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

bbc.com

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

#211

Post by usaphp »

alkonaut wrote: post #199
usaphp wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think any person in the "west" would be delighted to see free elections in Russia. No, they will be delighted to see the candidate they (westerns) like more - win, they won't care who most people really voted and supported in Russia. Putin won on the recent elections and I did not notice any "delighted west media" after that, even thought as I said in a separate comment - vast majority of the people in Russia act…

I don't doubt Putin has massive support, but in a country without free press or free elections popularity says nothing. Putin doesn't win elections, he arranges them. North Koreas leaders have traditionally enjoyed a 100% support, and it might even be genuine support, but it doesn't mean anything. The media climate in Russia isn't yet North Korean of course, but it's far from a climate in which elections would be cal…

> rapidly growing deficits and receding standard of living

Really? What is it based on? Compared to a period after the perestroika, level of life has greatly improved in Russia, the worst period of crime and absolute horrendous inability of police to prevent the growth of organized crime is not something most of the people of Russia want to experience again and that is why they want to go with stability which they think Putin gives them.

> in a country without free press or free elections

Throwing around big captions like this does not help a single bit, these words mean absolutely nothing to me, what do you mean by "free press" isn't most of the popular media in UK or US owned and heavily censored by corporate leaders or government parties? What makes this media "free" and media in Russia "not free".

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

#212

Post by cmrdporcupine »

There have been many previous times in history when naked obvious extreme inequality and disparity of power combined with drought/war/disease/poverty to ignite a tinderbox of revolution and civil war that led to armies of the poor taking the assets of the super rich by force.

Just sayin' .. perhaps the super rich would do well to look after their own long term interests better by at least _pretending_ to contribute to the societies they dwell in?

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

#213

Post by bordercases »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #196
wyck wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referencing the fact that some leaks you get the whole enchilada and it's up to you or the media to sift though. In the case it's a leak which is being funnelled by the reporters. Maybe this is because of legal reasons, I have no idea, but would it not be better they just dumped the whole data set onto the web?

Did you have this same position with the Snowden leaks? Dump it on the web and it lacks credibility. Filter it through journalists who can use their resellers to make sense of it and the public gets to hear the important repercussions of the leak instead of having to try and figure it all out themselves.

Why not both?

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

#214

Post by [deleted] »

sievebrain wrote: post #80
Hermel wrote: 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.

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.

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by smegel »

When the first three leaders named are the top 3 enemies/adversaries of the US/Britain - Putin, Xi and Assad - my own little conspiracy canary started chirping.

And the Icelandic PM? The one who really annoyed Britain by defaulting on their debts?

Makes me wonder who orchestrated the leak.

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

#217

Post by drcode »

akamaka wrote: post #20
SandB0x wrote: post #14

What would be the economic impact of a country recovering tens or hundreds of billions of dollars? It couldn't immediately actual economic productivity. Would it simply work out to reducing a country's debt obligations? Would it cause inflation? In what form is this wealth stored? This is beyond my understanding of economics, would love to get any insights.

One article claims there is $20 trillion hidden in tax havens.[1] That sounds like a lot, but considering that this is money that has accumulated over the course of decades (say 30 years), and only a portion of it would be taxable (say 20%), that would give an annual revenue stream of $133 billion per year. If that all went to the US, that would be about 7 times more than is collected by the estate tax, which is less…

> and only a portion of it would be taxable (say 20%)

Well, I think some of these hidden funds were accumulated through outright theft and could in theory be 100% recoverable. (Though in practice any recoveries are extremely unlikely, I'm sure...)

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

#218

Post by wyck »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #196
wyck wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referencing the fact that some leaks you get the whole enchilada and it's up to you or the media to sift though. In the case it's a leak which is being funnelled by the reporters. Maybe this is because of legal reasons, I have no idea, but would it not be better they just dumped the whole data set onto the web?

Did you have this same position with the Snowden leaks? Dump it on the web and it lacks credibility. Filter it through journalists who can use their resellers to make sense of it and the public gets to hear the important repercussions of the leak instead of having to try and figure it all out themselves.

At least they were transparent to exactly why the information was filtered. Credibility is certainly a good point but 100 people are going to have issue with sifting through terabytes of data.

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

#219

Post by wyck »

r3bl wrote: post #143
wyck wrote: post #21

Panama just passed compliance with FATF (February 2016) and it's a message that their political leader/law firm owner/world's largest money launderer (his name is in the OP's title) is no longer open for business after decades of being the go-to place for hidden $$$. http://www.fatf-gafi.org/countries/#Panama "The FATF recognised that Algeria, Angola and Panama have made significant progress in improving their regime…

> Real leaks don't have fancy websites with responsive vectorized portraits and a full on content /social media structure. Yes they do and you're welcome. Sincerely, somebody who worked on this for way too long and practically hasn't left the office this entire weekend.

I'm not critiquing the website, it looks great to be honest. It's comes across a little odd when you target just a small amount of people, it almost seems like a sales pitch.

The journalists need to be more transparent about the data and why these individuals were picked first, and how the data release is going to work.

I hope for your sake you don't have to vectorize everyone mentioned in the data.

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

#220

Post by mindcrime »

We could solve this "problem" by simply eliminating taxation, and moving to a stateless society[1] and an across the board model of self-government[2].

[1]: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Order_without_the_sta...

[2]: https://www.theadvocates.org/

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