Rich People Are The Same As You And Me!

Well pretty much. Except they don't have to pay income tax, and they don't have to worry about retirement and they don't have to worry about sending their kids to college and they don't have to worry about the mortgage and they don't have to worry about.... Never mind. Guardian (03.27.05):

"The world's richest individuals have placed $11.5 trillion of assets in offshore havens, mainly as a tax avoidance measure. The shock new figure - 10 times Britain's GDP - is contained in the most authoritative study of the wealth held in offshore accounts ever conducted.

The study, by Tax Justice Network, a group of accountants and economists concerned at the escalating wealth held in offshore locations, shows that the world's high-net-worth individuals earn $860 billion each year from their assets."

Super-rich hide trillions offshore

"The $11.5trn does not include the vast amount of money stashed in tax havens by multinational corporations, which are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to run rings round the authorities."

"The Tax Justice Network study has drawn from data supplied by the Bank of International Settlements, Merrill Lynch and McKinsey. Richard Murphy of Tax Research, who co-authored the report, said: 'No one has tried to calculate a number like this before. To ensure the credibility of our data, we have only used information already in the public domain and produced by some of the most authoritative sources in the world.

'In addition, we tested our conclusions against three independent sources of information, and all seem to substantially agree, giving us a high degree of confidence in the conclusions.'"

Some background: "Havens that Have Become a Tax on the World's Poor", "Where the rich stash their cash", and at the Association for Accountancy and Business Affairs site.

And they can spend (Rupert Murdoch) $41 million for a condo in Manhattan, then turn around a few days later and and buy a house in Beijing. And they can spend $106 million (Lakshmi Mittal) for a "12-bedroom London home next to Kensington Palace". And they can spend $58 million (Lakshmi Mittal) for a kid's wedding in Paris.

But rich guys do have problems: "Crackdown On Tax Shelter Inconveniences Rich People".

Then there's this, out of Zimbabwe: "Vote for opposition and you won't get food, villages told".