Despite getting little attention over the weekend, the Panama Papers document leak received a substantial amount of mainstream media attention on Monday (at least online). Fortune, the BBC, USA Today, NBC, the Washington Post, and any number of other Very Serious Media Outlets are running with it now, which is a victory by proxy for the kinds of non-mainstream outlets that began pushing hard on the story as early as Saturday evening. The story is unlikely to have much staying power in the U.S., though, and may even fade faster than expected in Europe and the rest of the world due to the nature of the underlying issue.
The first problem with getting U.
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S. media to cover this extensively is that no major American figures are (yet) involved. It's awfully difficult to get Americans to care about our own politics let alone elected officials in other countries. "Oh man, I can't believe Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugson did that!" is a phrase no American news consumer or media personality has ever used or will ever use.
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Another problem is the fact that outrage fatigue and general cynicism make it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for scandals that confirm what we already know (or very strongly suspect) about the world – in this case, namely that the rich and powerful live in a separate world that operates under its own exclusive rules and they squirrel their money away in proverbial Swiss Bank Accounts so they don't have to pay taxes like some nouveau riche suburban desk commando with an MBA. Is it fair? Of course not. Is anyone really surprised to learn that this is in fact what has been going on? I doubt it.
Clearly it's an important issue and one that validates a lot of what we already know to be part of the deep systemic social and economic inequality built into our system and our way of life. But therein lies the problem; if everyone is already assuming that water is wet, the headline announcing that discovery is going to fall flat. We openly allow corporations to get away with offshoring their money in this country, and if they're People anyway, why would we be surprised to learn that the elites who control them do exactly the same thing with their personal finances?
I'm not saying nobody should care. I'm saying it isn't entirely surprising that nobody seems too up-in-arms over the revelations.
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It's nice to learn that our suspicions are correct, but beyond that it fits seamlessly into the worldview most half-smart people have long since held.
Mo says:
Re-reading Hofstadter's The Age of Reform, this:
In 1892 the New York Tribune, inspired by growing popular criticism of the wealthy, published a list of 4,047 reputed millionaires, and in the following year a statistician of the Census Bureau published a study of the concentration of wealth in which he estimated that 9 percent of the families of the nation owned 71 percent of the wealth.
Another plum from this pie:
Henry Demarest Lloyd in an assessment of the robber barons, "Our great money-makers … think they are the wave instead of the float, and that they have created the business which has created them. To them science is but a never-ending repertoire of investments stored up by nature for the syndicates, government but a fountain of franchises, the nations but customers in squads, and a million the unit of a new arithmetic of wealth written for them. They claim a power without control, exercised through forms which make it secret, anonymous, and perpetual."
Yoicks and away…
Jestbill says:
"We openly allow corporations to get away with offshoring their money in this country, …"
I don't know much (at all)about such things…but this reqally bothers me.
If corporations can be bought and sold internationally, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to claim that money they make in one country should be taxed in another. They will always find ways to be "owned" by the one that taxes them least.
Yes, the subject is devilishly complicated, but the "nationality" of a corporation should not be relevant to their tax obligations.
Yeah, nobody cares. If we cared, we'd invalidate their incorporation in this country and force 'em to sell their assets for non payment of taxes on those "offshored" profits.
dloburns says:
The only non-news things I've seen about this are conspiracy theory confirmations and perpetuation of the meme that Hillary is corruption incarnate (THEY'RE FONNA FIND HER IN THOSE PAPERS AND -THEN- SHE'LL FINALLY BE ARRESTED). It didn't help that the two heavily overlap on a Venn diagram.
HoosierPoli says:
The Panama Papers have one BIG advantage – the catchy alliterative name. It sticks in the brain very easily. People still remember the Pentagon Papers even if they have no idea what exactly was in them.
Talisker says:
The BBC led with the story on Sunday night, and broadcast a 30 minute TV report on Monday. I'm sure the BBC took the documents seriously from the moment they were released on Saturday. It's just that they are concerned with fact-checking and production values, which do not constrain bloggers. ;-)
Eau says:
>11 million files. This is going to be a story for a while. Maybe (I'm being optimistic here) the majors realise the leak itself isn't the story here? maybe they're waitIng for the first couple of 'big fish': names and faces we recognise, someone properly 'famous' or who looks properly 'hypocritical' hiding money, someone to build a narrative around.
Or, you know, George Soros is covering for Hillary. Probably that.
Fiddlin Bill says:
There is a lot of interesting stuff in Marcy Wheeler's piece on the leak:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/04/04/why-do-they-call-it-panama-papers-anyway/
She suggests that the story is being managed to single out "the usual suspects," and directed away from American citizen involvement.
Anubis Bard says:
As an anthropologist that works on public policy issue – 10 or 12 years ago I'd interview a lot of people who believed that the US functioned more or less as an economic meritocracy. African Americans, working class and the highly educated tended to view the system as rigged, but there was a vast bulk of the complacent population who didn't. Today, it's gotten hard to find that vast complacent middle. Whether they've sunk into working class cynicism (e.g. Trumpism) or achieved angry insight into the nature of class warfare (e.g. the Bern) – practically no one of working age sees a meritocratic system any longer. So, while I basically agree with Ed's point here, I don't think this water is standing still. Yes, this time around they'll still install Clinton to defend the status quo, but who'd a thunk a curmudgeonly socialist out of Vermont would give them any trouble?
Mo says:
And as always, my question is… So now what?
When the bastards have captured the mechanism to tax them, how do we scare them out of their jammies and pry loose the loot they've pirated?
What is still in force enough to make them squirrel away the treasure outside their government borders? Rival thugs in the local oligarchies? Is this why Trump freaks them out so badly, as compared with their contempt for Bernie Sanders?
Totoro says:
While I see the evil of oligarchs using Swiss bank accounts I'm also aware of the number of refugees from Nazi Germany who were able to emigrate _because_ they had managed to move their wealth into a Swiss account. I realize I've just tripped over our friend Godwin but not all governments are benign and while Putin et al. are using these off-shore accounts for stashing wealth some of their enemies are too. We need enough slippage in the system for the downtrodden to get around the rules.
Skipper says:
"The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a detailed explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the files. The main search they have done is for names associated with breaking United Nations sanctions regimes. The Guardian reports this too and helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires—the main customers. And the Guardian is quick to reassure that “much of the leaked material will remain private.”
What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organized entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include:
Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)
Among many others. Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/media_gatekeepers_protect_western_1_percent_from_panama_leak_20160404
And there you have it.
democommie says:
I thought it was about a new rolling medium from E-Z Wider Zig-Zag.
Talisker says:
@Skipper: This is real tinfoil-hat stuff.
The data was shared with 107 media organisations in 78 countries: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35960329
Not all of them are "corporate media", for example the Guardian is owned by an independent trust. Are they *all* controlled by the puppetmasters at ICIJ?
Countries implicated in the documents include the UK, France, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, and Iceland, none of which are subject to UN sanctions.
We don't know why no prominent Americans have been named so far. It might be as simple as Mossack Fonesca (the law firm in question) wanting to avoid unwelcome attention from the FBI or IRS.
Geeno says:
And the Onion got to the same place Ed did.
From their "man in the street interviews":
“You always hear rumors about shady offshore dealings, but never in my worst dreams did I suspect Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson was involved.”
mago says:
@ democommie, good one.
Isaac says:
If we want to put on tinfoil hats, we could ponder if this is just some low-hanging fruit, a show being put on to satisfy anti-corruption political trends, occupy a bunch of investigative journalists and divert the attention away from, as others here have said, big movers and shakers within the United States and he EU. Harumphing will occur in great quantities, some hearings will take place, maybe a few symbolic yet toothless laws will get passed , and we can get back to watching bread and circuses. OMG, ELEVEN MILLION DOCUMENTS… from a period of 40 years from one law firm. My lefty podcasts are all excited by the “greatness” of this leak, but I'm guessing this is the weak old antelope that strayed behind the herd. How many hundreds of other such entities conduct this kind of business?
Leading Edge Boomer says:
A big reason for the relative lack of coverage in the US is the makeup of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Of about 190 people, only 19 are associated with the US according to the ICIJ website:
https://www.icij.org/journalists/by-country/United%20States
Most of those are independent journalists, academic professors of journalism, or really binational. None are associated with the leading US news outlets.
The big organizations are not going to run with ICIJ's whole story without doing their own fact-checking and backgrounding. It would be folly to follow any other course.
Ten Bears says:
Who could have predicted that the global tax evasion by the world's ultra-rich, made public by the Panama Papers, was ushered in with the help of a free trade agreement?
Senator Bernie Sanders.
Go ahead, vote Clinton. Vote Republican Lite. And when you've lost your job and are homeless you can join me and the rest of the locals in a van down by the river. This more than a battle of candidates, it is a battle of ideas. Globalization, heralded by the likes of Hillary Clinton, has enabled the richest in society to exploit the system while ordinary working people pick up the tab. This has been going on for decades; as a political family, the Clintons have done nothing about it. Indeed, they have profited by it.
Skepticalist says:
No American culprits yet found. What a surprise in that our visual media at least, are owned by the culprits. It takes a little digging.
If it's discovered that this story is a good way to sell erectile dysfunction aids, maybe the Donald Trump Show will peter out.
Eau says:
I know I'm sort of swimming against the tide here, but you guys know the US isn't the *whole* world, right? European, Asian and African bigwigs going down, hard, really matters to a whole lot of people. A Prime Minister has just resigned. Sure, Iceland is a punchline to the geographically and politically isolated 'greatest nation in Earth' but I bet it seems pretty important to… I don't know, say… Icelandic people? Scandinavians? Europeans? That whole 'European Union' thing, with the debt and the corruption and the austerity? Yeah, this leak might matter to people who live in the European Union.
And those corrupt money-cleaning networks we always 'knew' existed, but nobody knew anything about, nobody was able to prosecute? The ones the 1% use to fleece us all? We, and countless government agencies are seeng how they (or at least this one) work. I think that might prove important over time, regardless of whether these hundreds of international journalists decide to orchestrate a huge cover up to protect corrupt American individuals and corporations for some unknown reason, while lettin the 'low hanging fruit' of oil billionaires, Royals, and various othe very rich and scary people (who are not American) swing.
If you really think this is a carefully managed massive media conspiracy that will take down some governments but spare US plutocrats because… Illuminati…way of the world….somethingsomethingRothschildsconspiracy… Shit. I don't
Isaac says:
@Eau, all the data came from one anonymous source.
Eau says:
@Isaac: I know. And an international coalition of investigative journalists are working on that data. Concurrently. I would expect they'll hit easy targets first, then (hopefully) get their legal ducks in a row and go after bigger, better protected targets.
But yes, it is indeed from one source. I'm not an expert in these matters, but to my eye, that kind of seems like the nature of 'leaks', in general.
Kovpakistan says:
Skipper, why don't you actually take a look at some of the ICIJ and CPI's work before you dismiss them just because of their funding (which they openly disclose)? And as for the lack of Americans, it's important to remember that this is literally one of the biggest leaks in history, and major material is supposed to come out over the next 14 days. More material will most likely continue to come out after that. This will not be over soon.
Besides, there's already one interesting American found in the leaks: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-campaign-chief-linked-to-russian-bank-listed-in-panama-papers/article/2587741#.VwR02N4Aqzh.twitter
Isaac says:
This thing is too big to likely be the work of one company insider with a conscience. The sheer volume of information, if in fact it's 11 million documents of “good stuff”, suggests a hack perpetrated by a technical organization or State. To review 11 million documents with 1 minute for each would require 63 years of 8 hour days. So these weren't individually selected. They were dumped, pulled from databases in quantity. This suggest that the leaker, if acting alone, is an IT guy who had, as part of his job, unrestricted access to the file servers or tape… this wasn't the work of a disgruntled partner or clerk, unless they were just outright taking hard drives home every night.
Talisker says:
Some interesting speculation on "where are the Americans": http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35966612
TL;DR it's easier for Americans who want anonymous shell companies to create them in Delaware of Nevada; and the US authorities are somewhat more effective in cracking down on tax evasion than those in many other countries.
Isaac says:
@Talisker, I was thinking about that last night. If you're a warlord in the middle of Africa or somewhereistan, you pretty much have to go to a law firm like this for you laundering/hiding. If you're an American oil, tech, or pharmaceutical executive… you have a lot more options.
Khaled says:
@Isaac, Talisker:
I pretty much heard the same thing (possible read in the same places!) that most "tax dodging" in the US doesn't have to use shady law firms in Panama, but rather use shell companies and bogus tax shelters in the Caribbean.
As for the data breach, again, 11 million documents means that someone just stole everything and dumped it all without really looking at it. The fact that some high profile Europeans are named in it is just icing on the cake, a lot of grifters and thieves who aren't high profile are in those documents as well.
Wasn't Panama where the drug lords of the 80s stashed their money? Seriously, Noriega was a good friend to Escobar and his peers. Go figure that they are still making money off of ill-gotten gains.
Kaleberg says:
I still think we should take the Reagan approach, except instead of invading Grenada, invade the Cayman Islands and seize all the assets there as suspect "drug money". It's not like it takes probable cause to seize assets like this. We can even occupy the place. If nothing else, the Caymans have got to be a better billet than Baghdad.
P.S. Didn't we invade Panama a while back? Why wasn't this lawyer on the list? Instead we got Noriega.
Talisker says:
@Kaleberg: The Caymans are a British colony, so sending in the Marines isn't necessary.
If it wanted to, the UK government could achieve the same thing with the stroke of a pen, by suspending the islands' autonomous government and imposing direct rule from London. There's a recent precedent for the Turks and Caicos Islands, motivated by local corruption which was egregious even by the standards of the Caribbean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_and_Caicos_Islands#Corruption_scandal_and_suspension_of_self-government
There are now serious calls to do this in the UK. Given that members of Prime Minister Cameron's family are implicated in the leak (although not Cameron himself), it would be a good way for him to show he's getting tough.