Some more news:

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/03/panama-papers-biggest-leak-history-exposes-global-web-corruption

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-media-gatekeepers-protect-western-1-from-panama-leak/

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Quote:

Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained and all involved in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a significant proportion of the 1%, and the massive leak of their documents ought to be a wonderful thing

......."What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organised entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include

Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W K Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)"

The Editor in Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of United States individuals in the documents, saying to "Just wait for what is coming next".

It is described as the largest leak of data in history. It could have some really wide-reaching effect. But here in the US, the media is completely silent. An hour ago, I went to CNN, MSNBC and Fox news websites and searched for "Panama Papers" and nothing at all came up, (CNN suggested some tourist hotspots when I visit there).

I think the impact to the US, when that part of the data is released, will probably be huge. It could bring down Hillary Clinton, (we already know they have shell companies), and Donald Trump, (many friends and people he admires are on the current list). This is just one legal company, but with history going back 40 years. Already released are some contributions to different sides of the Syrian Civil War, whose funds ended up with Al Qaeda and ISIS.

It will be interesting to watch. Having a shell company isn't necessarily illegal, although in some countries it is more serious, (India, for example, doesn't allow locals to invest in foreign companies -- but some of the most famous names in the country are seen starting shell companies from which they can invest, earn profits on their investments and avoid taxes). The effect would be more on public perception. Remember the "Arab Spring" revolution was brought about by the revelation about corruption concerning the leaders there.

While CNN has finally covered the Panama Papers, they seem to think this is one of the more pressing issues to cover.

the media is completely silent. An hour ago, I went to CNN, MSNBC and Fox news websites and searched for "Panama Papers" and nothing at all came up, (CNN suggested some tourist hotspots when I visit there). — swstephe

NPR covered it. Did you check out CBS, ABC, NBC? PBS? Newspapers?

The Public Editor of the New York Times thought it was amiss that the Times did not produce anything of their own until last evening. There was not much in today's paper, and nothing on the front page. The management explained that they hadn't seen any of these papers yet, and want to find out more about them before they go with a major story. The Washington Post didn't seem to be carrying much about it. The WSJ wears a veil which one must pay to rip through. Don't know what they ran.

It took them something like 15-18 hours after the fact to even acknowledge its existence. This is odd, seeing as over 100 media and news groups outside of the Big Media in America have been in on this for over a year.

By the way, Bernie Sanders was talking about this issue exactly in 2011.

Also, while we are either paying attention to these Panama Papers or whether or not the cop finally caught up to the chihuahua, one of the biggest bribery cases also unfolded, namely the Unaoil bribery case.

And David Cameron's father, too. Big surprise. "We're all in this together" - the bloody nerve...

Ha! What do you expect from someone who fucked a pig in the mouth?

Things were just unfolding, so they wouldn't be in the newspapers yet. Local news lead story was about a chihuahua that got out onto the Oakland Bay Bridge being chased by police. The next day, all the news media reported on it, but I noticed many stories were titled "What you need to know about the Panama Papers". As expected, many news sources implied it was just a silly European thing leading people in Iceland to throw yogurt at politicians, and it was all more about Putin. It seems like only a few news outlets mentioned how hard Obama and Clinton had pushed for the Panama Trade Agreement, despite complaints it would just create tax havens and a channel for money laundering.

When I got into my work, (at a subsidiary of a European bank), they are assigning us all etchics courses. I saw that another subsidiary was mentioned in helping someone in Morocco hide funds.

:D

As many of you are probably aware, there was a huge data dump/leak/sharing extracted from one of the largest law firms in Panama, which inculcates a huge number of politicians/children-of-rich/rich/divine rulers of world for money laundering. Here's the link. — discoii

Thanks for bringing this text and sub-text to the fore.

The text -- how the oligarchic pigs are protecting their piles of plunder -- is important. There are also several sub-texts here of some importance. I do not expect that congress will hold hearings on any of these matters.

1. Who all is involved in "The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists" and why did the NYT know nothing about this? If the "first paper" (newspaper of record, newspaper serving the heart of the beast on the Island of Manhattan, etc.) didn't know about this, what else do they not know about?

2. The story should be generating more heat here in the US than it is. Tax sheltering is a critical piece of how the 1% gets by. Of course, some tax shelters, like inversions, are done in broad daylight. The companies even hold press conferences to announce them (like when Pfizer becomes a corporate citizen of Ireland, say, to avoid taxes in the U.S.).

3. Did the U.S. government know about this, how much, and when, and if they knew about it, did they consider doing anything to stop it? Or, was the USG, like the NYT, not privy to the good works of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists? Were any prominent Americans involved in the tax evasion operation? (And if not, what better tax evasion schemes are they using?)

Who all is involved in "The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists" and why did the NYT know nothing about this? — Bitter Crank

The icij has hq in Washington DC and a number of US journalists in its membership: https://www.icij.org/index.html

I don't know the answers to most of your questions, but what I'm starting to notice now is states simply reprimanding Panama as a state. For example, the French government put Panama back on the "tax haven blacklist". So, as I guess is to be expected, we are back to playing the musical chairs game: reprimand one location, move operations to the next one. This is very typical of neoliberalism and liberalism generally--in fact, it is part and parcel of the mechanism of liberalism itself.

Wikileaks claiming that the Panama Papers is a US government psyop?

• Iceland's prime minister has resigned. According to the BBC report, he says he sold his shares to his wife, and denies any wrongdoing.

Acting within the law ≠ doing what is right.

• No 10 said there were "no offshore trusts or funds" that the prime minister or his immediate family would benefit from "in future".

I guess that makes it all okay, then.

We both know that what No 10 said was a boldfaced lie. How is the public in the UK? Do they have amnesia and forget these things within 1 week of learning of it? Wouldn't it be swell if Jeremy Corbyn moved to No 10...

What really surprises me is that one lawfirm had all the data.

It's a small world.

Well, at least the Icelandic prime minister had to go. The financial crisis hurt Iceland so bad that this was an especially bad wound. Latinos and africans etc. know their leaders are corrupt.

Personally I think this leak is a diversion tactic from Clinton's leaked e-mails.

I get the sense that the NY Times was pissed off that they did not have access to the leaked papers, that they were not part of the consortium of newspapers chosen to investigate the leak. Apparently, these documents were leaked to a German newspaper about a year ago and hundreds of journalists have been working on them for quite a while.

What really surprises me is that one lawfirm had all the data. — ssu

Keep in mind that Mossack Fonseca is the fourth-largest offshoring law firm. The three others are likely to contain a majority of the world's elite. It isn't surprising to me that law firms specializing in shell companies, offshoring, tax evasion, and various forms of subtle (questionably legal according to the state) large-stakes money laundering would be effected by the same rules of the economy that said elites organize, namely monopolization. When it comes to information containment, this is perhaps a weakness of theirs, and we see this weakness playing out on our screens. It also happens to be a structural weakness of the system (as evidenced by 2008 and 'too big to fail').

I get the sense that the NY Times was pissed off that they did not have access to the leaked papers, that they were not part of the consortium of newspapers chosen to investigate the leak. Apparently, these documents were leaked to a German newspaper about a year ago and hundreds of journalists have been working on them for quite a while. — Cavacava

The conspicuous lack of exposure to Americans (high level or otherwise) could be due to a number of different reasons, some of which are relatively innocuous and uninteresting, like most elite Americans might simply employ such financial services with firms within the US (gotta stay competitive in the tax evasion market, after all). But we should consider the importance of what you bring up. The UK is MF's largest country of origin for clients (second to Hong Kong), yet only represents a fraction of the spotlighted figures in the reports. Additionally, there are over 3,000 US companies that are clients for MF. These facts, combined with the observation that these reporters (who are responsible to their funders) poured over these papers for some time now, means that they made a conscious and deliberate effort to censor or withhold information that might be damaging to Americans.

The Guardian (one of the outlets privy to the leaks) launched the story framed primarily as an expose on Putin, despite the fact that Putin himself wasn't even named in the documents.

Out of 11.5 million documents, only 149 were released. There is then, a meta-story here of corruption and intrigue, that is groups with certain ideological agendas releasing attacks veiled as journalism and shocking exposes of the truth (and, how did the Australian government get ahold of these leaks?). I'm not fan of Putin or these (mosty) E.European and Arab oligarchs (Western ones are called 'business tycoons', sounds nicer doesn't it?), and would like to see them go down burning as much as the next guy, but the point is that there seems to be an obvious effort by someone to make the double-edged sword of transparency and information one-edged.

Nobody knows who the leaker was (and MF claims that it wasn't a leak from the inside of their firm, but from an outside attacker who gained access to their systems). Short of conspiratorial conjecture on who he/she/they were, they were at least incredibly stupid (or naive) when it came to choosing their journalists if total transparency and exposure were their aims.

But unless the sources deleted all traces of the information in their possession, there is nothing holding them back from leaking the data to Wikileaks or The Intercept.

TL;DR: Americans aren't law-abiding angels or less corrupt than others, it's just shitty and highly compromised journalism.

Leticia Montoya, sitting on the board of directors and being a shareholder in over 10,000 companies, is a true example of genuine capitalist entrepreneurial spirit. Her innovation and effectiveness as an investor should be an example to all plebeian rabble. How is it that a person can sit on the board of directors for over 10,000 companies, you ask? Easy: be someone else's tax shelter signatory.

Lynch the bitch.

Zizek on the Panama Papers.

So why did thousands of businessman and politicians do what is documented in the Panama Papers? The answer is the same as that of the old vulgar riddle-joke: Why do dogs lick themselves? Because they can. — Zizek

True. It's a natural act, and self-interest is present within human nature, so if they can exploit the situation for the sake of themselves - even if it's at the expense of others, then they will do so.

Owners of the wealth who moved it to offshore accounts and tax havens are not greedy monsters, but individuals who simply act like rational subjects trying to safeguard their wealth. — Zizek

I think that it's a bit of both. Why else would anyone want to safeguard their wealth to begin with? More for me, less for society. And these aren't small sums of money that we're talking about. Greed is the motive, reason is the method.

Good news for the world, the corrupt should be exposed and brought to justice.

6. Vladmir Putin — discoii

I don't buy this. That people close to him were involved I agree. But there is no clear evidence that Putin himself was involved in any way.

Good news for the world, the corrupt should be exposed and brought to justice. — Agustino

This is where your political affiliation becomes a hindrance. Conservativism and liberalism are hardly the best tools at our disposal for rooting out such corruption. On the contrary, they got us into this mess to begin with. The clue is in the name. The corruption occurred under the current system, so conservation would not resolve the problem, but only see to it that the problem persists. And those listed were at liberty to do as they did, so they need less of it.

I don't agree with conservatism of the type you find in the UK for example. I would also not describe myself as a liberalist in anyway.

I don't think the liberty of people should be affected, but rather that real justice ought to exist, and people who do such things be punished for it. The problem in the West is that we live in a society which no longer punishes breaking the law properly. Or it punishes the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It punishes the guy who steals a chicken with years in jail, while it leaves the one who steals millions of dollars and causes thousands of people to lose their jobs unpunished.

I'm a conservative on social issues first and foremost, not on economic issues (on economic issue I'm quite centrist). I find conservatism on social issue to be the correct moral position to adopt. One other problem which facilitates this behavior is that there no longer exists a code of honor, and social structures do not exist to properly enforce it. That's why we end up with such weak leaders who are unworthy and immoral people.

We have a growing middle class who wants to be just like the rich - have a few cars, date a new girl every night, etc. The problem with this is that they end up treating people (women for example) as means to an end, instead of ends in themselves, and my whole point is that people are ends in themselves and ought to be treated as such. That is why I put so much emphasis on the social side. I believe the source of all this evil is moral ignorance. People just think that being immoral is equivalent or necessary to being successful, and that immoral people end up happier than moral people. We have the image of the old religious man starving himself to death and navel-gazing... that's our image of the moral man, and so a profound moral ignorance settles over people. I think religion, especially Christian religion, and its emphasis on the moral man as a suffering man has harmed our culture. Instead of picturing the virtuous man as ultimately triumphant both in life and in death (pace Socrates: "the good man has nothing to fear, either in life or in death", or Jesus: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and ALL things shall be added unto you") we have created this false image which has deceived people.

Second of all, our culture does not appreciate politics (Trump is right on this point - there just is no respect for politicians anymore). We have treated and pictured all politicians as lying snakes, and to a certain extent this has made it a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it has made people believe they simply have to be like this to be successful in politics. These are issues that can be resolved by returning to traditional Western virtues. What is happening instead though, is that comedians and the media find examples of priests, and other people who are supposed to be virtuous, and show that these people are also immoral. For example, they show priests having sex with children, or priests engaging in promiscuous sex, or laundering money, etc. So this further makes people think that morality is fake, and to be happy, you must be immoral - because look, even those people who are supposed to be moral examples are immoral.