(Roughly) Daily

The United States Treasury Department is putting art galleries and museums on notice over the high risks of financial crime in their trade, warning that various aspects of the art industry makes “it attractive to those engaged in illicit financial activity, including sanctions evasion.”

The advisory, published on Oct. 30, calls out the art industry’s heavy use of shell companies. Citing the “high degree of confidentiality and anonymity” in the art trade, the advisory cautions that art dealers may find themselves unwittingly working with criminals seeking to move illicit funds. It also notes that artwork’s often “subjective value” creates an additional attractive value to financial criminals — who are known to manipulate invoice prices to covertly shift money around the globe.

“The advisory serves as another reminder that the $28.3 billion American art market is the largest unregulated industry in the United States,” [said] Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, which advocates the return of stolen relics to their home countries…

The U.S. Treasury urges new safeguards against financial crime, money laundering, and sanctions evasion: “Secretive high-end art world can be vehicle for dirty money.” From the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, part of their on-going investigation of international money laundering, FinCEN Files.

Turns out that a U.S. Senate investigation led to the same conclusions: “The art world has a money laundering problem.” So did a House investigation: “Art and Money Laundering.”

And for the curious, here is a look at how it’s done: “Laundering money through art, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

All-too-appropriately, Hasbro has released, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a fine-arts edition of its flagship game: “Monopoly: The Met Edition.”

* then-President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, June 2012. It’s alleged that he spoke with authority based on personal experience: in 2020, his successor as President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, asked Mexicans if they would like to see former Mexican presidents face trial against allegations of corruption (a move deemed constitutional by the Mexican court and laws); the people will vote to decide in a referendum in 2021. According by a survey by newspaper El Universal, 78% of Mexicans polled do indeed want the former presidents of Mexico to face trial– and Enrique Peña Nieto is the one they most want to be incarcerated.

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As we note that cleanliness isn’t always next to godliness, we might spare a thought for Jean-Baptiste Say; he died on this date in 1832. An economist and businessman, Say argued in favor of competition, free trade, and the lifting of restraints on business, and was among the was among the first economists to study entrepreneurship– and to valorize entrepreneurs as organizers and leaders of the economy.

He is probably best remembered for the assertion that supply creates its own demand– “Say’s Law“– a label first used by John Maynard Keynes, who went on to argue that it is wrong… the debate (e.g., as between Steven Kates and Paul Krugman) continues to this day.

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