People often ask me why I give celebrities such a hard time. I mean, celebrities are all saints, right? They are perfect in every way and never do anything wrong at all, according to their fans anyway. So, obviously I am the devil incarnate for I have dared to be liberal while at the same time holding celebrities to the same standard that I hold "normal" people to. That is sacrilege in many liberal circles these days. So where do I get off giving celebrities a hard time? What did they ever do to me? Well, in this episode I hope to finally answer that question for all of you once and for all. There are people and then there are the images that people create for you depending upon the goals they are trying to achieve. There is no honest way to become rich and famous. It does not exist. That is a fantasy. The Pandora papers clearly demonstrate this. But first, a brief history of the myth of Pandora's Box and why it still remains relevant today. "Pandora was created as a punishment to the mankind; Zeus wanted to  punish people because Prometheus stole the fire to give it to them. Her  gifts were beautifully evil, according to Hesiod. Hephaestus created her  from clay, shaping her perfectly, Aphrodite gave her femininity and  Athena taught her crafts. Hermes was ordered by Zeus to teach her to be  deceitful, stubborn and curious." (greekmythology.com) One may consider this creation story sexist like the story of Adam and Eve, but keep in mind that many women in Greek Mythology, such as Athena, are not stereotypical in the least:

 Pandora was given a box or a jar, called “pithos” in Greek. Gods told  her that the box contained special gifts from them but she was not  allowed to open the box ever. Then Hermes took her to Epimetheus,  brother of Prometheus, to be his wife. Prometheus had advised Epimetheus  not to accept anything from the Gods, but he saw Pandora and was  astonished by her beauty, thus he accepted her right away. Pandora was trying to tame her curiosity, but at the end she could  not hold herself anymore; she opened the box and all the illnesses and  hardships that gods had hidden in the box started coming out. Pandora  was scared, because she saw all the evil spirits coming out and tried to  close the box as fast as possible, closing Hope inside. According to Hesiod Hope indeed stayed inside because that was Zeus’  will; he wanted to let people suffer in order to understand that they  should not disobey their gods.  Pandora was the right person to do it,  because she was curious enough, but not malicious.

I tell you this story not so that you will obey the mythical god Zeus, but so that you can see that, if you close Pandora's box after being curious enough to open it, the only thing you will do is close off your access to hope for a better world. Once the box is opened, it cannot be closed or your hope for a better way of life will be closed off to you forever. But enough with the mythology. What is in the Pandora papers and why is it so important? Well, you can pretty much boil it down to two words: tax fraud. "Leaked records show that, for as little as a few hundred dollars,  celebrities and other wealthy people have opened companies offshore and...saved hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars  in taxes. But those savings come at a cost to the public. By  routing income and other assets, at least on paper, to offshore  jurisdictions with low tax rates, the rich and powerful shift more of  the tax burden to ordinary citizens who pay taxes where they work and  live, leaving them to bear the cost of services and infrastructure like  schools and paved roads. Economists say that offshore holdings deprive  governments of hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue every year. (ICIJ.org)" If you want any hope for lower taxes, listen up.