Donating is easy call 1877 k. P.b.s. Car on John p.b.s. . When you're reporting a tax. Cut on me to be obsessed with. They are creating victims over the world a new leak of offshore financial documents casts more scrutiny on the ultra wealthy and creates new challenges for journalists from w n y c in New York the media Garfield of course paradise papers reveal only a fraction of the world did it well in the wealthy intend to keep it that way there's a wealth management firm in the u.k. Whose motto could serve as the model for the entire industry I want to be invisible and a Syrian refugee finds himself in a Wild West theme park in Sweden where tourists relive the rough and tumble of the American frontier. With. I have my holster on my server there's more coming up after the. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Jenny Herb's the strongest earthquake in years has struck northern Iraq and parts of Iran Iranian officials say more than 60 people are dead at least 4 more are reported dead in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq N.P.R.'s Jayna Raf has more from interview according to the u.s. Geological Survey the center of the quake was near how lab in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq it measured 7.3 that's considered a strong earthquake people reported killed in the Kurdish town of Dar band account and in at least one Iranian village across the border in Erbil hospital authorities said dozens of people had been admitted for treatment buildings were shaking here a lot of people rushed out of their houses into the street the tremors were felt as far away as Baghdad attack Iran engineers were checking for damage to the Dar ban to come down and advised people living near the river to leave officials at the larger Mosul Dam said there are no immediate signs of damage there Jane around n.p.r. News. Republican lawmakers took to the airwaves to tout their plans for a major tax overhaul N.P.R.'s Collins wire reports their efforts are partly aimed at skeptics within their own party on a basic level Republicans agree the tax code needs fixing but the details are more complicated the House and the Senate have separate plans some conservatives worry about a ballooning deficit and already influential Congressman Kevin Brady has told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday the House will reject one key part of the Senate plan the elimination of state and local tax deductions are you saying that the House will not accept a total elimination of that just won't fly and if even if the Senate passes it that's what I'm saying still treasury secretary Stephen Newton told c.n.n. State of the Union he's optimistic the good news is both the House and the Senate and the administration have the same objectives and he claims they'll get this overhaul done by Christmas and why are n.p.r. News. In Sutherland Springs Texas hundreds of people gathered at the 1st Baptist Church for the 1st service since a gunman opened fire last weekend killing 26 The service was held in a tent on the property Senator John Cornyn was at the service he says he was moved to see Pastor Frank Pomeroy who lost his 14 year old daughter in the attack lead the service where they find the strength to carry on after such a terrible tragedy is truly remarkable but it's clear they are people of deep faith and that's what sustains them and gives them hope even during a dark times like the officials recta the temporary memorial inside the building where $26.00 empty chairs are displayed a cargo ship loaded with frozen treats and other supplies successfully launched from Virginia today on its way to the International Space Station The unmanned rocket rocket rather should reach the station by Tuesday carrying 7400 pounds of cargo including pizza you're listening to n.p.r. News from Washington. There's been much debate on whether a jumbo jet can be effective in firefighting when it comes to battling massive wildfires in the West Boise State Public Radio's McComb reports a dispute between the aircrafts operator and the u.s. Forest service centered on the jet's storage capacity despite devastating fires across the west this summer a huge 747 capable of carrying more than 1900000 gallons of water was off limits to most firefighters that's because Forest Service rules limit contracts for air tankers to planes with no more than 5000 gallons of capacity Jim Wheeler the c.e.o. Of the 740 seven's operator global super tanker Services says that approach fell flat but the arbiter he is yelling Accountability Office has changed our argument that it won't leave the low Plax will lower the poppy end of the airtime Wheeler is optimistic the Forest Service will soon be out with new guidelines according to the National Interagency Fire Center wildfire scorched about 14000 square miles this year for n.p.r. News I'm Matt Gilman Boise at the weekend box office Thor Ragnor rock held on to the 1st place for the 2nd week for an eon an estimated $56000000.00 in ticket sales John Airlines is flying 5 Boeing $78078.00 airplanes and 2 other aircraft for a deal worth an estimated $1100000000.00 The Chicago based manufacturer made the announcement at the opening of the Dubai Air Show The deal also includes a landing gear replacement deal and a separate agreement has Emirates Airlines by 40 dream liners from Boeing that would be for an estimated $15100000000.00 I'm joining Herbst n.p.r. News support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include the Arcus Foundation dedicated to the idea that people can live in harmony with one another and the natural world learn more about Arcus and its partners at Arcus Foundation dot org and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As a young comic book readers Stephanie Williams The x. Men. People of color because of the way they were now she co-hosts a podcast that features black female superheroes We'll have her story and also president visiting the Philippines take on that country's human rights that's on the next morning edition. 4 to 9 am weekdays on k. P.b.s. Where news matters. In New York this is on the media Brooke Gladstone is out this week. The week began with a dose of media who. Now a new series of investigations reveals the offshore financial dealings of some of the world's wealthiest people and biggest corporations the stories are tied to what's being called the Paradise papers no not the papers that was last year's massive leak that exposed by corporations and rich individuals through offshore accounts the Paradise papers are a much bigger trove of documents that revealed even more rich people of voiding even more taxes 9 trillion dollars in taxes it's estimated 0. One of many investigations getting a lot of attention the investments of Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross kept a stake in a shipping company called navigator holdings after he became secretary. Is the Russian energy company the bore whose owners include Vladimir Putin's son in law and Kremlin linked all of darks on the u.s. Sanctions list to be clear this is not an allegation of wrongdoing but proof that the super rich get to play by a different set of rules as President Trump chief economic advisor Gary Cohn put it this is the way the world works just not for you. Marina Walker is the deputy director for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists which has just published the paradox papers Marina Welcome to the show thank you for having me we often talk about journalism shining a light in dark places of criminality corruption and abuse the Paradise paper seems more like a case of shining a light in dark places of legality no immediate signs of criminal activity here right exactly a lot of these structures our league and that East the biggest scandal and the biggest revelation that in 2017 in fast portion of our economic life a kerosene secret stashed away in the Caribbean into Pacific Ocean not only skirting taxation but also regulation if it's all legal and above board why all the secrecy why doesn't Queen Elizabeth want to know that she's got part of her fortune stashed in the Caribbean perhaps one of the reasons why they stayed off we nearly 7 didn't want to do all these kind of transactions in return as opposed to a tax haven was because one of the investments they were using was in a company I Q So if preying on poor people oh it was a rent to own company at that charges poor people large monthly fees to rent furniture or a television set and they end up paying huge premiums over the actual value Yes exactly present Tony lending and usually would public figures doing in the secret world offshore tax havens it's completely at odds with their public image in the Riata world and these leak. Peels away that public image included in this recent you find members of the Trump administration including Gary Cohn the chief economic advisor to the president and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross squirreling money away off shore you have Kremlin money by way of billionaire Yuri Milner some of which was used to buy high stakes in Twitter and Facebook these are eye openers at this particular political moment in the United States what kind of follow up will there be for these nuggets of information what he's seen trysting is that when would have all Ross became commerce secretary he they invested off a lot of his companies and he was praised in his coffin Maisha hearing for doing so but he kept 9 companies and 4 of those 9 companies out there ones that connect him with a crime ring in that case so if you were a millionaire We knew that he had invested heavily in Facebook and Twitter what we didn't know on what these documents reveal is that for those investments he had significant backing from financial institutions and banks that are owned by the Russian government and that by widely Quincey there to be instruments off the Kremlin for their own a strategic purposes there is no evidence in these documents that the Kremlin was you seeing you were a millionaire for the strategic purposes but we have to look at the current political climate the context of what is going on Forgive me for paraphrasing but as I look at the stories that have emerged in of the responses from the principals named within them their reaction from the Wilbur Ross is and Gary Cohen's of the world is approximately Yeah so you've caught me observing the law. In the case of Gary Condit is interesting because he's so sharp connections have to deal with his past as an executive at Goldman Sachs and what he says he's tagged this is how the world works and my question to Heaney's if this is how the world the words in which the National Conference and wealthy individuals can go offshore and get their taxes cats to virtually 0 What money are you going to use in the new administration to pay for the infrastructure the hospitals this cause the roads and more that you have promised the American people all right so I'm going to assume that these records came into your hands because somebody in the Caribbean linked to them to you a gigantic data dump what is the process of looking at all of these corporate entities and the transactions between them and then actually seeing any of these pictures emerge with famous names and faces attached to them. When you spin a year long process we activated the same network that we had us in the Panama papers but we realized that we needed to expand it and we needed to have people in places sad we hadn't needed before like Derek you for example these leaks are Kalak when they 1st arrive the biggest challenge was to put it in a readable format you know platform where you can do searches like if you where searching in global So our partners anywhere in the world can be searching the documents at the same time for people and companies self interest to their countries we also want us reporters to be talking to one another so we provide a platform that looks a little bit like a social media wall and that's what all the activity and the sharing under frustration off the sorry chase and the reporting takes place I could not help but notice that one of your journalistic collaborators this time around was the New York Times which was conspicuously not in the Consortium for the Panama papers what changed I think they changed their New York Times came to us after that kind of our papers and they requested access and we gave it to them and they told us if anything else comes forward we would love to be included and we want to have this experience of having a lot of collaboration so we took them on their offer and we said we don't want your stars we want the best team players that you've got and they they leave it on that and you're conceding in their front pages of this week no I want to ask about how these stories have been spooled Well it seems as with the Panama papers the revelations are coming out a little bit at a time is that a marketing strategy to maintain interest while when you have 382 reporters from more than 1000 media in any stations working in silence for more than a year writing their stories reporting researching their. A lot of stories decided 13 and a half 1000000 records and we are probably only scratching the surface where you Arsenius that carefully planned rollout off stories sports figures and celebrities are in the data where not telling those stories 1st lets them 1st the stories of elected officials multination us and then we'll roll out on the rest of the stories I think the instincts of the public and even of newsrooms is to look for the juiciest to get bit the most infuriating corruption the most high profile misconduct and so far the paradox papers have not really yielded a whole lot of that I think if we are not infuriated when we see that a Kompany like Apple that had been cracked down on for its I view save Thanks I widens strategies goes on and ass x. Actually the same 2 or 3 years later maybe that's something that we have to think our society I we all k. With the wealthiest escaping or roles what have we now in hopes that people will make the connection between the stories they are reading about hypoxia and conflicts of interest and secrecy and their own lives and when they read those stories and they wonder who's the victim here but they can quickly realize that their victim is them Marina thank you very much thank you. Marina Walker is the deputy director for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists So after the Panama and Paradise papers opened our eyes to the lifestyles of the rich and famous we've still glimpsed only the tip of the builder bird so says Brook Carrington professor of economics sociology at Copenhagen Business School and author of capital without borders according to Harrington if we really want to understand the world of ultra high net worth we have to look past the wealthy to the network of wealth managers responsible for keeping capital intact Brook welcome to in the media thank you I'm very pleased to be here you have a kind of remains of the day approach to this or Upstairs Downstairs you look at the system of wealth and privilege through the prism of the support staff the occupation called Wealth Management What is wealth management a wealth manager is a professional usually from a background in the law or accounting who specializes in helping ultra wealthy people put assets offshore it started in the Middle Ages in England with the 1st trust funds and trustees that were created but it was only in like the last 25 years that a profession called Wealth Management has coalesced around service to the ultra rich to do the job well you have to be super confident but also extremely sympathetic it's a very unusual combination of skills like no one asked their surgeon to be a super sympathetic person although we ask of our surgeons is just be good at removing my brain tumor you don't have to hold my hand and talk to me about my family problems but the wealth manager has to do all those things and excel at them without rolling your eyes and acknowledge privilege or in some way letting on that you might not take them seriously this suggests. The kind of a literal subservience and the indignity that goes with it your research shows that indignity is indeed often a part of the package many of the people I spoke to complained bitterly about an attitude of like I have the money and you don't so you're my puppet one of the 1st stories ever heard was from a lady in Switzerland who said yeah I had a client call me saying I had to help her find her lost bracelet and I said Well do you know where you lost it and she said Well I'm outside a restaurant in London and this one was based in Switzerland the wealth manager so the client was asking her wealth manager to find a piece of jewelry that was lost in a different country the client couldn't even name the restaurant or the street that she was on so somehow the wealth manager triangulated on the the general location of the client sense some people out found the bracelet and build a client for it but it was that sort of hand-holding that was astounding what some of the people later viewed called Social Work for the rich I talked about remains of the day now I'm thinking of Smithers the majordomo of Mr Burns in The Simpsons so is it a world of Smithers in a way yeah it's a world of much more straight face and less overtly obsequious Smithers is and the notion is to look at the gross amount of assets and income and to shield them to the degree legally possible and sometimes extra legally possible from taxation and from just simply the view of the outside world that might also include debt avoidance or not wanting to pay divorcing spouses wanting to disinherit your children wanting to dodge trade restrictions there are all kinds of things that off sure. Can help you get away with and tax is just the tip of the iceberg is everybody in the business a crook I would say very few people in the business are crooks in the sense that it's extremely important to do this job well that you don't break the law because even if you're only charged with an offense it's a disaster for your career even if you when the game is over because you've lost your secrecy there's a wealth management firm in the u.k. Whose motto could serve as the model for the entire industry and it's I want to be invisible that's what they're selling to clients and that is what the wealth management industry itself tries to emulate and so far you know 18 months plus since the Panama papers broke I'm aware of only one instance in which anyone has even attempted to bring a prosecution and that's in India given that it was the largest data dump in the entire world and practically everyone was pawing through it looking for something to pin charges on I think that's pretty extraordinary one striking aspect of all of this culture is that laws apply generally to citizens. But if you were wealthy enough you can be from every place but no place at all at the same time you can sort of choose your location anywhere in the world to operate especially out of the reach of not only your own government but any government one of the people I interviewed in Switzerland said she found her clients actually kind of scary and dangerous because for them national governments are just playthings they buy and sell them at will Heaven help you if you're a refugee or an immigrant because all the doors are closed but if you're wealthy enough they roll out the red carpet for you companies and countries compete to get you new passports that they've actually managed to create a situation of representation without taxation I have a check that I have to write to the Internal Revenue Service and I am see they that various kinds of oligarchs and corporations can shirk their responsibilities to whomever they otherwise would owe taxes to. But in the overall scheme of things against the whole world economy is what is not paid kind of a drop in the bucket does it matter I think it matters a