Panama Papers

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Re: Panama Papers

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:38 pm

The Panama Papers: The Mysterious U.S. Connection
Leaked documents said to show 617 offshoring middlemen operating in the U.S.

By JOHN CARNEY
Apr 4, 2016 2:51 pm ET

Hundreds of companies and individuals in the U.S could be implicated in the massive trove of leaked documents that a global team of journalists began reporting about on Sunday.

More than 11 million records of a Panamanian law firm were leaked to German newspaper Suddeneutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The documents reportedly shed light on how some of the world’s wealthiest people establish offshore bank accounts.

The law firm, Mossack Fonseca, worked with 617 intermediaries operating in the U.S., according to the ICIJ. That could include banks, law firms and other middlemen that set up shell companies, foundations and trusts for customers seeking to move money into offshore accounts.

So far, none of the U.S. intermediaries have been named. The only direct U.S. connection involves financial writer and life coach Marianna Olszewski, the author of “Live It, Love It, Earn It: A Woman’s Guide to Financial Freedom.” The BBC reported that Mossack Fonseca employed a 90-year old British man as a stand-in to allow Ms. Olszewski to confidentially access funds she had invested in a secret offshore company.

No U.S. banks are among the 10 biggest banks banks named as the biggest creators of offshore companies for clients.

Still, the U.S. is the fourth largest country where the intermediaries for offshore accounts operate. That makes it likely that specific U.S. connections to Mossack Fonseca will emerge. The Justice Department has said it is reviewing the published documents for evidence of corruption that could be prosecuted in the U.S.

The ICIJ has said it will release the full list of companies and people linked to them in early May. Until then, the identities of these intermediaries operating in the U.S. were and their clients may remain a mystery.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:40 pm

Oh, and this - no need to convince the Icelanders that icebergs exist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMT2zZcvIi8


Wombat asks:

Did the 28 Pages get leaked with a trailer video?

They didn't get leaked but there's been a surrounding JICI report (2002), and Graham's 2008 non-fiction and more recent novelized versions. What doesn't get packaged, pray tell? (Not that this is an excuse or exoneration for the evident gate-keeping and skew so far.)

Was Sibel Edmonds working with foundation grant money?

Did her attackers at the time have any trouble claiming it by whatever obscure association? Plus, her husband's in the U.S. military. This dismissal can always be pulled off by some associative ploy without ever casting so much as a glance at the material.

And now this, top story on the long-running U.S. equivalent to a Soviet history encyclopedia (revised weekly), TIME:

The Panama Papers Could Lead to Capitalism’s Great Crisis

Rana Foroohar @RanaForoohar

12:23 PM ET
Leak shows what much of the world's 99% believes

It’s hard to know where to start in tallying up the explosive revelations in the Panama Papers, an analysis of leaked documents from global law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Yes, we’ve known for a while now that the shadow financial system was growing. But it’s another thing to take in 11.5 million documents showing the way in which Mossack Fonseca was working with big name financial groups like UBS, HSBC, Société Générale, and many others to help elites from the Communist Party leadership of China, to soccer star Lionel Messi, to global financiers hide cash in offshore havens around the world.

It’s just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. “The size of the leak is unprecedented, but the tricks Mossack Fonseca has allegedly used for its clients are neither new nor surprising. Anonymous shell companies and the failure of governments to require lawyers, corporate service companies, or banks to collect beneficial ownership information on clients leave the door wide open for dirty money to flow around the globe virtually unhindered,” says Heather Lowe, the Director of Government Affairs for Global Financial Integrity, a Washington DC-based consultancy.

To me, this is one of the key issues at work in the U.S. presidential election. Voters know at a gut level that our system of global capitalism is working mainly for the 1 %, not the 99 %. That’s a large part of why both Sanders and Trump have done well, because they tap into that truth, albeit in different ways. The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn’t working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot. Globalization is supposed to be about the free movement of people, goods, and capital. But in fact, the system is set up to enable that mobility mainly for the rich (or for large corporations). The result is global tax evasion, the offshoring of labor, and an elite that flies 35,000 feet over the problems of nation states and the tax payers within them.

Where do we go from here? I think we’re heading towards a root to branch re-evaluation of how our market system works–and doesn’t work. The debate over free trade is part of that re-evaluation. The calls for a global campaign against tax evasion are, too. I think there will also be intense scrutiny about the ease with which financial capital can move around the world – we’ve already seen that with the hoopla over tax inversions, but we’ll see a lot more backlash, in new areas.

“I expect that the populist backlash will be intense and will impact everything from high-end real estate to PACs (effectively political shell companies),” says one of my favorite sources, Peter Atwater, a behavioral economist. “Voters are increasingly angry at the seeming transience of the financial/corporate/political elite. The 1% can move anywhere they want—and profit handsomely from the relocation, but the 99% can’t. Worse, the 99% are left with the aftermath—the empty buildings of a deserted Detroit, the toxic waste from chemical plants in West Virginia or the unsustainable tax liabilities of Puerto Rico.”

Fixing all this is a growth issue, and not just for the U.S. and other rich countries. As Global Financial Integrity recently found, developing economies lost $7.8 trillion in cash because of maneuvers like those allegedly done by Mossack Fonseca, between 2004 and 2013. What’s more, illicit outflows are increasing at a rate of 6.5 % a year—twice the rate of GDP growth. At a time when most emerging markets are slowing, and are the reason for the drag on global economic growth that smart people say could cause another recession by this year or next, it’s an issue that we all need to care about.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:43 pm

JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:29 pm wrote:Where's your Wrestlemania commentary?


You quoted it a few posts ago.

None of my jokes are hitting this week, but those are my favorite gigs if I'm being honest.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:44 pm

Iceland story:
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/art ... c3495adfc/

Wombaticus Rex » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:43 pm wrote:
JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:29 pm wrote:Where's your Wrestlemania commentary?


You quoted it a few posts ago.

None of my jokes are hitting this week, but those are my favorite gigs if I'm being honest.


Still don't see the Wrestlemania angle. Anyways.
Last edited by JackRiddler on Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: Panama Papers

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:51 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:43 pm wrote:
JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:29 pm wrote:Where's your Wrestlemania commentary?


You quoted it a few posts ago.

None of my jokes are hitting this week, but those are my favorite gigs if I'm being honest.




a sense of humor.......such an unused/underrated coping mechanism here


and one does need a sense of it to get the joke
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:54 pm

Says someone who systematically misunderstands the slightest wisecrack as a deeply wounding personal attack and then recycles her outrage for years.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: Panama Papers

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:56 pm

JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:54 pm wrote:Says someone who systematically misunderstands the slightest wisecrack as a deeply wounding personal attack and then recycles her outrage for years.



I just go by personal experience with the swinger...I really don't find anything YOU say as entertaining or humorous


you keep on picking and I keep remembering
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby 82_28 » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:58 pm

Jack, please! You are among friends here. You seriously have a wide berth, a berth in which I admire. Just be cool, mang!
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby Sounder » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:59 pm

coffin dodger wrote...
Jack, upon reflection I'll concede that this might be a long game - i.e. get all the US and UK officials to denounce the corruption of everyone else, expose all the hypocrisy, then hit those self-same decryers with a host of lurid details about themselves - making it extremely uncomfortable and difficult to wriggle out of. Sadly, it's the purveyors of this leak I don't trust. Not one iota. The Guardian, especially.


This is a good point to make dodger.

I for one do not consider that the power players are united, the opinion that Jack would like to impose on 'us' (whoever that is).

For any dissident faction to succeed though, they would have to play an exceedingly subtle game.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby Nordic » Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:12 pm

Well I don't have to read a real journalist like Pepe Escobar, since an anonymous poster who compares himself to Shakespeare is clearly better informed, smarter, and even writes better.

How do I subscribe to your snapchat feed, Jack? I can't get enough of you!
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby Nordic » Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:13 pm

And Jack, if you think everyone here is an idiot, why do you post here? Who is your audience.

No sarcasm there, serious question. Trying to understand something I'm clearly not equipped to fathom.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:25 pm

I prefer to think in terms of idiocy rather than idiots, but obviously if one reliably dispenses idiocy, one eventually qualifies for the moniker. It has been overwhelming in recent times, yes, but there's plenty here of interest. Still!

In this thread, for example. If people hadn't attacked me back when I'd made the first post, above, we wouldn't even be talking about idiots but about the Panama Papers, both alleged content and the meta discussion. (Funny how that works, you can lash out on sight of me and then complain that the response ain't nice.)

Other than idiocy there's just plain fallacy, such as the thought that we shouldn't respond to a comment but take it or reject it on faith because of its author. (Why do you even bother? What could you have to add to Pepe Escobar? Just read him & you're set for life.)

In your case, I've also come to perversely enjoy how offended and provoked you are by Shakespeare and big words and people's long-ago choice of avatars and screennames. I am the cause of none of these reactions of yours.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: Panama Papers

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:26 pm

JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:54 pm wrote:Says someone who systematically misunderstands the slightest wisecrack as a deeply wounding personal attack and then recycles her outrage for years.



here's the thing Jack...you remind me of a boy in the neigborhood that I grew up with ....we were good friends until the age of puberty ...he then didn't quite understand how to deal with a girl as it finally dawned on him that is what I was.....so the teasing began ....now teasing is expected of a puerile inexperienced boy but it is quite unacceptable on a grown up discussion board and it just gets old and annoying after awhile.....10 years of annoying ...just damn annoying not deeply wounding...never deeply wounded Jack.......or I'd be dead by now
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby Nordic » Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:33 pm

JackRiddler » Mon Apr 04, 2016 4:25 pm wrote:I prefer to think in terms of idiocy rather than idiots, but obviously if one reliably dispenses idiocy, one eventually qualifies for the moniker. It has been overwhelming in recent times, yes, but there's plenty here of interest. Still!

In this thread, for example. If people hadn't attacked me back when I'd made the first post, above, we wouldn't even be talking about idiots but about the Panama Papers, both alleged content and the meta discussion. (Funny how that works, you can lash out on sight of me and then complain that the response ain't nice.)

Other than idiocy there's just plain fallacy, such as the thought that we shouldn't respond to a comment but take it or reject it on faith because of its author. (Why do you even bother? What could you have to add to Pepe Escobar? Just read him & you're set for life.)

In your case, I've also come to perversely enjoy how offended and provoked you are by Shakespeare and big words and people's long-ago choice of avatars and screennames. I am the cause of none of these reactions of yours.


No, Jack, you egomaniac. If it weren't for YOU immediately throwing a hissy fit because some of us weren't discussing the issue EXACTLY the way you wanted, we would be on a pretty good thread about this.

But since you are a spoiled only child who does not have a clue as to how to play well with others, the thread is destroyed and we should start a new one.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: Panama Papers

Postby Nordic » Mon Apr 04, 2016 5:39 pm

I'll be blunt Jack. I don't care if you're smart, if you write well and even if you have some insight that others don't ( and your insights are usually fairly pedestrian and conservative at the core).

But here's the deal: you're an asshole.

I don't like assholes. Nobody should have to put up with assholes.
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