20160411 (hush, money)

Now really, why keep your money in a spare bedroom like this drug lord where it could be eaten by mice or catch fire? Why, really, when you could get a shell corporation with the help of Mossack-Fonseca you could then invest--why really?

Arriving just in time to provoke

A new round of conspiracy theories

The Panama Papers will serve

As journalistic fodder for perhaps

Untold years. It will be a shame if

The largest story is the first:

Toppling the prime minister of 

A relatively minor nation. It 

May be only the story atop the 

Pile of much more revelatory, 

Much more intricately woven, 

Much more sinister crimes yet

To be unearthed. One would hope

Tax evasion is not the worst

Crime revealed. While the practice

Of squirreling away dirty funds is

Not particularly new (Swiss bank

Accounts for years served Bond

Villains, African and Asian 

Dictators, American swindlers)

The notion of shell companies

Must have proven a far more

Appealing course in that one 

Could keep the money relatively

Close at hand for access yet

Maintain an untraceable link.

The first published results stick

To non-American dabblers in

Clandestine fortunes—Putin,

Cameron, Xi Jinping, to name

A few with a promise of many

More. So far these are known

Individuals. What of the many

Unknown individuals—the

Corporations who have similar

Desires to hide profits from 

Taxes but keep them available

For use? Does the shell method

Allow them to invest in other

Profitable ventures while walling

Off the taxability? After all

Nobody wants their money to 

Just sit when it could be building

Interest funding activities that

Need money and whose managers

Don’t ask bothersome questions—

Judge-bribing, political murder 

For hire, weapons sales, we’ll

See. I don’t think anyone will

Be finding cancer research,

School reconstruction, hot meals

For the elderly, or new pipes

For Flint anywhere in the 

Prospectus.

c. J.S.Manista, 2016