The leaking of the Panama Papers is, no doubt, a story that will run and run and as revelatory as it may be I have no doubt at all that our Vlad (a.k.a Comrade Teflon) will brush it all off, slip on a nice, new sports jacket and have a damn good laugh at the furore it has all caused. Because not one iota will stick to him or any of his cronies who remain insulated from international opinion behind an iron curtain of absolute power in Russia.
I'm sure, somewhere down the line, that someone will get clobbered, but it won't be our Vlad. He is quite simply untouchable. His name never appears anywhere. To all intents and purposes he owns not a single thing, so where the buck stops is where he wants it to stop. I've no doubt that most of this money has been re-channelled; in his situation a contingency plan (or three) are de rigour and that even before this all came out there would be some chump, somewhere, thinking he's sitting pretty under the huge shadow that Vlad casts, who will be the ultimate fall guy. But it won't be him, and it won't be Rodulgin.
Back in the 90's I knew a guy who was sent to Moscow by a (nameless) chain of British supermarkets who decided that Russia's burgeoning middle class and new capitalist society would provide the ideal outlet to expand their operations. He was there for several years after which time the company withdrew, unable to do business in a society where corruption was so ingrained that they couldn't breathe without paying someone off just to be able to exhale!
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| Comrade Teflon looking tight-lipped as usual |
I have no doubt that things have only gotten worse since then. The thing is, Russia is just so big and so corrupt that it doesn't matter what anyone says they just don't give a shit! They just do what the hell they want; economically, militarily and socially the Russian regime is immune to public opinion. That Vlad has absolute power within his borders is undeniable. In some ways, one has to admire the guys fortitude and resourcefulness. He is no doubt one of the brightest, but also one of the slipperiest minds of our time, and he is probably viewing the whole farce as little more than a tremor on the political seismograph creating no more than a ripple on his lake of indifference.
In the end maybe the saddest thing (for me) is that these people (not only the Russians, but Mubarak, Peroshenko and all the others) already have more than enough money for one hundred lifetimes (no matter how their wealth was garnered) and yet they still find the need to secret away yet more millions which they can never, ever possibly spend. I just don't understand what it is about excessive wealth that makes even the nice guys eventually try to cheat the system and not do as the rest of us do; pay their taxes, look after their families, give a bit to charity and try to be happy with what we've got.
I'm a huge football fan! Massive fan! For me an on-song Messi in full flight is a sight to behold. Perhaps he's the best there's ever been, maybe that there ever will be. And with the outrageous money he must make why o' why o' why would he or his advisors ever consider trying to cheat the system just to try and keep hold of a bit more of what he obviously feels he's entitled to? Whether he did, or whether he didn't, I know, is yet to be determined but the fact the question even arises means that all isn't rosy in Messi's garden. Again, even if found guilty of tax evasion he'll just pay it all off and carry on to pick millions more. It's not right! If that were you or I cheating for a fraction of the sum we'd have the book, in fact the whole damn library thrown at us. Just another example of money corrupting and ultimately money protecting money.
It seems that as wealth grows it eats away at the recipients moral backbone until they can't tell right from wrong; morally, legally or otherwise. And I know that my opinion amid all the others will just fade away into digital insignificance as the corruption bandwagon continues to roll on and the only ones squashed beneath it's wheels are the poor, the weak and the good.
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