Author Archives: Petros

The secret to grass-roots movements is legitimating people’s anger and pain and steering them into serious plans of action which will have a realistic chance of success.

In my post about my recent ousting from the American Expatriates Facebook Group (henceforth “AE”), I tried to be factual, rational and cerebral. I intentionally avoided incendiary or foul language; rather I tried to simply recount what happened at AE, without undue emotion. In a later post, one of the contributors at AE posted that my post was “not so nice“:

This group is a valuable resource for many and I greatly appreciate all those who work hard for all of us. However, it does not excuse the nastiness which occurred yesterday. If I played a part in the nastiness, I offer my apologies. The only excuse I have is that I was at the end of my rope with certain individuals. One of the individuals has posted a not so nice piece on the Isaac Brock Society site about this group and Keith Redmond. For me, it shows the true colors of this person and this person will do anything to ram their way of doing things down everyone’s throat. So please make sure that we can have a level of decorum which can make this group the best that it can be.

Here are some other characterizations from various commenters:

1. “I missed the discussion but I totally support you, Keith Redmond. Mr. Petros is free to start his own group for whiners and America bashers.”
2. “The departed whiners went way beyond US bashing. To say more about my opinion would enter into subjective judgments regarding personalty traits and would not be productive.”
3. The blog poster [Petros] has the right to say what he likes, but I think he’s crossed a line using the names of the admin in his post Keith. You don’t start randomly posting hate blogs using people’s names unless you can back up what your saying, even then it’s just best to stop and think before you post. The Internet is written in ink not in pencil what is said can’t be removed. Best to really think before you post, after all this group isn’t secret or closed the whole world can see it!!!!

A hate blog? Really? I do express my disagreement with the policy of deleting comments and entire discussions. But I did not express hatred for these people. Well I do admit that the term “Homelander Abroad” is pejorative, particularly in the manner that I used it. I’ve been asking myself if this characterization is merely inflammatory. What made me think it was an appropriate to call AE administrators “Homelanders Abroad”.

So today I’d like to set out my reflexions on what characterizes Homelanders Abroad. Here is what I came up with: Continue reading →

Shadow Raider makes some thoughtful and thought-provoking comments on my post and the ensuing conversation:

I’d like to make some constructive criticism for all sides:

1. Many commenters on this website seem to assume that US residents are patriotic “homelanders” who support CBT. I live in the US and I can tell you that this is not true. The vast majority of Americans don’t even know that CBT exists. When I inform them, I get various responses: some say that the US should not tax foreign income or demand information on foreign assets because it’s none of their business; many sympathize with the problems of Americans abroad (complex paperwork, fear of penalties, financial restrictions); some try to justify CBT with consular services or the right of return, but when I reply that these things are not funded by taxes (or don’t actually cost anything, in the case of the right of return), they concede; only a few invoke patriotism, but as a joke.

2. Many here also seem to believe that “homelanders” see Americans abroad as “tax cheats”. I don’t know where you got this idea. I’ve only seen this as a brief mention by a US politician from the 19th century, and I don’t think anyone else believes that. I’ve certainly never heard anyone say that here. US residents correctly assume that people move abroad for various reasons. Many of them have family or friends who lived or are living abroad.

3. Condemning US patriotism while praising Canada is inconsistent and alienates those who are not from Canada. CBT applies equally to all countries outside the US, and the Canadian government has done the same as the rest of the world regarding FATCA, it’s not a special case. I’ve also seen some commenters focus too much on issues in specific countries such as the various 4-letter Canadian accounts or Australian superannuation. People outside these countries have absolutely no idea what these things are. The problem is CBT in principle, not the details of how it affects specific investments.

4. Some people, like Republicans Overseas, are focusing way too much on FATCA. Blocking or repealing FATCA is very unlikely, and even in that case it would not solve the myriad other problems caused by CBT.

5. Expatriate lobbying groups seem to be ridiculously afraid that the US government will not pay attention to their demands if it looks like they don’t love the US. Seriously? Michael Kirsch cleverly pointed out the inconsistency of identifying yourself as part of US society while requesting to be taxed as someone from outside that society. It would make much more sense if they just stated the truth: they are actually more attached to the countries where they live, but want to keep US citizenship simply for the peace of mind that they could return to the US one day. Maybe the CBT debate should be centered on whether the right of return constitutes membership in the society or merely the eligibility for membership.

I had a couple of my posts taken down by Keith Redmond at the American Expatriates Facebook Group.

The first made use of Lebron James comment, ‘I’m the best player in the world’.

I wrote, “Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the best basketball player of them all?” Keith Redmond, the co-administrator of the Facebook group asked me what relevance it had to the group and I said it is analogous to American exceptionalism, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most exceptional of them all?” It is really about the National Narcissistic Personality Disorder from which Americans suffer as a nation. It leads to the USA unilaterally imposing FATCA on the rest of the world as so beautifully captured in this video, which is still the best explanation of FATCA ever:

The second censored post reported on the State Department’s denunciation of Dominican Republic citing the United Nations human rights provisions. I said the USA was hypocritical because it violates the human rights of its own expats. 

Then as Deedee Gierow, the Democrats Abroad co-administrator of the American Expatriates Facebook group, posted that she was sick and tired of all the bashing of the USA and that she, Keith and others were working very hard to lobby Washington (Facebook link). This solicited a discussion in which Redmond and Gierow heroically defended the purpose of the group and that they would henceforth delete any America-bashing content.

The American Expatriates group’s mission is to inform, educate, and provide the most up to date information regarding United States government policies affecting the lives of Americans living overseas. It is extremely important to mitigate the misconceptions about Americans living outside the United States vis-à-vis the public at large

It remains unclear to me how it is possible to have a group which discusses Citizenship Based Taxation and FATCA  from an expat’s perspective without being anti-American. This is the conundrum–either the content is irrelevant (e.g., cookie recipes) or it is anti-American–e.g., discussions of the lives that are being ruined by FATCA and CBT. How do you stand by and allow innocent people to be destroyed by a foreign government and say positive things about that government?

There was some back and forth between myself and some of the other active members of the group, in which I learned that I am argumentative and offensive. Really? That really surprised me.

My third censored post was a comment: if we can’t really complain about how the USA is treating us, then we are supposed to be like a battered spouse, who quietly accepts abuse, and so I posted a link to the following page and suggested the situation was comparable to spousal abuse: Intimate Partner Violence Dynamics.

It seemed like Expat Forum deja vu, when I concluded that a censored forum is an oxymoron. So later when I suggested that some people would indeed leave the group because it wasn’t a safe place anymore, Redmond told me to leave. So I suppose my days are numbered.

I guess that is all I can write for now. My knee is bothering me and it is hard to stand up at my desk. In any case, it is good that some people are trying to lobby the US government, but I have no faith that that will change anything. So perhaps my cynicism and pessimism is not welcome in best of all worlds–but certainly not on certain “forums”. Cheers to you all.

The Officiant asked:
Petros, will you take [future Mrs. Petros] to be your wife?
Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her,
and, forsaking all others,
be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?

Petros answered:

I will. …

I, Petros, take you, [future Mrs. Petros],
to be my wife, to have and to hold
from this day foward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, cherish, and worship,
till death us do part,
according to God’s holy law;
and this is my solemn vow.

I relinquished my US citizenship on February 28, 2011. But in my heart, I really relinquished my US citizenship over 20 years earlier in a Vancouver church. The United States requires ultimate allegiance and total loyalty. It is not willing to take second place. But I was unfaithful to this birth obligation and aspired to another calling, that of husband. So I took this solemn pledge and agreed to forsake all others and to marry my wife.

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We are living a crisis of morality in which leaders have difficulty distinguishing between what is right and wrong. Today, political leaders facing a legal obstacle to their agenda believe that all they have to do is change the law. So if the government stealing from people is illegal, all that one needs to do is change the law and call it “civil forfeiture“, and suddenly it becomes morally acceptable.

I recall reading a few years back a National Post article that brought up the question of lawmaking and morality came up.  Fortunately, Mark Steyn, cites the money quote from George Jonas:

Back in the Trudeaupian golden age, you may recall, the great man’s barnstorming transformation of Canada was momentarily halted by a storm about barns. It emerged that some overzealous officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had burned down barns belonging to Quebec separatists. The press was briefly exercised over this, but M. Trudeau gave one of his famous shrugs and airily remarked that, if people were so upset by the Mounties burning down barns illegally, perhaps he’d make the burning of barns by the Mounties legal. As the great George Jonas commented:

“It seemed not to occur to him that it isn’t wrong to burn down barns because it’s illegal, but it’s illegal to burn down barns because it’s wrong. Like other statist politicians, Mr. Trudeau seemed to think his ability to set out for his country what is legal and illegal also entitled him to set out for his citizens what is right and wrong. He either didn’t see, or resented, that right and wrong are only reflected by the laws, not determined by them.”

The Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, is a moral embarrassment. Before he forced the FATCA IGA into law, it was illegal for the government of Canada, based on national origin discrimination, to give the financial information of Canadian citizens to a foreign government. But it is still wrong to do so, and it doesn’t matter how many laws Harper forces through Parliament, it will remain wrong.

Since relinquishing my US citizenship in 2011 and shedding the most toxic aspect of my life here in Canada, I now worry about another kind of toxicity. Let me explain: For about ten years I’ve dealt with two nagging and debilitating conditions: peripheral neuropathy and tendinopathy. It came to a head in November 2012 when Cathy asked me to put some carriage lights up on our garage and I twice fell off the ladder, missing the last rung and falling on my butt, and I also missed a step on the way to the garage and fell on my face. This was the result of the growing issue of peripheral neuropathy–not able to tell where my feet were causes loss of proprioception. So I went on a low carb high fat diet (LCHF) and lost 40 lbs, and most of the neuropathy went away. But then in the Fall of 2013, I started having the relapses of tendinopathy which were worse than anything I’d had before–quadriceps, achilles, IT bands, rotator cuffs, neck, toe, elbow tendons–even today, I’ve had to use crutches since last Wednesday and medicate myself (ibuprofen) for throbbing pain in my right foot. This has caused me to cancel an academic trip to Switzerland planned for next week.

In October 2013 I was searching for a dietary solution to my tendon problems and I learned that Cipro, an antibiotic in a class called fluoroquinolones (FQs) is the likely culprit of both my tendinopathy and my neuropathy, as well as several other problems (dysbiosis, weight gain, etc.). In 2008, the year after I stopped my last dosage, the FDA issued a black box warning for tendinitis and tendon rupture for Cipro. I now belong to a group of people called “Floxies” because FQs (Levaquin, Cipro, Avelox, etc.) all have the stem “flox” in their scientific name. On Facebook there is Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Group with over 3000 members, many of whom are suffering much worse than me. Despite these problems, Cipro and other FQs remain a very well-prescribed drugs as doctors hand them out as though they were candy for sinus infections, traveler’s diarrhea, and other common ailments, when FQs should only be used for life-threatening bacterial infections when other antibiotics have failed.

Agency Capture

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I’ve learned from the American Expatriates group on Facebook that those seeking German citizenship may obtain it before renouncing a citizenship when the cost for renunciation costs more than a month’s gross wages (Note:  Brian Gaber says this is completely false; a lawyer says it is not the law, but an interpretation of the law, so go ahead and try it anyway). This in a list of other Ausnamen (exceptions) from those who must renounce their citizenship before become a German citizen:

wenn der andere Staat unzumutbare Bedingungen für die Entlassung aus der Staatsangehörigkeit stellt, z. B. überhöhte Gebühren (mehr als ein Brutto-Monateinkommen, aber mindestens 1.280 €).

This means that Americans may obtain German citizenship without having to renounce US citizenship in advance, if the $2350 renunciation fee is higher than 1280 € and also higher than a month’s gross wages. It also makes it clear that the reason is that any fee a person’s monthly wage is exorbitant (unzumutbare Bedingungen) .  Immigration Germany (the Ausländeramt) is showing both compassion and flexibility. This is exemplary pragmatism and should be imitated by bureaucrats around the world. It is the opposite of the current State Department approach, which is tyrannical. The current exchange rate 1.11. 1280 €=US $1421.

Don’t believe the hype about expat Americans ditching their passports, by Tim Fernholz.

Often “journalists” will write about those who renounce their citizenship without ever speaking to someone who has renounced. They react in anger at a perceived threat: filthy rich ungrateful Americans ditching the most precious citizenship in the world. Tim Fernholz is no exception. But I challenged him and he responded that I should have people email him at tim@qz.com .

@IsaacBrockSoc @FedupUSExpat please, ask them to e-mail me at tim@qz.com

— Tim Fernholz (@TimFernholz) February 13, 2015

Strata corporations of townhouses and condominiums exist all over Canada to maintain and operate common interests of the owners of the individual units. Some of these strata corporations have dozens of members. It would not be uncommon for such corporations to have funds that may need to be invested in order to maintain buying power in an inflationary environment. But no more, if the following comment by Michael is true:

I’m on a board of directors for a non-profit corporation (condominium corporation). We are a Canadian corporation, Canadian-owned, and can only invest in GIC’s that are CDIC-covered. Our investment institution (our bank – as well as all other Canadian Banks as I am lead to understand) is requiring us to fill out form W-8BEN-E, which seems to make no sense whatsoever since it is impossible for us to have exposure to US withholding tax. On top of that, it appears (although the full requirements too confusing for me to understand on 1st reading) that I need to list condo owners who may fit one or more of the following requirements: US citizens, have substantial US holdings, spend a significant amount of time in the US, have substantial US dealings through their corporations, etc. In my position, I don’t believe that I can gather that information.

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The official link for Keith Redmond on Fox Radio is here: http://radio.foxnews.com/2015/01/26/american-expat-keith-redmond-on-why-some-americans-abroad-renounce-us-citizenship/

Please stop using the other link that has a pirated recording of the interview. It is bugging the hell out of Fox.

For those who don’t know Keith, he lives in France and is the moderator and creator of the American Expatriates group on Facebook.

I have no comments on the interview. I will listen to it later.