Unpopularity has scuttled the extra-constitutional, extra-judicial Christmas tree tax (see below video for a sample). Now the Department of Agriculture had proposed this tax, and of course they went about it in a completely wrong way. First, they should have the IRS collect it. Second, they should only impose it on US citizens living outside the borders of the United States, and recent immigrants, for example, people who have come from India in the last 10 years. That way it only hits those who don’t have representation in Congress or small persecuted minority groups. Then, a line should be added to the 1040NR form asking, “Did you have a foreign Christmas tree this year at any time during the year?” In the explanations of this line, it should say that if the answer to the question is yes, then each person filing must fill out a disclosure form DA-FCT1025365NR for the Department of Agriculture which must be received by the 30th of June on the year that the foreign Christmas tree was used. It should be mentioned that non-wilful failure to disclose whether one had a Christmas tree could result in a $10,000 fine per infringement, per tree (so that if two spouses filing jointly or separately would each have to make a disclosure). Wilful failure of disclosure can result in prison sentences and huge fines that are so stupendous that it requires the implicit waiver of the 8th amendment, let’s say as much as 300% of your personal wealth. Finally, this disclosure must be retroactive for the last six years.
politics
Americans getting group therapy at U.S. Consulate in Toronto
Hi Obama, Geitner, Senator Levin? Are any of you aware that the Toronto consulate explained to a group of 22 Americans how to jump the New Berlin Wall last month. The Globe and Mail has an article telling about this group therapy session. The illness: American citizenship. The cure: Renunciation of citizenship.
The salient quote:
A U.S. embassy official played down the significance of the renunciation meeting. He said consular officials were responding to calls and requests for information prompted by a flurry of media coverage about the tax crackdown.
“We simply decided it was more efficient to have everybody come as a group and talk to everyone at once, rather than doing it individually,” the official said. “It was simply a time-management decision.”
For those interested in therapy, the cost is $450 per renunciation.
Mental midgets at IRS and US Department of Treasury may cost US 10,000,000 jobs
Hi, I'm an economic know-nothing
Ok. Here is where I am so angry at what the Congress, the IRS, Obama and Tim Geitner have done to me that I claim that you US persons are dumb and getting dumber by the minute. An article in the Washington Times yesterday claims that the mental midgets running Washington are implementing regulations that will cause the flight of $14 trillion of foreign investment capital out of the US. This will cause the loss of as many as 10,000,000 jobs. Read it and weep. Here is a salient excerpt:
Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, and the other economic-know-nothings who proposed these measures claim – without any basis in fact – that the United States is losing $100 billion annually because of foreign account tax avoidance or evasion. Private foreign investment in the U.S. is about $14 trillion. So $100 billion is less than 1 percent of the private foreign investment, yet the mental midgets in Congress and the administration are willing to risk trillions of dollars in job-creating foreign investment in exchange for a phony $100 billion. Well over 10 million American jobs are at risk because of this foolishness.
Phil Hodgen reports on the backlog of people who want to renounce their US citizenship. The US citizens living abroad now find that US citizenship is a liability not an asset and want out. We want our Declaration of Independence.
Canadian Taxman has no mercy for offshore investments
No mercy for those who have $100,000 or more in investments outside Canada. Ouch. Hey IRS: I live in Canada. I am exposed to enough capricious, confiscatory tax rules that I don’t need yours too. The Canadian taxman suffices. This is why I renounced US citizenship. Get used to it. There are a lot more people right behind me.
Headline from the Financial Post:
Gold versus paper currencies in the aftermath of war
To understand the value of gold as a currency with intrinsic value versus paper currencies which have only derivative value, it is perhaps helpful to consider what happens when a war comes to a conclusion. The victors, if they ask for tribute or war reparations, will only accept gold. Consider that throughout history, when conquerors overtook cities, they would strip them of gold and silver and other precious real goods, such as when Alaric sacked Rome in 410. They didn’t say, “Oh please, would you print some images of the Emperor and give them to us.” Instead, the barbarians forcefully took away the intrinsic wealth of the city.
In our more recent past, we see that the United States has been able to force its paper currency on the losers of wars. At the end of the Civil War, the Confederate dollar became worthless paper. The loser cannot make the winner accept its paper. Then, at the end of World War II, the US was able to begin to impose its currency on the rest of the world, until it became the world’s reserve currency. Originally the US dollar was a derivative for gold; but afterwards, Nixon took it off the gold standard, and it became a purely fiat currency. But had the United States not won World War II, we’d be speaking German and Japanese and Yen and Marks would have become the world’s reserve currencies.
At the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles imposed war reparations upon Germany, mind you not in the paper currency of the Weimar Republic, the Deutsche Mark, which became so much wallpaper in a few years, as it began to fill the wheel barrows of the country. No, the treaty required that the Germans pay back their debt in gold. Funny, isn’t it? How is it that the loser of a war can impose upon the winner the acceptance of a metal which has been in a 6000 year bubble?
The Righteous Investor 