Juggling Dynamite

The plot thickens.  Interesting…

Birkenfeld, an American citizen, was a banker working at UBS in Switzerland when he approached the U.S. government with information on massive amounts of tax evasion by Americans with secret accounts in Switzerland. By the end of his whistleblowing career, Birkenfeld had served more than two years in a U.S. federal prison, been awarded $104 million by the IRS for his information and shattered the foundations of more than a century of Swiss banking secrecy.

Now he suspects the CIA is behind the Panama Papers leak and explains why.

Here is a direct video link.

Over the past 20 years, as ‘financialization’ swept the world and credit securitization and derivatives became all the rage, originators and sellers extracted trillions by swapping out cash and leaving ‘iou’s’ (debt) in the drawers of most institutions, companies, governments and programs. For a long time the masses did not appreciate the difference between debt and net equity or income, so most were not paying attention as financial strength was steadily transferred from the 99.9 to .1% of the world’s population.

Tax havens and luxury products thrived during this era, as wealthy corporations and individuals fueled a booming industry fixated on absorbing and hiding their mounting spoils. But now that incomes have stagnated, revenues are plunging and budget deficits are gaping for as far as the eye can see, the emaciated masses are increasingly being asked to pay more. The ultra rich have had a hell of a run here, but in a closed system like planet earth nothing can go all in one group’s favor forever. This is especially true since the concentrated wealth of the few, was largely made possible by the widespread extraction of savings and investment from the economy and society of everyone else. Now it’s pay back time and the pitch forks are coming for tax havens, evaders and avoiders all around the world.

In light of the Panama Papers leak, Jeppe Kofod, MEP and head of delegation for Danish Social Democrats, says we have to have more efficient regulation and transparency towards taxes. Here is a direct video link.

A new approach, developed by a company called Oscilla Power, applies all that kinetic energy to a solid piece of metal instead of using it to turn the blades of an impeller. That creates an alternating magnetic polarity in the metal that can be converted into electrical current.

Oscilla’s technology, which is nearly solid-state, may prove far more durable than any other ocean-power project, increasing the chance to draw power from our oceans cleanly, meaningfully, and endlessly. Here is a direct video link.