This is just amazing. The fallout from this is going to be...biblical. When people really start digging into the names and the connections (even to those not named), it's just going to be amazing to see how it unfolds. And this map is great, awesome job @bkilmartinit!
Great! Getting rich by stealing from people (specially in poor countries) is something that need to be stopped now! Otherwise we won't be able to develop as society, in peace.
@heymatt_j It gets a bit complicated in globalized economy today.. We have free market economies where companies pay nothing or little in taxes like Hong Kong or Singapore, etc (who also have one of the biggest GDPs)... So there's literally nothing people can do about it, it's a legal structure of a different country.
@marko_is Yes it is very complex but doesn't mean it should remain the same. Something needs to change to narrow this increasing marginalization of those less advantaged. The rich and powerful (both individuals and companies) need to pay their debt to society also. Perhaps we need to start enforcing companies running in the country they're operating in to be as accountable as the regular people living there? Unless forced, those with the most to lose will often do whatever they can to hold onto it, neglecting the infrastructure of the governments that enabled them to be prosperous in the first place.
@heymatt_j There are three big problems with enforcing businesses to pay in that manner: First, companies will move their operations to another tax friendly country, meaning that people will lose jobs (just like many businesses from the US are moving). Second, if let's say our domestic country enforces those regulations against international corporations, then they will have a hard time to sell their domestic products to another countries, because other countries will respond with same regulations. Even if we then ignore comparative advantage, it's human mind and globalized workforce that are essential for economic growth today (almost 1 billion raised out of extreme poverty since global liberalization of the economies). The third problem is that businesses are empirically losing faith in government spending and they are scared that money will be blow away by some silly government projects. There is a need to rethink how and why businesses pay. At the end, businesses are the ones creating/allowing to create the economic standard for one community or a country.
Great visualisation. Thank you.
Can someone confirm whether this is off the new data leak or the ICIJ 2013 release. Is quite relevant as we do not want people to start basing stories on incorrect facts/data.
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