Panama Papers, Climate Change, Democracy Spring

-Panama Papers Reveal How the World’s Rich and Powerful Hide Their Wealth
Interview with James S. Henry, senior fellow at Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable International Investment and a senior advisor to the Tax Justice Network, conducted by Scott Harris

Most listeners will have heard or read about a set of leaked confidential files known as the Panama Papers, 11.5 million documents that provide detailed information on the shareholders and directors of more than 214,000 offshore corporations. The documents were leaked from the Panamanian-based law firm Mossack Fonseca that assists some of the world’s richest people and corporations establish shell companies in low-tax haven nations used to conceal wealth.

The names of 140 politicians from more than 50 countries linked to secret offshore accounts in the documents, have thus far included the prime minister of Iceland, who was forced to resign, Pakistan’s prime minister, the presidents of Argentina and Ukraine, the king of Saudi Arabia, senior Chinese officials and some close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s father was also connected to a Panamanian off-shore account.

An anonymous source originally provided the Panama Papers to a German newspaper in early 2015, but due to the overwhelming volume of documents the editors sought help from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists which distributed the data to 400 journalists at 107 media outlets across the world. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with James S. Henry, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable International Investment and a senior adviser to the Tax Justice Network, who assesses the significance of the leaked Panama Papers documents, which represents just the tip of the iceberg of where the world’s wealthiest people and corporations hide their money in tax shelters.
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JAMES S. HENRY: Well, this is by far the largest leak in history. We’ve had 214,438 companies that were set up by this company and the documents associated with those. The clients are from 200 countries and they include, so far, we’ve identified about 22 current heads of state, 143 people in political office, quite a few family members who are associated closely with the current and former heads of state and quite a few people on the Fortune 500 list. So it’s an incredible accumulation of influential people. This case is about kleptocracy in terms of public officials helping themselves to public assets or having offshore wealth that they can’t explain, maybe due to corruption and bribery.

And for many countries in the developing world, kleptocracy is a more important issue. Kleptocracy, corruption is a more important issue than just tax dodging.

BETWEEN THE LINES: I wonder if you could explain to our audience how the Mossack Fonseca revelations fit into the global tax avoidance that you’ve estimated at between $21 trillion and $32 trillion in private wealth in offshore tax havens. And that doesn’t include the trillions of dollars more in wealth hidden by many global corporations.

JAMES S. HENRY: That’s right, and it doesn’t include nonfinancial assets, like real estate, yachts, art collections. I mean, the tax angle to this, our estimates are as of 2010. What we’ve seen since then is that the numbers for the worldwide haven industry have grown even farther, especially from countries like Russia and China, which had been in the last two or three years subject to huge amount of capital outflow – a trillion dollars from China in the last 18 months; Russia probably has more than $1.3 trillion offshore; Argentina, leading Latin American countries have more than $2.5 trillion offshore which is more than twice their external debt. So a lot of this is motivated by taxation, but it’s also motivated by political risk, kind of the ruling elite.

But I think what you have to imagine is something like the Star Wars bar scene where you have the drug dealers, the tax dodgers, the corrupticrats, the people worried about being raided by the political police, all gathered around using the same basic facilities which are offshore companies and trusts which are very easy to set up in other people’s names, with nominee directors. There was one lady who was a secretary for Fonseca who was listed as a director for 24,000 letter box companies that were set up, all of them owned by nonresidents of Panama. So it’s this financial secretive facility – the lack of any registration of so-called beneficial owners – so we don’t know who owns what. And I think that’s one big contributor to this. But it’s also this network of unscrupulous law firms, banks and accounting firms that are channeling all this business to these people and the public officials that have failed for 40 years to crack down on this.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Well, just a final quick one here. What would be the top actions you would like to see the U.S. government take in coalition with other governments around the world to close off these tax loopholes and make the playing field more even for all taxpayers?

JAMES S. HENRY: An international commission with subpoena power like what they have in Guatemala, I’d like to have beneficial ownership registration on a public register so we tell who owns what. I’d like to have public officials have to release their tax returns and declare their offshore and onshore wealth. And I’d like to have tougher penalties for the banks and other enablers that are in this business and I’d like to have a blacklist for havens that keep getting caught doing this over and over again, like Panama and to some extent like Delaware.

For more information visit “The Panama Papers: Politicians, Criminals and the Rogue Industry that Hides Their Cash,” at panamapapers.icij.org/; the tax justice network at taxjustice.net; Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable International Investment at ccsi.columbia.edu.

Related Links:
“Panama Papers reveal spies used Mossack Fonseca,” Yahoo, April 2, 2016
“A Guide to the 6 Biggest Revelations from the Panama Papers (So Far),” Vox, April 12, 2016
“Mossack Fonseca: inside the firm that helps the super-rich hide their money,” The Guardian, April 8, 2016
“Swiss banker whistleblower: CIA behind Panama Papers,” CNBC, April 12, 2016
“David Cameron Answers for the Panama Papers,” The Atlantic, April 11, 2016
” The Panama Papers Are Only the Beginning,” The Nation, April 5, 2016
“The Panama Papers Problem,” CounterPunch, April 6, 2016
“Everyone Is Freaking Out About the Panama Papers—But the Biggest Fallout Is Yet to Come,” Mother Jones, April 4, 2016
“Deep Tax Cuts for Corporations and the Rich Create Unfair Tax System for Poor and Working Families,” Between The Lines, April 15, 2015

Climate Change is Worse Than You Thought

Excerpt of a talk by climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, delivered at Yale University on April 7 recorded and produced by Melinda Tuhus

Former NASA climate scientist James Hansen is one of the world’s leading experts on climate change. He testified before Congress back in 1988 that global warming was already occurring due to the burning of fossil fuels, becoming one of the first scientists to go on record. He now works at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and in late March published an important paper in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics titled, “Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: evidence from Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern Observations that 2C Global Warming Could be Dangerous.”

The paper posits that sea level rise is on track to occur faster and at higher levels than more conservative estimates, like that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, have predicted. An agreement signed by 195 countries in Paris last year seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s not remotely ambitious enough to limit global warming to the degree Hansen regards as necessary. Hansen is party to a lawsuit against the federal government filed by the group, Our Children’s Trust, for not protecting young people and future generations from the ravages of climate change. On April 8, a judge ruled in favor of the 21 youthful plaintiffs, which moves their lawsuit one step closer to a trial.

Hansen visited Yale University April 6 through the 8 as the Yale Climate Change and Health Initiative’s “Climate Change Leader in Residence.” What follows are excerpts from his April 7 talk at Yale, where Hansen discussed his new study. He uses the term “paleoclimate” to refer to studies of the climate dating back hundreds of thousands of years. The term “forcing” refers to anything that forces the climate system to go out of equilibrium, resulting either in an increase in temperature, or a decrease, which is called a “negative forcing.”
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JAMES HANSEN: One of the other issues that I’ve wanted to raise and have tried to raise several years ago, but have not gotten any response from the [scientific] community, so I’ll raise it again. And I raise it in this paper, I think, more clearly. And that is that I think the climate response function of climate models is too lethargic compared to the real world. You know, the paleoclimate evidence tells us that when ice sheets disintegrate they can disintegrate quite rapidly and give you several meters of sea level rise in a century, even though the forcings that caused those p changes were much weaker than the human-made forcing. I argue that when the ice sheets disintegrate it’s going to be a very non-linear process, and is probably better characterized by a doubling time than it is by a more linear assumption.

But we don’t know what the characteristic time would be, so I just say let’s assume that there’s up to five meters of sea level rise; there’s ice equivalent to that, which is vulnerable to contact with the ocean, because the threat of rapid sea level rise is caused by the fact that parts of the ice sheets are in contact with the ocean, and that ocean water can cause relatively rapid melting of ice shelves, and once ice shelves are melted then the ice sheets can discharge icebergs to the ocean much more rapidly. And there’s at least five meters of sea level rise in the West Antarctic, plus parts of East Antarctica and parts of Greenland, that is vulnerable to rapid change.

So it depends on what we do with our fuel use. If we stay on business as usual, and right now, as long as fossil fuels are allowed to be the cheapest energy, then regardless of these statements, that were made in Paris in December, those are practically worthless. If we stay on that path, I think we would get several meters of sea level rise this century. We say 50 to 150 years. But we have to keep our eye on Greenland and Antarctica the next several years and see how that rate continues to change. But, the question is, have we passed a point at which it’s inevitable that we’re going to lose the West Antarctic ice sheet? I’m not sure about that, but this amplifying feedback in the southern ocean has to make one very concerned.

We have to restore the planet’s energy balance. As long as there’s more energy coming in than going out, then ice is going to keep melting, and to restore the energy balance requires that we get CO2 to go down. And that’s very hard, but that’s what we’re asking in the lawsuit that we filed against the federal government – or Our Children’s Trust has filed against it. We’re asking the government to give a plan for how they’re going to reduce emissions at a rate that would be consistent with restoring the planet’s energy balance in a century. And if we did that I think we could minimize sea level rise. We’re not going to avoid it altogether.

BETWEEN THE LINES: An audience member asked what is the role of methane in Dr. Hansen’s climate modeling. Natural or fracked gas is composed mostly of methane, which creates 86 times more global warming, unit for unit, than CO2 in the first 20 years after release.

JAMES HANSEN: Methane is actually quite important. The human-made methane increase also causes tropospheric ozone to increase and stratospheric water vapor to increase. So when you include those indirect effects of methane, the forcing is about 7/10 of a watt of meter squared, which is at least as large as the planet’s energy balance. So if we would just stop the human-made emissions of methane, we could restore the planet’s energy planets, if CO2 stayed the same. The reason you could restore it is that the methane lifetime is only about 10 or 12 years, so it would go back to its pre-industrial level. So it’s a big factor; it has to be part of the plan for how we’re going to restore the planet’s energy balance. But unless we get CO2 under control, that methane knob is just not powerful enough, so I don’t emphasize it. We’ve got to make policy makers think of the major knob, and that’s the CO2 knob.

For more information, download James Hansen’s paper “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 degrees ℃ C global warming could be dangerous” at .

Related Links:
“The scientist who first warned of climate change says it’s much worse than we thought,” Grist, March 22, 2016
“Our Children’s Trust Suit Against US Government Surmounts Litigation Hurdle,” Climate Law Blog, April 9, 2016
“Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries,” New York Times, March 22, 2016
“Paris Climate Change Conference 2015,” New York Times, Nov. – Dec. 2015
“World-Renowned Climate Scientist Makes Dire Warning About Sea Level Rise, Storms,” Huffington Post, March 22, 2016
“Superstorms and Surging Seas: Is James Hansen a Climate Oracle?,” Christian Science Monitor, March 23, 2016
“Climate Disruption in Overdrive: Submerged Cities and Melting That ‘Feeds on Itself’,” AlterNet, April 1, 2016
“Global Warming Could Yield Catastrophic Effects Sooner Than We Think,” Fortune,March 22, 2016
“Abrupt Climate Shift Perilously Close: Study,” The Straights Times, March 24, 2016
“Climate Guru James Hansen Warns of Much Worse Than Expected Sea Level Rise,” The Guardian, March 22, 2016

Democracy Awakening Actions Demand Reforms to Rein in Big Money’s Influence in U.S. Politics

Interview with Margrete Strand Rangnes, executive vice president, Public Citizen, conducted by Scott Harris

With the almost daily bombast and insults emanating from Republican presidential candidate and real estate billionaire Donald Trump, the 2016 election campaign has been more a source of crude media entertainment than an informed national debate about public policy and the future of the country. But while cable news channels and other commercial media outlets trip over themselves to fill the airwaves with Trump content to cash in on ratings-driven profits, the American people have come to believe that the U.S. political system is broken.

In a recent public opinion poll conducted by Gallup in March of this year, some 66 percent of those surveyed believe that the U.S. presidential election process is dysfunctional and in need of repair. One major factor contributing to Americans’ loss of faith in the nation’s machinery of democracy is an overwhelming bipartisan rejection of the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision, that opened the floodgates of unlimited and unaccountable money in U.S. politics, where a handful of billionaires now have unchecked power to influence election outcomes.

With so much disgust at the way U.S. politics is run and the 2016 election campaign on track to be the most expensive in U.S. history, a coalition of more than 260 groups are supporting a series of protests in Washington, D.C. called Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening April 11 to 18. The activists are demanding voting rights reforms, the overturning of Citizens United and the filling of the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy. The actions, which kicked off on April 2 with a march from Philadelphia to Washington, will include teach-ins, rallies, and will culminate on April 18 with mass civil disobedience at the U.S. Capitol building. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Margrete Strand Rangnes, Public Citizen’s executive vice president, a Democracy Awakening coalition partner who talks about the corrupting influence of big money in U.S. politics and the goals of the Democracy Awakening protest.

For more information, visit Democracy Awakening at democracyawakening.org on Facebook facebook.com/Democracy-Awakening-957368101008769/ and democracyspring.org/ and on Facebook at facebook.com/democracyspring/ and Twitter at #DemocracySpring; 99rise.org.
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Related Links:
“Democracy Awakening 2016,” YouTube, Brave New Films, Jan. 20, 2016
“Democracy Spring protests at the Capitol,” Yahoo, April 12, 2016
“Hundreds of ‘Democracy Spring’ Protesters Arrested At Capitol Hill Sit-in,” CNN, April 12, 2016
“Hundreds Protesting Political System Arrested On Capitol’s Steps,” NPR, April 11, 2016
“Democracy Awakening: At Mass Convergence on Washington, D.C., People Demand Government of, by and for the People,” Common Dreams, April 11, 2016
“Bloomberg Poll: Americans Want Supreme Court to Turn Off Political Spending Spigot,” Bloomberg, Se[t. 28, 2015
“Poll: 66 Percent Think Presidential Election Process is Broken,” The Hill, March 25, 2016
“On The Brink of The Most Expensive Election in History, More Than 2,000 Pledge U.S. Capitol Sit-In to Save Democracy,” Common Dreams, Feb. 16, 2016

This week’s summary of under-reported news

Compiled by Bob Nixon
McClatchy newspapers reports that there’s a new and growing dissident activist network that’s sprung up in Cuba since President Barack Obama began warmer relations with the communist nation 15 months ago. They say people are more willing to speak out about their frustrations as they see an opening for change in new relations with the United States.(“One Reason for More Cuban Arrests: More Dissidents Since U.S. Opening,” Miami Herald, April 1, 2016)
With sinking global oil prices, Angola, Africa’s second largest oil producer is seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Already in 2016, Angola’s currency the kwanza has fallen 16 percent due to low oil prices and has slashed government spending by 20 percent. The West African nation had borrowed heavily from China and its former colonizer Portugal. Angola is now seeking a three-year bailout that could exceed $8 billion dollars.(“Angola to Seek IMF Aid to Cope with Looming Financial Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2016; “Angola Seeks Three-Year Aid Package From IMF,” CFO, April 6, 2016)
Massive budget cuts by outgoing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal have put the state’s public defender system in peril. The cuts to legal services are so severe that it has endangered the right to a fair trial for poor criminal defendants. The budget for public defenders in the Bayou State will be slashed by 61 percent in fiscal year 2017, creating unmanageable caseloads where attorneys are unable to consult with every defendant who needs representation. In response the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to compel the state legislature to adequately fund the public defender system.(“Right to Counsel for Louisiana’s Indigent Defendants Remains at Risk,” American Prospect, April 6, 2016)

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