For those of you who haven't heard of the Panama Papers, here's a quick link to help fill you in.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/04/world/panama-papers-explainer/
Since the other posts today have been political, I thought I would join in. Check out this article discussing how the Panama Papers could affect the presidential race.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/how-the-panama-papers-could-affect-the-presidential-race/
After reading, what were your reactions to hearing about these papers? Were you surprised? Angry? Indifferent?
Do you think they will influence the presidential race in any way? If yes, which candidate would they help more?
It was implicitly known in Korea that many rich entrepreneurs make paper companies in foreign countries including Panama. However, this is the first time that someone disclosured this issue officially. Among papers, several entrepreneurs are included in the list.
ReplyDeleteThis issue is highly correlated with our next week reading, Dark Money. I am looking forward to discussing this topic in the class.
I am not sure how this issue will affect the election, but it is undeniable that this is not a good news for Trump.
I just posted another piece on the papers. I wonder who leaked the papers?
ReplyDeleteHonestly I was not very surprised to hear about the Panama Papers, I always just assumed that the most wealthy individuals and companies would try to take advantage of offshore bank accounts as much as possible. I do think it is interesting that in the papers, there were no major prominent people from the U.S listed, and that the most prominent people were from other countries.
ReplyDeletePersonally I am more or less indifferent to this, because while it's not fair that the individuals with the most wealth are taking advantage of these safe havens to avoid taxes, I feel that if I was getting taxed at the rate they were I would try to take advantage of anyway to save my money.
I disagree with Edward, in that it this could potentially be good news for Trump. The Pbs article talks about how Trump could win supporters if he was named in the papers, which I think is an interesting thought to consider.
Since we seem to be on a political roll this week, allow me to throw in my two cents. Once again, we see another instance of Clinton in the wrong and Sanders in the right. Back in 2011, Clinton wholeheartedly supported the Panama Free Trade Agreement while Sanders passionately opposed it. The agreement facilitated the rise of Panama as an offshore tax heaven and has been insignificant to the US economy overall. I'm interested to see if this becomes a topic of discussion at the New York debate on April 14th.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Putin was on these papers was not a surprise to me. Putin runs a government on secrets and he will try to stay in power anyway he can. I'm sure there is a lot he is hiding and I'm curious how this will affect Putin's reputation and how the Russian people view him and the government.
ReplyDeleteI don't really understand how Trump would gain supporters if his name was on the list. In my opinion, if Trump's name was on the list then that means that he has been cheating the system and not helping the American government and then he wants to become president? It just seems like there would be many secrets and that would not be fair to the American people.