According to the data from the CIA World Factbook, the richest country in the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is Liechtenstein, at an amazing $118,000 per person (adjusted to purchasing power parity, i.e., taking into account a country's overall price level). In fact the top 20 spots are dominated by tax havens, with a few oil exporters thrown in for good measure. Only three of the top 20 are neither, #10 United States, #18 Netherlands, and #20 Iceland, and the first two both have some tax-haven-like policies (think Delaware in the US case) Some of the tax havens also have a real economy, noted with a star below.

Tax havens: #1 Liechtenstein, #3 Luxembourg, #4 Bermuda, #6 Jersey, #9 Singapore *, #11 Ireland *, #12 Guernsey, #13 Cayman Islands, #14 Hong Kong *, #15 Andorra, #16 San Marino, and #17 Switzerland *.

Oil exporters: #2 Qatar, #5 Kuwait, #7 Norway, #8 Brunei, and #19 United Arab Emirates.

The CIA data is at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html, while the Government Accountability Office list of tax havens is at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09157.pdf.

Hiding others' assets is a lucrative business! And President Obama yesterday was playing golf with the chairman of the US branch of UBS, a notorious Swiss bank that has to turn over the names of several thousand US clients.