Re: Pandora Papers

[iNcog]

Wow, this came out yesterday and still no thread on it??

Well, here you are. $11 trillion in tax evasion world wide. FYI, China's GDP is like $12T and I think the USA's is like $19T, or something.

So that's a lot of money that oligarchs have stolen from the world, eh?

But wealth inequality is just millennials not pulling themselves by their bootstraps, amirite?

[Djigit]

Jeez that was cringe to read even for me.
Take a sip of that exquisite ratio.

[princeofcarthage]

$11 trillion is the amount held in offshore accounts from what I read. That in and itself is not illegal although it could be morally questionable in some cases. For example Apple holds nearly $200 billion in offshore accounts. If it brought back to US it would have to pay more than $60 billion in taxes.

[RefluxSemantic]

I'm too cynical about the world to even get upset about this

[callentournies]

I'm too cynical about the world to even get upset about this

as it goes

[RefluxSemantic]

Like what did you guys think? That multi-millionaires and billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes? What's next, being shocked at the fact that lobbyist influence politics on a day to day basis?

[Mr_Bramboy]

Only one Dutch minister is involved in this. I'm disappointed - think of all the money we could have been saving if all of them had been laundering their money.

In all seriousness, the world leaders are working on a proposal to introduce a worldwide minimum tax rate. But, obviously, not only is the implementation hard with states (including The Netherlands!) profiting off tax havens, but there are also some people who benefit from paying little taxes, and those tend to be the people with power.

[Dolan]

Did anyone actually check the data, the actual "papers".
I downloaded all the data in CSV format and installed their data browser (https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/pages/database), but all I could see was some lists that included some names of entities (firms), addresses, registration locations.
And I tried to test the data using the names they featured in the articles in which global media claimed those names were doing shady offshore operations.

Let's take for example Gennady Timchenko, who was mentioned in the Guardian's article on Putin.
Ran a search for "Timchenko" in the databases and it returned this:

table mode


graph mode


There's no Gennady Timchenko in these data sets, it's another Timchenko. What did the Guardian base their article on, then? Because they keep running headlines which create this impression that they found dirt on very specific names, but when you check the data, it's just a bunch of linked lists that don't even mention any money at all.

Maybe I missed something about how these datasets can be examined. I'm curious if you guys straight up believed what's said in the media or did you actually check.

[Dolan]

One name mentioned in the media I could find. BBC says:

Other leaders linked to the leak include:
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, whose family and close associates have allegedly been secretly involved in property deals in the UK worth more than £400m

Data I found on Ilham Aliyev in this database:



That's all. So what did they base their article on.

[Dolan]

Some names might have more explicit links to offshore entities.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who - along with six members of his family - has been linked to 13 offshore companies

Data found in the sets on Uhuru:



So I suppose these are offshore firms created by the Kenyan president's fam to stash away some money. But the link is not so explicit, you have to assume that's what it is.

[fightinfrenchman]

These don't look like papers at all, they look like screenshots off a computer

[Dolan]

UK ex-PM bought a house through an offshore to dodge paying a stamp duty:

The documents show that Tony and Cherie Blair bought their office in Marylebone, central London, from a British Virgin Islands-based company called Romanstone International Limited.

They say they did it through a firm Harcourt Ventures.

Can't find either of these firms in the database published by this consortium of investigative journalists.



Maybe they're using other documents or datasets that aren't public. But then why make these sets available if they don't show much.

[Dolan]

These don't look like papers at all, they look like screenshots off a computer

Yea, it's their application for looking at the data

[fightinfrenchman]

There's a town in Lancaster county called "Paradise." Ironically it sucks shit

[Dolan]

Well I'm uninstalling this crap

[Jam]

I've never been to Pandora so I can't relate.

[iNcog]

Like what did you guys think? That multi-millionaires and billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes? What's next, being shocked at the fact that lobbyist influence politics on a day to day basis?

I dont see how apathy solves anything

[Dolan]

The media need to present a consistent case. Apparently there's more than a terrabyte of docs, but I couldn't find them. They should start actually showing which docs they used to make these allegations.
It's not enough to just say so

[RefluxSemantic]

Like what did you guys think? That multi-millionaires and billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes? What's next, being shocked at the fact that lobbyist influence politics on a day to day basis?

I dont see how apathy solves anything

Well, what does solve anything? At this point I'm pretty sure this is just what we're stuck with.

And it makes me cynical that people even pretend to be surprised about this shit. We don't need leaks to know that are capitalist overlords are breaking our balls in every imaginably way.

[Cometk]

Like what did you guys think? That multi-millionaires and billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes? What's next, being shocked at the fact that lobbyist influence politics on a day to day basis?

I dont see how apathy solves anything

momuu's reaction is a very appropriate one

[princeofcarthage]

Like what did you guys think? That multi-millionaires and billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes? What's next, being shocked at the fact that lobbyist influence politics on a day to day basis?

I dont see how apathy solves anything

Well, what does solve anything? At this point I'm pretty sure this is just what we're stuck with.

And it makes me cynical that people even pretend to be surprised about this shit. We don't need leaks to know that are capitalist overlords are breaking our balls in every imaginably way.

You and I or incog are not equal to 99.9% of the people. You would be surprised(maybe not) how dumb a common man(Its not sexist I mean people, mankind, humans) can be.

[Dolan]

people even pretend to be surprised about this shit. We don't need leaks to know that are capitalist overlords are breaking our balls in every imaginably way.

The problem is what is "this shit". I've been trying to verify their info but I only found some Excel tables, basically, with not much stuff in them

[iNcog]

Like what did you guys think? That multi-millionaires and billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes? What's next, being shocked at the fact that lobbyist influence politics on a day to day basis?

I dont see how apathy solves anything

momuu's reaction is a very appropriate one

my girlfriend had largely the same reaction. I, for one, don't get it. it's $11T that could be doing a lot more than what it currently is..

[Cometk]

Show hidden quotes

Like what did you guys think? That multi-millionaires and billionaires actually pay their fair share of taxes? What's next, being shocked at the fact that lobbyist influence politics on a day to day basis?

I dont see how apathy solves anything

momuu's reaction is a very appropriate one

my girlfriend had largely the same reaction. I, for one, don't get it. it's $11T that could be doing a lot more than what it currently is..

right. end capitalism

[Goodspeed]

Jeez that was cringe to read even for me.
Take a sip of that exquisite ratio.

What was cringe about it? And why the "even for me" addition?