The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire

One of the thrills of my childhood was to watch political thrillers, the French ones in particular, because they would be merciless. In the end the hero would die without accomplishing anything more than our entertainment and the death and suffering of everyone he loves. Americans like to finish with a completely unlikely happy ending (pardon the pun), but the gist of it remains the same: there is no way a normal human being can do anything about this.

Now here comes a documentary that gave me kind of the same feeling when I am an adult, describing how the city within a city, hiding in plain sight and dealing in the shadow, controls most of the planet's finances through offshore colonies that are getting too fat to ever want to escape colonialism. And it's not a conspiracy theory documentary, either, it's just facts. Imagine little ants doing a docu about how brazenly elephants walk around the world, smashing ant hills indiscriminately and with impunity and you get the image of what this film is about. But it's extremely informative and frankly explains a lot of the behavior of politicians in countries such as the U. K. and the U. S. as well as the mechanisms that led to the current global crisis.

You see, when you are rich and lazy, you stop producing, you just handle the money like a boss. Or like a bank. Or like old decrepit money. It's called financialization, a new step of evolution for rich countries, moving from industrialization to just shifting money about and stealing, consuming, buying and selling the resources of others. Once the supply chains are disrupted, though, they are as useful as a crusty old lord during a zombie invasion.

Brexit makes sense now, why would a small island want to become even more insular? Because they have the money. Even stuff like the sudden aggression against China are easily explainable now. No one cares what they do to their citizens or who they invade. They do care about becoming an alternative to a virtual and hidden economic system that sustains the great powers. You learn stuff like how Africa has 5 times more resources in anonymous offshore accounts than it has international debt; they are effectively creditors for the world.

Bottom line: a must watch and a good starting point for examining what the world is really about. Also, why you can't do anything about it.

I've just watched this documentary on the Freeview channel 'Together'. It's a fascinating, compelling and well-made film about how the City of London increased its influence through the use of tax havens after the break up of the British Empire.

The documentary is extremely informative and eye-opening, but be warned, it can also leave you feeling angry and disillusioned about how successive governments, politicians, and the Establishment have combined to legally defraud the tax payer.

Sadly, nothing seems to change, probably because the same people who could actually do something are the very people who are enriching themselves through these tax havens. I really enjoyed this well-made film and I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in current affairs.

I was astounded by this documentary, presenting beyond a shadow of a doubt the rampant theft being perpetrated by the economic and political establishment of the UK.

The narration, production, and music were all on point but above all this is a documentary of content, and if you wonder why so much is wrong with the world, this will provide you with a good portion of the answer.

Why democracy is a sham. Laws to defraud the masses & keep the elite, elite.

If you know enough about world politics & International relations, a lot that you fear about inequity & injustice will become clearer after viewing this documentary.

I don't deny that the the problem of tax-heavens is serious.

I don't deny that hilarious amounts of income evade taxation.

I don't deny the role of City od London.

However the document is poor:

• instead of explaining the schemes it provides repeated statements
• instead of providing diagrams it shows same visuals from the streets
• instead proposing solutions it just moans how bad it is.

Summary: Boring, without intellectual depth, sighted from single perspective. Important subject that was just wasted.

Brings more damage to the cause it was supposed to aid.

I expected it to be eye-opener, buy just lost an hour.