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Panama Papers: Data Leak Exposes Massive Official Corruption (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The hidden wealth of some of the world's most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities has been revealed by an unprecedented leak of millions of documents that show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. The Guardian, working with global partners, will set out details from the first tranche of what are being called "the Panama Papers". Journalists from more than 80 countries have been reviewing 11.5m files leaked from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth biggest offshore law firm.
Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens. Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Vladimir Putin, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt's former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davio Gunnlaugsson. The leak is one of the biggest ever - larger than the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, and the secret intelligence documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden in 2013. More here. Search the Offshore Leaks Database here.
Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens. Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Vladimir Putin, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt's former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davio Gunnlaugsson. The leak is one of the biggest ever - larger than the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, and the secret intelligence documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden in 2013. More here. Search the Offshore Leaks Database here.
Concert cellist Sergei Roldugin has known Vladimir Putin since they were teenagers and is godfather to the president's daughter Maria. On paper, Mr Roldugin has personally made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from suspicious deals. But documents from Mr Roldugin's companies state that: "The company is a corporate screen established principally to protect the identity and confidentiality of the ultimate beneficial owner of the company."
Tomorrow's papers: Sergei Roldugin was found in his Moscow apartment this afternoon, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
these papers implicate lots of western politicians directly, esp from uk. to quote "Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties", and david cameron family .
in contrast, putin's implication is indirect at best, with vague indefinite connections,"The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin - is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married."
best friend not described as that before? and location of a wedding reception?
but this summary only mentions non western leaders(if we ignore iceland), as of now. curious! /. afraid of ?
who is
Though there is nothing unlawful about using offshore companies, the files raise fundamental questions about the ethics of such tax havens
So the leaks don't expose much of anything. This does raise the obvious question of where did that money come from in the first place, but that's old news.
Hmmm... Weird. Also, Canadians, British, Germans, etc. Something is not right.
Talking about conspiracy theories, I find it interesting that the "Panama Leaks" is making front page news on European news outlets, Aljazeera, and others, but I can't find anything about it on any of the major American news outlets like CNN, Fox or MSNBC.
It would take longer than 10 years. Closer to 50. That's the trick with big social change you need to cycle through generations to make it stick. After all we are just coming to terms with the sexual and color rights revolution of the 60's.
You have to let the generation who lead the revolution die of old age before you can say it was a success. That is why now is a great time to for the USA to get involved with Cuba. Raul and Fidel will be dead within the decade and their Cuba will die with them. Same goes to Russia. Russia hasn't really given democracy a chance yet. They haven't had the time and had too few leaders to make a change.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Beware,
This 'event' was 'sponsored' by a Soros funded entity AND there are currently no USA names on the list AND the biggest fingers are pointing at people the USA doesn't like.
Sounds like a setup.
46137
... before bashing your prime minister, you should give him credit for 2 relevant achievements:
1) He kept Iceland out of the EU, protecting its national sovereignty. Believe me, the vast majority of the citizens of EU member-nations envy you for this
2) He respected the will of the Icelandic people - as expressed in two referenda - to let state-owned banks to default on their foreign debts, instead of bowing to the IMF and the foreign investors (by the way, this means that according to today's leak, he probably acted against his own interests!)
Now look at Greece instead: their coward prime minister bowed to the Troika instead of defaulting and exiting the eurozone, although in a referendum the Greek people had rejected the agreement with foreign creditors as well. He did all the neoliberal "reforms" requested by the Troika itself (slashing the budget, erasing workers' rights, etc...), and now his country is third world. That's exactly how Iceland would be today if your prime minister behaved the same way. And ask yourself if today's leak isn't maybe some sort of "retribution" for that...
Except that "the journalists" aren't doing anything here, except cherry-picking what to publish in a very suspicious way: they have 11.5 million documents from a Panama law firm whose clients are mostly from the west, however, they only published 149 documents (out of the 11.5 millions), mostly about Putin, Assad and the Chinese President.
Note that the organization that received all the documents is the so called "International Consortium of Investigative Journalists", whose biggest donor is George Soros' Open Society Foundation..
Hopefully Wikileaks will soon get their hands on all of the files, so we'll finally have the whole picture. And it will surely be FUN.
> A guy who once left [grapevine.is] in the middle of a parliamentary session while answering questions because he had a craving for chocolate cake?
I hate to say this but it has to be said. I didn't click your link because I trust you'd not lie to me.
I'm sorry but if someone has the balls and temerity to skip out on a parliamentary session while THEY are the one being questioned just because they had a hankering for some cake then that is kind of awesome. I know... I know it's bad for governance but the sheer balls of that? The temerity? The virtual slap that was done? The loss of face for the authorities?
That is AWESOME!
It's retarded - but still awesome. That would be fantastic. Other countries get shoes thrown, full on fist fights, desks and chairs broken, and people going to the hospital. The US doesn't really get anything like that at the major league level and our individual States aren't usually that exciting but they sometimes have some amusing antics.
No, I'm not sorry to say it. That's really kind of awesome in its own little fashion.
Anyhow... Regarding your follow-up post about an executioner. I'm familiar with Iceland, a little bit, and I also know that they've an absolutely outstandingly large percent of giants there. How many times has someone from Iceland won the World's Strongman (or is it Toughest Man) Competitions? They do things like move 500 pound kegs, carry 1500 pounds on their shoulders, move giant rocks and anvils, and lug buses and cars around. They lift hundreds and hundreds of pounds and blow out BONES from the weight and sheer torque applied to them by the muscles. In other words, sometimes their muscle fibers, ligaments, and tendons are stronger than their bones and are so strong that they break their bones!
And little tiny Iceland, with a total population of 185 people, some seals, and an angry volcano god has a disproportionate number of winners or top-level competitors. Pretty much every year, they've got at least one person in the championship. They even have SEVERAL schools/training facilities just for this.
I suspect there's a secret breeding program going on up there and they're feeding 'em some strange stuff and tweaking their genes. Some of those guys are huge and absurdly strong.
I can't pronounce or spell any of their names. I can't even recollect where the two (that I know of) training facilities are. I'm gonna guess that if Iceland needs an executioner, they're well and truly able to grow their own. :-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The thing with democracy is people who have no experience with it need to be eased into it. The countries descended from the English have done not too bad with democracy as they were eased into it over hundreds of years. Some of the other western countries had a rocky road to democracy, France with how many republics, other countries such as Spain with side trips into Fascism.
This is why most all the Socialist revolutions failed, they were very naive, attempted to go from serfdom to full democracy and in almost all cases the revolutions got hijacked by authoritarian arseholes who didn't give one shit about the people.
How to ease them into democracy, I'm not sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
It's amazing what revisionist history has done for the French Revolution. (No, not accusing you - you were the one citing actual history.)
I believe you're from France? I don't know if you're aware of this but a lot of people who are not from France have romanticized the French Revolution and think that it had the desired income. They'll outright disbelieve you when you point out that the revolutionaries all ended up dead (for the most part). They'll refuse to look at the evidence to see that it was more than just a few royal people who died. They'll forget about the violent oppression and the wild pendulum swing (where even the wealthy mimicked the poor in things like manner of dress and social behaviors LEST THEY DIE). They'll ignore that people died for, pretty much, not being happy enough - or faking it. They don't know about the zany calendar changes, the whole swing away from allowing religion, and that it lasted, largely, up until Napoleon where he finally managed to inspire the army into action - and then promptly went crazy AND got away with coming back from exile.
They think the Revolution was over with after a couple of heads were lopped off. They have no idea about the media manipulation that was so bad that some young lady went all the way to find the paper's publisher - stomped half-way across the country with a knife - and killed him. Then she got her head lopped off too.
I am, by no means, a historian but I've read a bunch and there are actually a few good, objective and information dense, documentaries on the subject. One of my favorites is entitled simply that, "The French Revolution." It's not too bad - it's four or five hours long, as I recall. (I'm too lazy to look it up.)
But yeah, I don't know if you know this but outside of your country there are a whole bunch of people who think the French Revolution was a rosy affair that ended the way it was intended to end and was over when the kids (plural?) disappeared and Marie lost her head. The Revolutionaries were batshit insane and the whole society went batshit insane for quite a while. Yet, they've a romantic image that denies the reality.
It ended up exactly nothing like what was intended. They tried to one-up each other to be the most common, for example. Complete with their manner of dress. I believe that it still impacts some of the customs today - but I forget which ones. Something about articles of clothing, socks, pointy shoes - or lack of them, or something like that.
They've a crazy belief that it was something other than what it was - a time of insanity that culminated with Emperor Bonaparte and his eventual failings vs. Russians and English (Lord Nelson, maybe? I am NOT a historian) and was quite a dreadful affair. They, these people who romanticize it without knowing a damned thing about it, want us to emulate it - or at least express such sentiments. I don't think they know what they speak of.
What I do not understand is who did the revisionist history? I don't think it was by the French. I know some French people and have been to France multiple times and even discussed it with a number of citizens and ex-pats. They're quite frank and realistic about it. They largely (at least in the ones I've communicated with) accept that it really wasn't all that it was cracked up to be but that it sort of worked out in the end.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Two truisms that came out of the FR:
1. You can't make the poor rich by making the rich poor
2. In order for the oppressed to overcome their oppressors, they invariably have to become like them
David Cameron and George Osbourne are removing welfare that WORKING people need in order to work and be independent
What is wrong with this is not that they are removing it but that working people need welfare in order to work and be independent in the first place. Paying welfare to people who are in work just allows companies to pay lower wages increasing the profits for the fat cats at the top.
I don't really have a problem with tax breaks, as some call them. Many people don't understand them and will call them "subsidies" or "tax-breaks" or other things without actually understanding them. For example, it'd be fucking moronic to tax a business on income other than its profit. Lots of people who complain about things like taxation (and this is NOT an accusation about you personally - let me make that clear) don't even know the difference between revenue and profit.
I've had conversations that went a bit like this:
They: That company had 1.2 billion in revenue. There's no reason they shouldn't be paying half of that in taxes. .3 billion.
Me: Their profit was
They: Then they need to make more money.
They: All corporations suck!
Me: Did you mean that? Really?
They: Yes. Every corporation is evil, money-grubbing, thieves.
Me: You mean like the EFF or Linux Foundation? How about the ACLU, Habitat for Humanities, or BSD?
They: No, they can't let the guy park his car in the underground parking lot for free. It's against the law.
Me: Wait, what?
They: They have a legal obligation to make all the money they can, at any expense, and anything else puts the CEO in jail.
Me: Are you high?
They: It's called fiduciary duty, you fucking idiot. Look it up on Wikipedia! It's predatory stock-holders doing it!
I've had multiples of those conversations in the past month.
So, you'll have to pardon my skepticism when it comes to people, on this site in particular, attempting to discuss matters not pertaining to computers and technology.
I don't know what your income bracket is but I know that I sold my business and retired 8 years ago. As such, I know what the "wealthy" pay in taxes. I also pay attention to the numbers.
Now, this part might be confusing for you. I'll try to make it clear but I'm not the most articulate.
I have a few dollars. You'd call me rich or wealthy if you saw my bank account. And yes, if you need verification then I've actually met multiple people from this very site - in person. I have also been doxxed, back before it was even a thing.
My tax records are not a matter of public record but I pay capital gains rates. I don't do short-term investing. Just so that you know, a good rule of thumb is that if you hold onto it for longer than a year then it is taxed at capital gains rates. If you hold it less than that then it counts as regular income and is taxed at regular income rates - on the same exact form that you have access to. But, so you know, my overall rate, prior to reducing my burden, is 23% - counting both State and Federal. I can reduce it further than that, in a whole host of ways, but I don't really bother.
This is leading to the confusing part...
I not only don't mind taxes but I feel that I could pay more in taxes and not even notice. It's my duty to not really pay more than is required. I'm not very good at that - ask my accountant. I don't save receipts, I donate anonymously, I don't write off/down most of the things I buy that are business related.
Business related? Absolutely. I'm still very much the chief executive officer for several incorporated groups of people. They're rather passive things but the information, the articles of incorporation/corporate charter, can all be dug out of the records easily enough. That's besides the point.
The point is, you can incorporate if you want. Hire yourself as a sub-contractor and pay you to go to your day job. It might be worth it, if your tax burden is high enough.
But, like I said... I don't mind taxes and would actually happily pay more if I had any reason to believe it'd be spent wisely. When I sold my business, I did donate to the government. Yes, donate. I gave the US Government money, my money, and without force. I specifically was able to donate to NASA. In case your'e curious, you can donate to NASA but you can't earmark the donation for a project. Donations must go to the general operations fund. I was wantin
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
For one as limited as you, you may struggle to see the connection but it is obvious. It is largely a zero sum game with a run off valve. There are X pounds in tax to be paid, there are Y pounds circulating around the economy, there are also Z costs that need to be paid. When greedy citizen A uses the run off valve to remove some of the money for his own purposes, this means that the shortfall in X has to be covered by the rest of us in the form of higher taxes. This affects the lowest earning citizens the most and yes, in many cases literally means they cannot afford food or other necessities.
You see the issue is, when you and I, as working stiffs hide our money from Mr Cameron, he sends some nice men from HMRC to your house with a nice letter that says "pay or go to jail". However when someone like Mr Cameron does it, he's hard done by.
Only the truly naive believe this. The fact is a lot of costs need to be paid and if not paid by the government end up being pushed onto you with a markup. The US health insurance system is a good demonstration of this. Despite all the flaws of the NHS, it's still cheaper than the US system and more effective for anyone except those earning above 150,000 pounds.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.