THE International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, (ICIJ), is the group of fact miners that gave us the "Panama Papers," revealing the outline of money laundering setups abroad from the point of view of a single foreign law office.
The ICIJ was formed to counter the trend of downgrading local, state and national news organization’s abilities to do deep investigative journalism.
Budget cuts to nearly all levels of journalistic endeavors — worldwide — came about because corporations were consolidating their power by buying up news outlets, cutting their investigative units' budgets and personel assets, and thereby dumbing down the news available to the public. News programs were becoming one sensational story followed by simple paid advertising for corporate clients and the entertainment industry. Hard news was disappearing.
An uninformed public was, they posited, a more controllable public. And the cuts increased their profits. A win-win for the investor class.
The ICIJ is reversing that trend by providing a well-organized worldwide group of journalists with the assets to perform long-term deep investigations of topics critical to our collective futures.
Now they have begun releasing a series of articles called the “Paradise Papers,” (Link), detailing how the Aristocratic Investor Class of billionaires and wannabe’s hides and washes their money to avoid taxation from their home countries. It is, they have found, a huge, huge endeavor, robbing nations of their inherent right to fund critical services for their citizens through taxation.
The Paradise referred to is a planned service where the aristocratic rich of this world can earn without worrying about taxes or any national regulation over their actions at all. A Paradise for billionaires.
Over the next few months this subject will be the major topic of conversation among ALL the world’s powerful people. Trillions of dollars worth of taxable income is being hidden; citizens of nearly all countries are being swindled by this whole class of the very biggest investors — and major contributors to all political parties and their candidates.
Stay alert. Pay attention. Watch in the coming months as the ICIJ reveals more and more about this issue.