https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/global-investigation-tax-havens-offshore/
South Dakota has been a sick fascination of mine for a while, between its genocidal treatment of indigenous peoples historic and present, and the way the state Republican party openly runs the government like a crime family (that attorney general is not the first public figure to openly murder someone and walk free because the state apparatus is protecting him and none of the citizens even give a shit in the first place). I think it is a lowkey contender for most cartoonishly evil and corrupt US state, beating out even Texas, Florida and Delaware. And it gets away with all of this by being so small it can fly under most people's radars.
Hearing that it's become the happening new tax haven is disappointing but also not surprising.
any reading/listening material youd recommend? you rly piqued my interest
No one's ever written it all down in one place because like I said, South Dakota is basically invisible to the national news, and the state news is full of bootlickers. A lot of the financial fuckery that's coming to light now began with Governor Janklow teaming up with Citibank in the 80s to provide a deregulated haven for the credit card industry. There is an article in a state paper that covers some of the history, albeit from a deceptively rosy jobs-and-money-and-growth-oh-my perspective: https://www.argusleader.com/story/stu-whitney/2015/04/04/whitney-real-story-behind-citibank/25296111/
Janklow, coincidentally, also loved killing civilians with cars just like the current AG.
Looking at the Pandora Papers, it looks like the South Dakota finserv industry went into overdrive trying to attract new clients after places like the Bahamas started coming under public scrutiny.
Some of the current governor's greatest hits include criminalizing pipeline protests, unilaterally overturning marijuana legalization, loaning the National Guard out as private mercenaries, waging a legislative war against transgender people, and censoring indigenous history from school curriculums.
that attorney general is not the first public figure to openly murder someone and walk free because the state apparatus is protecting him and none of the citizens even give a shit in the first place
Wait, what?
I think it is a lowkey contender for most cartoonishly evil and corrupt US state, beating out even Texas, Florida and Delaware. And it gets away with all of this by being so small it can fly under most people’s radars.
Same game with a lot of the northwestern states - Idaho, Wyoming, Montana - which have become little more than corporate fiefs. The small population and large land area make them easy to control. These states have the modern equivalent of Company Towns.
Yeah, I lived in SD for ~2 years. It is like a western Delaware. Most credit card companies have been based there for a while due to lax regulations. They are aggressively libertarian to the extent they try to minimize taxes and regulations on the wealthy and corporations through all means possible. And local politics is pretty openly corrupt.
I should check in on current Harrisburg politics in particular. It was known for being the Sioux Falls suburb full of Russain mobsters driving around in Porsches.
Also, fun story, I worked with the children of several of the mobsters one summer because the parents have their spoiled children spend a summer doing jobs involving manual agricultural labor to "build character". And had a real life Sopranos moment when someone asked one what his father does (probably the boss because they were insanely wealthy and had the largest mansion in town). He just didn't have an answer and said "Uhhh... I think he works for the city, because the mayor comes over often to 'talk buisness'"
