Juggling Dynamite

Yesterday, more than a hundred media outlets around the world, coordinated by the Washington, DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, released stories on the Panama Papers, a collection of leaked documents exposing a widespread system of global tax evasion used by a host of politicians, celebrities and other elites. Hopefully this will provoke further public unrest and demand for change…

The leak includes more than 4.8 million emails, 3 million database files, and 2.1 million PDFs from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that, according to analysis of the leaked documents, appears to specialize in creating shell companies that its clients have used to hide their assets….about 2,000 times larger than the WikiLeaks state department cables,” it’s indeed the biggest leak in history.  See: How reporters pulled off the Panama Papers, the biggest leak in whistle blower history.

…Based on a trove of more than 11 million leaked files, the investigation exposes a cast of characters who use offshore companies to facilitate bribery, arms deals, tax evasion, financial fraud and drug trafficking.  Behind the email chains, invoices and documents that make up the Panama Papers are often unseen victims of wrongdoing enabled by this shadowy industry. This is their story. Here is a direct video link.

Saudi Arabia is America’s second largest source of foreign oil behind Canada. Less understood perhaps, is that Canada itself spends some $26 billion a year importing oil from other countries and some $8 billion of that comes from middle east exporters including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, Angola. Money that could be kept at home to fund life-sustaining and enriching programs instead.  More excellent reasons to end our self-destructive reliance on oil.

With undercover footage and on-the-ground reporting, FRONTLINE reveals a side of Saudi Arabia that’s rarely seen, and traces the efforts of men and women who are working to bring about change.  Here is a direct video link.

Here’s a novel business idea for driving strong growth in an aging, heavily indebted world:  build a product that lowers the financial burden of transportation and climate change.  Since March 31, Tesla Motors says reservations from Model 3 surpass 276,000:

The Model 3 is a sedan capable of seating five and going 215 miles on a charge and 0-60 mph in less than 6 seconds, starting at a price of $35,000.

To give a sense on the scale of the backlog, BMW sold about 95,000 3-series sedans in 2015 in the U.S. The Model 3 is roughly the same size and price and would likely outsell the U.S.’s best-selling compact luxury car in its first year of production if Tesla can make enough cars….

The 276,000 reservations equates to an $11.6 billion backlog of orders, based on Mr. Musk’s assessment that the average Model 3 would cost about $42,000 with options. Last year, Tesla’s global revenues were about $4 billion.

Just think how much further we could all be today if pig-headed, short-sighted, dumb GM had not ripped its much loved EV1’s out of leasee hands to destroy them all in 2003. They might have even prospered and not needed another taxpayer bailout in 2008.  Imagine.