By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS It’s like that old sleight-of-hand shell game where the magician keeps switching the location of a tiny ball under one of three cups and, time and time again, some sucker falls for the rouse and bets he knows where the ball really is. Most of the time, he doesn’t. And even if he does, the magician will
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS When it comes to financial transparency, Switzerland has a pretty miserable record. For more than 300 years, the country’s financial institutions have prided themselves on their tight-lipped discretion and no-questions-asked deposits. In fact, in 1713, the Grand Council of Geneva adopted a formal code of secrecy prohibiting banks from divulging information with anyone except the account holder.
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