My Life on this planet.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff fell – or did she? In the article “ The decline and fall of Dilma Rousseff ” in Newsweek (17/05/2016), Brian Winter describes her gradual downfall until the moment the Brazilian Parliament suspended her from Office on 12/05/2016 and replaced her by Vice-President Michel Temer until a future hearing that can impeach her. A large crowd celebrated her fall but I wonder for how long. Still, people celebrated because many hope that corrupt politicians can finally fall and indeed, I think her fall may start to clean Brazil’s politics. However, many who removed her from power were celebrating even more as finally, the politician who refused to stop the corruption investigations was finally removed from power and I think that they believe many people were celebrating her fall in the hope the corruption investigations will end with her removal.  A flag falling apart? The past As a woman in her early 20s, she joined left-wing guerrilla groups ...

A new banking scandal and this time HSBC is involved as well as (again) the rich who were advised by the Swiss branch of the bank on how to avoid paying taxes in their own country. These are the people who warn for instance the Greeks not to avoid paying taxes in order to be able to repay the banks. The bosses of HSBC were forced to explain at a parliamentary hearing what went wrong. They explained it was a difficult branch because its managers and employees hid their actions behind the Swiss banking legislation that actively stimulates corruption by promoting its banking secrecy. However, his explanation is difficult to follow as he too avoided paying taxes although it seems to avoid jealousy amongst his colleagues.   Still, indeed the Swiss banking secrecy makes it difficult to check banks. Nevertheless, ordinary people who work at companies will not be able to hide any activities for their bosses or face redundancy or even the involvement of the criminal justice system. ...

Here I will discuss how Greece has changed from its early days we still admire to what is happening at this moment. Of course, many Greeks are not to blame, but still ... . It will also show how much Europe changed within a very short time. It starts with the release of Mr Vaxevanis, ordered by the Greek Court, showing that not the whole of the country is corrupt. What is the story? Mr Vaxevanis is a Greek Journalist who, according to his account, was arrested by a large police force as if he was one of Greece most important criminals. What was his crime? He did what every self-respecting journalist would do: he published a list he discovered containing more than 2000 names of high-earning Greeks who had failed to pay taxes because their money is on an HSBC-account in Switzerland and they didn't declare this money. He was arrested on charges of breach of privacy (in an earlier article I wrote that the only time journalists should publish about someones privacy is to expose crimi...