The Paradise Papers, the internal documents of a Bermuda law firm, reveal a problem far more pernicious than the unethical conduct by tens of thousands of wealthy individuals around the world.
Humans will always have to cope with personal dishonesty. What the Paradise Papers show is how dishonesty is being promoted on a mass scale and how corruption is being institutionalized. The 13.4m files show that what are supposed to be windows of disclosure into the finances of high officials are easily covered with blinds made by piecing together business laws from multiple jurisdictions.
As the super-rich increasingly hold the reins of governments in the US and other countries, the rules to make sure they act with integrity and in the public interest fail. That’s because the rules were written to guard against petty corruption among people of little to no wealth.
None other than Donald Trump told us this. In July 2015, a few weeks after launching his presidential campaign, Trump filed his first financial disclosure statement and then denigrated the requirements. “This report was not designed for a man of Mr. Trump’s massive wealth,” he wrote in a statement.
Conflict of interest, ethics and financial disclosure rules conceived in earlier times to reveal bribes and favors are of little use when the elected or appointed officials are already rich – especially should they seek to evade disclosure of their holdings, hide their unsavory associations and avoid taxes, whether through dubious business structures or outright fraud. [...]
We need a robust public debate about the need for rigorous rules on conflicts of interest, corruption and disclosure. Without it, dark money will rule the world and put our liberties, and our fortunes, in jeopardy. Tell your lawmakers to act in the public interest – or you’ll vote for someone who will.
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
It is for us … to inquire constantly and persistently, when theories of national power or states’ rights are propounded: “What interests are behind them and to whose advantage will changes or the maintenance of old forms accrue? By refusing to do this we become victims of history—clay in the hands of its makers.”
~Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913)
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2009—Rep. Steve King Is An Asshole:
So earlier today, Republican Congressman Steve King actually said:
"All Americans have health care, every single one."
What a noble sentiment. And what a spectacularly, blatantly false one. One would have to believe King knows full well it is false, but then again he is a conservative Republican, and conservative Republicans are at this point synonymous with manufactured realities in which tax cuts cause unicorns to fart rainbows of money across the land and decent public education is the gateway to Stalinism. So it is equally possible that King is being honest, at least within the narrow confines of his own head, and he honestly believes that no Americans are out there who do not have basic health care.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, we’re under the cloud of yet another mass shooting. But it was gonna be a Monday show anyway, with stories that make you wonder why you ever get out of bed. Russian trolls, crackpot pols, a delusional president and a Saudi Arabia spinning out of control.
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