Why I think Trump is vile, in 24 bullets

Facebook being what it is, I was recently challenged to give any examples of why I thought Mr. Trump is the most unethical president in history. I simply said “lies” and was told that I was a coward for not providing a “real” answer. So here is my real answer, in a list.

1. Bone spurs – real patriots did not, and do not, do all they can to avoid national service, especially when the nation calls upon them to do so. While this certainly is not unique to Trump (Dark Lord Chaney is another good example) it does speak to character.
2. Paid off porn stars. Okay, I know, this was before he was president, but it now appears that the act of paying off at least two of them may have been explicit violations of campaign financing laws.  And, how many were paid off? 2, more, 12?
3. Illegitimate child. Well, okay, so that puts him in good company with monarchs around the world.
4. 7 surrogates/employees guilty (so far). Either he is really thick and actually did not know that they were committing crimes (or had committed crimes) or he is actively surrounding himself with disreputable people who will do his bidding, legally or not.
5. EPA gutted (so much for clean water or air, and hey, “clean coal” won’t kill you or miners as fast as the traditional stuff, which we need to use anyway because there is no “clean coal”).
6. Disrespectful tweets. I would think that being mentioned by name and called out by Trump should by now be a badge of honor.
7. Played by the North Koreans, and played like a bad fiddle.
8. The Wall (and Mexico is paying for it). What I especially liked was his ability to bluster and rant while in the US in front of Amerikan audiences, but when he arrived in Mexico – crickets. The man is a coward.
9. Tax returns (after the election) – don’t worry, we’ll see them soon enough, no matter who wins what in Nov.
10. Writing his son’s statement about the Russian meeting. Well, I guess he has the same opinion of his son’s intelligence as the rest of us.
11. Slandering/Defaming people – “dog” anyone? Or am I just repeating #6 above?
12. Golf – good thing he is too busy as president to play golf. Oh, and some say he cheats.
13. Insulting international leaders (and shoving the head of state of one country)
14. Helsinki – private meeting with his handler? Were the first 10 minutes of the private meeting a showing of the pee-pee tape?
15. Political punishment by removal of security clearances. There is a reason you ensure people keep their security clearances; it is to ensure that there is a deep bench of really talented people who know the history and can provide advice when needed.
16. Emoluments. Oops, that’s a constitutional thing, and we don’t do that in Amerika anymore.
17. “Sons of Bitches” (kneeling for the flag). Sorry, I support the right to protest, and the obligation to understand (not to agree, but to understand) what people are protesting and why. Misstating the real reason and smearing people is simply wrong. They are not protesting the Flag, they are protesting dead black people killed by police that then get off scot-free. 
18. “Blood coming out of her everywhere”. Enough said.
19. Money laundering (selling condos for cash payments to mobsters). This might go back to #9, but we will see soon enough.
20. Said he would date his daughter is he was younger. Creepy, just creepy.
21. “Grab them by the Pussy”
22. Disrespect for veterans, disrespect for POWs, and disrespect for all those serving.
23. Paper Towels. Meanwhile forgetting and hoping that Puerto Rico will just go away.
24. Lies. Never ending lies.

I get shit from people for saying “Amerikan” and “Amerika”. When the United States of America stops being a Russian client state and the President no longer appears to be in the pocket of the KGB/GRU, then I will go back to calling it by the more common name. Consider this my protest.

How to Bribe a policeman

Is "petty corruption" the same as major corporate or central government corruption?

When flagged down for a minor driving offense, an acquaintance was told by the male and female police officers that this would be a $75 fine. Okay, said the acquaintance, you’re right, I was wrong, write me the ticket and we'll all the on our ways. If only it was so simple. Driving in Panama City can be very difficult, and while a right turn from the inner of three lanes is considered normal, it is possible to break the road code, indeed this is what happened.

First, this is not a comment advocating corruption, or bribing policemen, or bribing anyone else for that matter. This is a comment on the reality of life in Panama, and no doubt in many other countries. Bribery is "normal" in so many places and situation; sometimes petty as I'm going to describe, while at other times major such as the brown envelop scandals of Siemens and Odebrecht, and the Asset Seizure Program in the United States.

Odebrecht is the current poster-child for massive corporate corruption, having bribed its way to successful bids for major infrastructure projects across Latin America. One estimate is that Odebrecht paid out over $780 million in bribes, with investigations and arrests under way in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and other countries. This was corruption on a massive scale, and has already brought down at least one government.

Unlike corporate corruption, in too many countries, including Panama and the United States, to name just two, police forces are under-funded, and in many cases, police officers are poorly paid. In some cases, they are so poorly paid that they cannot, on their salaries, feed their families and buy their uniforms. An unfortunate position to place the protectors of social order, including general ethical standards.

In the United States, police budgets are boosted by something called the Asset Seizure Program ("Civil Forfeiture" program), a process by which police can declare that you had the intent to use your assets to commit a crime, or that those assets were gained as a result of criminal activity. Of course, if you can prove that you are innocent, in as much as you did not commit a crime to afford your car, and if you can prove that you did not plan to commit a crime such as buying drugs with the $200 (or $2000) that you have on you, then they will give those assets back to you. You will need to hire a lawyer and go to court, so in many cases, even fighting will cost you more than the assets sieved. US police forces boosted their budgets by $4.5 billion in 2014, more that the total reported value of property reported stolen in burglaries that year.

This can better the described as Kleptocratic behavior on the part of a government. Top-down corruption, if you will.

But coming back to Panama, and our friend stopped by the police.

"A ticket would be a bad thing for your record" the police said, "there is probably a better way to handle this". According to the story we were told, the driver then figured out what was being suggested, and decided to play along, with no desire or intent to pay a bribe. "What do you mean?" She is European, and Northern European, and the thought of bribing a policeman for any reason was deeply repugnant to her way of thinking.

Well, they said, if you were, for example, to pay the fine on the spot, it would of course be reduced, and there would be no need to add it to your permanent record. "Okay", she said, "can I pay it right now at the police station?"

Well that wouldn't be very convenient, would it? So they asked for her passport, which you are required to have with you at all times in Panama. She handed it over, and they looked at it, and handed it back. "There seems to be something missing" she was told. Again, she played dumb.

This carried on for a short while, with the two police looking at each other, wondering about just how dim this woman could possibly be. This was a perfectly normal transaction, and they were confused as to why this wasn't going to script.

So they passed her a red notebook, and in their frustration, said "Look, the way it works is that you put a $20 in the notebook, and everyone is happy." And with no option being given, and instead of the $75 fine that she would legitimately have had to pay for a real ticket, she took a $20, put into the red notebook as instructed, and handed the notebook back to the police.

And yes, that was the end of the story. They then very politely wished her on her way, as if nothing had happened. The law had been upheld, she had been fined for breaking the law. They did their job in pointing that out to her, and giving her an option that did not include wasting her time and theirs, and costing her more money. And they were paid what is in effect the top-up to their salaries that is expected.

Does any of this excuse or condone what was done. Was the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) law broken, or the UK Bribery Act broken? Most surely, a foreign official, two actually, were paid a bribe.

Am I suggesting a moral equivalence between the individual police extracting bribes when minor infringements happen, and the crimes of Odebrecht, Siemens and the US national and state governments? Actually, I would suggest that the bigger evil, not just because of the bigger amounts involved, is the US Asset Seizure Program. This is the nation-state acting as the organized criminal enterprise. Odebrecht and Siemens were crooked, not doubt about that, and used capitalist incentives to illegally entice officials to win sales. The local police who use these tactics to pay for uniforms, food and housing, and schooling for their children, all within an existing and established culture that has effectively established a price for infringements, is the lesser evil by far.

Corruption starts at the top, and the messages from the top determine if a society is corrupt. In the case of the police in Panama, are they individually more corrupt than company executives, or less (or more) than local and national police forces that use extra-judicial seizure of assets? The higher the corruption starts and is justified, the greater the rot it contributes to and create in a society.

Panama Papers: Proceeds of Crime?

Drug dealer has a pile of cash. Drug dealer buys mother a house. Mother is pretty certain that the money is not clean, but it was from her son. Sweet boy. Time goes by. Drug dealer is caught. Assets are confiscated. Mother loses house. Proceeds of crime, after all.

And that is the way it is supposed to work. While mother is a nice woman and loves her son, she did knowingly accept assets that were the direct result of criminal activity. Apparently this standard does not apply to journalists. Journalists get Pulitzer prizes instead.

The "Panama Papers", while shining a bright light on the world of offshore companies and diversion management of assets, more importantly highlights the very grey line between the ethical hacker and the crooks, including the users of the information that was stolen. We still do not know how the information was released, although Mossack Fonseca is stating that the document were stolen in an external hack of their systems.

Basically there are two options; and insider copied the documents and made them available to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, or an external individual or group of individuals hacked Mossack Fonseca's systems and copied the files, providing them to Süddeutsche Zeitung.  We are told that the person (singular) who provided the document has not asked for money, only protection of identify. It is worth noting of course that an internal party could have been the hacker, to help obscure the source of the information.

As there was too much information for one news agency to fully explore, the data was distributed to a number of news agencies and papers, using the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) as the network for distribution.

What is disturbing is the wide dissemination of the information for a long period of time, and teh ability of the journalists brought in to keep their silence. Almost mafia-like. While journalists as individuals have, in liberal western countries, a theoretical legal protection for use of sources (and in some case protection from releasing their sources), the information used in this case was sourced illegally. Once sourced however;

A network of about 400 journalists in 80 countries put together by the consortium spent months researching the documents. The media partners included the Guardian and BBC in the U.K., El Confidencial in Spain, Le Monde in France, Falter and ORF in Austria, Sonntagszeitung in Switzerland, and L’Espresso in Italy.

We are also told that newspapers and journalists have had access to the documents for many months, with the various reports saying anything from six months to a year. It is interesting that in that six months to a year, the story was kept secret from all, until Sunday April 3rd, when the bombshell exploded onto newspapers (online of course) and the TV news.

And what an explosion. 12 heads of state, 120 senior politicians or close associates of politicians, family members, etc. The first scalp has been taken, with the Prime Minister of Iceland stepping down. Score one for the "Revenge of the Sith Bankers". Personally I would not be surprised to find that the IMF, Troika, and individual banks that lost big in Iceland, are rubbing their hands in spiteful glee, but I digress.

In total, something like 214,000 companies were established by MF, with these companies spread around the world. Strangely, there are few American companies or individuals reported thus far - the current number seems to be 3072, with a total of 441 clients, but we're told to expect more. 3072 out of 214,000? Really?

Putin is just missed, but some around him are having their affairs aired in public. All, according to the Kremlin, part of a campaign of Putinphobia. Whose to know, but the Panama Papers are highlighting goings on that seem a little unsavory. In fact, a lot unsavory, by a huge range of people, from football stars to royalty, to criminals and (not criminal) individuals and companies.

And yet, all the information is not being released, raising questions about the political motives of those that released the information. Wikileaks climbed into the fray by stating categorically that one of the organisations involved in the dissemination of the information is effectively a front for Soros and his anti-Russia pro-democracy agenda.

And it is to that background that the relatively low number of Americans identified raises questions. If there is a dearth of Americans, is this because the information has been massaged? Is the number so low because the United States already has significant tax havens in Arizona and Delaware, and therefore there is less "need" for Americans to create international vehicles? Really?

At the core of my concerns then, is the question of whether the release of information, stolen information, was a crime, and not a "whistle blowing" action. And if it was a criminal activity (which hacking resulting in the theft of company information clearly is) then while there may be an argument that the thief was a whistle-blower, it does not absolve organisations from their use of the information for gain.

In this case, Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Guardian and other news organisations, instead of being legitimate news gathering and reporting organisations, are in fact the recipients and exploiters of illegally gains assets (the data). The drug data dealer has given then a home, and they know it came from criminal activity.

This makes their activities effectively the exploitation of the proceeds of crime.

I would expect that the vast majority of the companies formed will have been for perfectly valid business or personal reasons, legally using mechanisms to manage business activities and assets while also managing tax exposure - legally. None of that matters of course. Panama and anyone who does business with a Panama legal firm is now assumed to be a crook, while the real criminals, the Hacker(s) and the news outlets that has used the proceeds of that crime, will wear a mantel of purity of spirit.

If anything, I wonder if there will not be legal actions taken against the organisations that used and reported the data. Proceeds of crime indeed.