I showed the winner of the debate the other day.
Now it’s time to show the loser. Or, to be more precise, here’s a couple who would be among the losers if they were willing to be victimized.
Now time for a caveat. if the election somehow results in genuine entitlement reform, I will gladly advise this couple to return.
P.S. The cartoon is humorous, but there is a serious point to be made about the fight-or-flight response to bad government policy. I’m obviously committed to fighting for liberty, but I don’t blame people who move to other nations in search of more freedom.
But Americans have to do more than simply move since the United States has the worst worldwide tax system of all nations. To escape the greedy and grasping claws of the IRS, they have to disengage with the U.S. government, either by legally giving up citizenship or by dropping off the grid.
I’ve met probably more than 100 Americans in about a dozen nations who have felt compelled to exercise one of these options, sometimes known as “going Galt.” Usually they choose the latter, which generally requires them to first move all their assets out of America and to make sure those assets are managed by non-U.S. firms.
P.P.S. There are also statists who sometime seek to leave America when they disapprove of the government. At least that’s the implication of this humorous report about leftists trying to escape after the 2010 elections.
Hard to “go off the grid”; U.S. tax authorities make it more trouble than it is worth for large foreign financial institutions to serve overseas Americans.
That forces overseas Americans to do business with marginal financial players who are often less ethical.
It is those Americans who live overseas who see just how far “The Land of the Free” has fallen.
It isn’t just the tax people (though they are the worst); state and municipal police forces in the U.S. are remarkably oppressive compared to say European police.
(Watch the reaction to any U.S. driver when he sees a cop car ahead, and compare that to the reaction of a European when he sees a European cop.)
Small anecdote. Had a problem with one of my dogs – cops were called.
In later discussing the issue with the D.A., he read from the police report: “Mr. Fleischer was unfazed”. My attitude was cited as a negative in evaluating the case.
Apparently cringing would have served me better – the cop was offended by my attitude, and the D.A. felt that it was unusual enough to comment on.
We have to wonder if the phrase “public servants” is still relevant.
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You renounce your citizenship and you are in many ways cut off from any family you leave behind. Should your parents need to be taken care when they get old, should you want to return to help your children, etc. tough luck.
It is this aspect of the US tax system that not only views your emigration as treason with exit taxes and permanent severance of any ties, but also punishes your entire family with severe obstacles to any future reunification. That is the aspect of the American tax system that most resembles totalitarian regimes — most of which regimes no longer exist.
All this presumably with the support of Americans, presumably the most freedom loving people in the world. How does that reconcile? It may be an island of exception to American thinking, but it is a serious one, and one that is likely to become a serious issue as emigration mushrooms in the decline years of the American empire. Decline years we seem to have irreversibly entered. Needless to say, combined federal-state marginal tax rates of fifty percent, plus inheritance taxes and exit taxes, leave little incentive to keep one working, if one is somewhat well of and thus they (or their ancestors for that matter) have proven to be highly capable people. Ironically, if you stop contributing you probably qualify for ObamaCare. In summary, this USA cannot remain the country producing at the highest value to cost ratio for long. Hence prosperity decline will inevitably follow. Actually it is already here, just that few are convinced that we have entered a permanent lower growth trendline, o e tgat cannot possibly keep up with the five percent average world growth we are living in. The country is now running on momentum. One gets the feeling that the slope of decline is accelerating. It is irreversible now. Watch out for successful people starting to bail out earlier and earlier and “the people” clamping down with ever more oppressive laws, essentially laws against fundamentals that buy a bit of time while making the eventual decline all the more turbulent a d deep.
Anyone thinks that in the middle of decline, when the downward path becomes evident even to the majority, the majority will somehow not only stop further legislation but also regurgitate all the legislation they so enthusiastically supported for two decades? There is still great inertia in human ideological dynamics, that is why declines are irreversible. People, nations, lose their good fortunes but keep going in the same direction. It is America’s turn. Act accordingly.