Something interesting has emerged about the Panamanian Papers (as they’re being called). There are no Americans in them. The conspiracy theories are flying!
Why do you think that the Panamanian Papers don’t contain any Americans?
- Americans are models of probity and honesty.
- Americans don’t go through Panama for their shady deals.
- The law firm that was hacked to obtain the papers doesn’t like Americans.
- Americans don’t like that law firm.
- The document dump was produced by the Americans (that’s the Russians’ theory).
- There is a special providence that looks over fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.
f: Americans don’t need Panama–they can do it at home.
g: this guy’s theory :
What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalistsâ€, which is funded and organised entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include
Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W K Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)
among many others. Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished.
I think that Craig Murray’s theory is a possibility. However, it doesn’t explain why the British, French, German, and Indian journalists are protecting Americans. And I don’t think there’s anything the ICIJ would like better than some Americans on the nogoodnik list.
Shining city upon a hill.
There’s a rumor going around that there’s about to be another drop that’s all Americans.
I did a search of US names on their searchable site. Interestingly the names that came up were heavily weighted toward Russian-sounding surnames and Chinese-sounding names.
I think these are sort of well-worn paths. If you’re a Russian mobster of course you’ll go to the law firm that manages Putin’s stolen billions. You go to the firm you’ve heard of through the grapevine. I would imagine that American citizens have other venues, other law firms, that they prefer to do business with. Or they hide it via US law firms acting as an additional layer of distance. (I saw my old firm, Wilmer, Cutler on the list.)
When Eliot Spitzer was busted for hiring fancy escorts, someone told me that there were more discreet routes than the one he selected to go about spending 5K for an hour of sex. I suspect this goes for money laundering too.
Well, now this adds to the conspiracy-mongering. I was on a site last night that had a pretty good search engine for the papers database. And now. . . I can’t find it, and everyone’s saying there is no searchable database. Interesting.
Cool study, PD. Thanks for the link.
For the record:
Extremely conservative whites: IQ 102.3
Extremely liberal whites: 109.0 (the highest number)
All conservative whites: 103.2
All liberal whites: 106.5
7 points (the ‘extremes’) ain’t much, but it ain’t nothing, either.
Half a standard deviation.
b. That or there is more to come.
Steve
While g is possible, I’m waiting for the Sunday papers when there is space for longer in depth articles and more web visits because folks have the day off.
I’ll go with a combination of b,c,d & Modulo’s f.