Down and out in London

Discovering the world by foot, making new valuable connections

The recently erected statue of George Orwell outside the Broadcasting House, home of the BBC headquarters in London. Photo: Per Håkansson.

I discovered Moneyland by Oliver Bullough at Daunt Books in Holland Park. It was the subtitle that caught my attention: Why Thieves And Crooks Now Rule The World And How To Take It Back.

I was finishing Walter Isaacson’s Kissinger and was already familiar with high-level political skulduggery. Let’s continue this unexpected thread and see where it might lead, I thought.

Moneyland is about how the British empire shifted direction from extracting money directly from former colonies to turning them into very profitable tax havens for unscrupulous oligarchs.

It may very well be the answer to why there are so many billionaires with murky financial provenance, persistent high inflation (especially in the UK), and exorbitant real estate prices.

I had decided to extend my stay in London a few weeks to explore a city I thought I new pretty well, having lived there in the naughts. When not working, I walked the city with eyes wide opened.

The process of spontaneous discovery is important to learn, create, and grow. We need to feed our minds with more than the algorithmic junk that Silicon Valley knows how to monetize.