Panama Papers

[bmags]

Pretty exciting stuff here. Little involved with US that I've seen except from some known hucksters, but damning information on China/Russia and today I saw France's far right party getting caught up as well. Also with a shell company as tax shelter - David Cameron's son.

 

 

Just came from China, lots of open negative attitudes and media toward Xi Jinping already, and some of the absurd behavior of the kids from the nouveau riche of China.

 

It will be interesting to see if there is global action toward ending this crap, finally.

[StrangeSox]

re: the US, one of the principle people behind this said something like "just wait for what's next."

 

Iceland's government might be dissolved over their President's undisclosed investments. Putin is dirty as hell but really nothing shocking there.

[bmags]

re: the US, one of the principle people behind this said something like "just wait for what's next."

 

Iceland's government might be dissolved over their President's undisclosed investments. Putin is dirty as hell but really nothing shocking there.

 

That was a more malicious (edit: meant to say provocative, not malicious) translation than what was actually said, it was translated from German from an editor at the Suddeutsche Zeitung, and the more accurate translation after a question regarding the lack of Americans was "it's still coming out", like, they are still going through the data.

 

McClatchy newspapers were also provided with the data, and it would make no sense for them to bury the US involvement until later. Tribune just went through first group of names today that were the easy pickens of Americans involved and it was a bunch of ponzi schemers.

 

To add to this: In the trib today, I don't think anyone knows of a gangbuster US allegation yet. The trib was talking about the difficulty unwinding the investments, as there are those that incorporated the companies that were fairly easy to uncover, but then there are shareholders in these that has quite a bit more to weave through.

Edited April 5, 2016 by bmags

[bmags]

This was a very good article bringing some interesting points to think about, especially with so much of this money from Russia/China.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/5/11361992/panam...uthoritarianism

[chw42]

I like how FIFA officials were a huge part of this. Just goes to show how screwed up the org was before reforms.

[bmags]

I'm not confident Fifa has done much more than window dressing so far.

[bmags]

I incorrectly said David Cameron's son has the shell, but it's his father.

[southsider2k5]

Reading about this, I am shocked at how little is said about figures and politicians from the United States. Is there more stuff that includes that angle, is it not being talked about, or does it not exist?

[LittleHurt05]

re: the US, one of the principle people behind this said something like "just wait for what's next."

 

Iceland's government might be dissolved over their President's undisclosed investments. Putin is dirty as hell but really nothing shocking there.

 

The PM already resigned

[bmags]

Reading about this, I am shocked at how little is said about figures and politicians from the United States. Is there more stuff that includes that angle, is it not being talked about, or does it not exist?

 

Couple things I've read about this -

1) THey are still going through massive troves of complicated data. The US citizens implicated so far are literally ones that had passports in the document dump as those that incorporated through that firm.

2) The US has individual states that work well enough to create shell companies. They may not have needed a specialized firm to take care of their business, their own firm may have been fine to do this knowing US law well enough.

 

 

[BaconOnAStick]

Reading about this, I am shocked at how little is said about figures and politicians from the United States. Is there more stuff that includes that angle, is it not being talked about, or does it not exist?

Eh its just tax avoidance from the Western guys. The Icelandic stuff appears to the exception as that had something to do with the Icelandic Central Bank and how crazy that got not too long ago, but other than it's just good old fashioned tax dodging. I dont think any of it is breaking news to anyone.

 

The Russian/Chinese (Bashar al-Asad is even on there!) stuff is much more interesting and impactful. Putin has managed to insulate himself from Russia's blatant corruption by saying the system is corrupt but he is not, this drives a stake right through the heart of that. And make no mistake, its blatant corruption; they do things like loan someone $10 and get $50m back in interest (in exchange for some favor) in almost broad daylight but deny it by asking "well... then where is the money?" The crackdown from this, particularly in China, is going to be immense. Somewhere a Chinese 10th grader is doing a report on the Panama Canal and cant find any sources on Google for some reason.

Edited April 6, 2016 by Alexeihyeess

[southsider2k5]

A right wing page managed to connect Leon Podesta to this. Any other sources out there for this?

[BaconOnAStick]

A right wing page managed to connect Leon Podesta to this. Any other sources out there for this?

https://panamapapers.icij.org/

 

To me this is the definitive source.

[bmags]

A right wing page managed to connect Leon Podesta to this. Any other sources out there for this?

Who is Leon Podesta?

[southsider2k5]

Who is Leon Podesta?

 

Don't know why I was thinking Leon, but John Podesta.

[farmteam]

Don't know why I was thinking Leon, but John Podesta.

Ha, I had thought you meant Leon Panetta.

 

Then when you posted the correction I thought you meant Paul DePodesta for a second.

 

[southsider2k5]

Ha, I had thought you meant Leon Panetta.

 

Then when you posted the correction I thought you meant Paul DePodesta for a second.

 

Maybe that is where I got Leon from. I have no idea.

[bmags]

I'll believe it when I see it because that seems like a dumb "bombshell" accusation that would come from a RW blog. Also not sure that date was leaked outside of the news organizations.

[Buehrle>Wood]

So Wikileaks is claiming the documents were more or less being vetted by George Soros and company for release and are being used to target BRIC countries, hence little to no American involvement here. Wonder how much truth there is to that. I guess if there's one thing about Wikileaks, they are for complete transparency. Could be a case of jealousy too.

[bmags]

LOL

[Buehrle>Wood]

LOL

Not a fan of what wikileaks is saying here?

[Quin]

So Wikileaks is claiming the documents were more or less being vetted by George Soros and company for release and are being used to target BRIC countries, hence little to no American involvement here. Wonder how much truth there is to that. I guess if there's one thing about Wikileaks, they are for complete transparency. Could be a case of jealousy too.

 

I'm guessing you hit it on the head with jealousy.

 

[bmags]

It doesn't remotely hold any water. Even if the leaks were motivated (as if Snowden's werent), has there been any pushback whatsoever that this information is forged or untrue? Cameron has admitted his involvement. The Icelandic PM has admitted their involvement. But a US businessman was willing to throw 2 allies under the bus to cause mild discomfort to Putin?

 

This information has been spread to multiple news sources nad the actual docs are with the Suddeutsche Zeitung and 5 other news orgs, with only one org that has Soros as a contributor to the non-profit company.

[Buehrle>Wood]

It doesn't remotely hold any water. Even if the leaks were motivated (as if Snowden's werent), has there been any pushback whatsoever that this information is forged or untrue? Cameron has admitted his involvement. The Icelandic PM has admitted their involvement. But a US businessman was willing to throw 2 allies under the bus to cause mild discomfort to Putin?

 

This information has been spread to multiple news sources nad the actual docs are with the Suddeutsche Zeitung and 5 other news orgs, with only one org that has Soros as a contributor to the non-profit company.

I don't think they're saying it's untrue (unless I missed that) and I don't think the Soros connection is the story here. It's more that the most transparent organization out there is being ridiculously critical of the biggest leak of our time when you'd think they'd for it. In fact it seemed like a week ago they were, which is why I was surprised reading their tweets tonight (from the last couple days). Wikileaks has either been overcome with extreme jealousy they didnt break a story right up their alley, become a Russian puppet themselves after securing Snowden's transfer or they have a point and these docs should flat out be dumped and released Wikileaks style. I don't completely agree with the latter since there is going to be a ton of personal data involved here but at the same time I don't trust the journalists to come out with this story in a timely and orderly fashion with so much data out there. They are releasing some so far but it's basically a grain of sand compared to a beach of documents. I believe there's a large release set for May although I'm not sure if that similar to the 150 we've seen so far. I'd much prefer they just vet documents for personal info then mass release as much as possible, letting the public write the stories. That'd be both timelier and would eliminate any uncertainty of the vetting of these documents.

[Quin]

I don't think they're saying it's untrue (unless I missed that) and I don't think the Soros connection is the story here. It's more that the most transparent organization out there is being ridiculously critical of the biggest leak of our time when you'd think they'd for it. In fact it seemed like a week ago they were, which is why I was surprised reading their tweets tonight (from the last couple days). Wikileaks has either been overcome with extreme jealousy they didnt break a story right up their alley, become a Russian puppet themselves after securing Snowden's transfer or they have a point and these docs should flat out be dumped and released Wikileaks style. I don't completely agree with the latter since there is going to be a ton of personal data involved here but at the same time I don't trust the journalists to come out with this story in a timely and orderly fashion with so much data out there. They are releasing some so far but it's basically a grain of sand compared to a beach of documents. I believe there's a large release set for May although I'm not sure if that similar to the 150 we've seen so far. I'd much prefer they just vet documents for personal info then mass release as much as possible, letting the public write the stories. That'd be both timelier and would eliminate any uncertainty of the vetting of these documents.

 

You may have hit another point on the head with the Russian puppetry.

 

Through Assange and Snowden, WikiLeaks has strong ties to Russia and the Panama Papers rip Putin a new one.