Liechtenstein, and its citizens, have long been more than a little strange. All microstates are a little strange, being, like Liechtenstein the, polar political opposite of failed states.
Failed states are plagued by institutions too weak to prop up the flaccid rule of law, and thereby permitting “shadow institutions” (the black market, organized crime, official corruption, non-governmental bases of power) to garner such a mass of power and influence so as to tear apart the thin threads of justice and stability merely by the centrifugal force of their motion.
Microstates enjoy an artificially stable state by virtue of their globally envied institutions. Usually, these were created during formative times in global history. Often they were augmented by the highly centralized, even imperial rule in place when the borders were drawn. In Liechtenstein, Vaduz was lorded over by no feudal subject and therefore beholden only to the Emperor (making it the early 18th century, European equivalent of North Carolina for carpet bagging). When Napoleon dismantled the Holy Roman Empire, of which Liechtenstein had officially been member, the tiny Principality, unlike her peers, dissolved into a state with no fealty at all save to its local princes.
Come World War I and World War II, the entire country is basically a big safe deposit box for Europe.
Set the way forward machine to 2008-2009. Banking is getting clobbered. In other words, the institutions (primarily Swiss) of banking secrecy and investment acumen, which permitted a country which otherwise lacked the critical mass to be even remotely interesting, much less worth using as a safe haven, to hold it together, are under siege.
The only real question is: Will Liechtenstein be annexed by Switzerland, or Austria?
UK Seals Deal To End Liechtenstein Tax Havens [Times Online]
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Too Long To Read(Post)
There is no way this was written by the real EP. Who is this illiterate impostor?
Monaco.
I think I just suffered a boredom aneurysm – thanks bunches!
I’d rather sink than call Brad for help.
Ah, sorry, different Lichtenstein.
Cut EP and Gregory some slack. August is the slowest news month. Even Bess would have a hard time to conjure up interesting stories now.
With that being said, EP/GM did miss the biggest news of the day (Atticus shutting down). C’mon guys!
@2
That was written by Marla Singer, who claims to be a resident of Liechtenstein.
I sense that GM/EP refuse to write about things raised initially by posters on DB for fear that it appears to be some “caving into pressure” from the masses – meanwhile we read about Liechtenstein as a result… and I like Greg and EP, for the record.
@7
Somehow, I realize all of this — the gun, the bombs, the revolution — is really about Marla Singer.
@8 “posters on DB” are the only reason why the site exists. If EP/Bambi wanted to write about something they cared or professed to have expertise in, that’s what personal blogs are for. And last I checked, they don’t pay the bills.
Intentional or not, the last few days have sucked big time.
And here it is DiPascali Goes Down and Erin Arvedlund Comes Out day in the Madoff scandal too. Where’s all that?
Not that I don’t respect the microstate tax haven scandal, but Liechtenstein is really, whatever its so called microstate status, only an annex of Switzerland and as tax havens go not really a separate story but totally connected to the larger problem of Switzerland. It doesn’t even have a separate foreign relations department, Switzerland does that FOR it.
I’d like my stein Liecht right about now…
Sir Allen
“All microstates are a little strange, being, like Liechtenstein the, polar political opposite of failed states.”
why? why do you fail so hard?
1,2,4: Maybe trading has caused some kind of artery blockage in your collective brains.
Is that the sound of your blood vessels popping?
EP: love your work. ignore the d!kwads.
i’m buying FC Vaduz for 1mm Euros next year.
14,
Agree.
-LA
Liechteinstein is closer in spirit to Austria than Switzerland.
“Lichtenstein” is fun to say.
However, it is not so fun to hang out in anymore. I propose that the International Cabal of Rich People Who Pay No Taxes And Secretly Run Everything consider relocating the Lichtenstein operations to the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. They have killer wine there.
And in Grand Fenwick, that traitorous asshole who sold the account info would have been pinned to a tree by arrows from sturdy bows and left for the wild boars. It’s pretty much the perfect country.