The Panama Papers manifesto

The leaker who hacked Mossack Fonseca and thus led to the massive leak of sensitive information (for example, did you know that the British Prime Minister pays all the taxes he owes? In full and on time?) has released his manifesto. Or at least his justification for his actions. It does appear that he is rather remarkably mal-informed about matters:

Income inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. It affects all of us, the world over. The debate over its sudden acceleration has raged for years, with politicians, academics and activists alike helpless to stop its steady growth despite countless speeches, statistical analyses, a few meagre protests, and the occasional documentary. Still, questions remain: why? And why now?

The Panama Papers provide a compelling answer to these questions: massive, pervasive corruption.

That's his opening and it's just plain flat out wrong.

We agree that within country inequality has risen in recent decades just as global inequality has fallen. But this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any secrecy nor use of offshore. For the quite simple reason that the inequality we're measuring does not include any effects of secrecy or offshore. Because, you see, things that are secret are not included in public information and calculations, and things that are offshore are not included in estimations of in country inequality.

That is, the information revealed has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the thing being complained about, that already measured inequality.

This is, by the whistleblower, logic worth of Richard Murphy. Sadly, the manifesto is, logic and facts aside, too well composed for it to have come from that source so we're still left wondering who it is.

 

Previous
Previous

Economic numbers are important, yes, but it's what they're telling us that is

Next
Next

How a poverty meme gets created