[polar]

(04-05-2016 06:54 PM)A.S Wrote:  

(04-05-2016 02:28 PM)The Ligurian Wrote:  

These guys were hiding billions not a hundred bucks. You have got to trust a motherfucker to his bones to sign over a billion to someone and know it's going to be handed back when needed. What was the Icelandic pm going to do if he got fucked over, raise his voice?

Steal a $ of Putin however...

the way Putin comes through, it's not just the possibility of consequences for defection. It's genuine, life-long male bonds that were formed back in the USSR when times were different.

On top of male bonds, long-lasting relationships, and happy memories, rest assured that all of these relationships are backed up with lots of blackmail material that would be aired upon betrayal, such as step-by-step evidence of criminal activity sufficient to get convictions worldwide. That's if the punishment wouldn't be a cup of polonium tea or a hatchet to the noggin.

[The Beast1]

Wikileaks calling out the Soros funded hit job:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-05...-power-tax

[Belgrano]

My perception of George Soros these days:

[UroboricForms]

Putin returns fire

Putin to Declassify Documents That Bear Some "Very Interesting Names"

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/04/putin-t...rt+Russ%29

Quote:

The Russian President said that he has decided to declassify many archival documents, and that he will sign the decree today. And it was signed. Here: http://kremlin.ru/

And he quietly added: "This, as far as I know, according to the information from archive agencies, concerns the period from 1930 to 1989. In these documents there are cases, excuse me, of snitches as well as the innocently repressed, with very interesting names, some documents will surprise society..."

[WalkingMan]

(04-03-2016 05:01 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(04-03-2016 05:00 PM)Jvramerys Wrote:  

Did Hillary name appeared on it?

Bernie does. Just kidding that would be hilarious. Actually I have no idea. Nothing would surprise me.

Apparently he predicted this happening 5 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0mAwRAFC2U

[Nineteen84]

(04-06-2016 12:42 PM)UroboricForms Wrote:  

Putin returns fire

Putin to Declassify Documents That Bear Some "Very Interesting Names"

http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/04/putin-t...rt+Russ%29

Quote:

The Russian President said that he has decided to declassify many archival documents, and that he will sign the decree today. And it was signed. Here: http://kremlin.ru/

And he quietly added: "This, as far as I know, according to the information from archive agencies, concerns the period from 1930 to 1989. In these documents there are cases, excuse me, of snitches as well as the innocently repressed, with very interesting names, some documents will surprise society..."

What a legend

[Nineteen84]

   

[Parzival]

In a german newspaper they did talk if its a western conspiracy because there are no big names from the US or Europe. Its an agenda to keep stuff in line. They said, there are US names on the list but nobody famous. Also that the US is kind of a tax paradise itself. So US citizens just move their money from one state to an other one.
There are some Germans and big Companies like Siemens named, not they investigate but so far nobody has done anything illegal.

[Deepdiver]

Interesting payback by Soros NGOs/Open Society/Borders groups and Tsarina Hillary as well:

Keep in mind the Federal Election Commission reports donations from George Soros to Hillary Clinton of over $13 Million in the past year alone and $200,000 to John Cuckmaster Kasich in the past couple of months.

State Department 'troubled' by Moscow's move against Soros groups
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/...roups.html

The U.S. State Department says it is “troubled” by Russia’s decision to ban two of liberal billionaire George Soros' pro-democracy charities and label the organizations a threat to national security.

“Today’s designation of the Open Society Foundations and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation as so-called ‘undesirable’ organizations will only further restrict the work of civil society in Russia for the benefit of the Russian people,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday. “This action is yet another example of the Russian Government’s growing crackdown on independent voices and a deliberate step to further isolate the Russian people from the world.”

A spokesperson from Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office said the activities of the fund are threats to state security and the Russian constitution, Radio Free Europe reports.

The Open Society Foundations said in a statement on its website that it was “dismayed” by the decision.

“Contrary to the Russian prosecutor’s allegations, the Open Society Foundations have, for more than a quarter-century, helped to strengthen the rule of law in Russia and protect the rights of all,” the statement read.

Prosecutors started investigating the charity fund in July after Russian senators flagged a list of 12 groups that required a closer look over their supposed anti-Russian activities, RT reports.

Other groups on the list include the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the MacArthur Foundation and Freedom House.

Once a group in Russia is recognized as “undesirable,” its assets in the country must be frozen, its offices closed and the distribution of any of its materials is outlawed, RT reports.

Violators of the ban could face heavy fines and jail time.

[CH-Toronto]

http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-fifa-e...ion-2016-4

The FIFA Ethics Judge has resigned because his name was in the papers. He helped bring down Sepp Blatt. What a hypocrite.

[Going strong]

(04-07-2016 07:34 AM)CH-Toronto Wrote:  

http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-fifa-e...ion-2016-4

The FIFA Ethics Judge has resigned because his name was in the papers. He helped bring down Sepp Blatt. What a hypocrite.

Talking about hypocrites:

according to these panama-papers, D Strauss Kahn, when heading the FMI and "fighting with all (his) might against fiscal paradises", was at the same time... opening an off-shore society in Panama

[Phoenix]

(04-07-2016 07:34 AM)CH-Toronto Wrote:  

http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-fifa-e...ion-2016-4

The FIFA Ethics Judge has resigned because his name was in the papers. He helped bring down Sepp Blatt. What a hypocrite.

Why do you think the dictatorship known as North Korea calls itself the "democratic people's republic of Korea"? Lie loud enough and people will second-guess themselves in spite of knowing full-well it's a lie.

If you want to indulge in more corruption, set up an 'anti-corruption task-force'. "We're not corrupt" is in your very name! If you want an army but you're not allowed, just make one anyway and slap a big sticker on it called "Self-defense forces DEFINITELY NOT AN ARMY desu". Or call the military budget the 'defence budget' even when you bomb Libya on your own initiative. If you want a carbon tax, say "There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

[CH-Toronto]

I'm sure we all thought it was suspicious no Americans were in the Panama Papers - and there's a good reason.

The founder didn't like taking US clients.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/20...taking-us/

[polar]

An interesting contrarian theory from a centrist DuPont Circle think thank in DC.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-fro...utin-gaddy

Author:

Clifford G. Gaddy
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe
Clifford Gaddy, an economist specializing in Russia, is the co-author of “Bear Traps on Russia’s Road to Modernization” (Routledge, 2013). His earlier books include “Russia’s Virtual Economy” (Brookings Institution Press, 2002) and “The Siberian Curse” (Brookings Institution Press, 2003). His current book project is entitled “Russia's Addiction: The Political Economy of Resource Dependence,” and is set to be published in 2015. Gaddy is also the co-author of the recently released second edition of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015).

Quote:

The “Panama Papers”—does this strike anyone else as a very fishy story? It’s like something out of a cheap spy movie.

In early 2015, “John Doe” sends (out of the blue) an email to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), offering 11.5 million documents from a Panamanian law firm relating to offshore shell companies. SZ accepts. Under the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), some 400 journalists from 80 countries spend a year sifting through the documents. Then, in a coordinated launch, they present their first findings: With nearly identical language in all media (down to the local TV station in Washington that I happened to watch this week), they talk about the grand new revelations of corruption, money laundering, and financial secrecy by over 140 world leaders.

Most reports, no matter where, feature Russian President Vladimir Putin as the headliner. But that might obscure a much bigger and more twisted story.

The dog that didn’t bark

Despite the headlines, there is no evidence of Putin’s direct involvement—not in any company involved in the leak, much less in criminal activity, theft, tax evasion, or money laundering. There are documents showing that some of his “friends” have moved “up to two billion dollars” through these Panama-based shell companies.
But nothing in the Panama Papers reveals anything new about Putin. It is in fact far less of a story than has been alleged for a long time. For over 10 years, there have been suspicions that Putin has a vast personal fortune, claimed at first to be $20 billion, then $40, $70, even $100… And now all they find is “maybe” a couple of billion belonging to a friend?

This is the dog that didn't bark.

Some (geo)political context is important here. In recent years, the media has become a key battleground in which Russia and the West have attempted to discredit each other. Early last year, circles in the West sought to use the media to respond to what they described as Russia’s “hybrid warfare,” especially information war, in the wake of the Russian annexation of Crimea and related activities. They identified corruption as an issue where Putin was quite vulnerable. It’s worth looking at the Panama Papers in that context: Journalists are targeting Putin far out of proportion to the evidence they present.

As soon as one delves below the headlines, it’s a non-story. A “friend of Putin” is linked to companies that channel a couple of billion dollars through the offshore companies. Why? To evade Russian taxes? Really? To conceal ownership? From whom? You don’t need an offshore registration to do that. To evade sanctions? That’s a credible reason, but it makes sense only if the companies were registered after mid-2014. Were they?

This information will not harm Putin at all—instead, it gives Putin cover, so he can shrug and say: “Look, everybody does it.” A more serious possibility is that the leaked data will lead to scandals throughout the West, where corruption does matter—a point I’ll discuss. On net, the Russians win.

The cui bono principle connects profits with motives, asking who stands to gain from a certain action. If it’s the Russians who win, isn’t it possible that they are somehow behind at least part of this story?

Who is “John Doe”?

The ICIJ is the self-described elite of investigative journalists—but what have they discovered about the source of all these documents? The only information we have about John Doe is from SZ, which begins its story: "Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca." When the staff at SZ asked John Doe about his motive, he reportedly replied in an email: “I want to make these crimes public.”

But how can the journalists—and the public—be sure he’s trustworthy, and that the documents are real, complete, and unmanipulated? It’s not clear that John Doe is a single individual, for one, nor why he would have been confident that he could reveal the documents without revealing himself. He’d also have access to a pretty impressive documents cache, which suggests that an intelligence agency could have been involved.

Moreover, the revelation brings collateral damage upon legal business and innocent individuals—was that not a worry? In my view, no responsible person with a real concern for rule of law would advocate this sort of sweeping document release. There might be many unintended consequences; it could topple regimes, with unforeseen consequences. It’s pure and naïve anarchism, if the thinking was (as it seems from the outside) to create maximum chaos and hope it will all purge the system of its evils. In any event, the potential for using such a leak for political purposes is immense.

If “we” (in the United States or the West) released these documents, the motive would apparently be to embarrass Putin. This is part of the fantasy that we can defeat Putin in an information war. If that was the motive, the result is pathetic: No real damage is being done to Putin, but there is collateral damage to U.S. allies.

If the Russians did it, a good motive might be to deflect the West’s campaign against Putin’s corruption. But as I’ve explained, any actual reputational damage to Putin or Russia caused by the Panama Papers is in fact pretty trivial. For that cheap price, the Russians would have 1) exposed corrupt politicians everywhere, including in “model” Western democracies, and 2) fomented genuine destabilization in some Western countries. What I wonder, then: Is it a set-up? The Russians threw out the bait, and the United States gobbled it down. The Panama Paper stories run off Putin like water off a duck’s back. But they have a negative impact on Western stability.

So let’s say that the “who” is the Russians, and the “why” is to deflect attention and show that “everybody does it.” But how? Given Russia's vaunted hacking capabilities, a special cyber unit in the Kremlin may have been able to obtain the documents. (Monssack Fonseca is maintaining that the leak was not an inside job.) But it is most likely that such an operation would be run out of an agency called the Russian Financial Monitoring Service (RFM). RFM is Putin’s personal financial intelligence unit—he created it and it answers only to him. It is completely legitimate and is widely recognized as the most powerful such agency in the world, with a monopoly on information about money laundering, offshore centers, and related issues involving Russia or Russian nationals. An operation like the Panama Papers, which is only about financial intelligence, would have to be run out of RFM. Not the FSB, not some ad hoc gang in the Kremlin. While it might not (legally) have access to secrets kept by a firm like Mossack Fonseca, it’s privy to lots of international financial information through the international body of which it is a leading member, the Financial Action Task Force. In short, Russians are better equipped than anyone—more capable and less constrained—to hack into secret files.

As for how to leak the documents, it would actually be pretty ingenious to “incriminate” Russia in a seemingly serious (and headline-grabbing) way without actually revealing incriminating information. That’s exactly what we have. The Panama Papers revealed no Russian secrets. They added nothing to the rumors already circulating about Putin’s alleged private fortune. And the story-that-isn’t-a-story was advanced by none other than the ICIJ. So, done right, the last thing anyone would suspect is that the Panama Papers are a Russian operation.

A more serious Russian motive?

Granted, this would be a complicated operation just to defuse the West’s campaign to point to “Putin the kleptocrat.” But maybe there’s another motive.

As many have already pointed out, it’s curious that the Panama Papers mention no Americans. But it’s possible that they do and that the ICIJ hasn’t revealed that information. Perhaps, since the ICIJ is funded by Americans, they’re not going to bite the hand that feeds them. But suppose the ICIJ actually doesn’t have information on Americans—that calls into question the original data, which if actually real and uncensored would most probably include something on Americans. There are undoubtedly many American individuals and companies that have done business with the Mossack Fonseco crew, and it wouldn’t make sense for a collection of 11.5 million documents involving offshore finances to omit Americans entirely. Perhaps, then, someone purged those references before the documents were handed over to the German newspaper. The “someone” would, following my hypothesis, be the Russians—and the absence of incriminating information about Americans is an important hint of what I think to be the real purpose of this leak.

The Panama Papers contain secret corporate financial information, some of which—by far not all—reveals criminal activity. In the hands of law enforcement, such information can be used to prosecute companies and individuals; in the hands of a third party, it is a weapon for blackmail. For information to be effective as a blackmail weapon, it must be kept secret. Once revealed, as in the Panama Papers case, it is useless for blackmail. Its value is destroyed.

Therefore, I suggest that the purpose of the Panama Papers operation may be this: It is a message directed at the Americans and other Western political leaders who could be mentioned but are not. The message is: “We have information on your financial misdeeds, too. You know we do. We can keep them secret if you work with us.” In other words, the individuals mentioned in the documents are not the targets. The ones who are not mentioned are the targets.

Kontrol, the special Russian variety of control

In sum, my thinking is that this could have been a Russian intelligence operation, which orchestrated a high-profile leak and established total credibility by “implicating” (not really implicating) Russia and keeping the source hidden. Some documents would be used for anti-corruption campaigns in a few countries—topple some minor regimes, destroy a few careers and fortunes. By then blackmailing the real targets in the United States and elsewhere (individuals not in the current leak), the Russian puppet masters get “kontrol” and influence.

If the Russians are behind the Panama Papers, we know two things and both come back to Putin personally: First, it is an operation run by RFM, which means it’s run by Putin; second, it’s ultimately about blackmail. That means the real story lies in the information being concealed, not revealed. You reveal secrets in order to destroy; conceal in order to control. Putin is not a destroyer. He’s a controller.

[TravelerKai]

(04-07-2016 07:34 AM)CH-Toronto Wrote:  

http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-fifa-e...ion-2016-4

The FIFA Ethics Judge has resigned because his name was in the papers. He helped bring down Sepp Blatt. What a hypocrite.

Why does this surprise you? FIFA itself is corrupt and has ethics issues in many areas. Not just Sepp. He just may have been the worse one in the whole group.