This isn’t really relevant to the conversation, but your comments made me curious and I’ve just discovered that San Marino is actually a full 61km2. I had no idea, I thought it was about the same size as Monaco. The other mildly interesting tidbit is that Luxembourg is about the same size as Rhode Island - and both fill the role of “vortex of unknowable financial hijinks” for their respective region. I wonder what it is about small regions that breeds both tax havens and a shockingly high density of chocolatiers.
Yeah these small independent states are really strange. At least Rhode Island isn’t landlocked, but Luxembourg depends on all of its neighbors using it to launder money, and I’m not sure why that’s tolerated. Maybe it’s the chocolate.
This isn’t really relevant to the conversation, but your comments made me curious and I’ve just discovered that San Marino is actually a full 61km2. I had no idea, I thought it was about the same size as Monaco. The other mildly interesting tidbit is that Luxembourg is about the same size as Rhode Island - and both fill the role of “vortex of unknowable financial hijinks” for their respective region. I wonder what it is about small regions that breeds both tax havens and a shockingly high density of chocolatiers.
Yeah these small independent states are really strange. At least Rhode Island isn’t landlocked, but Luxembourg depends on all of its neighbors using it to launder money, and I’m not sure why that’s tolerated. Maybe it’s the chocolate.
NIMBYism, but for financial criminals? Oh well. At the very least they’re not boring, I suppose that counts for something.