Paradise Papers

Queen head of the queue of Tax avoiders, she should step down over this, it is embarrassing for the country.

What's embarrassing is the scale of it as an industry. At least 3 of the offshore tax havens are under the Crown.

Why, it's almost as those from the establishment who have always run the country don't want to shut down the places where cash can be stashed away from the tax man if you're wealthy enough to do so. Even though it should be their jobs to keep as much of this money in the country as possible.

I wonder why that is?

The irony of the BVI requiring aid from the UK following the recent hurricane when the main industry there effectively steals tax money from us (whilst enjoying our protection and support) wasn't lost on me.

Quoted from Maringer

Why, it's almost as those from the establishment who have always run the country don't want to shut down the places where cash can be stashed away from the tax man if you're wealthy enough to do so. Even though it should be their jobs to keep as much of this money in the country as possible.

I wonder why that is?

The irony of the BVI requiring aid from the UK following the recent hurricane when the main industry there effectively steals tax money from us (whilst enjoying our protection and support) wasn't lost on me.

Perhaps we should send them the bill and start charging them for protection they receive from the UK as a British Overseas Territory, then they might at least start taxing the companies registered there a little more.

I don't think any of this has really registered with most people. Maybe there is just an apathetic acceptance that's just the way life is or just because it's so convoluted and boring, you can't make a Channel 5 programme about these people like you can people on benefits.

At the end of the day if this could be nipped in the bud we could have better hospitals and infrastructure instead of millionaires sitting on even more millions.

If one thing it's confirmed my belief that Lewis Hamilton is a male private.

It seems the money rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than most think.

[youtube]PZLr0TtPjUc[/youtube]

The man, the myth

[youtube]SUdosc33eSE[/youtube]

Is he ahead of the game by writing the rules, a step before insider trading, the puppet master.

Quoted from Manchester Mariner

If one thing it's confirmed my belief that Lewis Hamilton is a male private.

I don't disagree with you but at least he's not a stinking lecturing hypocrite like Lineker and Bonehead etc.

Quoted from Marinerz93

It seems the money rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than most think.

[youtube]PZLr0TtPjUc[/youtube]

The man, the myth

[youtube]SUdosc33eSE[/youtube]

Is he ahead of the game by writing the rules, a step before insider trading, the puppet master.

If only we had a leader like Farage we'd be far away from this rabble by now.

Quoted from Grim74

If only we had a leader like Farage we'd be far away from this rabble by now.

Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Comedy gold.

Anyway, where to start? Soros, the bogeyman of the right who gets blamed for pretty much everything they don't like in the world.

Farage is such a complete bell-end. He's "revealing" Soros funded the Open Society Foundation to try and make it appear that Soros is somehow up to no good - look at the OSF page and you'll see Soros is openly stated as funding the organisation! Not exactly hiding it away in the manner that the wealthy right-winger fund their pet think tanks which drive the discourse (interesting link about this here: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/02/08/think-tanks-evidence-and-policy/).

And what do the OSF actually do? Well, here's some of the the blurb from their web site (this page: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/mission-values):

Quoted Text

• We believe in fundamental human rights, dignity, and the rule of law.
  
• We believe in a society where all people are free to participate fully in civic, economic, and cultural life.
  
• We believe in addressing inequalities that cut across multiple lines, including race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and citizenship.
  
• We believe in holding those in power accountable for their actions and in increasing the power of historically excluded groups.
  
• We believe in helping people and communities press for change on their own behalf.
  
• We believe in responding quickly and flexibly to the most critical threats to open society.
  
• We believe in taking on controversial issues and supporting bold, innovative solutions that address root causes and advance systemic change.
  
• We believe in encouraging critical debate and respecting diverse opinions.
  

Those dastardly illegitimates. How dare they!

Here's what has reportedly been spent by the organisation (up to 2014) according to wikipedia:

    $2.9 billion to defend human rights, especially the rights of women; ethnic, racial, and religious minorities; drug users; sex workers; and LGBTQ communities;
    $2.1 billion for education;
    $1.6 billion on developing democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union;
    $1.5 billion in the United States to promote reform in criminal justice, drug policy, palliative care, education, immigration, equal rights, and democratic governance;
    $737 million for public health issues such as HIV and AIDS, TB, palliative care, harm reduction, and patients' rights;
    $214 million to advance the rights of Roma communities in Europe.

What a disgusting list of expenditure! Please feel free to name one of those items of on the list which you disagree with, and why. If you can do it without sounding like a fascist, you'll be doing well.

The best way to judge an organisation is to find out who is against them. In the case of the OSF, who are their main critics, (other than intellectual pygmies such as Farage)? In the main, it's right-wing nationalists from Eastern Europe, right-wing Israeli groups and the like. In other words, people who stand to lose out if civil society is expanded and strengthened which is reportedly the whole aim of the organisation.

Onto the video clips. I've watched one and a half of them.

The Farage one is utterly ridiculous. He notes that the organisation which leaked and organised the Paradise Papers (and, I presume, the Panama Papers) receives some funding from Soros, through the OSF. If you want to check out the ICIJ, you'll see that they are very open about their sources of funding. Read the aims of the OSF as listed above. Does the release of the Paradise Papers and Panama Papers go along with these aims? Well, duh. Of course it does. Farage mentions that the Electoral Commission are investigating the possibility of Russian collusion with one of the Leave campaigns (possible, but not overly likely, I'd say) and, instead of responding to this in any manner he does the most obvious whataboutery you can imagine by trying to insinuate the the European Commission is being bribed by somebody else! Absolutely pathetic.

As for the second video clip, I watched the first half containing the old interview and it was quite interesting. Amusing how Soros came out of it looking very reasonable despite it attempting to be a hit piece on him by the interviewer. Trying to insinuate that there was something wrong with a 14 year old Hungarian jew in hiding from the Nazis doing what was required to stay safe was incredibly bizarre. What should Soros have done in that position? Ask to be taken to the concentration camp instead? I think the American interviewer was almost as outraged that Soros happily admitted he was an atheist.

I didn't watch the second half of the video because, well, it was Glenn Beck, and life is too short to waste any time on that charlatan/conman/delete as applicable. The man's either pretty much a fascist or a decent actor and I'd imagine his conspiracy theories about Soros are just as outlandish as his other OTT guff when he's not trying to con his viewers.

Incidentally, if you want to see the sorts of folk who watch Beck and line his pockets because they are so gullible, check out the comments to the youtube video linked. Lotsa fascists around, it seems.

As an aside, I note that Farage himself attempted to dodge taxes through offshoring:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/10/20/nigel-farage-admits-trying-to-avoid-tax-with-offshore-fund-7014373/

If I was being cynical, I'd perhaps say that he was getting all exercised about the Paradise papers because he has got some loot stashed offshore somewhere, just not with Mossack Fonseca or Appleby. Perhaps he's worried he'll be next? It's his former mate Arron Banks who is the one being accused of links to Russia. They may have fallen out, but I certainly can't remember seeing Farage complain about that particular wealthy man spending money in an attempt to subvert the political process of a country.