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Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

bbc.com

71–80 of 452 posts

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#71
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but "father of a PM" is not even close to the same thing as "PM". If Cameron's father has done something wrong, that doesn't (shouldn't) affect perceptions of his son. The days of punishing children for the crimes of their parents are long in the past. Assuming the guy did anything wrong, of course. As these articles note, off shore companies are not illegal.

Ok so they can talk about Putin's childhood friend, but not about Cameron's father?

No, I thought that was kind of dumb too, but I've got used to western media constantly dumping on Putin regardless of the merits of the case so I just ignore it now. Like, I just skip any part of the Economist that talks about Russia because their coverage of the topic is so hilariously unbalanced.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#72
> While much of the leaked material will remain private, there are compelling reasons for publishing some of the data.

How convenient.

> the papers simply reveal the vast number of people who use offshore to protect their wealth. There is nothing unlawful about doing this. It is not illegal to be a director, shareholder or beneficial owner – the real owner, even though their name may not appear on the shareholder register – of an offshore company.

Then why hide it?

This smells funny. Millions of papers leaked, and Putin is the biggest fish they caught. I don't doubt he's knees-deep in illegal activity, but I just can't see how $2B is in any way comparable with the billions hidden by westerners; after all, it was them who set up and keep protecting tax havens, and they've had 100 years to learn to conceal their activity, compared to just 2 decades for the Russians. I'll remain hopeful, though, for further leaks of some western influential figures.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is actually pretty interesting how the information has been managed in case. The press wants their own piece after they lost the previous major leaks completely. It's actually pretty relevant discussion about the future of an industry that has been in slow decline for the last decades. In case someone interprets that as sarcasm or sensationalism that is probably an attitude problem, or perhaps an issue with…

> The press wants their own piece after they lost the previous major leaks completely. The information is being released by 100 different news organizations in 100 different countries. It has nothing to do with protecting their jobs from "Internet sleuths", it's having professional journalistic standards.

[deleted]

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#76

Hilarious that BBC, a broadcaster paid for by British tax payers, has a subheading in that article titled "Russian connection" describing various dealings of Russian characters who are "close associates" of Putin and an equally sordid "Iceland connection" but not even a mention of David Cameron's father's tax evading schemes listed in the documents which the people of Great Britain should be vastly more interested in…

I believe they are withholding details regarding any British connections until the BBC Panorama show which airs tomorrow. As before, this leak is coordinated across different media organisations and the whole news cache is released iteratively.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#77
post #49

Hilarious that BBC, a broadcaster paid for by British tax payers, has a subheading in that article titled "Russian connection" describing various dealings of Russian characters who are "close associates" of Putin and an equally sordid "Iceland connection" but not even a mention of David Cameron's father's tax evading schemes listed in the documents which the people of Great Britain should be vastly more interested in…

Both the British and (especially) German [0] media are virulently anti-Russian. They blame Russians for all of their ills. Societal problems? Blame Russians. Anything that happens in their countries, they manage to find an angle to blame it on Russians somehow. Norway [1] & Sweden are also under a constant paranoia that Russians are just days away from invading them. But nothing compares to German media when it comes…

Being Russian citizen I find this critical position actually pro-Russian. It's in our interest to have a professional government and a president elected on transparent and free elections, to fight corruption and to work for the prosperity of our Homeland and for happiness of all our people. The government, the president, the courts and the deputees of parliament that do not satisfy these criteria can and shall be criticized by anyone who dares. And, by the way, these media do not criticize the Russian people. So, we are ok with that critics and sane people here are not humiliated by what others may call "lecturing from the West". In fact, we are proud that there's so much interest to the Russian politics, that we are treated as important part of the world and that we do matter. Moreover, such critics will not change anything in Russia, because Russian internal affairs are only our internal affairs. I'd say, they are for internal consumption in Germany and UK, and it's good - even western citizen enjoying the taste of democracy may fall to Putin's propaganda, so better keep fighting.

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#78
post #64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a regular reader of German news, this does not seem true to me. My impression is that the German media are more Russia-friendly than their British and American counterparts. After all, Russia and Germany could be natural allies from a geostrategic perspective.

Go on BILD, Die Welt and Der Spiegel and read articles in German. I'm semi-fluent in German (studied it for 5 years and lived there for a year) and from my experience everything I said is true. I've added some references.

It is not true. Dr. Ulfkotte is a known fake journalist: http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2015...

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is actually pretty interesting how the information has been managed in case. The press wants their own piece after they lost the previous major leaks completely. It's actually pretty relevant discussion about the future of an industry that has been in slow decline for the last decades. In case someone interprets that as sarcasm or sensationalism that is probably an attitude problem, or perhaps an issue with…

> The press wants their own piece after they lost the previous major leaks completely. The information is being released by 100 different news organizations in 100 different countries. It has nothing to do with protecting their jobs from "Internet sleuths", it's having professional journalistic standards.

What pisses me off is that after they are done going through the data, they often still don't release the files.

There is a reason why publicly available information is useful (think about historians for instance), and by locking it for these only 100 orgs (which will then forget about it in half a year when the scandal is done) you lose on the opportunity to do future research, books, etc. on this

Re: Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

#80
post #59
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the British and (especially) German [0] media are virulently anti-Russian. They blame Russians for all of their ills. Societal problems? Blame Russians. Anything that happens in their countries, they manage to find an angle to blame it on Russians somehow. Norway [1] & Sweden are also under a constant paranoia that Russians are just days away from invading them. But nothing compares to German media when it comes…

As a regular reader of German news, this does not seem true to me. My impression is that the German media are more Russia-friendly than their British and American counterparts. After all, Russia and Germany could be natural allies from a geostrategic perspective.

British and American media are virulently anti-Russian so that doesn't mean much.

I did not know that Axel Springer actually has support for America, the EU and Israel literally written into its corporate constitution. That seems like a powerful source of bias for a media organisation.

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