Welcome to the Paradise Papers

Welcome to the Paradise Papers

by digby

The Big Story of the moment is the Paradise Papers, a trove of leaked emails from a secretive law firm in the Bahamas that reveals where a whole lot of rich people's money and associates are. Another guide to the international oligarchy, if you will. This one features some folks from the Trump administration. First up is filthy rich commerce secretary Wilbur Ross who seems to be entangled with Russians. Imagine that.

Apparently, this is just the beginning of a big story that investigative reporters from all over the world have been working on for months.

Apropos of nothing, I can't help but recall when Trump was talking about all the wealthy plutocrats in his administration last summer and said,

"I love all people, rich or poor. But in those particular positions, I just don't want a poor person."

Or when he said back in 2016,

"We're going to make our country rich again; we're going to make our country great again. And we need the rich in order to make it great, I am sorry to tell you."

All the way back to July 2015:

I -- I know the richest people in the world, I know the toughest people in the world, I know these people, they're brutal. You wouldn't like them and they probably wouldn't like you very much.... These are brutal people, great negotiators, great business people, but not nice people, they're not the happiest people. They are very rich, they are very smart. I would use them to negotiate against Japan. I would get one of them, bing, you're here, you're here, you're here like checkers, like -- like chess...."

Populism, 2017.

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