespread
1:56.8	exploitation of the public and ultimately the very system of liberal democratic capitalism upon which even those doing the looting
2:06.4	depend for their survival.
2:08.9	Unfortunately, the conduits through which we learn about this phenomenon are themselves often held captive to one degree or another by these same forces.
2:19.0	And I'm not quite sure what the solution is, but I'm confident that the more obvious this becomes to the public and the more
	...

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