 The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism published what they're calling the Panama Papers on steroids I'm of course referring to the Pandora Papers. Now this shows that elites hide their wealth not necessarily that shocking of a revelation of a revelation, but still what they published here is truly substantial and I suspect that not a lot of mainstream news outlets are going to talk about this So what is the Pandora Papers? Well for a summary we go to Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams who explains And what's being called the biggest ever leak of offshore data a cache of nearly 12 million documents published Sunday Laid bare the hidden wealth secret dealings and corruption of hundreds of world leaders Billionaires public officials celebrities and others the leaked documents reveal how some of the world's wealthiest people Avert the financial consequences of their misdeeds by using offshore entities dozens of current and former world leaders feature prominently in the files including Russian president Vladimir Putin Jordanian King Abdullah to and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair While most of the richest Americans do not appear in the files the Washington Post reports that perhaps the most troubling revelations for the United States Center on its expanding complicity in the offshore economy Chuck Collins author of the wealth hoarders how billionaires pay millions to High trillions and co-editor of inequality.org at the Institute for policy studies said in a statement that the U.S. Has become the weak link in stopping global crime and wealth hiding states like South Dakota and Delaware have morphed their laws to attract Billion sometimes illicitly obtained from around the world He said we in the U.S. Should be embarrassed that we've become a magnet for kleptocratic funds Collins added that the Pandora papers show it is time for U.S. Lawmakers to shut down the hidden wealth system that allows for such aggressive tax avoidance and the sequestering of wealth Now I want to show you this graphic which demonstrates how U.S. Trusts play a role as you can see South Dakota with 81 Florida with 37 Delaware with 35 Texas with 24 and Nevada with 14 They also explain how America's biggest law firm Baker Mackenzie drives global wealth into tax havens and there's millions of documents here and the Pandora papers is basically if you go to their website I'll link to it down below This is the ICIJ website It's basically a bunch of different articles that explain some of the findings here But the TLDR version is that rich people are tax cheats Not necessarily the most surprising thing in the world the Panama papers kind of already proved what we already knew But this is just further confirmation The sad part about this is I suspect nothing will come of this We keep hearing about things like this and nothing happens We've basically seen not just the race to the bottom in the United States But a race to the bottom around the world. Oh, and by the way Shakira was named in the Pandora papers as well another tax Cheat yeah, I'm not a fan of her But I know a lot of people who are fans of her and that's gonna hurt so Shakira is canceled folks But I mean look in all seriousness. This is serious, but I kind of feel a sense of ambivalence But that shouldn't be the case We shouldn't be numb to this kind of corruption and maybe I'm projecting But when we see this we should feel a general sense of outrage and frustration, but this is just The norm and I think that everyone knows there's a problem most Americans according to public opinion polls See that there are issues here with global wealth inequality But nothing has changed yet, and I feel like there's gonna be one catalyst There's gonna be a moment where the dam bursts open and perhaps this is that moment But I mean I think that this will continue to happen and most people will live their lives and The wealthy will continue to do things like this hoard their wealth and that's that's really sad, but it is an inevitable consequence of Capitalism and when you're in a late stage capitalist society This kind of thing is exactly What you'd expect it's not some sort of inadvertent consequence of the system This is the intended outcome of capitalism always capitalism always gets so big to where it overpowers governments and eats itself and I mean this kind of confirms that but I don't I don't know what to say I'm not shocked by this at all and I think that's so many people see this and I think yeah That's that's what I expected but nothing is going to change. So why should I care? and they may be right about that, but this is important and as Desensitized as we all are we still should care about things like this as unsurprising as it is especially to those of us Who've been following the corruption of elites for years So I hope that people actually read some of these details or some of these summaries because this really is Unacceptable regardless of how desensitized we are