By now, we’ve all heard the news that Treasury had to extend the FATCA deadline by six months, a development which they attributed to a “groundswell of international interest”. But there’s another piece of news you probably haven’t heard: the day before the delay was announced, the U.S. and China concluded the fifth round of their roughly-annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue, attended by government officials and businesspeople from both sides. As always, they issued a joint statement about the matters discussed, which for the second year in a row included FATCA, described this time in the following terms:
| 中美双方承诺尽最大努力在法定截止期２０１４年１月前就《美国海外账户税收合规法案》（ＦＡＴＣＡ）的实施达成政府间协议。为寻求ＦＡＴＣＡ实施的合作方案，美国财政部、美国国税局、中国财政部、税务总局和中国人民银行承诺在２０１３年夏天尽早开展下一轮讨论。 | Both sides commit to make best efforts to reach an intergovernmental agreement on the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in advance of the January 2014 deadline in the legislation. To seek a cooperative solution to the implementation of FATCA, officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the IRS, China’s Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Taxation, and the People’s Bank of China will hold the next round of discussions as early as practicable this summer. |
| (Chinese version from the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs) | (English version from the U.S. Department of the Treasury) |
If we take this paragraph at face value, it looks like a major win for Treasury: the second-largest economy in the world — the one which everyone has been predicting for more than a year and a half would resist FATCA, and the one whose central bankers previously implied they saw it as a violation of their sovereignty — is now publicly committed to making “best efforts” to sign an IGA. Yet oddly enough, even with such an apparent victory for their narrative of “overwhelming interest” in FATCA, Treasury didn’t breath a word about it in their press release summary of the event or in their announcement of the FATCA delay. So just like Sherlock Holmes, we have a mystery on our hands: why didn’t Jack Lew’s dog bark?
How is the news being spun in China?
In a world where the IGA signings of island nations of a few hundred thousand people like Malta are considered to be major economic events worthy of global news blasts, I only ran across this news about a country of 1.3 billion people accidentally — I was tracking press mentions about one of the people who attended the meeting. Out of all the global Anglophone finance media, only International Finance Corporation Review appears to have even noticed. King & Wood LLP (not to be confused with Wood LLP run by Forbes contributor Robert Wood) also issued a press release claiming that this means an IGA is inevitable.
In contrast to the U.S. Treasury, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs thought FATCA was worth at least a one-clause mention in the press release they issued for domestic consumption:
| 与会的中方企业家就赴美投资遇到的市场准入、资质认定、公平对待、加强中美新能源合作以及美即将实施的《海外账户税收合规法案》（FATCA）对中国银行业的影响等问题表达了各自的诉求和关切。 | The Chinese entrepreneurs present at the meeting expressed their requests and concerns on investing in U.S. market, such as market access, qualification accreditation, fair treatment, as well as strengthening China-U.S. new energy cooperation, the impact on Chinese banks of the upcoming U.S. “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act” (FATCA). |
| (Link to Chinese version) | (Link to English version) |
But other than that, they’ve been playing it very low key. Not a single government official has emerged to comment publicly on FATCA since Liu Xiangmin complained last November that it violates Chinese law and unnecessarily increases costs. The state-run Xinhua News Agency’s sole recent mention of FATCA has been to quote Singapore’s United Morning News, which made Chinese translations of English-language reports noting the connection between FATCA and the recent spike in U.S. citizenship renunciations.
In the absence of any word from the government, the Compliance-Industrial Complex gets center stage, particularly its branches down in Hong Kong which can speak comfortably to both English-language and Chinese-language media. Both the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and Caijing up in the mainland have recently produced long press hits for Patrick Yip of Deloitte, who feels that signing FATCA would be a “brand-enhancing move” for the mainland & Hong Kong and that it will “only” increase costs by one to two percent. In fact, Yip is pretty much the only person who’s had anything to say about China & FATCA in the past month; even Jennifer Wong over at KPMG has been quiet.
Hong Kong’s finance industry is clearly listening to Yip — Standard Chartered, for example, has revised its account-opening procedures to ask new customers about their U.S. Person status, an act which is sadly legal under Hong Kong’s Swiss cheese anti-discrimination laws (unlike the much stronger Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which may bar FATCA compliance). However, it’s not certain whether even the Hong Kong government is listening to him, let alone the government in Beijing — in the most recent round of information exchange amendments to Hong Kong’s Inland Revenue Ordinance, the government chose not to include any provisions that would enable the Inland Revenue Department to participate in automatic information exchange of the type that would be demanded under a hypothetical Hong Kong–U.S. inter-governmental agreement, and a major pro-government legislator made a rather negative speech even about the limited amendments which did pass.
The Chinese government is apparently happy to let Deloitte grab all the attention for now — otherwise they would suck all the air out of the room by letting a few “unscripted” sentences slip out in some random press conference — but of course, that says nothing about whether they agree or disagree with the accountants’ positions. Silence is also a negotiating tactic.
Does China really want reciprocity?
The standard Washington line is that Beijing’s desire for increased reciprocity has caused these delays. Of course, if Beijing really wants this, the fact that it’s causing delays is an even worse sign for FATCA. More than a year ago, in the last round of the Strategic & Economic Dialogue, both sides committed to “provide an opportunity to discuss China’s concerns” about FATCA. Why might a year of discussions followed by six months of “best efforts” by negotiators on both sides fail to reach an agreement on something which has allegedly been promised to every “FATCA partner country” in the world? The very language of the most recent Dialogue’s joint statement should lead a reasonable observer to question to the whole shaky edifice of IGAs and purported U.S. commitment to bilateral information exchange. This is quite likely one reason why Treasury is keeping very quiet about the Pyrrhic victory of getting China to pretend to say something positive about FATCA in public.
Personally, I’ve previously expressed my doubts that China wants reciprocity. Sources which praise the Chinese government and sources which criticise it reach the same basic conclusions about Beijing’s lack of interest in financial transparency; they differ only in the motivations they ascribe to this attitude. As an example of the critical type of source, an article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago stated:
Almost no Chinese official tallies his investments and net worth in ways that make the information accessible to the public. Now, there are indications that Mr. Xi’s government is stepping up efforts to keep it that way. In addition to the apparent resealing of once-available data, Chinese authorities also appear to be cracking down on transparency advocates as political dissidents.
This doesn’t quite sound like an environment conducive to Chinese FATCA proponents’ career chances.
Guess who’s coming to dinner?
Whether or not China wants reciprocity, it’s pretty clear that the FATCA negotiations are at an impasse: the U.S. has proposed a bog-standard Model I or II IGA for mainland China (and possibly Hong Kong and Macau as well), China has made some sort of counteroffer with a mix of partial concessions and its own demands, and further discussions have failed to produce an acceptable compromise, probably because the U.S. cannot find any way to grant China’s demands without triggering the “most-favoured nation” clauses in earlier IGAs. We could act like the mainstream media and engage in some unbridled and uninformed speculation on what those demands might actually be, but for now let’s stick to a more basic problem which arises directly from the text of the Dialogue’s joint statement: who are the players in these discussions?
An interesting aspect of the upcoming China–U.S. “best effort” FATCA negotiations is the guest list. In addition to the tax collectors and finance chieftains of the two sides, there’s a fifth wheel: the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank. This contrasts oddly with earlier IGAs: the Bank of England doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with the United Kingdom’s IGA, for example. Even more curiously, there is no sixth wheel: the Federal Reserve is not invited, even though both sides tend to be rather picky about dispatching equally-sized delegations of people at equivalent ranks during these kinds of hostile negotiations.
The two Strategic and Economic Dialogue participants who brought up FATCA were probably CITIC chairman Chang Zhenming and Bank of China chairman Tian Guoli. The U.S. didn’t have any bankers in attendance; the closest analogue they brought was Laurence Fink of Blackrock, while the rest of their delegation comprised manufacturing CEOs. Institutionally, the “Big Four” state-owned banks in China — including BOC — are all descendants of the PBOC; they were spun off in the early 80s when the PBOC gave up its monopoly on deposit-taking in order to focus purely on monetary issues.
The presence of the PBOC at the proposed negotiations is quite likely related to whatever demand has been made by one side that the other is unwilling to meet, but it’s impossible to be sure precisely how. The U.S. Treasury is trying to preserve the unconstitutional fiction that IGAs are merely interpretive agreements between tax authorities and not treaties between countries; whatever compromise the U.S. and China are trying to reach, it may require a commitment from the PBOC in addition to one from the State Administration of Taxation & the Ministry of Finance, neither of which can bind the PBOC. Alternatively, the PBOC’s presence might be related to China’s “best alternative to negotiated agreement”: they will attend the negotiations in order to inform the U.S. of the general outlines of their backup strategy in case no IGA can be reached and Chinese banks become FATCA non-compliant. Presumably this will have something to do with one of the PBOC’s areas of competence (such as capital controls), and may involve some sort of retaliatory treatment of U.S. investments in China.
Conversely, the narrower composition of the U.S. delegation tells us something about what China is likely to be seeking: a concession in the area of taxation or tax information exchange, whether that might comprise heavier burdens on Washington or lighter burdens on Beijing. This may seem obvious and unremarkable, but it suggests that China is not trying to strike some sort of “grand bargain” of committing to full FATCA compliance in exchange for U.S. concessions on some other Chinese geopolitical objective in an area outside Treasury’s competence — such as anything related to U.S. interest rates, trade barriers, or arms sales to Taiwan.
Conclusion
Like the old joke goes, don’t believe anyone claiming to be a China Expert unless he worked in a porcelain factory for the last two decades. I have no inside information on the Chinese government, but then neither do any of the lawyers, compliance officers, and wealth managers whose self-aggrandising attempts to drum up business are quoted by the Anglophone media as gospel truth. The only thing we can say for certain: Treasury is not at all confident that the combined “best efforts” of the governments of the two largest economies on earth will be sufficient to meet the FATCA deadline. And presumably they’re also worried that the U.S. will not get the better side of the trade & tax retaliation that would inevitably follow from an attempt to impose 30% withholding on payments to Chinese financial institutions.
careful, Eric, don’t get swallowed up in that groundswell
China, HK Under Pressure to Join #FATCA After BVI, Cayman Islands Sign On http://ow.ly/odDfy
They’ve caught everyone who’s clamouring to sign an IGA on film. It’s mayhem!
Thank you Eric for the update on China which is a key player in the FATCA saga. Canada is too and we still have no idea what the outcome of Flaherty’s secret negotiations will be. Your reports are always well written and loaded with detailed information.
“Both sides commit to make best efforts to reach an intergovernmental agreement on the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) … “
That sounds somewhat like the “commitment” of the USA to provide reciprocity in reporting US bank accounts to countries signing a Model 1 IGA.
“The Government of the United States acknowledges the need to achieve equivalent levels of reciprocal automatic information exchange with [fill in the blank]. The Government of the United States is committed to further improve transparency and enhance the exchange relationship with [fill in the blank] by pursuing the adoption of regulations and advocating and supporting relevant legislation to achieve such equivalent levels of reciprocal automatic exchange.”
And we all know how well the reciprocity thing is working out in the USA.
http://repealfatca.com/index.asp?idmenu=4&title=News&idsubmenu=130
(James Jatras: It’s Official: There Will Be No American FATCA ‘Reciprocity’)
Let’s hope the sequence is delay, resist and reject for China. We need a strong country with economical clout to take the wind out of the FATCA sails. We also need Canada with its large number of US persons to follow the same sequence.
At the end of the day if a government tax agency sends the IRS data garbage what is the IRS going to about it? This whole IGA is paying ‘lip service.’
So does the IGA have the ‘garbage clause’? The 30% withholding is automatic once an IGA country is deemed garbage data?
I can see legal challenges in the US arguing the point the data is not accurate. So is someone going to get convicted on data that was passed from a corrupt Chinese bank, to a corrupt Chinese tax authority, and onto the IRS. It’s debatable whether a US jury would buy this argument with a well paid defense attorney. It’s the old attorney thing if the law is against you argue the evidence, if the evidence is against you argue the law. The IRS is going to find it difficult to guarantee the quality of the evidence particularly when a defence attorney may ask for witnesses from China when they won’t appear. Oh….then the IRS will slap the 30% because a bank won’t send witnesses half way across the world to testify in a US court. It’s bullshit.
FATCA has a long way to go before a global tax system is ever developed and when self interests start kicking in the whole thing is up in the air.
Again it goes back to garbage in garbage out.
If the USG had any brains, (which it doesn’t), it would:
1. Stop harassing other countries over FATCA; and
2. Quietly repeal it.
The debtor does not set the terms of the negotiation with the creditor.
China will do what it deems in its interests to do. If China signs an IGA it will because China deems it in its interests to do so. The interests of China are to:
1. Use the U.S. interest payments that it receives on U.S. debt to keep building its military; and
2. Move the US out of its dominant position in the world financial markets.
Ever been to China? Go to the war museum in Bejing. Check it out. You will see now China views the U.S.
Message to the USG:
Your long term survival depends on your getting along with the rest of the world. If you don’t get along better you will end up as an isolated “backwater”. But, you will still have your FBARs.
With such a brainless, inept congress, constantly under the influence of big money and lobby groups who have destroyed real democracy, there can be nothing but further relentless decline of the US domestically and internationally. I agree that FATCA is a side issue to what the USA really faces? And you cannot make yourself a true world leader by simply saying you are. The constantly repeated USA, USA, USA, is absolutely hollow and without much substance. Wished it were different, but sadly it is not.
@USCitizenAbroad
I will actually be in Beijing late Sept and the war museum seems fascinating (I travel for science meetings). After checking the web, I found it is mainly closed for renovations until 2015. They have some tanks and other war paraphernalia in the front courtyard but according to tripadvisor reviews it is not worth the time to see that.
Two weeks minus one day until I get a coveted second appointment at the Vancouver embassy! My take on CBT is that US congress will never do anything about it, and FATCA just builds on the paperwork and forms that IRS seems to love. Like the latest 75 page FATCA guide for FFI’s to get onto IRS computers. I can see the IRS is probably full of self-serving bureaucrats who love to write manuals and forms but cannot be bothered to ever enforce them except via the threat of draconian penalties. Anyway just one of many reasons to renounce.
Kermit
Not embassy, but the consulate.
Αμερικανός δεν έχει πρόβλημα του ελλείμματος
http://www.billoreilly.com/video?chartID=554&vid=-790222077588730340
Don – I can only hope that many countries like China end up sending wrong information, and in particular, information tainted by government or bank corruption. It is hard to believe that China/Chinese banks will honestly report to the US government the ‘US Person’ accounts of the rich or influential only to lose them as customers or worse result in political/economic ramifications to the bank.
With regard to the issue os a non US born Person vs a US born person with the former being able to fly under the FATCA radar that just exemplifies the inequity of FATCA and citizen based taxation. In fact one of my kids can fly under and the other will get caught in the FATCA net because she was born in the USA but grew up overseas.
Congress and the Administration has no brains – that is a foregone fact.
I’m interested in the politics behind FATCA. Clearly the US is using up a lot of international goodwill in pushing this through that will cost it in other ways. This is doubtless apparent to some in the US government who might want to back off on FATCA – it would be easier to make a diplomatic retreat. So there must be powerful people in US politics who are not willing to give up on this and want to push it despite the collateral damage. Who are those people?
Is it the President? No – he doesn’t seem that interested. Is it Senator Carl Levin? Does he have that much influence?
This is Levin’s legacy and I do think the president is interested since his comment abt. “We will rebuild our infrastructure by repatriating taxes” Obama said that about two weeks ago on national television. Further,I don’t think they can accomplish much without this vision that they can scoop up huge penalties all over the world which they feel they are “due”
China, will do as it pleases as was said above. I know quite a few people there. First off even if they sign an IGA that doesn’t mean necessarily that they won’t find ways around it. The Chinese are not going to give over their money easily no matter what they do sign or not sign. If FATCA causes it’s citizens any grief whatsoever this will be used in the news repeatedly to show how horrible the USG is. In the end I think China will either scoff at the IGA even if signed and design ways around it to their advantage or not sign at all. The USG can say it is a real bonus if they sign on. Even if they do, they will play by the rules that advantage them even if that means breaking the rules of the IGA.
Even according to the FATCAnatics, it won’t bring in much money – certainly not enough to make the smallest dent in US fiscal problems. I wonder if they’re just playing for pride – they know it’s a loser but it would be too humiliating just to quit.
The purpose of FATCA has nothing to do with collecting taxes from individuals per se. The purpose of FATCA is unrelated to tax evasion per se.
FATCA is about the U.S. – that great citadel of freedom and democracy – exercising:
1. Control over the rest of the world; and
2. Extracting a share of the economy of every country that as those who the US deems to be “U.S. persons” living in it.
Re 1: Control
“If you got em by the banks, their minds and hearts are sure to follow”
Every country that agrees to FATCA is not only run by the USG, but is run by the IRS.
Re: Extracting a share of the economy
Not only is the U.S. the only country that imposes CBT, it is a country that has a tax system that punishes tax deferral. This is why most retirement plans in other countries are deemed be PFICs, Foreign Trusts and the like. The so called US “taxation” of these products is really confiscation. Those U.S. citizens abroad who try to comply with U.S. tax laws will have their assets confiscated. Anybody who doubts this, doesn’t understand how U.S. tax laws work.
So, here is why Treasury is laughing all the way to the bank. These countries are so obsessed with the effect of FATCA on the banking industry, that they are NOT paying attention to the fact that FATCA is a vehicle to enforce DBT. They don’t understand what CBT really means. As stated the effect of CBT is that the U.S. will be able to extract large fines and penalties from other countries (a forced tribute to the U.S.). This is money that will taken directly out of the economies of other countries. The USG is nothing but a thug and a thief.
Furthermore, in the same way that the U.S. forces OVDP participants to pay the costs of calculating their own penalties, the FATCA compliance costs imposed on other countries means that they will pay the costs of identifying the U.S. persons and the costs of calculating the cost of the tribute they will pay to the U.S.
This is one of the reasons why FATCA is so evil.
Once the countries understand this, they will have no choice to resist. The result will be the isolation of the U.S. The U.S. will standing alone with its FBARs and forms.
Of course the compliance industry refuses to acknowledge this.
And all of this is in within the overall purpose of FATCA which is – as per the prediction of Orwell – to end human freedom.
On the point reread this post:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/06/01/the-bigger-perspective-on-eu-fatca-public-hearing-policy-laundering-reciprocity-and-the-consequences/comment-page-1/
History will record one of the two scenarios:
1. In 2014 the United States of American led by President Obama managed to con the world into surrendering a share of their economy to the U.S. Gradually by expanding the definition the U.S. was able to expropriate the complete profits of all FATCA partners in the world.
And that is how the U.S. became the only country in the world.
2. In 2014 the United STates of American led by President Obama attempted through FATCA to expropriate the share of the economies of other countries in the world. Once this was discovered, largely through independent blogs, like the Isaac Brock Society and others, the world resisted, isolated and relegated them to FBAR purgatory forever. You can still visit the FBAR Museum in what’s left of Washington, CD (an administrative region of China).
Which will it be?
That’s all folks!
A new article at iExpats:
Is China About To Sign Up To FATCA?
http://www.iexpats.com/china-sign-fatca/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=china-sign-fatca
@Deckard1138
You know, I have quit reading IExpats. The journalism by Lisa is sooo sloppy and full of errors, that it actually harms the cause, I think. The last one I read said “the USA and Somalia are the only two nations in the world to tax their expat citizens on their worldwide incomes and capital gains.” That was enough to make me stop reading…. But will check this one out by Jim and see what is wrong with it.
@Eric…
Thanks for your long and insightful comments. I do appreciate your Conclusions and cautions about what anyone really knows without working a porcelain factory!
I see that Jim Calvin at Deloitte has this brief comment…
Hong Kong Monetary Authority Message regarding FATCA
by Jim Calvin
On August 19, 2013, the HKMA released a circular in which it directs financial institutions to ensure compliance by implementing the necessary processes and controls, and that the Hong Kong Association of Banks and the DTC Association offer appropriate assistance to facilitate the development of good practices for compliance with FATCA. The circular makes several recommendations and observations regarding FATCA; however, it does not explicitly indicate anything regarding the status of an IGA with the U.S.
@Just Me: thanks for that link. Now that’s one amusing letter. It looks very much like HKMA is saying: start making preparations under the assumption that there might not be an IGA.
“Whenever there is a need, AIs should inform customers and obtain their specific consent before reporting the requested information to the IRS. At all times, AIs should ensure that they comply with all provisions of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance and adequate preparation should be made to respond to customer enquiries, taking into account the Ordinance.”
Translation: “We are not going to be an intermediary in any transfer of account data to the US. In case you bankers are a bit slow and didn’t already figure it out when LegCo went into summer recess, we’re not amending the privacy law either. If you want to send data to the IRS, you get to send it directly yourself. Get consent forms from your customers or you get 5 years in prison & a $1 million fine per violation.”
“To support AIs’ efforts in the above matters, the HKMA has suggested that the Hong Kong Association of Banks and the DTC Association offer appropriate assistance to facilitate the development of good practices for compliance with overseas tax regimes, including the FATCA of the US.”
Translation: “To support AIs’ efforts in the above matters, we’re not doing anything. We can’t even order you what to do (read between the lines and guess who won’t let us talk). You guys get to come up with your own solution.”
USCitizenAbroad, I agree and I have said it all along, this is not about money. Money is a bonus if they can get it. It’s about control and power.
Being able to force the rest of the world to comply with FATCA reminds the world who the only real superpower is and the foot dragging/stalling of various high profile countries serves to undermine the narrative that the USG is trying to put forward.
I don’t think we can believe much of what we read about the IGA talks. What’s really going on isn’t going to make the news and the main stream media is mostly controlled by their individual countries that have agendas and narratives of their own to sell to their populations.
The important thing to remember, for now, is that the Treasury originally said it would have the IGA’s and that FATCA would be up and nearly, if not completely, rolling by now. They don’t and it isn’t and they keep pushing back the start dates. Proving that this is not going at all well.
I am far less worried now than I was even a year ago.
@ USCitizenAbroad
You are so right. FATCA is about control and confiscation and also I believe about the perverted pleasure the USG takes in punishing other countries and people in general — just because it can. FATCA is but one facet of the wicked and corrupt USG. If the USG was a child playing in a garden it would be stomping on the flowers and pulling the wings off butterflies.
@Em
“…and pulling the wings off butterflies”. A chilling metaphor for how the USG will deal with renunciants?
@All
A FATCANatic is somebody who has heard of FATCA
An apostle of freedom is one who understands FATCA.
There is no doubt that the USG is about ending human freedom.
@ Bubblebustin
No doubt in my mind that the USG is a bully but bullies can be taken down by their victims when they wake up enough to know it is possible.
The world needs to heed the lessons and words of Ronald Reagen – Click on this Golden Oldie for a trip down memory lane
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19850709&id=77kxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=k-UFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6732,1595740
In 1985, Reagen said that:
In so doing he singled out Libya, Iran, North Korea, Nicaragua and Cuba as being:
In 2013, the the USG is now the global face of terror. Whether through killing innocent civilians with drones, destroying the lives of Americans abroad with FATCA, using the IRS to attack it’s enemies domestically, and other forms of bullying, it is imposing itself on the world in a manner that causes terror, pain and suffering. It’s simply the fatca of the matter.
What a difference 23 years makes!
In the case of FATCA the world is looking to China to stand up to U.S. aggression. The world is applauding Russia for providing asylum to Edward Snowden. U.S. attorney general Holder claims that U.S. due process does not include “judicial process”. The confirmation Senate confirmation hearings of John Brennan include a discussion of whether the U.S. should use drones against its own citizens. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The US is confiscating the assets of both Americans Abroad and Homelanders. It is spying on its allies. It is publicly taking the position that people should not have privacy rights. It is attempting to export a lower standard of human rights to the outside world. And more …
What advice would Reagan give the world today?
The world needs to come together and not bow to the U.S. All it needs do is to say:
No
@ Bubblebustin ,@ Em, @ USCitizen abroad..paraphrase yr fabulous comments
“If the USG was a [very young] child playing in a garden it would be stomping on the flowers and pulling the wings off butterflies.”
“If the USG was an [older] child ……… it [might be ] be stomping on [injured cats and dogs legs] and pulling the [heads off injured roadkill ] .”
Classic serial SOMETHING profile . anyway you look/slice the data, its bad news. persecuting/bankrupting Americans abroad and driving them to the brink of suicide [and i speak from personal experience],
drones killing american citizens, and NSA admitting, even in the paper figleaf FISA court, to thousands of legal violations on data collection…. etc etc etc
for anyone who still has doubts, just google PANOPTICO…where USA actually is heading
roll on my CLN= freedom from US .UK has many issues…. but it is still a very HUMAN country.
how ironic that China is probably now one of the best friends americans abroad could have!!!