Bahamas finance leaders' plans will hurt ordinary Brazilians

Look at this breathlessly cynical piece in the Nassau Guardian:

"Bahamian financial professionals are aggressively wooing Latin America for high net worth Individuals (HNWIs), and Brazil saw the ‘landfall’ of arguably the largest Bahamian contingent to date this past week. Approximately 25 Bahamian professionals accompanied the Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB) to that jurisdiction."

Through this "aggressive wooing," these financiers seem to be trying to muscle in on the players in Caymans and the BVI, which have something of a dominant position in Brazil.

Of course the players will say that they are engaged purely in above-board asset management functions and things like that. We all know what a massive part of their agenda is: receiving criminally tax-evading funds from wealthy Brazilians, leaving that country's poorer citizens to pay their taxes instead. The Bahamas likes to boast how very interested it is in helping the world's wealthiest citizens:

"The Bahamas is a globally competitive international business jurisdiction for private wealth management, international investment into the Americas and emerging markets and residency for High Net Worth Individuals and Families creating high value jobs and business opportunities on a sustainable basis. To sustain our leadership in wealth management, The Bahamas must not only serve wealthy clients in every aspect of the asset management and protection business,” said Sen. the Hon. John Delaney, Attorney General and Min. of Legal Affairs."

Asset protection. Those are code words. Protection from what? Criminal laws? Tax authorities? Anti-abuse financial regulations? Do spell it out, please.

We should stress, at this point, that we are not accusing the people of the Bahamas of anything. We are accusing a narrow section of the political and financial leadership, that is all.

And in this unhappy context, we now note this, from the Bahamas government last month:

"Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has been selected to chair the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG).

As the chair of the 2011 meetings, Mr. Ingraham will be a primary channel of communication between the executives of the institutions and the shareholder countries."

Hmmmmmmmm.