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Panama Papers Source Breaks Silence Over 'Scale Of Injustices' (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The whistleblower behind the Panama Papers broke their silence on Friday to explain in detail how the injustices of offshore tax havens drove them to the biggest data leak in history. The source, whose identity and gender remain a secret, denied being a spy. The whistleblower said the leak of 11.5m documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca had triggered a "new, encouraging global debate," thanks to the publication last month of stories by an international consortium of newspapers, including the Guardian. The source gave Suddeutsche Zeitung leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca's internal database in real time installments. The papers included details of the beneficial owners of offshore companies, passport copies, and emails. The source said they decided to act after understanding the "scale of the injustices" the documents described. Mossack Fonseca denies wrongdoing and says its operations in Panama and elsewhere are "beyond reproach." Intriguingly, the source said they originally offered the documents to "several major media outlets." Editors reviewed the Panama Papers but in the end "chose not to cover them," they alleged. It is unclear which media organizations declined the material. The anonymous whistleblower also approached WikiLeaks -- again without success. "Even WikiLeaks didn't answer its tip line repeatedly," the source complained, adding: "The media has failed." The source used the name "John Doe" when they approached Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Let's follow the example of the Icelanders, who jailed their corrupt bankers, and who come next election will vote in the Pirate Party. They promote transparancy and government accountability. You can't be corrupt if everything you do is public. Moreover, the big governments tell us, if we don't have anything to hide, we should give up our privacy but how about we turn that argument right around onto them?
when the bankers and the politicians are one and the same (well, closely related; wives, husbands, children, relative of all sorts) do you honestly think they'll slid their own throat?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Probably because while they investigated the issue they found out that their boss or company also evaded taxes using some off-shore letterbox companies.
And while Germany certainly does not have the most whistle-blower friendly legislation, good old "Sozialneid" (envy of social status) usually trumps the traditional negative stance towards whistle blowers ("Der größte Schuft im ganzen Land, das ist und bleibt der Denunziant!").
So Süddeutsche Zeitung certainly was a reasonable address to turn to.
Still seems strange. Who's mission in life is it to help all governments collect more taxes? It would make more sense if it was more targeted. Say someone who saw Nigeria's oil money going oversee into official's secret accounts.
The simplest explanation is still: A government agency did this so that they could pass laws giving them more control over the global financial system. Have a problem with China? If you know everything in every bank, you can hurt the children of the rulers. That is leverage.
even if wikileaks was doubtful about these papers, that is justified ; there is something odd about still unknown sources of these so called panama papers, which are mostly about enemies of the current western establishment .
coverage of the papers by media like guardian was extremely skewed . for instance guardian started with putin's name and pic in all the stories on 1st day of release, even though his name does not appear anywhere at all in the papers. only connection with putin is through an acquittance(who suddenly became "best friend" in western media), but even that person had given away in charity far more than his tax bill and the money he had in these accounts (russian taxes are relatively low anyway).
odd!
Well nobodies going to make Trust Funds illegal, because you couldn't separate that from PAC money, Pension money, or Charity money, or any other case where money is held by a company to benefit someone at a future date. So they're clearly not going to tackle the main problem.
But then I wonder what the agenda is? I'm guessing its surveillance, I notice we are about to hit a deadline.
SEPA, the European bank transfer system becomes mandatory for all European countries at the end of October this year. USA has access to Europeans SWIFT bank transfers, which is why SEPA was created, I'm guessing they want access to SEPA too.... 'for tax'.
Perhaps 'to prevent terrorism' excuse isn't working, and they need a new angle.
Bullshit. Bank Rossiya was exposed in the Papers. And Bank Rossiya==Putin. Another Putin lackey blaming the Americans...
I pay about 27% Fed & State alone (single male, no house, decent income). Meanwhile they get subsidies, bail outs and a military that protects their overseas factories and investments.
Here in the States our infrastructure is crumbling. Flint, Mi just poisoned their entire city to save a buck on their Water bill. There've been several bridge collapses and we've got dams all over the place in danger. Our roads are clogged with cars because there aren't enough roads. It's a mess, and the rich just fly jets & helicopters over it or drive in their limos. Meanwhile I pay for the airports their private jets use.
So yeah, screw that noise. They're benefiting from civilization they should bloody well chip in. They're not doing that. I say bully for this guy.
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It says here the source of the leak was Ramón Fonseca’s former mistress and employee.
Please keep us informed about the status of your poop. It's more interesting than many of the front page stories.
assertions without substance, like yours, does not make them true, instead they make them propaganda. what does that make you?
if "Bank Rossiya==Putin"(its Rossiya Bank btw) as you claim(without proof) that is a separate revelation on its own right, regardless of so called panama papers, and exposing such equivalence with proof should have been the subject of legitimate media coverage on its own. that did not happen.
again the question that has to be asked, why did guardian make putin the poster child of panama papers when his name does not appear anywhere and his connections with entities or individuals that had legal accounts(with amounts of money trivial in comparison to their public wealth, taxes,charities, etc), are superficial and unsubstantial.
and certainly guardian, for all its absurd coverage, failed make any solid criminal association but stopped at innuendo (ie propaganda).
why?
Wyoming is boom/bust. Mostly bust. Maybe if I was a mechanical engineer. Plus it's not so easy to up and move. I've got kids in school and roots here. Hell, that's sort of the whole problem with being middle class: I'm local, not global. I don't get to leverage the global market like the rich. All I really get out of it is cheap electronics and cheap oil. I can live without the electronics and I'd kill for real public transportation and a city built around it. I miss clean air.
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Crooked politicians. Tax evasion. A hidden class of above the law plutocrats.
None of this seems surprising. Even the usual suspects turn up, such as Putin and his inner circle. The official from Iceland was the most interesting thing, mostly because Iceland.
Did anyone think differently, an "oh shit, the politicians are dirty, people are evading taxes, my reality has been fractured" kind of moment when they read about this?
The leaker is a natural English speaker, and quite honestly seems to be a speech writer.
You can see it in this single phrase:
"But the Panama Papers show BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT that although shell companies are not illegal, by definition they are used to carry out a wide array of serious crimes,"
Speech writer phrasings, with qualifiers added ("although shell companies are not illegal"). Politician speeches need to be fact checked, and need these qualifiers, not normal people!
His mistress will be Panamanian, i.e. primary Spanish, and I doubt a rich man gives his mistress computer access, or that she would be a speech writer.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/728729451442393088
Note re #PanamaPapers: #WikiLeaks does not have a 'tip line' so the comment is odd. We take submissions here 24h/day https://wikileaks.org/#submit
According to Wikileaks:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/728729451442393088
Note re #PanamaPapers: #WikiLeaks does not have a 'tip line' so the comment is odd. We take submissions here 24h/day https://wikileaks.org/#submit
"I poop now."
Why not do it right here in this thread like the other people?
There only exists fiscal paradises because big governments tax system is too complex and unfair, turning good economies into fiscal hell.
How a bank can be identical to a person is something you have to explain. Yes, there is very likely a good contact between the bank leaders and Putin, but they have other clients as well (they are pretty big, actually) and the point the GP made was that in the actual papers there was no evidence whatsoever involving Putin, and still newspapers opened the story with his picture.
That's like opening a story about the drug addiction of some White House secretary with a picture of Obama and calling him a drug lord.
It is simply dishonest journalism. A good journalist does not make up connections, he investigates them and reveals what he finds, not what he thinks maybe (hopefully) is there.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
PACs are independent of the candidate and only for some politicians, if USA business are avoiding tax, you can bet USA politicians, lobbyists and businessmen are too. Plenty in Panama.
The question is "why are they not in the Panama papers"!
>"Transparency helps, but it is obviously not a panacea"
That's what I think the agenda being pushed here. An USA pro-surveillance agenda, disguised as 'transparency'.
well...it was down before the release that Sergei Roldugin was godfather to Putins daughter. That does make him a bit more than an acquaintance.
But I do believe that using Putin in the story is putting a spin on it. Many people in Europe and the VS have a far greater need to evade taxes than the leader of a corrupt country....
And the reason we're not seeing more media coverage of this is because the media as we know it is owned by the same monied elites that are listed in the Panama Papers. You never bite the hand that feeds you.
It was denied by multiple outlets because there's no story.
It's true that off shore tax companies are used for inappropriate business dealings. It's also true that they are used for purely legitimate purposes as well. This leak is just a total document dump; damaging people with legitimate deals as well as people without. If one or two media outlets deny it as useful then I'd call scam. If multiple outlets including Wikileaks deny it as useful, I'd call it less worthwhile than the "leaker" thinks.
I mean, what has this done? The President of Iceland stepped down. Big deal; that doesn't change the world. Many Russian "oligarchs" now have their deals exposed, but everyone knew these guys were doing business like this anyways including their own people, so the Russian populace just looked, nodded in confirmation, and then went about their business. Middle Eastern Sheikhs have their deals exposed. I doubt many in the Middle East can even look at these documents, and if they could it wouldn't be enough to incite political change. Many Chinese bureaucrats have their illegal dealings exposed. So what? President Xi was cleaning house and consolidating power; this played right into his hands to either force compliance with his policies or be arrested for "corruption".
People like to think that secret information somehow enables people to have power, and thus by releasing said secret information it'll wake people up to some reality and force change. That couldn't be further from the truth; authoritarian figures have gotten into power because they're clever, and they know how to either sidestep a release of information like this or use it to their advantage.
Nothing will come of this release; already I had forgotten about it until it popped up again, but the world has already moved on.
Did they really jail their bankers?
Months ago I read that they jailed two chief bankers out of three banks. So not all of them. Have the Icelandic courts indicted more bankers lately?
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GW Bu