The Panama Papers Have Shown Us that Nobody Can Be Trusted
By Evan Becker
Lionel Messi, arguably the best soccer player, and a person who made roughly $731,579 dollars per game for his club team in Barcelona is not a man who needs more money. Honestly, if you were to ask most people, they would be content if they made that much money in a year and considering that the median household income for an American family is $81,000 dollars per year, Lionel Messi is not short on cash compared to the rest of the world. The fact that Lionel Messi is that rich shouldn’t be surprising, he is the best player on the best team for the most popular sport in the World. For the entertainment that he brings to fans, I would say that he is adequately paid. But, On April 3rd, 2016, Lionel Messi was named as a conspirator in the Panama Papers, indicting him on hiding his money in an offshore account in an attempt to avoid paying his taxes for what he has earned. The Panama Papers is a huge collection of documents and other information being investigated by the ICIJ, an international team of journalist’s intent on showing the world the truth about all of these elected officials and other incredibly rich people who need to avoid paying taxes. This accusation is damning because not only does it show the amount of greed that Lionel Messi, it shows that he went through the time and the work, away from the game, to shield his money in an offshore company. Is Lionel Messi an evil person for what he has done? Probably not. But, being named in the Panama is not a good sign for him since now his name is connected to Vladimir Putin, Mauricio Macri and the now resigned, Prime minister of Iceland among many other corrupt government officials. Each of these people had their own reasons for setting up an offshore account, but all of these officials need to be held accountable for what they have done. The Panama Papers have given us concrete proof for the first time that worldwide leaders and businessmen are stockpiling wealth while avoiding paying their taxes. These leaders need to be punished correctly for their actions.
According to the Panama Papers, creating one of these off-shore shell companies is in fact very easy. All these people would have to do, is to visit the local office of a “little-known but powerful law firm based in Panama, Mossack Fonsenco.” At there local office, you can create your own company, must likely under the name of a family member, and instead of using that company to do things, you just deposit your wealth into it, and avoid paying your taxes. To go along with not paying taxes, nobody will even know that this company exists, so all money deposited there has no background or trace, meaning it can come from anywhere. It is for that reason that the Panama Papers is so damning because not only are these officials not paying their taxes, but we also have no idea where they got their money from. An ancient Chinese proverb says “If you want no one to know, don’t do it” which in the context of the Panama Papers means that since they didn’t want anyone to know where they got their money from, it most likely comes from somewhere bad.
The number of world leaders named in the Panama Papers is actually shocking, but it is only one piece of the pie. According to the ICIJ, Mossack Fansenco has set up over “214,488 offshore entities connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories.” This number is astronomical, since it is not cheap to set up these companies, so the fact that over 200,000 people thought it would be necessary to set up an illegal off-shore company to hide the evidence of their wealth is abhorrent. By having over 200,000 people on their roster for people who have created these companies, it is evident that this type of activity is extremely commonplace for business men and other rich people around the world.
With over 200,000 clients, that means there are over 200,000 people or companies that needed to hide the evidence of their wealth. The firm has helped everything from “Africa’s diamond trade, the international art market and other businesses that thrive on secrecy.” to “The firm has serviced enough Middle East royalty to fill a palace. It’s helped two kings, Mohammed VI of Morocco and King Salman of Saudi Arabia, take to the sea on luxury yachts.” All of these organizations are shrouded in secrecy, so it would make sense for each of these industries to be involved with these offshore companies. But, having kings and princes involved in this scam indicates that people do use these companies to hide their wealth.
The reaction to the release of the Panama Papers has been extremely varied from country to country. The most encouraging country to take action has been Iceland. In 2013, future Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson ran for Prime Minister on the platform of not being corrupt. But when he was named as an owner of an offshore company in the Panama Papers, Iceland’s citizens were less than pleased and the very next day, an estimated 10,000 citizens of Iceland rallied in Reykjavik, Iceland. The photo above shows the central downtown of Reykjavik. Edward Snowden said on Twitter that “The population of Iceland is only 330,000. Largest protest by percentage of population in history?” Following this protest, Gunnlaugsson initially denied any and all allegations against him, by saying ““I have not considered quitting because of this matter nor am I going to quit because of this matter.” But after 3 straight days of complete protest, The Prime Minister resigned in disgrace, and democracy had worked again. Clearly Iceland had a very strong and coordinated response to the allegations against its leaders, but unfortunately not every country has the kind of free flowing information that Icelandic citizens.
In China, “Family members of at least eight current or former members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s main ruling body, have offshore companies arranged though Mossack Fonseca. They include President Xi’s brother-in-law, who set up two British Virgin Islands companies in 2009.” But, the difference between China and Iceland, is that China is not a true democracy, and in response to the corruption allegations against the leaders of China decided to censor the online discussion of the Panama Papers and “Checks by the BBC found that by the end of the day many of those posts had disappeared, with at least 481 discussions deleted from the hashtag’s Weibo topic page, and other posts shared on Wechat also deleted.” By not allowing free discussion of their people to discuss this critical issue, not only are the leaders of China insinuating their guilt, again if they had done nothing wrong, then there would be nothing to censor. So in an attempt to quell the masses, they have resorted to censoring logical discussion and not allowing the tales of their corruption to reach the ears of their own citizens.
The leaders of Russia have resorted to questioning the reporters’ credibility and the truth behind some of their actions in addition to shamelessly censoring all conversation. During a radio broadcast where Putin was questioned about the Panama Papers, he said that “They are just trying to cause confusion” By questioning the intentions of the journalists, he himself is trying to cause confusion on what to believe. Clearly, the State run news outlets of Russia are not going to question whether Putin is fit to run his country if he is connected to an offshore company. Instead, they will attack the credibility of the journalists who uncovered these documents and in doing so, they will persuade the public masses to just let this type of scandal go unaccounted for. Putin knows exactly what he is doing when he says these types of comments, and it is purely a smear attempt to distill public out cry so he can continue to stay in power.
The Panama Papers though, have yet to name any Americans, which is a large reason that they have not garnered the type of reaction and outcry that has been seen throughout the rest of the world. By not naming any prominent Americans, the ICIJ must not have uncovered their names yet, or they are withholding the information to release it at a later time where the news would have a greater impact. If the ICIJ has not released any American names by election day in November, then there must not be any names on the list worthy of note.
The Panama Papers have opened the window for the people of the world to see exactly how the wealthy retain their wealth without giving it back to the people. The 1% have stolen, racked up assets, and then hid them all in off-shore companies to avoid any government knowledge of what they have done and it is thus imperative for the people of the world to stand up to this type of corruption. It really feels like the Panama Papers have changed how everyday people view the world. This controversy is more complicated than it would appear because we don’t know where they get their money from, they could even be using their stockpiled wealth to do great things around the world. But, if you are a leader of a major country in this world, you can not afford to be corrupt because of businesses are corrupt and the government is corrupt, who do the people have to look to in times of distress? The answer is in the end it must come from the people to insist that there is a worldwide institutional change. More countries need to take the actions of Iceland and peacefully protest against their leaders so that the world can become a fairer place. The Panama Papers will end up being either the most effective avenue for change in world history, or the most depressing if nothing comes of it.