I find very little news exciting. Yesterday I shared on Facebook at Citizenship Taxation a Washington Times article reporting that the GOP controlled house was starting impeachment proceedings on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen–this was to say that I hold no idiosyncratic view that the IRS is a criminal organization. Of course I am completely blasé when criminals have turf wars and I am not about to get my hopes up that anything will change: when the war is over, no matter who wins, sociopaths will still be in charge.
Author Archives: Petros
Our Sociopathic Society I: On the price of a Certificate of Loss of Nationality
We live in a sociopathic society. Of course one could argue that governments and other human institutions have displayed signs of sociopathy throughout history. You get no argument from me. Nevertheless, I would argue that we must always be diligent in pointing out and decrying sociopathic behaviour.
One characteristic of a sociopath is the inability to empathize. “The most incredible trait of a sociopath, is their complete lack of conscience, lack of empathy, remorse, guilt or shame.”
So-called American citizens abroad have complained to their political leaders, who sometimes pretend to empathize, but most often will turn around and sponsor or vote for laws that make the situation worse for expats. This is evidence of sociopathic government, unwilling to bend despite causing real harm to people.
The State Department faces rising numbers of people renouncing their US citizenship, many of whom have complained in the media that they are forced to give up their US citizenship to protect themselves and their family from the US government’s encroachment into their financial privacy. So what does the State Department do in response to their suffering? It increased the fee to renounce from zero to $450 and then to $2350–and not only so, they are now forcing people who have already lost their US citizenship via relinquishment to pay $2350 to purchase a Certificate of Loss of Nationality–which will permit them, sine qua non, to travel to the USA on their home country’s passport and to prove to their domestic banks that they are not tainted with the stench of US nationality. So the US government chooses to make the lives of expats even more difficult despite their complaints. This is proof that these political leaders are sociopaths.
This sociopathic fee of $2350 is particularly distressing if one has produced children with “property of the USA” stamped on their rear ends. This genetic disease that we call USA citizenship will cost $2350 per person to eradicate, and the more little Americans that one has had the more likely that this will become a serious financial burden–imagine a US expat couple with three children (not that uncommon). In order to buy their manumission, they would have to pay $11,750 US at the current rate, but there is no reason to think that “reporting for duty” John Kerry (the sociopath who runs the United States State Department) will keep the fee at only $2350. So by the time their children are old enough to renounce, the price of freedom will be even higher–but still worth it; that is if you can afford it.
The less a citizenship is worth the more it costs to get rid of it
Astroturfing is real: Sharyl Attkisson
In a February 6, 2015 TedTalk, Sharyl Attkisson explains what astroturfing is and how it affects information on the internet:
Astroturf and manipulation of media messages | Sharyl Attkisson | TEDxUniversityofNevada
Attkisson a few days earlier testified about how the Obama uses astroturfing and other intimidation methods to stifle freedom of the press and to suppress information:
Sharyl Attkisson: If You Cross Obama Admin They Will Treat You Like “Enemies Of The State”
As victims of propaganda and media of control, we should understand the obstacles that we face when trying to spread our message.
The US government hunts down Expats to pay taxes–meanwhile the Clintons are cashing in
Corruption American Style:
Bill Clinton scored paid speeches while Hillary made official State Dept. visits
Kent Cooper, a former federal election regulator and respected political ethics analyst, said the blurred lines between State and the foundation in the Clinton world validated the axiom that “there are many pockets in a politician’s coat to line.”
“There are the official pockets, the political pockets, in this case the foundation’s pockets and then their own private pocketbooks, and you can see how special interests subtly work all of them with invitations, pressure and money to try to get what they want,” he said.
“There seem to have been no ethical boundaries or double checks on conflicts of interest between the activities of the secretary of state as a government official, the fundraising of a private foundation, the fees of a private consultant, and the personal income of a former government official, that being the former president.”
It is axiomatic that if government is run by criminals then law enforcement hunts down innocent people to make it look like they are doing something. Government officials cannot go after real criminals or they would have to put themselves in jail first.
Bernie Sanders: Demagogue of the Senate
I’ve noticed that some of the people on Facebook really like Bernie Sanders. But let’s make one thing clear: this senator is a demagogue:
“a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary., Eleventh ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).
I have myself given up US citizenship. I know lots of people personally who have given up US citizenship. I do not know a single billionaire. I am not a billionaire. I did not leave the United States to avoid paying taxes. For crying out loud, I live in Canada where taxes are much higher than they are in the United States. This man has vilified me and others like me who have become targets of the Obama administration of exorbitant fines, destroying our rights of due process and presumption of innocence.
We should remember that the colonists felt that it was unfair that Britain tax them and that is why they led a revolution and gained the independence of the colonies, thus creating the United States of America. Bernie Sanders may not realize it, but the current policy of the United States towards expats is ten times the son of the Devil what British taxation policies were against the colonists. Most of us who have relinquished US citizenship are victims not villains.
Should a Canadian be forced to fill out W-8BEN to avoid losing her right to trade in her Canadian brokerage account?
LM has posed the following query to readers. It is another true life scenario in which the Canadian government and Canadian banks have put certain Canadian citizens at risk by promising to expose them to the US Federal government.
OK Brocker folks, I have a situation and need support /answers / information.
I invest with a Canadian FFI (for example, RBC-Dominion) and just got a W-8BEN from them that “has to be” filled out and signed; otherwise, they will no longer allow me to trade/invest with them. I spoke with my investment counselors associate (who knows my situation totally and has discussed much about FATCA with me) and told her I found it outrageous that I should be required to sign a US IRS form to say to my Cdn investment firm that I am not a US citizen. They (the FFI) got this exact same information from me back in 2013 via a “Substitute W-8BEN” when I transferred all my accounts there and I would be happy to sign an additional “Substitute W-8BEN” from them now. I’d even be willing to provide a copy of my CLN.
My recollection is that the IGA includes wording that allows Canadian FFIs to use their own equivalent of a W-8BEN (in this case, the “Substitute W-8BEN” with a page heading of XYZ Wealth Mgmt, ABCD Securities”) rather than the actual US form (which has, at the top “Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service”, so that any signature is “under penalty of perjury” to the US).I don’t intend to perjure myself or in any way lie, but is it required, under Cdn law now, that I must sign a US legal document to prove that I am not a US citizen to my Canadian financial institution? I would hate to lose my investment advisor of many years but this has really angered me and I’m sure I am not the only one who will be getting this document to sign now that the FFIs are beginning to look more thoroughly at “established” accounts.
Any advice / information / links to the part of the IGA stating that FFIs are not required to use the US form / etc would be very greatly appreciated.
Letter of Nathan Cullen, NDP Critic for Finance, to Ministers of Finance and Revenue
Someone sent me this letter and asked me to post it. It is a timely reminder that the current government is not doing all that it can do to avoid the extraordinary rendition of the financial information of Canadian citizens to the IRS.
“Everyone and his brother”: If we can’t mobilize our own siblings, how can we expect the Congress to care?
As a child I heard my dad use this expression , “Everyone and his brother”–to say that a large amount of people will be at a certain store at a certain hour, so we were going to go at a different time.
I had to relinquish my US citizenship in 2011. I have told my sisters. One of my sisters is politically active. Neither give a rat’s tush about what has happened to me. Both are democrats. My brother doesn’t give a damn about politics and doesn’t vote. He gives less than a rodent’s hiney about my problems since he not infrequently has his own concerns with the IRS, as do all Homelanders.
Can we be surprised that the Senate Finance committee downplayed the 347 submissions regarding FATCA, most of which came from “US citizens” abroad? If we cannot get our brothers and our sisters to write to their representatives, Congress will dismiss our pleas out of hand. But how do we mobilize the members of our own family. My own experience, and what I’ve heard from others, is that our families care a little about our situation than Barack Obama cares for his own brother living in Kenyan poverty. So how do we mobilize people who think we are crazy or have their own problems and no time to put into lobbying their government on our behalf. I believe it can’t be done–but perhaps others have more empathetic brothers and sisters. I certainly don’t have siblings who empathize with my situation; apparently, neither does George Obama.
Barack Obama’s ‘half-brother discovered in Kenya, living on a dollar a month’
The United States of America is a juggernaut
Juggernaut: “any terrible force, esp one that destroys or that demands complete self-sacrifice ” (dictionary.com)
Three years ago I came to the conclusion that it was irrational to believe that the USA was going to change for the better on expat issues. Roger Conklin had recounted that a congressman lost re-election on account of his support for expat issues, and that made me realize that the no one could turn the USA from its present course. It was a juggernaut, and it is best just to get out of the way. A few weeks ago I started using the term “juggernaut” to depict the USA. Then this evening, I looked up the derivation of the term, from an idolatrous practice in India (s.v., juggernaut):
a crude idol of Krishna worshipped at Puri and throughout Odisha (formerly Orissa) and Bengal. At an annual festival the idol is wheeled through the town on a gigantic chariot and devotees are supposed to have formerly thrown themselves under the wheels
When patriotism becomes idolatry it is nearly impossible to change the course of a nation. Criticism becomes disloyalty. My critiques are “America-bashing“. But it seems to me that true loyalty too often requires throwing oneself under the chariot. Many times has these United States required its citizens to do this very thing: the Civil War, Viet Nam War, and now FATCA–to name just a few examples.
Well, if you don’t like the juggernaut metaphor to describe the United States, today Zero Hedge has recently repeated an article by John Chuckman, America as Dangerous Flailing Beast, but even Chuckman cannot help but see the religious devotion in America’s collective sociopathy: