“Oh my Gosh! Russia is involved!” The US media owned by the same kleptocrats who are hiding billions of dollars put out a story about Russian links exposed in the 'Paradise Papers' to deflect American watchers, said Max Keiser, host of RT’s Keiser Report.

The so-called 'Paradise Papers,' financial files leaked on Sunday, exposed where the wealthiest are hiding their incomes. It’s one of the biggest leaks of private documents in the world, revealing the financial dealings of the super-wealthy and powerful, from Royal families to famous global corporations.

A lot of news outlets have been trawling through the papers to find nefarious links between Russia and the US.

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RT: Lots of big names are mentioned in the papers. But do you think the Russia connection is receiving a disproportionate amount of media attention?

Max Keiser: Let’s talk about some numbers there. To put this into a broader context, the Tax Justice Network did a study a couple of years ago. They determined that between $21 and $31 trillion is held offshore. This means that hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes go uncollected. It means those who are paying tax are paying for the entire tax burden for various countries infrastructures, military, etc. You end up with what I would call apartheid, where you have got approximately 200,000 people in the world, who pay no tax and are able to invest without paying any tax. So they are compounding money at 20-22 percent a year without paying tax. So the billionaire class is escalating, we know this. Meanwhile, the poverty levels are continuing to rise because people are being ripped off by these corrupt countries in cahoots with these billionaires, who are placing the entire cost of running a society on those who can least afford it. And into the mix comes the social uprising – more violence, because naturally, if you have everything stolen from you, you have nothing to lose, so you become violent.

Now, to specifically answer your question about Russia being targeted by selectively picking out … here’s an elegant phrase – you’re trying to pick a fly poop from the pepper. So they look at this big scattershot of information, and with little tweezers, they try to pick out what they perceive to be incriminating data points. Then they build a scenario, and then the corporations that are owned by the same people that are hiding the wealth… There are only approximately six major media companies in America. Those are owned by the same kleptocrats that are hiding all these billions of dollars. They then put that story out there to deflect and confuse the average mainstream media watcher that “oh my Gosh, Russia is involved in this scandal! Russia is involved in Black Lives Matter! Russia is involved with Hillary losing the election because she is completely inept. Russia, Russia, Russia...”

I think Russia should open up some Russia branded companies here in America …Something with the Russian flavor to it, because Vladimir Putin T-shirts are selling well on Madison Avenue – Russian is the cash-in. And this incredible brand awareness in America from coast-to-coast – everything is about Russia. And the Russians start opening up shops here in America and cash-in on this Russia craze. Instead of just sitting back and trying to figure out the mentality of the American consumer and the American politician – because clearly there is no logic behind it – it is pure scapegoating.

The so-called 'Paradise Papers,' financial files leaked on Sunday, exposed where the rich are hiding their incomes. It’s one of the biggest leaks of private documents in the world, revealing the financial dealings of the super-wealthy and powerful from Royal families to famous global corporations.

A lot of news outlets have been trawling through the papers to find nefarious links between Russia and the US.

‘Tax the rich on transactions’

Steve Keen, Professor of Economics at Kingston University says the findings of the so-called Paradise Papers haven’t been surprising as “Tax evasion by the wealthy has been going on for decades, and we’ll never stop it.”

“We simply have to find a way to bring tax revenue back into the government that they can’t evade. And it will always manage to evade income tax,” he told RT.

Keen adds though that it won’t be easy to stop this thing from happening. Partly that’s “because we don’t understand how taxation actually works.”

“We think taxation is necessary to finance government spending. In fact, the government can spend regardless of taxation – the taxation simply takes large amounts of the money out of the system that government has spent into it because if we didn’t tax, we would have a risk of inflation.”

“Once you look at it that way, what the rich are actually doing – are siphoning off money that has been created by the government, accumulating it in offshore accounts and hanging onto the wealth, which should be recycled back into the economy. So the only way we can really stop it – is by forgetting about taxing them with income. Income tax works for workers – it doesn’t work for a corporation; it doesn’t work for the wealthy. We should tax them on transactions, and then they can’t evade unless they stop having transactions. If they stop having transactions, they will stop being wealthy,” he said.

RT: What are the chances of that happening?

SK: It just takes politicians to understand how money is created. So I think it is almost virtually impossible. They continue spreading this myth that they have got to tax us to be able to spend, running austerity, which is unnecessary. All this fits in to actually loading the pockets of the rich. Maybe there is a connection…