Pandora Papers ! .

[Guest sibon]

1 hour ago, Tony said:

That's a "no" then. 

I think I’d let this one play out a bit further before making any judgments.

 

Bribery and money laundering are serious crimes. Not the sort of thing that  any legitimate political party should be anywhere near.

 

Of course, it could just left wing hysteria drummed up by the  likes of Peter Oborne and Andrew Michell.

 

 

[Anna B 1,401]

5 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

Yes but we do not have a court of morals therefore if it's not illegal proven beyond reasonable doubt there can be no punishment. Suggesting something is illegal is meaningless unless it comes with evidence and solid evidence at that.

 

I'm certainly not surprised by this document but I am rather bemused as to why these journalists and wannabe investigators have taken such great risks creating this data leak on something I suspect a vast majority of people already knew. Putting aside the meaningless moral arguments, surely by now, it's almost common knowledge that anyone who has vast amounts of wealth is always going to be well advised by their lawyers, accountants and other such advisors how to make sure they keep that wealth.

 

In fact, I challenge anyone on this forum to seriously and 100% honestly tell me they would never consider similar schemes if they were fortunate enough to be in a similar wealthy position. Given the fact that millions of us engage happily in our low levels of perfectly legal tax reduction, tax avoidance, duty avoidance, jurisdiction advantage and other such activities all the time I really don't think these Papers are going to be the smoking gun that the  journalists and amateur detectives think it is.

 

Just like the Panama ones, a few famous faces will be embarrassed, they will make public statements and probably undertake some sort of token redress to appease the pitchfork wielding crowd. After that will be some another news story tomorrow and the water cooler gossip will be totally different.

 

Its a fact that people do not become vastly wealthy by giving away a penny more than they have to. I don't care what anyone says, that applies to all of us.

 

It's a simple question, was there any wrongdoing in law. If the answer is no - end of conversation.

 

Be prepared for the spotlight inevitably switching to any illegal activity undertaken by said journalists in obtaining this highly sensitive and well secured information. 

 

We cannot avoid the potential hypocrisy that when sensitive information on ordinary low-income citizens gets splattered around during a data leak, they are entitled to vast compensation and sympathy for the victims.  But I bet that's not going to happen to the uber wealthy and powerful subject to this data leak.  Is it an unreasonable question to ask why not?  After all, if all these rich and powerful have done nothing illegal and nothing wrong why should their personal data, investments and financial interest be publicly exposed.  The only difference is the amounts involved which should be totally irrelevant. The principle is still the same after all.

Morals are far from meaningless, and should never be put aside. They are the unwritten laws of right and wrong we should all live by. They are every bit as important, if not more important, than official legal/illegal laws. They are the bedrock of a civilised society and are ignored at your peril.

The fact is that they have been ignored for so long by influential people and those who should be setting a good example, that it has become the norm and trickled down through society.  Society is all the poorer for it. In fact it's in a mess because of it. And don't kid yourself it is just tax 'avoidance;' there are several instances of downright illegal behaviour that is gotten away with because it is impossible to prove beyond doubt or to police. But everyone knows it happens, just like they know the mafia gets away with rackets because they  are near impossible to bust.

 

The same people who turn a blind eye to major fraud costing billions to the public purse, will be the first to criticise the poor 'benefit scroungers,' etc. but they can't seem to make the connection.  

Edited October 4, 2021 by Anna B

[ECCOnoob 1,017]

2 hours ago, Anna B said:

Morals are far from meaningless, and should never be put aside. They are the unwritten laws of right and wrong we should all live by. They are every bit as important, if not more important, than official legal/illegal laws. They are the bedrock of a civilised society and are ignored at your peril.

The fact is that they have been ignored for so long by influential people and those who should be setting a good example, that it has become the norm and trickled down through society.  Society is all the poorer for it. In fact it's in a mess because of it. And don't kid yourself it is just tax 'avoidance;' there are several instances of downright illegal behaviour that is gotten away with because it is impossible to prove beyond doubt or to police. But everyone knows it happens, just like they know the mafia gets away with rackets because they  are near impossible to bust.

 

The same people who turn a blind eye to major fraud costing billions to the public purse, will be the first to criticise the poor 'benefit scroungers,' etc. but they can't seem to make the connection.

Go cry to your moral police force.... oh yeah there isn't one.  Go pursue action in your moral court of laws... oh yeah you can't can you.

 

Someone saying they think something is illegal behaviour is irrelevant Anna. It needs to be proven in a court of law. You can't just go around and declare "everyone knows it happens" as if it's beyond debate. You need to prove something.  What happens?  What behaviour?  What fraud? What specifically is the illegal activity? What specific evidence do you have beyond reasonable doubt they have broken the law?

 

Being vastly wealthy is not automatically a crime. Rich people having access to services that poor people don't is not default punishable. Having the means to shop around, utilise advantageous jurisdictions and follow up perfectly legal advice from your hired accountants is acceptable and available for anyone who has any sort of asset big or small.

 

As I say earlier, every single one of us take some advantage over another. How many shop around, exploit nations with lower costs, look for any loopholes, take advantage of any tax or duty reduction, pay into share schemes or pension arrangements, gift out asset to family members, take cash in hand jobs, invest in the wonderful grey area of cryptocurrency......... The ONLY  difference between the man on the bus and the billionaire is the amounts of money.

 

The moral principle is exactly the same.

 

It is clear that the politics of envy and jealousy are a big part of all this.   Lower earners it's somehow deemed acceptable practice but as soon as someone gets over a certain amount in the bank suddenly they are thrust into the public profile, morally shamed exceedingly subjected to  trial by media regardless of any wrongdoing.

 

Now dont get me wrong.  I am not saying that every single person exposed in these papers is innocent. I am sure like most things there will be some genuine criminals.  But what I am disturbed by is this absolute blanket approach of being thrown around all over the media when not a single shred of evidence has yet been mentioned of illegal activity let alone any actual charges. What happened to innocent until proven guilty. Seemingly if you are high-profile you don't have such rights.

Edited October 5, 2021 by ECCOnoob

[Box11 28]

13 hours ago, alchresearch said:

No, they really aren't. They're too rich and powerful to give a crap.

 

Remember the Panama Papers?  How many celebs did that bring down?

 

13 hours ago, cuttsie said:

They are greedy money grabbing pretend socialists , he is a war criminal .

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 !!!!....

[Box11 28]

10 hours ago, Carbuncle said:

1. The boundary between right and wrong is not the same as the boundary between legal and illegal. Eg the Blairs avoided paying stamp duty but it was presumably not illegal.

2. There is plenty that suggests illegality. Eg national leaders turning out to have large caches of hidden assets with no (apparent) legitimate method for acquiring them.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 !!!!....

[FoxLady 121]

5 hours ago, Box11 said:

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 !!!!....

Again, what's with the multi use of exclamation marks?

[Tony 10]

10 hours ago, sibon said:

I think I’d let this one play out a bit further before making any judgments.

 

Bribery and money laundering are serious crimes. Not the sort of thing that  any legitimate political party should be anywhere near.

 

Of course, it could just left wing hysteria drummed up by the  likes of Peter Oborne and Andrew Michell.

 

 

I don't disagree sibon. But whether they are crimes is the question. Sitting here in the UK declaring that relatives of dictators in former Soviet states indulge in bribery and money laundering will elicit a pffft response from anyone who has a clue. That's me for sure and I expect you too.

 

I haven't read the Pandora Papers but do they (for example) mention the dealings of the richest woman in that favourite state of our Corbynista munchkins - Venezuela - who happens to the Hero Chavez's daughter? Nah, it's selective hearing and even more selective interpretation. It deserves dealing with in a very straightforward manner; is it illegal, yes / no? Conflating Putin's Monaco pad with Blair buying an offshore company that owns property is feeble minded. Falling back on "Blair is immoral" rather than "Blair has broken the law" exposes that these reports have no substance beyond the prurience it generates in a certain types. 

 

As you imply, I may be proven to be naïve in time, but how long shall we wait?

 

 

 

@Anna B Pffft

 

@ECCOnoob I wish I'd written that first. Nicely put. 

 

[Cyclecar 24]

Surely - given all the foregoing posts - one fundamental question is - where did these individuals obtain all this money to splurge on posh houses in London?  Put in a bit of overtime or something? 

 

I believe we have legislation called Unexplained Wealth Orders. So given that the president of wherever has a state salary of, say $200k, how come he has bought a flat for $5million? 

 

And it would be helpful if Pandora could identify the accountants, lawyers and banks who facilitataed these transactions. If their name appears three times, then send in plod to seize all their computers looking for money laundering..........

 

 

[Mr Bloke 1,445]

2 hours ago, FoxLady said:

Again, what's with the multi use of exclamation marks?

Hmmm...

It's an obvious case of someone panic buying a job lot of punctuation marks yesterday when Facebook went down...

... but now the grammar crisis has been resolved, they need to get rid of a few!!!!!

[Guest sibon]

Here is a nice summary from the BBC

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58792393?app=news.uk.story.58792393.page
 

I think we should all want to know more about this. Particularly, what is it about U.K. property that attracts so many of the super rich. I’m sure that some of the transactions in the list above are totally above board. But there’s a lot of obfuscation going on.

 

Johnny Nash had it right.

[Thirsty Relic 206]

1 hour ago, Mr Bloke said:

Hmmm...

It's an obvious case of someone panic buying a job lot of punctuation marks yesterday when Facebook went down...

... but now the grammar crisis has been resolved, they need to get rid of a few!!!!!

Or, more than one person!

[Tony 10]

1 hour ago, sibon said:

Here is a nice summary from the BBC

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58792393?app=news.uk.story.58792393.page
 

I think we should all want to know more about this. Particularly, what is it about U.K. property that attracts so many of the super rich. I’m sure that some of the transactions in the list above are totally above board. But there’s a lot of obfuscation going on.

 

Johnny Nash had it right.

What makes it attractive is that we have a very stable property market and the government isn't in the habit of appropriating other people's property to satisfy political whims. Very few countries are in that position so when people make some cash they put it into tangible and realisable assets which hold and increase their value over time. They might not be sexy investments making huge returns, but they are secure. 

 

Just look at the nations in the list; Russia, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Ukraine, Qatar. If you lived in one of those countries where would you put your money to keep it safe, at home or in London real estate?