Panama & Meh

Between $21 trillion and $32 trillion are sheltered in tax havens according to the Tax Justice Network. pic.twitter.com/8H0ts59qx1

— The Int'l Spectator (@intlspectator) April 5, 2016

OK so I'm wrong a lot, and I'm hoping I'm real wrong on this one.  But I don't see much changing because of the outrage over what's being "revealed" in The Panama Papers about a really fucked up system.

Maybe we'll see a lot more about how bad and illegal all this shit is, and maybe we won't.

Maybe we'll get all het up over it and demand something be done, and maybe we'll just shrug it off.

We've been conditioned to accept a coupla things. First, if you're rich enough, then you're well-enough connected to political power, which means you can do just about anything you want and not have to worry about "the law".  We see this shit every time (eg) when some Wall Streeters get caught dirty dealing and then negotiate their way out of it - "agreeing" to pay some skimpy little fine - which may sound enormous until you notice it amounts to about 1/80th of what they fucked us all over for - and which was factored into the cost of doing business from the start.

Second though is a perversion of the Zorro / Scarlet Pimpernel thing. The noble scamp plays at being loyal to the crown while doing everything he can to countervail what he sees as the evil-doings of a corrupted king.

We've accepted the conditioning that Da Gubmint is rotten and that spending Federal Revenue on anything but Defense and Relieving The Tax Burden of The Rent Collectors is nothing but theft, so everything you do that can plausibly be tied to "fighting back" is not only understandable, it's the right thing to do. Tax Evasion is the right thing that all the smart guys are doing.  And all the smart guys are rich because they're smart because they're rich.  And I wanna do what's right for them because I'll be rich and smart some day too, and I'm sure they'll be eager to return the favor.

So we'll sit, and we'll watch, and we'll do nothing.

I'm not advocating anything other than solidly passive and peaceful political resistance - please, nobody do anything stoopid - but I do have to wonder when we can expect to see the first wave of kidnappings and assassinations.

It goes on like this and it's all but guaranteed not to end well for anybody.