Juggling Dynamite

How the super-wealthy hide billions in tax havens and shell companies pic.twitter.com/83dvJdpy2u

— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) October 5, 2021

For years, we have known that predatory, profit-at-all-cost, ethics-lacking business models are destructive, and certainly, since Jonathan Taplan’s important 2018 book Move Fast and Break Things.  The latest 60 Minutes expose illuminates further. See:  Whistleblower:  Facebook is misleading the public:

Her name is Frances Haugen. That is a fact that Facebook has been anxious to know since last month when an anonymous former employee filed complaints with federal law enforcement. The complaints say Facebook’s own research shows that it amplifies hate, misinformation and political unrest—but the company hides what it knows. One complaint alleges that Facebook’s Instagram harms teenage girls. What makes Haugen’s complaints unprecedented is the trove of private Facebook research she took when she quit in May. The documents appeared first, last month, in the Wall Street Journal. But tonight, Frances Haugen is revealing her identity to explain why she became the Facebook whistleblower.

Here is a direct video link.

There is a common theme here:  whether it’s executives, politicians and policymakers enriching themselves on non-public information or wealthy people and their advisors benefiting from government programs and subsidies while hiding their assets and income from taxes owed.  A lack of integrity, ethics, and personal accountability erode our social and economic fabric from the top down.  History warns that this costs all of us in the end.

The 2016 Panama Papers leak to world media revealed the widespread use of offshore accounts to avoid tax collection from many of the world’s wealthiest and most privileged people.  Of course, most have been greatly aided in accumulating said wealth from taxpayer-funded positions, programs, infrastructure and direct subsidies.

Nothing has happened to address this issue in the five years since the first reporting.  Now we have a second leak, see Huge ‘Pandora Papers’ leak exposes secret offshore accounts of politicians, celebrities and billionaires:

A massive new leak of documents dubbed ‘The Pandora Papers’ is shedding light on how the rich and famous are hiding their money, and how a world of off-shore tax havens is still thriving. The documents were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which includes the CBC. Among the Canadians named in the documents are figure skater Elvis Stojko and race-car driver Jacques Villeneuve. 
Here is a direct video link.