M.C. Miller's Blog, page 15
September 8, 2016
Currencies come and go - but hidden assets live on foreve...
Currencies come and go - but hidden assets live on forever.
Whatever happens to the gigantic bombshell exposé from yesterday?
Have the culprits "run out of time and places to hide" as the following article suggests?
I'll bet you 1000 Sucres that all the wrongdoing exposed in 2013 has been sorted out.
Nation states only exist for people. For the global elite, that notion has long since been dispensed with.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but somehow I'm not afraid of losing "Un Mil Sucres" in that bet.
Check Out Who’s Hiding $32 Trillion in Offshore Accounts
Greg Madison, Associate Editor - May 1, 2013
More than two million emails that shed light on the biggest tax dodge in history - trillions of dollars hidden in offshore accounts - have been uncovered by the British newspaper The Guardian and the Washington, D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Some $32 trillion has been hidden in small island banking hubs which host a bevy of trust funds, shell corporations and other tax havens, the Tax Justice Network estimates.
This money is to the financial world what the Higgs boson and dark matter are to particle physics: It’s tough to prove it’s there, but the universe doesn’t make much sense without it. It’s just a matter of connecting the money to the people hiding it.
That’s been a tall order… until now.
An Unprecedented Tax Dodge
Next to this bombshell, Wikileaks looks like a first-grader’s game of Telephone.
In fact, the leak contains more than 200 gigabytes of data, compared with Wikileaks’ two gigabytes.
The information is still being sifted through, even as it’s being released to the public, but here’s some of what’s been found so far:
American Denise Rich, ex-wife of pardoned tax cheat Marc Rich, has been uncovered as the settlor and beneficiary of two large trusts based in the tiny Cook Islands. The ICIJ found that Denise Rich gave up her American citizenship in 2012. Her citizenship was convenient enough when President Clinton had the authority to pardon her ex-husband.
French President Francois Hollande, ardent socialist and tireless champion of the 75% marginal tax rate, appears in these documents, mostly by association. His campaign co-treasurer, Jean-Jacques Augier, has been forced to reveal the name of his Chinese business partner in a Caymans-based distribution company. Augier says he used his offshore company to make a large investment in China.
Australian actor Paul Hogan, of “Crocodile Dundee” fame, has lost about $35.3 million from an account that he used to offshore his “bonza” film royalties. His once-trusted tax adviser Philip Egglishaw ran off with Hogan’s sizeable hidden offshore stash.
French banking scion Elie de Rothschild, of the famous banking family, has been named in the leaks. He was instrumental in setting up some 20 trusts and 10 holding companies in the Cook Islands, all extremely opaque in nature. His heirs have, not surprisingly, refused comment.
Brigitte Bardot’s third ex-husband, Gunter Sachs, a millionaire industrialist, has been revealed as the owner of a huge, obscure wealth-masking machine: trust upon shell company upon holding company, almost ad infinitum, mostly based in the Cook Islands. The ICIJ has constructed an interactive map of Sachs’ extensive offshore holdings and business networks. The network is fairly representative of the steps that many on this list have taken to hide their wealth away. You can marvel at its imponderable complexity here.
And these names are barely the tip of the iceberg. The shockwaves have already begun to spread through the corridors of wealth and power all over the world.
How Much is $32 Trillion?
It bears repeating: $32 trillion has been stashed away, off the books, by corporations and wealthy individuals.
Let that sink in for a moment. The implications are stupefying. The real effects of this are far more subtle, and pernicious, but this makes for a fun thought exercise - even setting aside the fact that only some percentage of this huge sum would be fair game for the tax man.
In the extremely unlikely event that all $32 trillion was added to government coffers, that would be enough to give every man, woman and child alive on Earth today a roughly $4,600 “stimulus” check.
Maybe we could all enjoy a two-week vacation in the British Virgin Islands. After all, it seems to be the destination of choice for monied types…
A Bright, Sunny Hub for Dark Business
The British Virgin Islands appear to be at the epicenter of this huge offshore stash.
The small Caribbean islands specialize in tourism and financial services. Along with far-flung places like Liechtenstein, Sark in the English Channel, the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, the Caymans and others, the British Virgin Islands are home to thousands of shadowy front companies, trusts and funds that host the bulk of this $32 trillion stash.
As of 2000, the last year verifiable data was available, roughly 400,000 companies were listed in the BVI offshore registry. The number certainly has increased. Some of these countries remain underdeveloped, their citizens impoverished, even though they have high per-capita GDPs, and trillions flow to and from their shores.
Tax havens like these tend to have in common secretive banking laws and loose residency requirements, which make them appealing to those with money to hide. In once extreme case, The Guardianlocated an erstwhile British subject, Sarah Petre-Mears, who was the “nominal director” of nearly 1,200 companies across the world.
Less a captain of industry and more a shill for dodgy investors, Petre-Mears ran companies fronting everything from porn sites to time-share vacation properties. She used dozens of different addresses across the globe, with most turning out to be post office boxes and mail drops.
The consequences of this enormous tax dodge are hard to calculate. How does one reckon who’s entitled to what? Which country’s tax rate do you use - Canada? Azerbaijan? Slovenia?
There’s almost certainly an impact to national budgets, from highway construction to military spending to social programs.
It’s safe to say that whenever anyone anywhere feels the sting of budget cutbacks, whether a brigadier-general in South Africa or a primary school teacher in England, they’ll have a world-class selection of tax cheats in part to blame.
Journalists are still sifting through the data contained in this massive leak, but as they go along, there’re no telling who will appear in the data - and those people are running out of time and places to hide.
Whatever happens to the gigantic bombshell exposé from yesterday?
Have the culprits "run out of time and places to hide" as the following article suggests?
I'll bet you 1000 Sucres that all the wrongdoing exposed in 2013 has been sorted out.
Nation states only exist for people. For the global elite, that notion has long since been dispensed with.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but somehow I'm not afraid of losing "Un Mil Sucres" in that bet.
Check Out Who’s Hiding $32 Trillion in Offshore Accounts
Greg Madison, Associate Editor - May 1, 2013
More than two million emails that shed light on the biggest tax dodge in history - trillions of dollars hidden in offshore accounts - have been uncovered by the British newspaper The Guardian and the Washington, D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Some $32 trillion has been hidden in small island banking hubs which host a bevy of trust funds, shell corporations and other tax havens, the Tax Justice Network estimates.
This money is to the financial world what the Higgs boson and dark matter are to particle physics: It’s tough to prove it’s there, but the universe doesn’t make much sense without it. It’s just a matter of connecting the money to the people hiding it.
That’s been a tall order… until now.
An Unprecedented Tax Dodge
Next to this bombshell, Wikileaks looks like a first-grader’s game of Telephone.
In fact, the leak contains more than 200 gigabytes of data, compared with Wikileaks’ two gigabytes.
The information is still being sifted through, even as it’s being released to the public, but here’s some of what’s been found so far:
American Denise Rich, ex-wife of pardoned tax cheat Marc Rich, has been uncovered as the settlor and beneficiary of two large trusts based in the tiny Cook Islands. The ICIJ found that Denise Rich gave up her American citizenship in 2012. Her citizenship was convenient enough when President Clinton had the authority to pardon her ex-husband.
French President Francois Hollande, ardent socialist and tireless champion of the 75% marginal tax rate, appears in these documents, mostly by association. His campaign co-treasurer, Jean-Jacques Augier, has been forced to reveal the name of his Chinese business partner in a Caymans-based distribution company. Augier says he used his offshore company to make a large investment in China.
Australian actor Paul Hogan, of “Crocodile Dundee” fame, has lost about $35.3 million from an account that he used to offshore his “bonza” film royalties. His once-trusted tax adviser Philip Egglishaw ran off with Hogan’s sizeable hidden offshore stash.
French banking scion Elie de Rothschild, of the famous banking family, has been named in the leaks. He was instrumental in setting up some 20 trusts and 10 holding companies in the Cook Islands, all extremely opaque in nature. His heirs have, not surprisingly, refused comment.
Brigitte Bardot’s third ex-husband, Gunter Sachs, a millionaire industrialist, has been revealed as the owner of a huge, obscure wealth-masking machine: trust upon shell company upon holding company, almost ad infinitum, mostly based in the Cook Islands. The ICIJ has constructed an interactive map of Sachs’ extensive offshore holdings and business networks. The network is fairly representative of the steps that many on this list have taken to hide their wealth away. You can marvel at its imponderable complexity here.
And these names are barely the tip of the iceberg. The shockwaves have already begun to spread through the corridors of wealth and power all over the world.
How Much is $32 Trillion?
It bears repeating: $32 trillion has been stashed away, off the books, by corporations and wealthy individuals.
Let that sink in for a moment. The implications are stupefying. The real effects of this are far more subtle, and pernicious, but this makes for a fun thought exercise - even setting aside the fact that only some percentage of this huge sum would be fair game for the tax man.
In the extremely unlikely event that all $32 trillion was added to government coffers, that would be enough to give every man, woman and child alive on Earth today a roughly $4,600 “stimulus” check.
Maybe we could all enjoy a two-week vacation in the British Virgin Islands. After all, it seems to be the destination of choice for monied types…
A Bright, Sunny Hub for Dark Business
The British Virgin Islands appear to be at the epicenter of this huge offshore stash.
The small Caribbean islands specialize in tourism and financial services. Along with far-flung places like Liechtenstein, Sark in the English Channel, the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, the Caymans and others, the British Virgin Islands are home to thousands of shadowy front companies, trusts and funds that host the bulk of this $32 trillion stash.
As of 2000, the last year verifiable data was available, roughly 400,000 companies were listed in the BVI offshore registry. The number certainly has increased. Some of these countries remain underdeveloped, their citizens impoverished, even though they have high per-capita GDPs, and trillions flow to and from their shores.
Tax havens like these tend to have in common secretive banking laws and loose residency requirements, which make them appealing to those with money to hide. In once extreme case, The Guardianlocated an erstwhile British subject, Sarah Petre-Mears, who was the “nominal director” of nearly 1,200 companies across the world.
Less a captain of industry and more a shill for dodgy investors, Petre-Mears ran companies fronting everything from porn sites to time-share vacation properties. She used dozens of different addresses across the globe, with most turning out to be post office boxes and mail drops.
The consequences of this enormous tax dodge are hard to calculate. How does one reckon who’s entitled to what? Which country’s tax rate do you use - Canada? Azerbaijan? Slovenia?
There’s almost certainly an impact to national budgets, from highway construction to military spending to social programs.
It’s safe to say that whenever anyone anywhere feels the sting of budget cutbacks, whether a brigadier-general in South Africa or a primary school teacher in England, they’ll have a world-class selection of tax cheats in part to blame.
Journalists are still sifting through the data contained in this massive leak, but as they go along, there’re no telling who will appear in the data - and those people are running out of time and places to hide.
Keep Jammin'!Along Huayna-Capac, the beat goes on.
Keep Jammin'!
Along Huayna-Capac, the beat goes on.
Along Huayna-Capac, the beat goes on.Listen to Bill Clinton's prescient message to the world: ...
Listen to Bill Clinton's prescient message to the world:
From 2008 Clinton Campaign Ad.
"Saying I'd like to Make America Great again is like my saying I'd like to be 20 again. Actually, I would but I wouldn't vote for anyone promising to make me 20 again. What it means is I'll give you the economy you had 50 years ago and I'll move you back up the social pole and other people down...This country is being hurt with all this constant na, na, na, na, na!"--Bill Clinton, Orlando Rally 9/7/2016
From 2008 Clinton Campaign Ad.
"Saying I'd like to Make America Great again is like my saying I'd like to be 20 again. Actually, I would but I wouldn't vote for anyone promising to make me 20 again. What it means is I'll give you the economy you had 50 years ago and I'll move you back up the social pole and other people down...This country is being hurt with all this constant na, na, na, na, na!"--Bill Clinton, Orlando Rally 9/7/2016
Muchas Gracias Cuenca Bus Drivers! If you want to get hom...
Muchas Gracias Cuenca Bus Drivers!
If you want to get home fast, Cuenca's courageous bus drivers will whisk you to your destination through frenzied roundabouts, Tranvia detours, and a jumble of honking cars, lumbering trucks, zipping motorcycles, fool hearty pedestrians and j-walking dogs.
All you have to do is hang on.
As added bonus, this thrill ride can be conveniently procured
with a prepaid card - no cash needed.
El futuro ahora!
If you want to get home fast, Cuenca's courageous bus drivers will whisk you to your destination through frenzied roundabouts, Tranvia detours, and a jumble of honking cars, lumbering trucks, zipping motorcycles, fool hearty pedestrians and j-walking dogs.
All you have to do is hang on.
As added bonus, this thrill ride can be conveniently procured
with a prepaid card - no cash needed.
El futuro ahora!
September 7, 2016
Good Fast Food - Traditional StyleNo Drive-Thru NeededOne...
Good Fast Food - Traditional Style
No Drive-Thru Needed
One thing I learned growing up and living in Los Angeles, California is never ever judge an eating place just by the appearance of it.
Guaranteed, some of the best traditional and ethnic food one can find on the planet is being served up in places that many people wouldn't even consider patronizing.
Those people would rather go to the shiny, plasticized wonderlands of Formica-topped tables where a rapid-turnover of the silly-uniformed underpaid follow global corporate procedures to assemble extra-sized combo meals and present them on pastel trays.
From my experience, given the choice between Comedor Zolita and one of those mega-multinational mausoleums, I'm sticking with Zolita.
No Drive-Thru NeededOne thing I learned growing up and living in Los Angeles, California is never ever judge an eating place just by the appearance of it.
Guaranteed, some of the best traditional and ethnic food one can find on the planet is being served up in places that many people wouldn't even consider patronizing.
Those people would rather go to the shiny, plasticized wonderlands of Formica-topped tables where a rapid-turnover of the silly-uniformed underpaid follow global corporate procedures to assemble extra-sized combo meals and present them on pastel trays.
From my experience, given the choice between Comedor Zolita and one of those mega-multinational mausoleums, I'm sticking with Zolita.
Are you a restroom graffiti fan?Well...here's the graffit...
Are you a restroom graffiti fan?
Well...here's the graffiti in the restroom of the Sucre Sale Cafe.
Makes doing your business much more interesting
than the typical cuss words, crudely drawn private parts, and telephone number of x's
that usually greet one at moments of need.
Even more interesting, since this is a unisex facility.
Well...here's the graffiti in the restroom of the Sucre Sale Cafe.
Makes doing your business much more interesting
than the typical cuss words, crudely drawn private parts, and telephone number of x's
that usually greet one at moments of need.
Even more interesting, since this is a unisex facility.
When is a hallway more than a hallway?...when you invite ...
When is a hallway more than a hallway?
...when you invite some of your "off-the-wall" friends over for a visit.
...when you invite some of your "off-the-wall" friends over for a visit.
September 6, 2016
Gone in 24 Seconds!
Gone in 24 Seconds!
September 5, 2016
Along the river walk I came upon a tree with some bark mi...
Along the river walk I came upon a tree with some bark missing.
In the bare spot, someone had written a message.
And the message was then scratched out.
It looked like the scratching out was done
by the same hand that had written the message.
I've been analyzing the scratchings,
attempting to reconstruct the original message.
There seems to be date, a signature, and two exclamation marks
that are the most discernible. Little else of the message
can be known for sure, but given the number of words
and their placement, the note seems to follow the pattern
of other public scrawls that are professions of love.
It would be interesting to know the story behind all of this.
How someone was moved to mark a public place with passionate words
and then, with equal passion, scribble through them with so much force.
Was the change of heart in the moment
or did the author return sometime much later with a broken heart?
If they did return later, they took the trouble of using the same writing implement.
Most likely, their about face was close to the original action of putting pen to tree,
which is even more mysterious.
It's telling that such a tormented message is in a place of injury to the tree.
It provides a visual metaphor for what the people involved were going through.
Now it's on casual display and most people pass it by without noticing.
But as the tree clearly shows, time has not healed all wounds.
