A cache of 2.5 million secret files offers the chance to peek behind the curtain of the world’s offshore money market, detailing the involvement of more than 120,000 companies and trusts doing business with politicians, con men and scores of the mega-rich.
The records, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives, international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran’s nuclear-development program,” the Center for Public Integrity reports.
The covert handling of huge amounts of money away from public accountability has fueled the global austerity crisis by shifting tax burdens onto average citizens to make up for revenues that vanish at home.
“The leaked files provide facts and figures—cash transfers, incorporation dates, links between companies and individuals—that illustrate how offshore financial secrecy has spread aggressively around the globe, allowing the wealthy and the well-connected to dodge taxes and fueling corruption and economic woes in rich and poor nations alike,” the center repots. “The records detail the offshore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories.”
The disclosure represents the biggest pile of insider information about the offshore system yet obtained by the media. Measured in gigabytes, the stash is more than 160 times larger than the leak of U.S. State Department cables by WikiLeaks in 2010.
A study by James S. Henry, a former chief economist of the international trust McKinsey & Company, estimates that the ultra-rich have $21 trillion to $32 trillion in private financial wealth hidden in offshore havens. That amount is roughly the size of the U.S. and Japanese economies combined.
The cache should prove an invaluable resource for reporters pursuing money trails connected to financial crimes. Let’s hope there are enough interested journalists, editors and publishers available to make use of it.
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1. Early rise.Successful people tend to early birds. This period of peace until the revival of the world - the most important, inspiring and peacefulness of the day. Those who have opened up the habit for yourself, claim that they have lived not a full life before, have not yet started to wake up at 5 am every day.
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3. Simplification.To be able to simplify - hence eliminate unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. It is important to simplify everything that can and should be simplified. This also eliminates the useless. A weed is not so easy - it requires a lot of practice and a reasonable view. But this process clears the memory and feelings from what is not, and also reduces worries and stress.
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7. Environment.This is the most important habit. It will accelerate your success as anything else. Setting enthusiastic people with ideas, enthusiasm and positive - the best support. Here you will find helpful tips, and the necessary impetus, and ongoing support. What, besides the frustration and depression, will chat with people stuck at work, they hate? We can say that the level of what can be achieved in your life is directly proportional to the level of achievement of your surroundings.
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