In the news

Ah yes...looking forward to part 2

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All good. I'm just grumpy today.

I live next door to a decent youth centre. For the last month or so there has been an escalating level of silliness between the boys from different areas waiting for the bus home from youth club outside my front door.
I'm pretty sure someone pulled a knife last week.

It was mildly amusing when some of them earlier in the month had pulled their belts off to fight, and were trying to swing belts and hold onto trousers.

It's less amusing thinking you heard someone shouting about a knife.

It is getting into silly season. The better weather seems to trigger something and being able to hang around outside for longer gives more opportunity for these things to happen.

I hope that we see more western names come out - the lack of US and Euro individuals and companies is pretty conspicuous.

I'm not really one for conspiracy theories but one has to wonder whether this is a case of rich guys fucking with other rich guys behind the scenes.

From the perspective of a Brit evading/avoiding tax - why put your money in Panama when you live in a tax haven?

From the perspective of a non-Westerner stealing money - put it in a country that's unlikely to try to freeze/grab your assets (i.e., not the UK).

I don't understand what you mean by this - could you elaborate?

It's a hunch, but I suspect that London is a pretty good place to be if you want to find ways of hiding money. Jersey and Man aren't too far away either. If I was a wealthy immoral Brit, that's probably where I'd be putting my money. If I were an autocrat stealing from my own people, however, I'd be keeping the money as far away from Western scrutiny as possible. Not because we're "better," but because it's quite possible we'll take the money if we find it.

It's all daft and you'd easily dismiss it as japes and laughs if it was just a bit of fists and posturing.

It's no different to when I grew up and boys from different schools had fights. There was always the odd nutjob, now it's "who's got the knife and feels scared".

sigh.

The disclosure rules for BVI, Panama, etc are far less though. If you have a company in the UK it's some effort to hide who the owners are, etc and it's becoming ever more difficult with AML, KYC, etc

In Panama they've made an industry out of offering that as a service.

I must admit I don't have an excellent understanding of the relative merits of the various tax havens. From my own experience (in my job, rather than through my own offshore investments) Panama is used quite extensively by British high net worth individuals for tax efficiency purposes. I do a lot of research on BVI and Panama registered companies and public information is very difficult to come by.

The Guardian and the BBC are focusing on the Russian connection (Putin's corrupt - no shit), and I've read somewhere that they are the only British outlets with access to a searchable directory of the leaked documents. The American news networks are largely ignoring it. I'm just wondering who has a vested interest in fingers being pointed in particular directions.

As an aside I'm also trying to figure out why the Arab oil barons keep offshore accounts when they own everything in their countries and don't pay tax anyway. I assume it's more for money laundering purposes than tax evasion/avoidance?

The American news networks are largely ignoring it.

The releases so far haven't included any US individuals yet. Yet.

https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/716771686482202625

It does make you wonder if Trump is going to be on the list.

By wonder, you mean hope and pray?

No, I mean 'wonder'.

As an aside I'm also trying to figure out why the Arab oil barons keep offshore accounts when they own everything in their countries and don't pay tax anyway. I assume it's more for money laundering purposes than tax evasion/avoidance?

Political instability at home and it creates a buffer for dealing with other nations/individuals without raising too many eyebrows.

I'll believe it when I see it.

The leak is being administered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, under the auspices of the USA Center for Public Integrity. The CPI is mostly funded by American corporate trusts and foundations.

I'd be happily proven wrong.

So this law firm is headed up by a German, Jürgen Mossack, whose father Erhard was apparently in one of the Waffen-SS 'Skull Squadrons'. Connections between Germans and Latin America can be quite worrying, as that was where many Nazis fled to after the Second World War, although Erhard Mossack probably went to Panama to work there as an engineer, at least ostensibly. The Süddeutsche claims that the German Secret Service (BND) wouldn't return any information about documents it holds on Erhard Mossack on the grounds that it could 'jeopardise the well-being of the Federal Republic or one of its federal states'.

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56f2c00da1bb8d3c3495aa0a/

The Guardian has these little caricatures of people implicated. This is supposed to be Cameron and his father:

Considering how badly they're drawn, they're probably designed to veil the identities of those involved. :)

#metaconspiracy

Looks like Richard Nixon on the left...

winking murdoch

Also worth remembering that the UK ranks a quite pathetic 34th on the World Press Freedom Index.

Euph?

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/northern-ireland-woman-who-bought-drugs-on-internet-to-induce-miscarriage-given-suspended-prison-sentence-34597487.html

"A barrister for the woman told Belfast Crown Court that had his client lived in any other region of the UK, she would "not have found herself before the courts."

Human rights are fine, but when it comes to NI westminster does not want to rock the boat (for themselves either, see Kincora abuse scandal and the MI5 involvement)

david cameron, who not so long ago publicly named and criticised some shite comedian's tax arrangements, now wants to declare his own off-limits. wind your neck in, pigfucker.