To the glorious memory
Of members of this university
Who fell in the Great War
1914-1918
Take these men for your ensamples
Like them remember that prosperity can be only for the free
That freedom is the sure possession of those alone
Who have the courage to defend it
This is a cross post from the Righteous Investor.
Americans keep repeating the meme that Federal deficit spending is borrowing from the next generation. This is not entirely true. Deficit spending creates more debt, and debt creates a larger money supply, and a larger money supply is the quintessential definition of inflation. Inflation soon results in increased prices for everything.
Henry Hazlett wrote in his important primer, Economics in one lesson (pdf), p. 19-20 (emphasis mine):
Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. The world is full of socalled economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because “we owe it to ourselves/’ We shall return to such extraordinary doctrines at a later point. Here I am afraid that we shall have to be dogmatic, and point out that such pleasant dreams in the past have always been shattered by national insolvency or a runaway inflation. Here we shall have to say simply that all government expenditures must eventually be paid out of the proceeds of taxation; that to put off the evil day merely increases the problem, and that inflation itself is merely a form, and a particularly vicious form, of taxation.
There will be a live debate tonight on Radio Télévision Suisse (formerly TSR) concerning a constitutional amendment that will be voted on by the people this coming 17 June, requiring a popular vote to approve international treaties.
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Richard Wilkinson, is a professor emeritus of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School and co-founder of the U.K.-based think tank The Equality Trust. He has an interesting theory about narrowing the income gap in Canada and that merely taxing the rich more will not address the real problem.
Petros, in view of your latest post below, I hope you take some comfort from the fact that there are many people, including those with access to public pulpits like Forbes, who are on your side. Today at Forbes, John Tammy writes (De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is An American Hero; emphasis mine):
Saverin’s essential maneuver will at first glance hopefully get Americans thinking once again about our wrongheaded system of taxation. As it stands now, Americans, through taxes levied on income and capital gains, are explicitly forced to “prove” their income to the IRS. Continue reading
Roger sent me an early morning email, saying that my name made into the Miami Herald, and I immediately began to comment at the McClatchy site: IRS crackdown on foreign assets leading many to renounce U.S. citizenship.
There I’ve had a numerous interactions with commenters. Here is what has appeared thus far:
Petros wrote
Hi! My name is Peter W. Dunn, and I am a blogger at the Isaac Brock Society. I am the one mentioned in this article. I don’t know why the moderator took down my original comment, perhaps because I included a link to our blog, where people can get information about why Americans abroad are renouncing their citizenship. I am sorry that I have to go to such lengths to have free speech. But I think that it is the least you can do, since you have mentioned my name in the article, that you give me an opportunity to respond to the article.
Cross posted from RenounceUScitizenship
You can pay the Exit Tax NOW, or the Estate Tax LATER!
Sir John Templeton was one of the world’s greatest investors. In 1955 he founded the Templeton Growth Fund in Toronto, Canada. Of course, it is now a PFIC. and PFICs are “tax cancer” for U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens who invest in it will be severely punished. A good explanation of how PFICs work is here. (If you are U.S. citizen you should consider selling all non-U.S. mutual funds.) In 1969, John Templeton renounced his U.S. citizenship and moved to the Bahamas. In so doing, he avoided the U.S. estate tax. Furthermore, at the time that he renounced, the U.S. did not have an “Exit Tax”.
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Many of us have been escalating our efforts to post comments to articles related to our issues in national and international news organisation websites. This is great and will increase our voice. But couldn’t we try another approach in parallel? I propose that we check the websites of local news channels for the 3 main networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) in every one of the 50 state capitals and all of the major cities we can think of and see if the search function on their site shows any articles for FATCA or other keywords related to our issues. If not, we could write them an email inviting them to look at recent articles in the national and international press that we have commented on as well as IBS, ACA and other sites of interest. Here is a sample email I just tried on a CBS affiliate:
Farhad Manjoo has a piece over at Pando Daily entitled “What Eduardo Saverin Owes America”. He gives a list of five specific items: his safe childhood, his erstwhile friendship with Zuckerberg, Harvard, the Internet, and the justice system. This made me think of the obvious counterfactual scenario: what if Eduardo Saverin’s family had moved to Europe instead to escape the threat of kidnappings in São Paulo, and he’d come to Harvard as a visa student? Four out of Manjoo’s five points still apply, but Saverin would face a far lower tax bill. Would Saverin owe any less of a moral debt to America? And what does the resulting tax situation have to say about the justice of the U.S.’ peculiar practise of taxing overseas citizens wherever we go?
Here is the link to Matias Ramos blog post at the Institute for Policy Studies, The One Percent Deports Itself. He did not respond to my earlier comment, so I’ve written an e-mail in hopes to get some kind of concession.
Dear Mr. Ramos:
I commented at your blog. I took exception to your portrayal of those who relinquish their citizenship as the 1% deporting themselves. This is incorrect and a clear mischaracterization of the facts. I know many people who have renounced in the last couple of years. These are not wealthy people–indeed, some of them are even what you would call lower middle class.
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