Josie Renforth
Soc 122
Tuesday April 5, 2016 "The Panama Papers"
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Interviews Frederik Obermaer of Sudeutche Zeitung, Nunich, Germany and Michael Hudson, New York.
An international story from a huge document leak = 11.5 million documents from 1977 up to 12/2015. These documents reveal corruption, tax evasion, and – they say, some criminal activities done by the powerful and the the wealthy. The report(s) of the documents are being called "The Panama Papers."
The story began with an anonymous source contacting Obermaer via encoded message saying he had some data, would Obermaer be interested. Obermaer and 1 other person soon found they were overwhelmed with information. They brought in international investigative journalist who all worked on it together, in all there were 370 investigative journalist, from 100 news organizations and 70 countries.
In light of the information, China has ordered their news organization purge all references to "The Panama Papers." India is launching a probe to investigate those linked to the reports. Today in Iceland, over 10,000 people protested demanding the Prime Minister step down from his post.
Michael Hudson estimates that there will be Ponzi schemes – not at the Maddoff level, but none the less, Ponzi and other criminal activity. Hudson estimated the loss of $100 Billion in potential tax revenue has been lost to the United States through the hiding of money through these illegal activities.
According the Obermaer there will be news stories coming out every day for the next few weeks related to the information found in the documents. As more information is disclosed, more action and mobilization is certain to occur. The fact that Iceland has a population of 275,539 people, and 10,000 protested today, the day after the release of the story broke. Many more protests and demands for change are certain.
Goodman goes on to interview Ellen Wentraub regardi the potential of lack of campaign finance reforms allowing some of this money being circulated by foreign powers, influences the US campaign outcomes. This issues of the "Citizens United" She tried to file a petition to the commission trying to move the deadlock status and she was told was not "Not a person under Citizens United" Corporations are people but Ellen Wentraub is not….but that is a story for another day.
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