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The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

cumex-files.com

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Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#71

Post by dhimes »

pvaldes wrote: post #67
Reason077 wrote: post #2

”Tax payers have lost up to €2 billion, that’s nearly €350,000 for every Danish man, woman and child.” You sure about that math, cumex-files?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator The decimal separator in most european countries is the comma. $350,000 in Denmark equals to $350. If there is an error by a factor of x1000 I would assume that is a case of meaning lost in translation and not intentional. The use of a third decimal is uncommon and unfortunate in any case.

They wouldn't use three trailing zeros. More likely is that they interpreted 1B as a million million, like the British do, instead of 1000 million.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#72

Post by growlist »

krylon wrote: post #56
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #50

The German government did know about this stuff I think from 2002 or 2001 on, but still did not stop it until around 2012 in Germany and did not warn other countries, so it went on in those. I just can not understand, how the government of my country could work this way. It really borders to actively supporting this scam. In my opinion, not only the people that have done this (including many banks!), but also respons…

> But in Germany, if you are big enough or in government, you can do nearly everything without effects. While I sadly agree, I would like to point out that this is true of many countries.

Whatabout!

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#73

Post by PythonicAlpha »

krylon wrote: post #56
PythonicAlpha wrote: post #50

The German government did know about this stuff I think from 2002 or 2001 on, but still did not stop it until around 2012 in Germany and did not warn other countries, so it went on in those. I just can not understand, how the government of my country could work this way. It really borders to actively supporting this scam. In my opinion, not only the people that have done this (including many banks!), but also respons…

> But in Germany, if you are big enough or in government, you can do nearly everything without effects. While I sadly agree, I would like to point out that this is true of many countries.

I wanted to speak only for my own country, while I sadly think, I must agree.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#74

Post by pvaldes »

dhimes wrote: post #71
pvaldes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator The decimal separator in most european countries is the comma. $350,000 in Denmark equals to $350. If there is an error by a factor of x1000 I would assume that is a case of meaning lost in translation and not intentional. The use of a third decimal is uncommon and unfortunate in any case.

They wouldn't use three trailing zeros. More likely is that they interpreted 1B as a million million, like the British do, instead of 1000 million.

Maybe a translator thought that it was an error and 'fixed it' adding the extra zero...

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#75

Post by mrfredward »

cbg0 wrote: post #20

There's a previous discussion for a NY Times article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18149831

That NYT article was a lot better for understanding what was happening. I recommend it over the website here, even though it looks at Denmark instead of the whole EU.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#76

Post by Reason077 »

dhimes wrote: post #71
pvaldes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator The decimal separator in most european countries is the comma. $350,000 in Denmark equals to $350. If there is an error by a factor of x1000 I would assume that is a case of meaning lost in translation and not intentional. The use of a third decimal is uncommon and unfortunate in any case.

They wouldn't use three trailing zeros. More likely is that they interpreted 1B as a million million, like the British do, instead of 1000 million.

Billion means “1000 million” in British English, not “million million” (which is Trillion).

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#77

Post by wemdyjreichert »

woodpanel wrote: post #61
raffael-vogler wrote: post #52

correctiv.org is producing phantastic investigative journalism on a regular basis. one of their most important revelations recently was about a pharmacist who was selling heavily diluted cytostatic agents for chemo therapy. several people died because of this [1]. really awesome about correctiv is that they not just release their findings - they really make sure that something is going to be done about it. for exampl…

While I echo your appraisal, they have a hard time not to come across as biased. for instance: - In the article you've linked, I'm sure there were better images of a conservative politician to choose from. Small thing, but not for professional journalists - In the CumEx-article, what information do I gain, when they state that one of the perpetrator's lawyers is a famous face of the German pro-market party FDP - othe…

Agreed. I understand everybody's got biases, and that many in media lean left. But doing pretty stuff like that, clearly intended to score a few cheap points, might turn many people off some truly high-quality content.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#78

Post by dhimes »

Reason077 wrote: post #76
dhimes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wouldn't use three trailing zeros. More likely is that they interpreted 1B as a million million, like the British do, instead of 1000 million.

Billion means “1000 million” in British English, not “million million” (which is Trillion).

Did they change it?

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#79

Post by village-idiot »

Svip wrote: post #63
skummetmaelk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Danish tax disaster has a long history beginning in the early 00's when it was decided to reform and digitalize the tax collection. Contractors were brought in to develop a nation-wide tax collection system that would reduce the cost of collecting tax. This system was to take many years to develop and a plan was made to gradually lay off employees in the tax collection agency as the system was made ready so that…

The worst thing is that our politicians seems to be mostly inclined to say they are disappointed whenever a new scandal erupts, and then nothing happens. If only they would have been as forceful in response as the new Social Agency scandal (even if 15+ years too late), when it came to the Tax Agency. Then again, since it seems like most voters don't really give a damn, I guess it's politically expedient to just not c…

If your politicians are anything like mine, chances are they’re exploiting the system themselves.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#80

Post by longway2go »

cbnotfromthere wrote: post #70
ianai wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people in “democratic” countries, get involved in civic duties. Register to vote, stay informed, volunteer to canvass and spread the word for campaigns. I donate monthly to causes I care about supporting. Corruption reform has taken place through these routes. Edit-pedantry

"For people in democratic republic countries" So obviously people from the UK, Norway, Netherlands, and Spain should not get involved /facepalm

First we have to address our ridiculously outdated structure and actually government sanctioned class system.

Having a queen and a ridiculously nationalist political parties has to be the most embarrassing parts of being British.

God (lol) divinely gives power to the queen (lol) through birthrite (lol) and we are her subjects (lol).

It is so deeply offensive that I am meant to he her slave, and its shocking how much idiots dont think it matters.

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