25 April, 2016
By e-mail to publisher@theportugalnews.com
The Editor ,
The Portugal News ,
Apartado 13 ,
8401-901 Lagoa ,
Dear Editor ,
Re: The Panama Papers
In January, OXFAM assessed a
staggering global amount of USD7.6 trillion as having been invested by corporations and individuals in
off-shore centres. This represented close to USD 200 billion in annual unpaid
tax.
In April, the Suddeutsche
Zeitung, a German provincial newspaper said to be controlled by the Goldman
Sachs group, released a first tranche of eleven million files which had been
stolen from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world´s fourth largest
offshore law firm. The result was
almost hysterical consternation and denial by twelve national leaders and thousands of politicians and business people
whose identities and wealth suddenly became public knowledge.
But these names represented only a small proportion, perhaps only 10% by value,
of those who have invested through other law firms and financial advisors. And
indeed there is the huge amount of wealth which has been concealed by the 62
families or consortiums ( OXFAM claims
this is equivalent to that of the 3.5billion poorest people on the
planet) some of whom actually own the off-shore domains !
How many of the Forbes list
of billionaires are included ? Where
are the names of the attendees of Bilderberg.
And when shall we see published the names of royalty and the political
and business elite dynasties? Most
likely never.
The content of the Papers is
not so much about tax evasion or the laundering of criminal money. They represent a key depiction of the massive
corruption of our flickering democracy and the
intrusive power of the behemoths of globalised free traders and their
bankers. Tax havens merely reflect a
reality that the mega-rich can move their gains at will to another domain in
order to escape the rules and laws of where they operate and to the detriment of the social services
required by the citizens of those
countries. In order to do this
part of those gains is being used to buy
political influence like never before thus making the crocodile´s tears of finance ministers
and central bankers a cynical charade.
President Juncker of the EU
was rightly criticised before he took office for being named in LuxLeaks as the
principal architect of Luxembourg´s policy of enabling (mainly American)
international corporations to operate in Europe at ridiculously low rates of
taxation. But he is only one of many of
our governing elite who can no longer merit the trust of the electorate.
We need a drastic cleansing of our democratic system!
'Signee...'
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I read this today after sending the Panama Papers letter. Green is a ruthless asset stripper who has deliberately driven companies to the wall after milking them dry of anything which will make money. In this case his greed extended to depriving the employees of British Home Stores of more than £500 million from their pension fund. Most of his ill gotten gains have gone into the name of his wife who is resident in the tax haven of Monaco."
I ASK YOU ?
Are we at the cross-roads of a new-age make-over of our species? Or do we merely continue living the 'Winner-Take-All' farce of our ill-equilibriumed existence?
Although we are most all complicit, and each has finite energy, collectively now, with the added powers of lights and camera, we can more easily DEMAND ACTION - TO FORCE IN THE REQUIRED CHANGE.
If not NOW, it will be TOO LATE..........and BYE-BYE SPECIES.........
and YES that will include ALL THE WINNERS-TAKE ALL!
"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!"
