A new novel, "Black Money" by Michael M. Thomas was reviewed in the Sunday and Monday New York Times (both). It concerns the money laundering of the proceeds from the retail pharmaceutical trade.
From the Monday review:
Black money, says a character ... is "money fleeing regulation, taxation or disclosure....Offshore is where it seeks and acquires anonymity. Of course, you must not think of 'offshore' as having a defined physical geography, as an exotic setting for a Paul Erdman novel. Offshore is no longer of our geography: it exists in what is called cyberspace, its cartography is digital. You can be in the bar of this very hotel, and if you have a palmtop computer and a phone jack you can make yourself every bit as 'offshore' as if you were sitting on a Swiss mountaintop or a beach on Vanuatu." Make that a palmtop and a wireless net link... DCF "If 5 billion people each have the ability to travel anywhere, buy anywhere, sell anywhere, invest anywhere, and communicate with anyone, the design of a control regime to rule them quickly becomes an NP complete problem." - DCF --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165