Unspeakable acts

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vested” assets for their clients. That’s more than twice what it was in 2005, representing an average annual “From banks to accountancy firms and corporate lawyers, some of the biggest businesses in the world are part of the fabric of global tax avoidance,” writes fi­ nancial researcher (and former Goldman Sachs trader) Lydia Prieg in The Guardian. “These companies are not moral entities that we can shame into paying their fair share; they exist to maximize their profits and those of “Until the late 2000s,” Henry notes, “the conventional wisdom among flight capitalists was ‘What could be saf­ er than ‘too big to fail’ U.S., Swiss and UK banks?’” With­ out the bailouts that followed the 2008 financial crisis, he adds, many of the banks that are stashing cash for the ultra-rich wouldn’t exist anymore. The assumption of government backing is the very reason why those uberInequality has already been skyrocketing around the world, by all the conventional measures. If the top 1 per­ cent in the United States own not just 35.6 percent of the wealth, for instance, but a much larger portion that’s hidden, what does that mean for the rest of the popula­ litical choice,” (Or it is the consequence of the capitalist system of production. - BW) The amount of inequality is what the rich can get away with, and what society will tolerate. Many North Americans are grossly misin­ formed about the present level of inequality. The report shows that even the ‘experts’ massively underestimated tries, mostly lower or middle-income ones, for further study, noting that by most calculations, those 139 coun­ tries had a combined debt of over $4 trillion at the end of 2010. But if you take into account all that money be­ ing held offshore, those countries actually had negative $10 trillion in debt—or as Henry writes, “[O]nce we take these hidden offshore assets and the earnings they pro­ duce into account, many erstwhile ‘debtor’ countries are in fact revealed to be wealthy. But the problem is, their wealth is now offshore, in the hands of their own elites Henry further notes that the developing world as a whole turns out to be a creditor of the developed world, rather than a borrower. “That means this is really a tax justice problem, not simply a ‘debt’ problem.” But those debts, as we’ve noted, fall on the shoulders of the ordi­ nary working people of those countries, those who can’t If the unreported $21 trillion earned a rate of return of 3 percent, and that income was taxed at 30 percent, that alone would generate income tax revenues of around $190 billion. If the total amount of money in tax havens is closer to Henry’s higher estimate, $32 trillion, it would bring in closer to $280 billion—which is about twice the amount OECD countries spend on development assis­ tance. And that’s just income taxes. Capital gains taxes, take the time to go out there in per­ son because he’s very busy. He tells her that one of her customers com­ plained that an employee, Becky (Dreama Walker), stole money out of her purse an hour ago; she’s with Dan­ iels now along with Sandra’s boss, the franchise owner.

The mostly young staff is on edge as it is; Sandra has warned them that a com­ pany “secret shopper” is coming in to rate the place.

When Daniels asks Sandra to take Becky into the break room and search her purse, you know something is not kosher. From merely rummaging through her purse, the search escalates incrementally, orchestrated by Daniels as the rest of the oblivious staff contin­ ues serving the steady stream of cus­ tomers out front. He cows and intimi­ dates Sandra, flatters her so that she’ll do anything he asks.

The fact that the entire film is based on telephone dialogue neither con­ stricts nor undermines the suspense and pace. Plus, the camera breaks it up with shots of customers chowing down in booths; rusted, greasy equipment, dirty dishwater, piles of discarded car­ tons and wrappers, and a parking lot rimmed with melting snowdrifts. And it often segues to scenes of a bland-look­ ing, early fortyish man in sweater and slacks, sitting in front of a littered desk, or making a sandwich, with a phone to his ear.

Becky, who now sits naked, covered only by an apron, ends up allowing Sandra, her assistant, Marti (Ashley Atkinson), as well as Sandra’s balding, sheepish, beer-drinking fiancé, Van (Bill Camp), to carry out Daniels’ phone KOMO News / Joshua Lewis zens? How hundreds of thousands of people are coerced into leaving their homes and boarding freight cars that will take them to their deaths? How millions of innocent people are driven from their lands, herded into reserva­ tions or concentration camps—as were Japanese American citizens in Califor­ nia? Can it explain the exploitation of women? Minorities? The undocument­ ed, and so on?

Although this film takes place in a res­ taurant, it’s not claustrophobic. The act­ ing feels natural; you sense that these are real hardworking people asked to carry out unspeakable acts on an inno­ cent person. n