The Panama Papers The Panama papers are going to be the biggest example of greed, corruption and wrongdoing in the world. It may not turn out everyone did anything wrong but some of the people and companies sending their money there did and believe me when I tell you as names are released, if they ever are fully, of those who send boat loads of money there to beat taxes and steal from treasuries of their countries, it will turn out to be the biggest scandal we have seen this year or maybe even ever. I think the first thing I should mention is what exactly I am talking about. A group of reporters known as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists or ICIJ has discovered leaked documents. The documents show how famous people, athletes, government officials, rich businessmen and others hid money in offshore accounts around the world and a global law firm helped them do it. While you and I struggle to meet our taxes and have a decent life, these people laugh at us and think we are suckers for abiding by the rules, but let’s hope when the names are released it finishes their careers. There is a problem here and a big one. As someone who was once part of law enforcement I used to see where famous people frequented houses of ill repute. I am trying to be civil here. When the police raided these places the records would always disappear. The reason for this was it would not only have ruined those people, but since many of them were government officials of one type or another, it would have destroyed their faith in government. Yes many of the names were those of government officials and while I never saw the lists, everyone knew why these records always disappeared and the people running these places only got a slap on the wrist. I can only hope this will not be the case with the Panama papers. It has been said if and when the list comes out it is going to contain some world leaders, but others say there is a lack of names from the U.S. government. I have to wonder if this is because they were very good or is it because they were better at getting the names off before the scandal broke. Some are saying we will be very surprised, because leaders we thought could never get together on anything were all using the same law firm to hide the money. I wonder how much money we are talking about. I think if some Americans hid money there and didn’t declare it on their taxes, all the money should be subject to confiscation if there is any way to obtain it. Countries are already moving to try and get lists of their citizens who dealt with the law firm which deposited the money in the offshore accounts. New Zealand and Australia are moving speedily as I am sure are others. The document leak was more like a flood since 11.5 million documents have been said to have leaked. In one way I believe this will be an education to some people who actually believe the world is run on the straight and narrow. One of the other uses for the movement of this money was massive money laundering. I am sure we are going to find out a lot of famous banks used this as a way to launder drug money and other illicit money. I have seen some articles which cite the names of some of the banks, but I won’t restate them since I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but let me tell you if it turns out to be true, there were some very famous American banks on the list. Think about this, a few years ago all of us bailed out the banks for their so called incompetence. This makes me wonder if they were still getting illegal funds under the table at the time and again we were all taken for fools. If banks are willing to avoid paying taxes it is hard to believe this wasn’t known. Is it any wonder people like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are so popular when they run for office? We are going to see lists of royals, world leaders and famous people who participated in this scheme. Australia is investigating a list of 800 wealthy clients of the law firm for illegal activity. One of the big questions is whether the One World Order people were involved. This did happen on a global scale and no government did anything about it. Some might say governments didn’t know anything about it, but isn’t it a little hard to believe this is true when you look at the sheer size of the scheme. Spy agencies are able to find out the most secret things governments and individuals are doing and we are expected to believe they never came across any of this? As of the writing of this article governments are starting to fall over this. The prime minister of Iceland has just resigned over this, it seems his family is being accused of hiding millions in offshore accounts. Will he be the only one? I bet not, look for problems in China and North Korea and in many western countries, just to cite a few areas. Some of Putin’s associates are being accused of also hiding money offshore. He recently came out and said this was a falsehood, we will see. I don’t think any country is safe from this scandal and as ironic as it sounds terror organizations might also have used these accounts for their funds. We do have to remember not everyone using offshore accounts is doing it for a criminal purpose. Some might be doing it for better returns on their money, so each case will have to be looked at carefully. Look for Sanders and maybe Trump to try and make hay from this, assuming neither of them are involved in the scandal. Sanders might say Hillary may have helped cause this by votes she made on treaties and Trump might say this shows how corrupt the government is for not doing something about this. I am guessing of course, but there is plenty of fodder here for the candidates and I bet they will use it sooner or later. |