Banking, Finance & Services

A Guide to Trump's World of Crypto Czars, Tech Titans and Prison Profiteers Read More

A couple of months before the November 2024 election, a curious document landed in investors'  inboxes. Titled the “World Liberty Gold Paper” and emblazoned with a stern-looking picture of Donald Trump in a coin-shaped splash of gold, it announced the Trump family’s entrée into the world of cryptocurrencies. Within a year, half of Trump's estimated US$6.6 billion wealth would come from this new venture. Read More

The Trump family cashed in on DeFi just before the 2024 U.S. election by creating a new entity called World Liberty Financial, which is partly owned by a Trump family corporate entity, DT Marks DEFI LLC. (Click here for the table of contents of MAGA Inc.: A Guide to Trump's World of Crypto Czars, Tech Titans and Prison Profiteers.)  Read More

Trump’s pro-crypto vision has been a blessing for “tether” - the world’s most traded cryptocurrency, a type of stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar - which trades as USDT. Read More

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the presidency of Donald Trump is a Wall Street services firm named Cantor Fitzgerald, which has become a major source of funds for crypto executives and AI infrastructure such as data centers. (Click here for the table of contents of MAGA Inc.: A Guide to Trump's World of Crypto Czars, Tech Titans and Prison Profiteers.)  Read More

Across the country, resistance to Trump’s maverick actions is mounting. A tidal wave of protests is unfolding notably against Big Tech companies like Amazon, Oracle, OpenAI and Palantir as well as other Trump administration-affiliated businesses like CoreCivic, CSI Aviation, GEO Group and Energy Transfer. (Click here for the table of contents of MAGA Inc.: A Guide to Trump's World of Crypto Czars, Tech Titans and Prison Profiteers.)  Read More

Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A., one of the world’s largest insurance companies, pledged not to provide insurance to “transition laggards” (companies that are failing to tackle global warming) for new fossil fuel terminals and power plants, in response to a campaign by activist groups like Greenpeace, InsureOurFuture and ReCommon in Italy. Read More

Tourist visits to the ruins of Machu Picchu, a historic Inca city in the Andes, are a major source of income for Peru. After the government turned over sales of entrance tickets to the site to Joinnus, a private company, an indefinite general strike was declared by local business owners, residents and travel unions. After a week long blockade, the government canceled the privatization. Read More

Tax auditor Raphaël Halet leaked over 28,000 documents outlining schemes created by the Luxembourg offices of global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to help companies like Apple, Heinz and Pepsi avoid paying taxes. In 2016, local courts found Halet guilty of stealing documents. In 2023, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Halet was a whistleblower rather than a criminal. Read More

IT services provider Fujitsu supplied faulty Horizon accounting software to the UK Post Office in 1999. Over 700 UK Post Office staff were prosecuted for allegedly stealing thousands of pounds sterling. Some committed suicide, others went to jail. Read More