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

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

#251

Post by hendersoon »

whbk wrote: post #247

Editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of U.S. individuals in the documents, saying "Just wait for what is coming next" https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/716771686482202625 My money is on a current presidential candidate being connected to this, though I'm not 100% on which one.

Not to imply that any future revelations must necessarily be less impactful than the Iceland story, but I feel like that would have come up on day 1 alongside Putin, rather than the Iceland PM.

It would have made front page news in the entire western world rather than being largely ignored late on a Sunday night.

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

#252

Post by adventured »

grecy wrote: post #223
boreas wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really feel like this is an unnecessarily melodramatic comment. I can't tell if you're being serious about American news only reporting things that make America look good but that's certainly not true in my experience. Mainstreams outlets (NYT/WSJ/etc.) have different biases on their editorial boards but they are more than willing to report negative news about the US and mundane current events from around the world…

> I can't tell if you're being serious about American news only reporting things that make America look good I'm being serious. Other countries I've lived in spend a lot of time in their media comparing their own country to other countries that are doing very well, or are doing something better than them, such that they can learn from that and make their own situation or system better. When you only compare America t…

I don't believe the US is hung up on not improving. I think that's blatantly false and I think you're wrong about some of what you're claiming.

It's also a fascinating bit of hypocrisy, to say that the US is hung up on being right, and yet you feel free to bash the US while promoting the things others do right (you listed healthcare, education, roads). How does that work again?

The US does in fact improve. See: gay marriage legalization (something many of those supposed progressive nations you're referring to still lack). Body cams for police (a wide national interest in ending police brutality). Ending mass incarceration and the war on drugs (changes that are now supported by the majority of Americans). The ACA / Obamacare.

If you want to talk about roads, much of Europe for example has seen its spending on infrastructure plunge dramatically. The US is now spending more on its infrastructure than most of the countries you're likely to reference:

"Infrastructure spending in the euro zone has dropped to an average of 2.7 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 3.4 percent of GDP for the U.S. and 3.6 percent for Japan."

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-27/europe-has-...

It's almost universally recognized within the US that there are significant problems in both education and healthcare. You can hardly get away from discussions on these topics. What is occurring, is a slow moving national debate on what to do about fixing them. The US has a healthcare system the size of all of Europe's healthcare systems combined in dollar terms, which employs directly or indirectly millions of people - there's no scenario under which you're going to radically remake something like that in short order.

The US is a relatively complex, massive representative system, with local + state + federal systems that all play an important role and a total government budget so large it would be the world's #3 economy by itself. It's difficult for a government system that large to move quickly on almost anything. Imagine trying to get most of the countries in Europe to agree on major changes to their education or healthcare systems simultaneously, it's approximately an equivalent feat to remake education or healthcare in the US - both of which are heavily managed at the state levels.

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

#253

Post by hendersoon »

tootie wrote: post #244
UVB-76 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, being featured in these documents is not in and of itself evidence of any wrongdoing. There are entirely lawful and legitimate reasons for making use of offshore company structures.

There's a lot of noise being made over the number of documents, but I'm not seeing anything actually interesting about this. Offshore banking has been extremely common for a very long time and isn't illegal in and of itself. The hidden funds need to be provably originating from from an illicit source.

That's where the actual journalism comes in.

Also, in some cases hiding money offshore is indeed illegal. One example that immediately comes to mind is for individuals holding public office in Iceland.

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

#254

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jonesb6 wrote: post #142

Apparently there are no American politicians or businessmen listed. And no coverage on NYTimes, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, USAtoday, LA Times, etc. That seems strange to me.

It is completely possible that the schemes provided in Panama wouldn't work very well for US citizens, and also the close relationship between the USA and Panama might make US citizens looking for such schemes look elsewhere.

As for the fall out not being reported in US news, it is Sunday night, and if they weren't involved, then they wouldn't have a leg up on this. Wait until Monday to pass judgement.

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

#255

Post by adventured »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #153
neffy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because at no time in its entire history has Russia actively supported organisations whose sole goal was "the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International

Russia's socialist days are long behind it now, for better or worse.

Hardly. Russia is a fascist dictatorship. Fascism is a version of Socialism. Which is why fascists such as Mussolini and Hitler were such huge fans of Socialism, universally hated Capitalism, and were early proponents of the global Socialist movement in the 20th century.

In Russia the State is nearly all powerful, and realistically directly controls the means of production by its whim. It can change ownership of or nationalize any means of production at will. The only way it could be more Socialist, is if they nationalized all food production and stopped pretending there is private ownership. The government of Russia already controls all aspects of the economy and all major businesses. Supposed private ownership without actual private control is a farce, they're Socialist in everything but pretending regarding who owns what.

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

#256

Post by return0 »

wyck wrote: post #109
discreteevent wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Real leaks don't have fancy websites" How something looks. It really is the shallowest form of dismissal, since the days of the village gossips.

Your missing the point, it's clear they this leak is planned and not someone just uploading a bunch of files. People don't seem to understand what I mean by the above^. The question is would it not be better to dump the entire data set to the public, instead of it being funnelled by reporters?

It would lose credibility if it was just a dump. Some would claim its false, others would alter it, to the point that enough confusion would be created to make it totally untrustworthy. Unfortunately thats how manipulation works.

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

#257

Post by lazaroclapp »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #136
elemenopy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the Guardian[1]: > Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties have had offshore assets. I expect we'll hear more about this in coming days and weeks. I don't really understand this line of thinking. Big leak + "fancy website graphics" = vast Western conspiracy? Sounds less like insightful analysis and more like the kind of denial I'd expect from R…

The reason I'm thinking "vast Western conspiracy" is that you would think, as a common sense point, that when something like this appears Western journalists would be more interested in Western politicians first. But apparently not. I find that strange. I also find it strange that more people don't find it strange - because it's always been obvious to me that Putin is a completely generic oligarch crook, and I really…

> And if absolutely no US pols are implicated in this leak, I'll continue to find that curious and strange, no matter how many downvotes I get here.

Agreed. But I do fully expect to see those revealed as soon as the journalists have made sure that their case against them is watertight. Meanwhile, I'll be taking a look at the Mexican ones myself. Since there is still a difference between knowing that most of our politicians and corporate owners are corrupt in the abstract and knowing the details. In fact, I'll check that even if this turns out to be an actual geopolitical conspiracy, so long as the data is truthful (even if partial).

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

#258

Post by wyck »

r3bl wrote: post #240
wyck wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Worth pointing out: this is, in no way, done by a single media organization. This is a collaborative effort of ~107 news organizations from all over the world, and you can be sure that behind each of them there's a small dedicated tech team that worked tirelessly on making this thing look pretty. Because this is such a huge collaborative effort involving over 300 journalists from god knows how many countries, we bare…

Honestly that is becoming more clear and I might have jumped the gun in my initial comment.

It went viral very fast, I think it would have been a great idea to say that each "regional' media representative would be disclosing more info within the next couple of weeks.. on the website!

And if some important info was not disclosed regionally there would also be a follow up, because right now you have to admit.. not many Western names are showing up if any ( don't mention Cameron and the others since this was already exposed pre-leak).

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

#259

Post by twoodfin »

cm3 wrote: post #127
snitko wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's your opinion. I think taxation is extortion. Who's to say I'm not entitled to my point of view?

Ignoring fairness of certain taxes and issues with tax laws in general, taxes are the rent one has to pay for living in a place. If you don't have income you usually won't pay most taxes at all. It's arguable how much of the tax system works and what parts are just plain broken and favor certain interest groups, but that's an implementation detail. If you visit places where much of the population evades taxes, you'll…

The U.S. has a very strange corporate tax system. Why should Apple have to pay U.S. taxes on the profits they make selling in Germany a phone made of Korean components in a Chinese factory? That's above and beyond whatever taxes they're paying in the supplier nations and in Germany itself, which I assume are not insignificant.

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

#260

Post by grecy »

burkaman wrote: post #230
grecy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it remarkable, or is it completely expected for propaganda? I've been visiting the US for 6 months now, and the only time I hear anything about the outside world is when (China/Russia/NorthKorea) are doing something bad, or their citizens lives suck, or rarely when a social program in a developed country (UK, Europe) goes a little wrong (over budget or whatever). Interestingly, the fact that hundreds of millions o…

Have you tried watching or reading the news at all while you're here? This comment reads like someone imagining what American media might be like.

I've been watching the news and reading newspapers every day for 6 months, across 4 different states.
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