Financial Transparency Coalition

On Monday, the United Nations released a so-called “Zero Draft” of the Financing for Development (FfD) Conference Outcome Document. Simply stated, this draft lays out the current political consensus on a vast array of development issues including how to address the growing problem of illicit financial flows (IFFs). It is by no means the final word on IFFs—or any other issue for that matter—but it gives a good indication where things are heading.

On September 24th, tucked away in a quiet conference room in the basement of the UN General Assembly building, an extraordinary conversation took place on the future of global development.  But, despite the gathering of representatives from the OECD, UN, World Bank, USAID and the Mexican, Australian, and Nigerian governments, the event received exactly zero media coverage. Titled “Curbing Illicit Financial Flows for Domestic Resource Mobilization and Sustainable Development in the Post-2015 Era,” the focal point of the two-hour discussion was how the international community could, as the program description put...

Vice President Joe Biden brought his fundraising muscle to Detroit yesterday to raise money for Democratic House members Gary Peters and Mark Schauer. During his remarks the Veep said that the economic crisis was caused by wild west tactics among the best and brightest on Wall Street. “The rules were being made by the cowboys on Wall Street,” Biden is reported to have said according to Politico. If so, where is the Sheriff? Twenty sheriffs met in Pittsburgh in September (read: G20) but they didn’t implement the financial transparency procedures needed to get the cowboys out of the...

A smiling Urs Roth appeared on Bloomberg TV last week in a video version of whistling through the graveyard. Roth, who is CEO of the Swiss Banking Association, was in Washington to meet with the key people who will shepherd the country through the next iteration of banking regulation. With Swiss bank giant UBS recently coming out on the wrong end of a heavy weight bout with the Justice Department, Roth was no doubt trying to make nice with the people who could make his job a whole lot more difficult in the future. Part of Roth’s p.r....