Meria
Elder Lister
So, a global network of 700 independent investigative journalists broke the story on the Pandora Papers? What a team of great, crusading professionals!
Before we hand them the Pulitzer Prize, let's look at the other side of this whole saga.
The Pandora Papers revealed the secretive investment strategies of important people. We shall discuss the people revealed by these journalists shortly. For now, let us focus on what the secretive strategies revealed.
BUYING INFORMATION FROM LAWYERS
Let’s first appreciate that this highly-valued information was in the custody of equally highly paid lawyers. The lawyers were obligated to protect the identify of their clients under the attorney-client privileges. They were also most likely paid extra to protect the information.
Top-notch Lawyers like the ones used by the likes of Tony Blair and the Kenyattas do not reveal what they promise their clients they will not reveal, unless the clients are dead and even then, the privilege still applies. In the case of those mentioned in the Pandora Papers, most clients are still alive.
Anticipating the question of how the privilege was breached, those behind the Pandora Papers now tell us some other shadowy figures bought the information from the web of lawyers and investment advisers, with none protesting or revealing the attempt to purchase client information, then gave it to the revered journalists to reveal.
THE IMPROBALITY OF BROKE JOURNALISTS BUYING EXPENSIVE INFORMATION
If this is what happened, then these are not investigative journalists. They are messengers conveying the message of their senders. They are mercenaries for hire to besmirch people’s names. So much for the so-called investigative journalists.
There is, of course, the possibility that the journalists bought the information themselves. If this is the case, then this becomes even more interesting. It means that the journalists behind the Pandora Papers are wealthy enough to buy confidential information from sources sworn, and then paid heavily, to protect it. Well, the network has 700 members; Perhaps they formed a sacco or chama, fundraised among themselves the billions of dollars you would expect top lawyers to demand in order to release the information they were protecting, and bought the information, only to sell the story to the BBC for a few hundred British pounds. Business journalists indeed but obviously with no business sense. Call them pecuniary embarrassed social impact investors.
You probably know the journalists being credited with Pandora Papers story. Most are broke dudes, some kept by their much older spouses. The journalists do not have two coins to rub together and are enjoying a hand-to-mouth existence. If you believe that they had money to buy the expensive secret information, you will believe anything and you may stop reading at this point.
ENTER THE STATE ACTORS AND THEIR PUPPET BILLIONAIRES
Which brings us to the possibility that they were given large sums of money to use in purchasing the Pandora Papers. The question is; who would spend so much money to outbid the wealthy people that were paying big dollars to keep the information secret?
There are only very few countries with rich billionaires that are willing to pay large sums of money to accomplish their favoured end - "disruption." The pockets of these billionaires are truly bottomless – because they use shrewd lawyers and investment bankers to invest and protect their wealth but detest copycat billionaires who use the same methods to protect and grow their own wealth. Do they fear that too much money in the hands of the wrong people could be used to destabilize their own countries?
It is highly unlikely that these billionaires come from China, Russia, India or South Korea or Singapore. Even Kenya's hustler billionaires do not engage in social philanthropy beyond giving a simple, non-motorized wheelbarrow. That leaves George Soros and a few billionaires of his ilk.
Such billionaires are usually appendages of foreign state actors keen on regime and social change objectives with the ultimate end of causing destabilization in far-off states in order to make it easy to maintain global hegemony. And you can't blame them; states are involved in cut-throat competition and only foolish citizens of some countries tend to subscribe to the view that the world system is fair, democratic, egalitarian and a respecter of human rights.
THE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE PANDORA PAPERS ARE THE USUAL SUSPECTS
And so the wealthy people touched by the Pandora Papers saga are a fools list of leaders we are often told by the Western media are the usual suspects: third world leaders, who despite their recent democratic credentials, are still defined as dictators; the ever-present Russian leader; a bunch of Arab leaders; some Latin American drug lords; the beloved African tin-pot dictators that were once the darlings of Western powers before their use-by date elapsed; with a long-retired Western political leader or tycoon being thrown in to offer a semblance of balance since the list shouldn't look too skewed against the real target.
But why reveal that these people are behaving like capitalism ordered and hide money like the Western trained tax evasion experts and Western lawyers advise them to? The answer is simple. Ingrained in the psychic of the Western elite is a strong desire to show that others are incapable – of leading, of investing, of business, of thinking, of enjoying freedom, totally incapable.
Where would a political family get 30m dollars other than through pilferage of public coffers? Never mind that the family could have started multiple businesses before independence, benefitted from particular knowledge of capitalism while everyone else was fixated on socialism, and used the same investment strategies Western tycoons would use. Never mind the compounding factor of 60 years.
But then Western-style business skills are perhaps the intellectual property of the billionaires of those countries. No one can really use them with perfection and if they did, it is evidence of theft. Not even when you use White managers and Wharton MBAs. You still stole the money. And you are hiding it in secret accounts because you stole it, although our people advised you that it is a great and a fashionable business or investment strategy.
In simple terms, you can't win. If you bought an apartment in London, the way their rich buy apartments in Dubai, or if you bought a ranch in Australia the way their rich buy ranches and plantations in Africa, or if you bought Rolls Royce and Bentleys and Lamborghinis and Ferraris and luxury yachts like their tycoons do, you will still be considered to have stolen your while they prudently invested in theirs.
Foreign investment is a concept only people from particular countries can engage in. If you attempt it, you can only do so with stolen money.
Keep to your lane, black dictator!
Before we hand them the Pulitzer Prize, let's look at the other side of this whole saga.
The Pandora Papers revealed the secretive investment strategies of important people. We shall discuss the people revealed by these journalists shortly. For now, let us focus on what the secretive strategies revealed.
BUYING INFORMATION FROM LAWYERS
Let’s first appreciate that this highly-valued information was in the custody of equally highly paid lawyers. The lawyers were obligated to protect the identify of their clients under the attorney-client privileges. They were also most likely paid extra to protect the information.
Top-notch Lawyers like the ones used by the likes of Tony Blair and the Kenyattas do not reveal what they promise their clients they will not reveal, unless the clients are dead and even then, the privilege still applies. In the case of those mentioned in the Pandora Papers, most clients are still alive.
Anticipating the question of how the privilege was breached, those behind the Pandora Papers now tell us some other shadowy figures bought the information from the web of lawyers and investment advisers, with none protesting or revealing the attempt to purchase client information, then gave it to the revered journalists to reveal.
THE IMPROBALITY OF BROKE JOURNALISTS BUYING EXPENSIVE INFORMATION
If this is what happened, then these are not investigative journalists. They are messengers conveying the message of their senders. They are mercenaries for hire to besmirch people’s names. So much for the so-called investigative journalists.
There is, of course, the possibility that the journalists bought the information themselves. If this is the case, then this becomes even more interesting. It means that the journalists behind the Pandora Papers are wealthy enough to buy confidential information from sources sworn, and then paid heavily, to protect it. Well, the network has 700 members; Perhaps they formed a sacco or chama, fundraised among themselves the billions of dollars you would expect top lawyers to demand in order to release the information they were protecting, and bought the information, only to sell the story to the BBC for a few hundred British pounds. Business journalists indeed but obviously with no business sense. Call them pecuniary embarrassed social impact investors.
You probably know the journalists being credited with Pandora Papers story. Most are broke dudes, some kept by their much older spouses. The journalists do not have two coins to rub together and are enjoying a hand-to-mouth existence. If you believe that they had money to buy the expensive secret information, you will believe anything and you may stop reading at this point.
ENTER THE STATE ACTORS AND THEIR PUPPET BILLIONAIRES
Which brings us to the possibility that they were given large sums of money to use in purchasing the Pandora Papers. The question is; who would spend so much money to outbid the wealthy people that were paying big dollars to keep the information secret?
There are only very few countries with rich billionaires that are willing to pay large sums of money to accomplish their favoured end - "disruption." The pockets of these billionaires are truly bottomless – because they use shrewd lawyers and investment bankers to invest and protect their wealth but detest copycat billionaires who use the same methods to protect and grow their own wealth. Do they fear that too much money in the hands of the wrong people could be used to destabilize their own countries?
It is highly unlikely that these billionaires come from China, Russia, India or South Korea or Singapore. Even Kenya's hustler billionaires do not engage in social philanthropy beyond giving a simple, non-motorized wheelbarrow. That leaves George Soros and a few billionaires of his ilk.
Such billionaires are usually appendages of foreign state actors keen on regime and social change objectives with the ultimate end of causing destabilization in far-off states in order to make it easy to maintain global hegemony. And you can't blame them; states are involved in cut-throat competition and only foolish citizens of some countries tend to subscribe to the view that the world system is fair, democratic, egalitarian and a respecter of human rights.
THE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE PANDORA PAPERS ARE THE USUAL SUSPECTS
And so the wealthy people touched by the Pandora Papers saga are a fools list of leaders we are often told by the Western media are the usual suspects: third world leaders, who despite their recent democratic credentials, are still defined as dictators; the ever-present Russian leader; a bunch of Arab leaders; some Latin American drug lords; the beloved African tin-pot dictators that were once the darlings of Western powers before their use-by date elapsed; with a long-retired Western political leader or tycoon being thrown in to offer a semblance of balance since the list shouldn't look too skewed against the real target.
But why reveal that these people are behaving like capitalism ordered and hide money like the Western trained tax evasion experts and Western lawyers advise them to? The answer is simple. Ingrained in the psychic of the Western elite is a strong desire to show that others are incapable – of leading, of investing, of business, of thinking, of enjoying freedom, totally incapable.
Where would a political family get 30m dollars other than through pilferage of public coffers? Never mind that the family could have started multiple businesses before independence, benefitted from particular knowledge of capitalism while everyone else was fixated on socialism, and used the same investment strategies Western tycoons would use. Never mind the compounding factor of 60 years.
But then Western-style business skills are perhaps the intellectual property of the billionaires of those countries. No one can really use them with perfection and if they did, it is evidence of theft. Not even when you use White managers and Wharton MBAs. You still stole the money. And you are hiding it in secret accounts because you stole it, although our people advised you that it is a great and a fashionable business or investment strategy.
In simple terms, you can't win. If you bought an apartment in London, the way their rich buy apartments in Dubai, or if you bought a ranch in Australia the way their rich buy ranches and plantations in Africa, or if you bought Rolls Royce and Bentleys and Lamborghinis and Ferraris and luxury yachts like their tycoons do, you will still be considered to have stolen your while they prudently invested in theirs.
Foreign investment is a concept only people from particular countries can engage in. If you attempt it, you can only do so with stolen money.
Keep to your lane, black dictator!
Maria kwani umekua Kafament apologist?
