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Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

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Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#91

Post by fragmede »

rothbardrand wrote: post #46
cisanti wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But corporations do like to paint themselves as moral and fighting for you! Another thing is why people believe in it... All in all, there are many things that are not illegal to do, but definitely immoral. Such tax schemes sure are immoral in my eyes, I'm a hard-core capitalist, but no way your average Joe stands a chance at "optimizing" taxes. People need to call out these companies more, but it's easy to deceive t…

You invoked morality. The moral calculus is pretty clear to me: I’ll take the gay loving advancer of technology over governments stealing money to use it to blow up people any day. Apple has the moral high ground, and that ground is higher the less taxes they pay. Remember military spending is far more than roads.

Between the strip mining to supply the factories, and the factory conditions in China that are Apple in everthing but name, Apple may still be able to claim a moral high ground over the government that keeps Guantanamo Bay still open, but that's not a very high bar.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#93

Post by ringaroundthetx »

killjoywashere wrote: post #83
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human rights abuses have NEVER been a red line for US cooperation with a foreign government. Ask yourself who benefits from perpetuating this unique goal post for Russia to maintain McCarthy era paranoia?

> Human rights abuses have NEVER been a red line Yes they have been and are. See the Magnitsky Act (2012) and Jackson–Vanik amendment (1974) specifically.

But in practice we are trade partners with the Philippines and Saudi Arabia and practically every country on the planet, with very narrowly focused financial sanctions against a few Russian businessmen, while maintaining a unique paranoia against that one country in particular.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#94

Post by hhtoyou »

gaius wrote: post #51
rothbardrand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You invoked morality. The moral calculus is pretty clear to me: I’ll take the gay loving advancer of technology over governments stealing money to use it to blow up people any day. Apple has the moral high ground, and that ground is higher the less taxes they pay. Remember military spending is far more than roads.

Military spending got you the Internet, GPS, jet engines, microwave ovens and a million more things that you take for granted ...

Creation of SPECTRE

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#95

Post by otherme1 »

gaius wrote: post #51
rothbardrand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You invoked morality. The moral calculus is pretty clear to me: I’ll take the gay loving advancer of technology over governments stealing money to use it to blow up people any day. Apple has the moral high ground, and that ground is higher the less taxes they pay. Remember military spending is far more than roads.

Military spending got you the Internet, GPS, jet engines, microwave ovens and a million more things that you take for granted ...

Anyone with less than half the money the militars spend should had "got" me all those things.

Militars have that awful economic drag building expensive things just to blow them in some far away place without any return.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#96

Post by danharaj »

joelrunyon wrote: post #76
pyrale wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the wrong angle. One should not look at corporations as the moral saviours. [...] Rather, it is the governments of the world we should be going at if we want this behaviour to change. Let us pretend that corporations have no influence over laws and governments, and merely play a game they had no hand in designing.

So the corporation is still the symptom. What we should be doing is insulating the government from outside influence.

A government insulated from outside influence no longer governs.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#97

Post by brohoolio »

_bfhp wrote: post #14
jahaja wrote: post #13

The sad thing about this is the fatigue caused by the whole "well, of course they're cheating, they always do.". When the powerful/wealthy get caught the result seems to be just further apathy, rather than outrage with consequences. I wonder how long this can continue.

I think many hoped for a path forward in Bernie Sanders, but the Democratic Party kneecapped that...

Hillary won by 3 million votes. I know it’s a republican / Russian talking point to keep pointing out this division.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#98

Post by jacobolus »

noobermin wrote: post #79

Since there are no top level comments putting this out for probably obvious reasons, here is a supportive comment for the article. This is what people feel in their guts when they drive out on tattered roads and avoid going to the hospital even though they are sick, when they don't have a real increase in wages but are working longer hours. They have the sense that something isn't right, that there are two sets of ru…

SG = Singapore?

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#99

Post by pohl »

mjw1007 wrote: post #37
mrleiter wrote: post #33

It's the wrong angle. One should not look at corporations as the moral saviours. As Supreme Court Judge Learned Hand once said: "Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing 851*851 sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, n…

I suppose it's easier to pressure governments to change what's going on when we have journalists willing to tell us what's going on. When it comes to reporting information obtained from "secrecy jurisdictions", I think a standard of "if it's not illegal to report, it's OK to report" is reasonable. After all, that's the same standard you're advocating for managing your tax affairs.

Wasn’t the reporter behind the Panama Papers killed by a car bomb?

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#100

Post by wallace_f »

danharaj wrote: post #28
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #26

It's funny how the people of Russia and the US are framed as being such great enemies when in reality many of the rulers of both countries have more common interests with each other than they do with the citizens of their own nations.

It's not an accident.

Putin's utility function maximization calculus is clearly benefited from undermining his own people, and there is a lot of evidence to support that.

The US plutocracy is no different. Also a lot of evidence: the actions of the NSA, CIA, War on Drugs, police militarizarion, military-industrial-congressional-complex... All cannot be explained otherwise.

I think in the US, they're just a lot more clever at it. However cooky it might seem, there is some evidence coming out that extremist rallies have been organized by unknown powers, possibly sometimes Russian. A lot of the racial tension is probably not by accident. I saw this on the reddit conspiracy sub, and frankly I think it's a good point to be made: https://i.redd.it/lgdyy6dpjyfz.jpg

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