This, we are told, is the extent of Putin’s wealth.

In the book, “Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy,” Aslund estimates that through the practice of “crony capitalism,” Putin has amassed a net worth between $100 billion and $160 billion, which would make him richer than the officially wealthiest man in the world, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos.

(Love that “net” – sounds so precise.) Pfeh! says Browder: a measly one hundred – try two hundred billion! Nah! A trivial seventy billion says somebody else. Why not eleventy-seven squintillion? Net.

The origin of the “Putin is fabulously rich” story seems to have been this interview with Stanislav Belkovskiy (certainly he’s used as the source often enough.) Russia is about to collapse, nothing is working properly: agriculture, banking; all failing. But Putin & Co have trousered millions for the day when they will have to get out:

Putin knows that extremely destructive processes are going on that he simply cannot control. Therefore, it is important for him to leave the game, as long as the explosion has not yet occurred. There will be no third term for him.

The acuity of this analysis is spoiled a bit by the fact that, twelve years later, Putin and Russia are still there. Belkovskiy turns out to be the cousin of Boris Berezovskiy which gives away his motivation. Boris Berezovskiy, by the way, was the chief anti-Putinist until he begged Putin to be allowed back in. Whereupon he committed suicide. They say.

And where, by the way, does Putin keep all the gelt?

Not a good idea to do it offshore, especially when you consider suggestions like “Why Exposing Putin’s Wealth Would Be Obama’s Best Revenge” or “Why not seize Putin’s assets?” or “US ready to target Russian president’s hidden $40bn stash“. But where inside? A gigantic bag of paper rubles will be worth nothing when Russia crashes. Gold? but gold is heavy and hard to move at the Last Moment. Title deeds? Gazprom shares? Same problem: if he’s squirrelling it away against the day the building collapses, it doesn’t make much sense to keep it in the building, does it?

But these are questions nobody asks.

Remember the Panama Papers? First they were about Putin; then when somebody noticed that the word “Putin” didn’t appear anywhere, they were by Putin. But bubbles keep bubbling. Leaked US diplomatic cables citing opposition sources (opposition sources are the gold standard of reliability, aren’t they?) NYT speculates away: “it [the Obama Administration] is sending a not-very-subtle message that it thinks it knows where the Russian leader has his money“. The Sun hit it out of the park in 2016: “many believe” “claimed” “claimed” “rumoured” “believe he could be” “alleged” “alleged” “said to be” “alleged”. How many tonnes of rumours equal one gram of fact?

* * *

Let’s have a look at how the world’s wealthiest man spent his time in April 2019. English and Russian.

• Monday 1 April: telephone conversations with three foreign leaders, meeting with a businessman
• Tuesday 2 April: more phone calls, another businessman, congratulations
• Wednesday 3 April: visit to a factory, birthday greetings, meeting with a foreign leader and discussions, press statement on same
• Thursday 4 April: meetings with two foreign leaders, an opening ceremony, condolences
• Friday 5 April: government committee meeting, more greetings
• Saturday 6 April: no activity noted
• Sunday 7 April: greetings and a phone call to a foreign official
• Monday 8 April: more greetings, talks with foreign officials, press conference on same
• Tuesday 9 April: greetings, meetings with several foreign leaders, attend international forum
• Wednesday 10 April: more greetings, meeting with foreign leader, meeting with Russian official, meeting with government committee, church visit
• Thursday 11 April: greetings, ceremony, government meeting
• Friday 12 April: congratulations, factory visit, meeting with foreign businessman, gala event
• Saturday 13 April: quiet day: just greetings to a judo tournament
• Sunday 14 April: no activity noted.

In the rest of the month, nine government meetings, two phone calls to foreign leaders, eight meetings with foreign leaders or officials, five meetings with Russians, five international talks or forums, two trips inside Russia, three news conferences or interviews, one foreign trip and two ceremonies. Two days off, one of which was Easter when he went to church. And so on; the month before the same and the month after. Month after month.

Fun eh? Where’s the time to play with his yachts, visit his palaces, wind up his watch collection? The man works all the time. What’s the point of being the world’s richest man if you slave away in meeting after meeting, interviews, endless paperwork, strategy sessions, planning meetings, briefing notes, meeting preparations, debriefings? Doesn’t sound like some guy who’s trousered huge sums of money, does it? More like the hard-working president of his country.

But maybe the wealth is more of a concept, really. Navalniy, “Russia’s Last Opposition Hero“, helpfully suggests “The czar of corruption owns everything and nothing“. I guess that means Putin’s wealth is some figure between zero and infinity.

* * *

So, we’re supposed to believe that Putin has used his position to steal vast sums which he can safely hide neither at home nor abroad, sums of which he doesn’t spend a kopek because he’s too busy sending greetings to The Age of Archaeology: Discoveries, Goals, Perspectives International Forum, answering media questions about the latest meeting with the President of Turkey and holding meetings with the Russian Security Council. On his off days, he spends two hours standing in church.

But it’s all a GIGO circle: people with a grudge against Putin (Berezovskiy’s cousin, the inventor of the Magnitskiy fraud, Integrity Initiative trolls) tell the punters what they want to hear. There are lots of folk-tales about smart little guys tricking stupid giants (ATU 328 in fact); the giant, hearing what he wants to hear, believes it. Russia, they imagine, is a sort of mafia project of which Putin is the capo di tutti capi and dips his beak into every deal. After being told what they want to hear by people who want to tell them what they want to hear, they decide that sanctioning the underbosses will make them turn against Putin. And, with Washington’s customary expectation that changing the Boss will change the whole country, they do this. Over and over again.

And they never learn. Years of unbroken failure never seem to teach them anything. The sanctions aren’t working because the assumption is wrong. These are the very same people who promised a quick victory in Afghanistan, a quick victory in Iraq and are now promising a quick victory in Iran; their learning curve is absolutely flat.

As someone observed: the US bench (read NATO and the UK too) on Russia is very shallow. Their intelligence is lousy and their unbroken record of failure should teach them that.

But it doesn’t, they continue and people make money and serve their own ends by encouraging them to do so. Jack tricks the giant and gets a bag of gold. Two million quid in the case of Integrity Jac.

The real economy (with the exception of the military-industrial complex) is in a pitiful state. Nevertheless, the US continues to be considered an economically developed country. In addition, the American standard of living, as measured by the average statistical indices (GDP per capita), still puts the country in the top ten.

But this is no paradox. The US is simply a parasite state. America’s parasitic existence is maintained through an influx of capital from every corner of the globe. First of all, the US is the beneficiary of credit in the form of the enormous dollar reserves stockpiled by other countries. These are actually stockpiles of promissory notes purchased from the US Federal Reserve System and Treasury. Second, large quantities of private capital flow into the US, which is invested in real estate and shares of American corporations and banks, and the same can be said for monetary capital that is deposited into accounts at US depository and lending institutions.

The secret behind what might be called Federal Reserve System«appeal to investors» is that the world’s most important printing press is located in Washington and is owned by the US Federal Reserve System. The output of the Fed’s printing press (dollars) are not backed by gold, state assets, or even by the products of what few manufacturing industries still remain in the US. Dollars are only backed by the military might that is represented by the US service bases found all over the world, the US Sixth Fleet, its submarines with nuclear warheads, and also the bombers, nuclear missiles, etc. that are based in the US itself. This military backing of US currency is reinforced by propaganda support from mass media controlled by the US Federal Reserve’s shareholders.

However, there is another secret to the US «economic miracle». And that is the offshore side of the US economy. This American idiosyncrasy has long kept to the shadows and little has been written or spoken of it. Only during the recent scandal over the «Panama Papers» have some facts finally come to light exposing the role and place of the US in the world’s offshore industry.

Everyone was surprised at the very small number of US citizens listed in the in the «Panama Papers». The first explanation offered was that since the US State Department and CIA were behind the leaked documents, the compromising materials were carefully screened for inclusion so as not to irk any VIP American owners or beneficiaries of offshore companies and accounts. Then a different story was put forward: there are so few Americans on the list of that Panamanian company because they are not interested in Panama as an offshore destination. They have created an «offshore paradise» right there at home.

And then some interesting facts and figures emerged. Some of them came from the NGO Tax Justice Network (TJN), which has investigated the use of offshore businesses for tax evasion for many years. TJN has compiled a ranking of the attractiveness of tax havens. The US was awarded third place in the 2015 ranking. But Panama, the epicenter of the scandal, only came in 13th on that list. It seems that for foreign oligarchs and kleptomaniac bureaucrats, America is a more convenient tax haven than, for example, the infamous jurisdictions of Cayman Islands and Singapore.

What need have US banks and corporations of Switzerland, Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands, or Panama, if they have their own domestic offshore sanctuary in Delaware? That state has long provided its American clients with all the needed «accommodations»: lenient tax laws, total confidentiality, and quick turnaround. Officials in Delaware have even promised that the FBI, IRS, Justice Dept. and other US government agencies responsible for the US Treasury and national security will not be allowed to pry into their clients’ secrets. They are their own «state within a state»! 

Delaware proudly calls itself America’s incorporation capital, with over one million commercial entities registered there. More than 50% of all publicly traded companies in the US are legally based in Delaware. Delaware is the legal home to 64% of all companies in the Fortune 500 list. South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nevada are the next most popular «offshore» shelters, followed by Texas, Oregon, and Florida. Different sources list between 20 and 30 US domestic offshore destinations: several states, cities, and municipalities with special regulations. In a certain sense even New York is an offshore sanctuary, with its flourishing trade in high-end real estate. And until recently those clients and ultimate beneficiaries were guaranteed full confidentiality. However, the US government has now begun to investigate luxury real-estate deals in Manhattan in order to identify the actual beneficiaries.

And even during the current scandal over the «Panama Papers», during which published articles have exposed the US role as an offshore jurisdiction, one important issue has not been addressed. To be specific, there has not been one word about what are known as charitable and philanthropic foundations. In fact, American oligarchs are steering their capital into these types of off-shore entities so as to avoid or minimize their own tax burden. The assets of these foundations are generated through the purchase of various types of securities. Charitable foundations are active players in the financial markets. Because these foundations’ assets enjoy tax immunity, the treasury is losing far more from them than from the offshore registration of certain American companies, for example. Meanwhile, no one in America dares impugn the privileged status of charitable foundations – in the US this topic is even more taboo than the subject of the US Federal Reserve.

But returning to the offshore scandals of recent years, we know who needs these scandals, and why. They are needed by the money masters who want to turn America into a global offshore haven. Some of the world’s offshore shelters have already been destroyed, but three to five dozen still remain. Washington is using leaks and scandals to «steer the wave» (of offshore assets) toward America. Each scandal results in the destruction of one or more offshore sanctuaries. For example, the British Virgin Islands was dealt a heavy blow in 2013. The offshore residents of that jurisdiction rushed to take shelter under the wing of the US. In Nevada the Rothschilds even opened an office to register outcasts from the British Virgin Islands in America.

It’s interesting that Washington is using its stooge – the European Union – to forcefully goad Europeans into combating offshore schemes. And thus, under Washington’s influence the European Union has adopted a Savings Directive (EUSD) on the taxation of savings income. Its goal is to stop the public from hiding money from the tax authorities. The directive has truly made it quite difficult for Europeans to shelter their money from taxation inside Europe. In essence, banks in EU countries are required to deduct any unpaid taxes from the bank accounts of citizens of other European countries. After the directive was introduced, there was a dramatic increase in the number of people wanting to open a bank account outside of Europe, particularly in Panama and the British Virgin Islands. Thus Europeans were lured out of their own continent and then forced to flee to America.

In 2010, Washington adopted the extraterritorial FATCA law, requiring all countries in the world to provide US tax authorities with information about the accounts of American taxpayers. This law has already taken effect and information is flooding into Washington from every corner of the globe. At the same time, Washington has been prodding the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to develop a Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for the exchange of tax information. That standard has now been developed, approved, and added to the arsenal of not only the OECD member states, but also many other countries (almost 100 of them). But here’s a surprising fact: two or three exotic jurisdictions have now decided not to adopt the standard, in addition to … the US.

As Christian Kalin, the chairman of Henley & Partners advisory firm, claims, «The US is a black hole of information for other countries now. Financial information goes in to the US, but does not come out». Is this not proof that the money masters are planning to make the US the world’s only offshore destination? Because of Washington’s refusal to adopt the CRS, the Bloomberg has reported that the US could soon become the biggest tax haven in the world, as the assets of wealthy people from Europe and other countries are being transferred there by asset management companies. But far from everyone in the US wants to see their country turned into a depository for dirty money. Stefanie Ostfeld, the acting head of the US office of the anti-corruption group Global Witness, stated bitterly, «What’s lesser known, is the US is just as big a secrecy jurisdiction as so many of these Caribbean countries and Panama. We should not want to be the playground for the world’s dirty money, which is what we are right now». 

The first salvos were fired against the self-governing New Zealand territory of Niue and the independent State of Samoa for being referenced in some of the selectively-leaked Panamanian law firm documents.

Because of the paternalistic and neo-colonialist policies of Australia and New Zealand, many South Pacific independent states and self-governing territories had no choice but to set up tax evasion and avoidance havens in order to attract much-needed revenue from corporate filing fees. However, these tax havens often find themselves fending off criticism from their former colonial masters.

In fact, the Pacific states were pressured into establishing havens for foreign shell companies and anonymous numbered bank account operations by the very powers that now seek to limit their independence and autonomy. New Zealand’s two alleged «self-governing» territories, the Cook Islands and Niue, have come in for particularly heavy criticism from the Americans and their intelligence lackeys in Canberra and Wellington. Niue, which cannot engage in any meaningful economic development without the approval of New Zealand, became a center for international corporate registry for a bargain annual fee of $150. The island state, under the Kiwi jackboot, is subject to terrible air service and a lack of Internet connectivity for its citizens. New Zealand’s absurd insistence that Niue is «self-governing» was shown to be fraudulent when Niue’s one-time Prime Minister, Sani Lakatani, was living in Auckland while pretending to be governing Niue, all the time collecting his pension as a retired corporal in the Royal New Zealand Army.

New Zealand is now crying foul over Mossack Fonseca’s operations in Niue because the Panamanian law firm’s Niue registered agent happens to be the daughter of Prime Minister Toke Talagi. If New Zealand permitted Niue and the Cook Islands real independence, these states could diversify their economies by engaging with China, Russia, India, and other countries on projects like rare mineral mining of sea beds, reliable regional air transportation, high-speed ferry service, and sustainable aqua-culture development. In addition, the ability of these small states to receive low-interest loans and grants from China, Russia, Iran, and other countries not integrally a part of the Western banking spider web would enable local artisans to market their crafts and goods abroad with the availability of low-cost and reliable Internet and electronic commerce services.

Currently, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand prevent through unfair commercial practices, direct air services between many Pacific islands. Aviation regulations route air passengers and cargo through Honolulu, Guam, Auckland, and Sydney or Brisbane.

The Cook Islands became known as a tax dodging haven because of a complicated scheme, or «scam», actual set up by New Zealand authorities in the 1980s. In 1992, computer dealer Paul White bought 92 floppy disks in a wine box. However, the disks were not blank but contained sensitive documents. The disks were inadvertently discarded by the New Zealand branch of Citibank. The banking information pointed to a tax avoidance scheme involving a Cook Islands entity called European Pacific Investments (EPI) and a number of politicians, including the leaders of the National and Labor parties of New Zealand. The tax avoidance contrivance was also linked to Central Intelligence Agency money laundering operations in the Asia-Pacific region and the Caribbean. Unlike the Mossack Fonseca documents, which were deliberately leaked by the CIA to embarrass the leaders of the BRICS nations (Rousseff, Putin, Modi, Xi Jinping, and Zuma), the «Wine Box» files were never meant to be made public. Paul White discovered how sensitive the disks were when he suffered a suspicious fatal car accident and the disks disappeared. However, White had wisely shared their content with a New Zealand journalist. Enough information on the Cook Islands operation were leaked before the New Zealand government initiated a draconian blackout on news coverage of the so-called «Wine Box Affair».

After phosphate-depleted Nauru lost its only means of income, the bird guano industry, it resorted, with the acquiescence of Australia and the United States, to offshore banking. After the island became the headquarters of over 400 banks, some with dubious connections to Russian-Israeli mobsters and Latin American drug dealers, the US forced President Bernard Dowiyogo to sign an agreement to close the banks. The 9/11 attacks put the US on the warpath against some offshore operations, including those in Nauru. Dowiyogo flew to Washington to ink the deal. After he signed the agreement, he fell ill and died while undergoing surgery at George Washington University hospital. The CIA prefers no witnesses to its myriad global financial arrangements. Nauru was soon relegated to serving as a host for Australia’s Guantanamo Bay-like «gulag» refugee detention center.

The Mossack Fonseca controlled «leak», enabled by the George Soros and US Agency for International Development/CIA-funded International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), also cast a wary eye on Samoa, whose deputy high commissioner at the diplomatic mission in Canberra, Luciano Fonoti, is accused of helping the Panamanian firm set up shell companies in Samoa. One of the firms stands accused of violating an embargo against the Syrian government. Perhaps Samoa would not have to resort to offshore financing if the United States ended its arcane colonial rule over the state’s eastern neighbor «American Samoa», a territory that should rightly be granted its independence and be permitted to re-unite with its brethren to the west to create a stronger united Samoan nation.

The US, along with Australia, New Zealand, and Israel, maintain a paternalistic oversight of the foreign affairs of the Pacific states. Israel is involved in order to deny the Palestinian cause near-unanimous votes in the United Nations General Assembly. As long as de facto US protectorates like Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands, and quasi-independent countries like Nauru, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands cast votes in favor of Israel and Zionism, Israel can point to its diplomatic allies in the Pacific as a defense for its actions. The people of the island territory of Chuuk (Truk) are so unhappy with their neo-colonialist status under the oppressive dictates of Washington and the US puppet government of the Federated States of Micronesia, it is talking about declaring independence from the so-called «Compact of Free Association» with the United States.

The United States and the regional colonialist powers of Australia and New Zealand are already using the Mossack Fonseca disclosures to advocate a greater involvement in the affairs of the Pacific island states. Australia showed its true intentions when it unilaterally abolished the self-government of Norfolk Island, destroying its financial services and off-track betting industries in the process. Norfolk Island cried foul and plans to bring its cause to the United Nations, where it will find plenty of other aggrieved Pacific islanders, from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to Hawaii and the Northern Marianas to Niue.

Putin the «new Hitler»; Putin the «downer of civilian airliners»; Putin the «gunslinger»; and now Putin «the money launderer».

But the smear has since turned into a political banana skin for Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, who has been forced into admitting that he benefitted from offshore tax-free funds. He is now being assailed with accusations of «hypocrisy» and even calls for his resignation.

From the point of view of those who tried to smear Putin, how did it go wrong?

When the hacked data started to be published earlier this week, the Western news media ran lurid headlines implicating Putin in massive financial impropriety. This was despite the glaring anomaly that neither Putin nor any of his family were even mentioned in the leaked information. In short, it was another exercise by ropey Western journalism of inculpation by assertion, prejudice and innuendo.

The fact that one of the main sources of the Panama Papers information – the Washington DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – is funded by CIA-linked organizations immediately raised suspicion that the implications made against Putin were a politically motivated propaganda stunt.

It seems highly likely that the CIA and related anti-Putin groups like the George Soros-supported Open Societies Foundations were involved in at least trying to orchestrate the Putin smear. But how these shadowy entities became involved remains a curious question.

Several days after the so-called Panama Papers took global media by storm, it now appears that key US allies are coming under more serious scrutiny that Putin. The Kremlin has dismissed the allegations as «more fibs» and that aspect of the story appears to have died a death.

Not so for Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron. He is struggling to fend off media queries about his own personal connections to tax dodging as a result of information disclosed in the leaked files.

Other world leaders allied to the US who have been fingered in the financial scandal include Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and the newly elected rightwing president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, whom President Barack Obama showered with praise during a state visit only last month.

There are many other world leaders and public officials who have reportedly been identified as having stakes in notorious offshore tax havens. Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson was forced out of office this week after his name became linked to tax avoidance schemes.

The broad range of incriminated targets therefore raises questions about who is behind the leak. If it were simply a CIA-inspired dirty tricks operation to undermine Putin, then why have close political allies to Washington also been embroiled, and to a much more politically damaging extent?

Britain’s premier David Cameron is «dangerously exposed» reported the Guardian after it emerged that his late father, Ian, was the director of an investment firm that set up shell companies in the British Virgin Islands. For over 30 years, Ian Cameron did not pay a penny in tax to the British exchequer even though he made millions by doing business in the British controlled Caribbean territory.

Strictly speaking, such tax evasion is not illegal under law. But for the British prime minister it is a huge political scandal, given that he has made such high-flown claims since he was first elected in 2010 to clamp down on offshore capital havens.

When Cameron’s father died in 2010, he inherited the equivalent of $500,000. As a student at the elitist Eton school and Oxford university, Cameron’s education would have been funded by proceeds from his father’s offshore funny money.

Downing Street this week has been roiled by awkward media questions and obliged to issue unconvincing denials that Cameron is a beneficiary of corporate tax avoidance. Notably one statement claimed that neither the prime minister nor his family would gain any benefits «in the future» from offshore funds. Which has only further whetted media queries about «the past».

Cameron, under duress, finally admitted that he had profited six years ago from the sale of shares in his father’s offshore company to the tune of $50,000. Opposition politicians are now calling for his resignation on grounds that he has not been transparent with the public.

Ironically, therefore, the British Conservative leader has ended up in much more hot water about financial impropriety than the Russian leader.

That makes the chain of this damaging media leak a curious conundrum.

What we know is that the deluge of information on offshore tax havens was obtained surreptitiously from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The firm is said to be the fourth biggest international entity that specializes in setting up companies in tax havens for wealthy clients, such as business executives and banks based in Europe, the US and elsewhere. The angry reaction by Mossack Fonseca over its privacy being breached indicates it was a genuine leak. The information contained in 11 million files is said to implicate over 200,000 client companies and 14,000 individuals, including «politicians, dictators, criminals, billionaires and celebrities», according to the New York Times.

Who actually carried out the initial breach is not known. The Washington Post reports that the trove of information was first delivered to two journalists at the prominent German publication Suddeutsche Zeitung. That was more than a year ago. The two German journalists to this day say they do not know the identity of the person or persons who handed them the leaked data. They said that no money was sought for the transfer and the only instruction given to them was to «publicize the crimes».

Bastian Obermayer and his colleague Frederik Obermaier, the two reporters at Suddeutsche Zeitung, then began sharing the vast information with the US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. That step seems plausible enough because the parties had already a working relationship on previous money-laundering investigations. Also, the data in the so-called Panama Papers – enough to reportedly fill 38,000 medium-sized books – was clearly an overwhelming task for two individuals to dissect and disseminate.

The ICIJ is affiliated to the Center for Public Integrity and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. All three are based in Washington DC and are all sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers, and the Soros-linked Open Societies Foundation, among many others. Those sponsors have well documented working relations with the American Central Intelligence Agency in some cases going back to the agency’s inception in 1948.

For over a year, the ICIJ claims that its journalists and an international network of over 350 affiliated media colleagues in more than 70 countries worked on the Panama Papers to parse the many facets for public interest. Among the affiliated journalists were those belonging to Britain’s Guardian newspaper and state-owned BBC. McClatchy News in Washington is said to be another media collaborator in the project.

By no means can we say that all the journalists involved in preparing the Panama Papers for publication are in the pay of the CIA or its tentacle organizations. Nor does it seem that the original point of the data leak was a CIA-inspired political attack on Vladimir Putin.

If the latter were the case, then one would expect the leak to focus solely on trying to implicate Putin through citing Russian associates linked to offshore financial transactions.

However, the fact that the leaked information has turned out to be much more damaging to British Prime Minister David Cameron and other US allies – with specific details, not merely speculation – suggests that the leak was originally intended as a genuine whistleblower action.

Subsequently, CIA-linked organizations and politically friendly Western media outlets appear to have tried to deflect the information towards smearing Putin. But the smear bid has not gained traction against Putin because the claims are not supported by the actual information contained in the leaks.

The same cannot be said for David Cameron and several other world leaders aligned with Washington. They are seriously implicated in white collar crime, along with bank robbers, drug dealers and money-launders. And the Western media cannot but fail to report on this «real story» despite their initial willingness to go along with the trumped-up Putin hatchet job.

How the smear bid against Putin from the Panama Papers has played out – and indeed now badly rebounded – has perhaps provided this unintended revelation. It shows just how malleable and serviceable Western news organizations are in the hands of the CIA.

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles

The Panama Papers, a one-year investigation by over 100 reporters worldwide (The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism) of offshore money hiding/laundering/taxation avoidance, is a cause célèbre of underhandedness seldom, if ever, revealed to the world’s public. It is comparable to lifting a rotting log in the woods and finding an active nest of millipedes, red worms, and cockroaches scampering about to escape the bright sunlight. They can’t stand the sunlight because darkness is their life.

“It’s the biggest leak in history, dwarfing the data released by the Wikileaks organization in 2010. For context, if the amount of data released by Wikileaks was equivalent to the population of San Francisco, the amount of data released in the Panama Papers is the equivalent to that of India,” (BBC News, April 5th).

Remarkably, it may only be the tip of an iceberg, a big one, as the incident references the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co. There are likely many more in the world of behind the scenes finance.

The Panama Papers, containing info on thousands of shell companies set up to avoid taxes and hide assets for over four decades from 1977 to 2015, are all about millionaires and billionaires and the politically connected “sticking it to” average citizens of the world by hiding money from fellow countrymen’s taxation policies and/or theft of state funds and laundering money. It is outrageously heinous and deserving of criminal incrimination and/or tarring and feathering whilst run out of town on a rail. It also begs the question of how many more rich pillagers are out there.

Already, major worldwide figureheads, like the PM of Iceland, have fallen. “As much as $21 trillion in global wealth is hidden behind largely-untraceable shell companies such as those exposed in the Panama Papers, according to watchdog group Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition,” (NBC News, April 6, 2016.). Twenty-one trillion is considerably larger than the entire U.S. economy. And, if it were taxed, which it is not, it would relieve many nation-states of big deficit spending for social welfare programs.

Indeed, the Panama Papers is a clarion call for revolt against a neoliberal world economic order that favors (1) privatization of public assets, (2) deregulation of governmental influence, (3) free trade in secret, and (4) austerity measures for public welfare. This nonsense started in earnest in the 1980s with President Reagan and PM Thatcher, called Supply-side economics, which preached tax cuts for the wealthy that purportedly incentivizes job creation, thus trickling wealth down to the masses. Problem is, after more than 30 years, all of the wealth gushed upwards whilst wages trickled down. The exact reverse of how it was sold to the American public. Politicians, mostly Republicans, continue making the same lame claims today. Cut taxes to create jobs is their mantra. Well, what they really mean to say is “cut taxes to cut wages” because that’s how it works in real life.

Frankly, the Average Joe has been getting shafted, hosed, bamboozled for decades. Now, the results are exposed in full living color. Billions if not trillions of stolen money and hidden assets removed from the public domain to enrich a few already rich people. This is as low as lowliness gets; it’s below scum.

Even though the Panama Papers detail unethical and illegal behavior mostly outside of the United States, it is also well known that rich Americans, especially hedge funds, have trillions stashed offshore in the Caribbean. No worries, no taxes.

“Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenues, according to research,” Super Rich Hold $32 Trillion in Offshore Havens, Reuters, July 22, 2012. This enlightening discovery was four years ago, well before the recent Panama Papers incident.

After enough time, it’s nearly impossible to conceal something on such a large scale as the pandemic hiding of money and assets. It’s encyclopedically wide-ranging, ubiquitously far-flung.

As for the revelation of four years ago, “The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts – excluding non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses – puts the sum at between $21 and $32 trillion,” Ibid. But, how much additional are the RE, gold, yachts, and racehorses worth? Nobody knows.

“The research was carried out for pressure group Tax Justice Network, which campaigns against tax havens, by James S. Henry (Edward R Murrow Fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy), former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.,” Ibid.

Mr. Henry used data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and central banks to smoke out the truth (Source: Reuters).

It’s worthwhile noting that $9.8 trillion of the total is just 92,000 people or 0.001% of the world’s population. The majority of these people are operating accounts through three big banks, UBS, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs (Source: Reuters).

Mr. Henry also discusses, in person on video: The Bizarre Economics of Tax Havens and Private Banking by James S. Henry, TEDx Talks, May 2013.

So, how does neoliberalism, or today’s socio-conomic order, dovetail into the Panama Papers scandal?

Neoliberalism is the legal equivalent of the Panama Papers.

It robs the public legally by changing regulations, trade policy, and taxation to enrich the wealthy class at the expense of the middle/lower. For example, America’s “15% carried-interest” taxation rate available to people like Mitt Romney but not available to his gardener. This is joylessly known as “reverse Robin Hood economics,” or taking from the poor to enrich the rich, and it works miracles, just look at how rich Mitt has become and at how his gardener’s wages suck dust.

The NAFTA trade agreement is another example of stealing from the lower/middle to enrich the rich by automatically undercutting America’s unions. “The A.F.L.-C.I.O. released a report excoriating Nafta and highlighting its deleterious effects on the labor market… Nafta increased corporate profits while depressing wages,” (Nafta Still Bedevils Unions, New York Times, March 27, 2014).

NAFTA has been hollowing out unions since 1994.

Effectively, NAFTA jump-shifts labor’s wages to dividends and capital gains and CEO bonuses. Presto! Labor magically turns into dividends.

Neoliberal policies are legally as heinous as the Panama Papers are illegally disgusting. One is legal robbery, the other illegal theft. Both achieve the same end result, taking from the lower and middle classes to enrich the wealthy. There are endless examples of how this slight-of-hand is legally constructed by Congress, worthy of a 200-page thesis.

And, Bernie Sanders knows all about it. His popularity is largely based upon exposing the tricks of the trade of the plutocrats. Citizens United essentially put a “for sale” sign up in front of the nation’s capitol.

Even though the Panama Papers and neoliberal policies achieve the same end result by using different means, after decades of so few rich people gaming the system and building estates filled with butlers and household servants a la 18th century Versailles, it begs the question of when this silliness ends? Sure, the French Revolution beheaded them, but that’s long ago, 225 years ago.

Nowadays, the neoliberal revolution is embedded into the socio-politico-economic fabric of society. How to overturn it is the question of the century because civilized society is not likely into beheadings like the late 18th century when nearly 16,000 aristocrats, men of cloth, and lords were publicly beheaded. Back in the day, the French people finally had their fill of rich grandstanding by a few wealthy whilst ordinary people starved in the streets. They could not take it any longer. They killed’em. Still, a lot of aristocrats fled to England.

Some American intellectuals like Chris Hedges believe the public should/will revolt. “Hedges’ message is clear: Popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.” (Source: Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt, Truthdig.com).

“Inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization” somehow fit together like peas in a pod; maybe because both originate from the same greedy, rapacious, devouringly insatiable thirst for opulent riches, at any cost. And, it’s proving to be a badge of cowardliness.

counterpunch.org

A so-called non-profit entity, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), cherry-picking information from a purported leak of 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. In turn, the findings of this consortium were provided to a network of over 100 media partners, including some of the largest newspapers in the world. What was not reported by the newspapers, all too eager to stenographically report what they were provided by the consortium, is that ICIJ is financially supported by George Soros's Open Society Foundations and the Central Intelligence Agency-directed US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The corporate media played up the connections of various off-shore tax-dodging contrivances and money laundering vehicles to a collection of world leaders. However, instead of focusing on leaders who have direct connections to money laundering and tax evasion, for example, Argentina’s neoconservative fascism-friendly president Mauricio Macri, the ICIJ, as is their usual method, hyped fuzzy «guilt by association» links to specific leaders. Not surprisingly, the chief targets for ICIJ were the CIA's number one and number two foes, respectively – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

As Russian president spokesman Dmitry Peskov correctly maintained, the chief target of the «Putinophobic» ICIJ, Soros, and USAID was Vladimir Putin and not an old acquaintance of the Russian president named in the ICIJ’s cherry-picked document revelations. Peskov also rightly stated that ICIJ has links to the US government.

And, of course, the ICIJ, Soros, and USAID could not help themselves from linking, again indirectly, Mossack Fonseca to the impeachment charges against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and the investigation of her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Also hyped by ICIJ and their co-conspirators, Soros and USAID, are fuzzy indirect links to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the Panama Papers. There was also a failed attempt by the cherry pickers to implicate former Argentine presidents Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her late husband Nestor Kirchner. A mere mention of individuals’ names in an interrogatory letter do not constitute prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. That is, of course, unless one is engaged in CIA cherry picking for psychological warfare and information operations purposes.

The ICIJ runs an entity called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The OCCRP, in turn, is operated under the aegis of the Journalism Development Network (JDN) based in Washington, DC and which maintains a European affiliate in Bucharest. Not surprisingly, the OCCRP and JDN employ propagandists, not journalists, with experience at the US government-funded and Soros-directed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty / Radio Free Asia. The OCCRP and JDN have focused their efforts on undermining leaders who do not follow the dictates of Washington. The role of these two organizations in the dubious Magnitsky case, a lame attempt to discredit the Russian government, is a case in point. The US was able to use some of the «yellow journalism» produced by OCCRP and JDN to implement sanctions against Russian individuals and institutions. OCCRP and JDN partner with Soros-linked «independent» journalism entities throughout the Balkans, including Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Romania, as well as Latvia, Armenia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Moldova, all countries heavy with the unmistakable stench of Soros’s subterfuge and political troublemaking.

The ICIJ, OCCRP, and JDN troika are now using their corporate media connections to tarnish the leaders of all the BRICS nations: Putin, Xi, Rousseff, South African President Jacob Zuma, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

And although much is being made of the resignation of Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson over ICIJ revelations that his wife maintained an offshore shell company handled by Mossack Fonseca, it was under Gunnlaugsson’s watch that Iceland imprisoned its bankers who ran the nation into bankruptcy. And those jailed bankers were doing the bidding of, among others, George Soros and his ultimate masters: the Rothschild banking family.

In 2005, the chief of the Swiss private bank Julius Baer’s Cayman Islands branch leaked a compact disk containing clients’ transactions, including every deposit made, from Baer's Cayman unit that dealt with anonymous trusts. In January 2008, WikiLeaks began publishing details of Baer's clients – who were accused of tax evasion and money laundering. The clients resided in the United States, Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, and Peru. On December 4, 2008, Alex Widmer, 52, the CEO of Julius Baer and a widower with three children, was found dead from a dubiously-reported suicide. Widmer had discovered links between the bank's leaks of client information to the media and WikiLeaks, Mossad, and the Soros network. Only the New York Times reported that Widmer's death was from a suicide and an autopsy report was never released. The ICIJ was nowhere to be found on the Julius Baer story and how Julius Baer, after the leak of the client information, saw its share values drop by 60 percent, thus making it vulnerable to a hostile takeover by Soros and Goldman Sachs.

In 2008, the same global media that finds the Mossack Fonseca documents so newsworthy barely raised an eyebrow when documents leaked from the Luxembourg bank Clearstream were made public. After French intelligence managed to alter the original Clearstream documents, the entire matter was shelved. The reason was that Clearstream was a pass-through entity for paying bribes to a number of world leaders by the CIA and Mossad. At the time of the Clearstream revelations, these leaders were friendly to the George W. Bush administration and Israel. One of the alleged bribe recipients was French President Nicolas Sarkozy who reportedly used the pseudonyms «Paul de Nagy» and «Stéphane Bosca» to hide his identity with Clearstream financial transactions. Sarkozy was suspected of illegally receiving kickbacks involving the sale of six French frigates to Taiwan in 1991. Banks and companies with Clearstream accounts included the defunct CIA-linked Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), Bank Menatep run by Russian criminal oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Banco Ambrosiano (also known as the Vatican Bank), Bahrain International Bank (with reported links to Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda), and Bush family-connected Carlyle Group.

The global corporate media failed to do its job on the Clearstream matter because it stood to embarrass not America’s opponents, but the American president’s father. Clearstream banker Ernest Backes revealed that he was in charge of the transfer of $7 million from Citibank and Chase Manhattan to pay Iran for the release of the US diplomatic hostages in Tehran. The transfer occurred on January 16, 1981, four days before Ronald Reagan's swearing in as president. The deal was worked out by Reagan’s vice presidential running mate and future president George H. W. Bush as part of an effort to undermine the re-election of President Jimmy Carter. Backes gave the incriminating documents to the French National Assembly, which did nothing with it.

In the world of massive «leaks» to the media, it is the CIA psychological operations agents and their water carriers like Soros and certain phony journalists and editors who decide what can and cannot be published. It was that way with Clearstream, the State Department cables, Julius Baer, Snowden’s NSA documents, and now with the tranche from Mossack Fonseca.