Money: follow it, hide it and Panama leaks

[OUTLAW 09]

Now Russian info warfare is hard at work.....

Russia’s Attorney General promises to investigate Panama Papers’ revelations
https://meduza.io/en/news/2016/04/05...rs-revelations …
via @meduza_en

Response might be...yeah right.........

[Firn]

Some thoughts about the saga:

1) Much of it was already common knowledge however the sheer size of capital involved still surprises. Quantity has indeed a quality all of it's own.

2) The global nature of the various practices, with the financial maze running truly through the whole world.

3) The variety of entities linked to offshore accounts, with wealthy and companies of all backgrounds using them.

4) So many different goals pursued with so similar means of the financial maze.

Hiding money incurs additional costs which are expected to get offset in the specific calculations. Obviously illgotten money, money put to ill use or money shielded from taxation will tolerate those costs much more readily then money just wanting privacy. Not surprisingly dirty money loves a clean justice system as long it is suitably legally set up.

[AdamG]

The flow of wealth can also be an indicator. This reads like an OSINT puzzle piece for a few readers here.

China is still growing at a healthy clip, China says.

But the slowdown continues, with the world’s second largest economy expanding 6.7% in the first quarter of 2016, compared to the same quarter of the prior year. That’s the slowest growth since the depths of the Great Recession back in 2009.

Recently released data from the Institute of International Finance shows expected net outflows from China of roughly $530 billion in 2016, down a bit from the titanic $675 billion that zipped out last year.

That’s not just foreign money pulling out. IIF analysts forecast that the outflow of cash from China related to foreign investors will ease somewhat this year. “We expect a modest recovery in foreign inflows to China but continued substantial resident outflows,” they wrote.

If Chinese investors are voting with their feet, foreign investors would do well to take note.

http://qz.com/662887/chinese-money-d...tory-any-more/

[AdamG]

Jeff Kiarie was guarding a Chinese mine back in early 2014 near Arusha, Tanzania when Chinese managers and investors picked up and left, leaving their excavators, tractors, and wheel loaders behind, offering no explanation. “They couldn’t just leave so many machines here,” Kiarie, the lone Tanzanian now guarding thousands of tons of Chinese mining equipment, says he reasoned. But that’s exactly what seems to have happened; Kiarie’s mine remains abandoned, and other Chinese operations on the African continent seem to be in peril. For years, Western media has covered Chinese trade and investment with the continent somewhat breathlessly; a November 2006 New York Times report declared that Chinese development “looks more like Africa’s future than its past,” and a February 2011 article for the BBC proclaimed that “the Chinese are coming” to Africa. Now, with the recent drop in Chinese investment and trade with the continent, it might seem appropriate to declare that the Chinese are going. But as some are leaving, others are innovating, exploring, and digging in.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/18/...tment-chinese/

In December, Chinese president Xi Jinping offered a whopping $60 billion loan and aid package to Africa, according to Voice of America. Xi said that China aims to develop infrastructure, improve agriculture and reduce poverty on the continent. This is only the latest example of China’s burgeoning economic presence in Africa. Its investment there has skyrocketed in recent years from $7 billion in 2008 to $26 billion in 2013, according to figures cited at a Wharton Africa Business Forum held last fall. But the relationship is fraught with controversy.

Opponents assert that it is exploitative for China to finance African infrastructure projects in exchange for the continent’s natural resources. Some accuse China of “neo-colonialist” behavior as it acquires the raw materials like oil, iron, copper and zinc that it urgently needs to fuel its own economy. Supporters, on the other hand, say that China’s initiatives to build and improve infrastructure such as roads, railways and telecom systems have been a boon to Africa’s manufacturing sector; have freed up domestic resources for other critical needs such as health care and education; and have aided everyone doing business on the continent.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...he-real-story/

See also
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...&postcount=147

[AdamG]

Chinese nationals have become the largest foreign buyers of US property after pouring billions into the market in search of safe offshore assets, according to a study.

A huge surge in Chinese buying of both residential and commercial real estate last year took their five-year investment total to more than $110bn, according to the study from the Asia Society and Rosen Consulting Group.

The sheer size of that total has helped the real estate market recover from the crash that began in 2006 and precipitated the 2008 economic crisis, they said.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...ate-says-study

[davidbfpo]

A BBC commentary on the impact of the Panama Papers; it ends with:

The effectiveness of the measures being taken across the world as a result of the Panama Papers is still open to challenge.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-38319026