Treasure Islands

ENAR

There is only a passing mention of one of the Middle East’s tax havens, Dubai, and no mention of the other two contenders, Bahrain and Lebanon, in Nicholas Shaxson's book “Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World.”  This is a shame as there are plenty of juicy tales to tell about shell companies, dodgy accounting and suitcases crammed with petrodollars, but there is a good reason for the lack of coverage. The Middle East three are small fry in this business, with more than half of world trade passing through tax havens, while in 2010 the balance sheets of small island financial centers alone were conservatively estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be worth a staggering $18 trillion — just less than a third of the world’s gross domestic product.  Compare the Cayman Islands — population 56,000 — with Lebanon and Bahrain; in 2008, the