Good. I’ve been saying for quite some time that today’s politicians are a bunch of grifters who have no real interest in governing but are in it for the power and payday. The Panama Papers just scratch the surface, and they haven’t even been fully reviewed. we have yet to see US politicians on the list but make no mistake, if they’re not involved in this scheme, many are involved elsewhere.
Here’s Pat S.’s post with background on the Panama Papers.
Guardian: What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history’s biggest data leak
And more background from CNN: The Panama Papers: 7 things to know
Iceland’s prime minister, faced with massive protests calling for his resignation following revelations about him in the Panama Papers, stepped down Tuesday after President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson declined to immediately dissolve Parliament and pave the way for snap elections.
Ingi Jóhannsson, the minister of agriculture and fishing, told RUV, the broadcaster, that Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson had resigned as prime minister.
Gunnlaugsson becomes the first victim of the Panama Papers, a day after he refused to step down following the release of the documents.
The documents from Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the center of the leaks, allege Gunnlaugsson hid millions of dollars of investments in his country’s banks in an offshore company. Gunnlaugsson and his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Palsdottir, bought the company in 2007, but he failed to declare his interest in it when he entered parliament two years later. The documents show Gunnlaugsson later sold half the company to his wife for $1. Owning a shell company is not in itself illegal, and indeed Gunnlaugsson has denied he broke any rules. But when asked in 2009 if he ever had an offshore company, he replied: “Myself? No. … Well, the Icelandic companies I have worked with had connections with offshore companies.” […]
The issue of banking and banking secrecy is a sensitive one in Iceland, which has only recently recovered from the financial crisis caused by implosion of the country’s banking sector in the global recession of 2008. Icelanders blame the country’s politicians for that fiasco. Gunnlaugsson entered national politics in 2009 and was elected prime minister in 2013.
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