Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Busy Time For Anti-Freedom Bureaucrats


It’s easy to feel paranoid these days. Two stories percolating in the blogosphere threw us over the edge this morning. Both involve acts recently passed by Congress. Both are preambles to what we see as a most odious trend.
The first is a provision slipped unceremoniously into the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act, AKA “the jobs bill,” which passed into law on March 18, 2010.
The provision outlines new rules on “Foreign Account Tax Compliance.” The gist is this: Send more than over $50,000 to a foreign bank not on good terms with the U.S. and the IRS will withhold 30% of it for possible tax claw back -- and a boatload of your private account information.
“And so the noose on capital mobility tightens,” concludes “Tyler Durden” at Zero Hedge, after parsing the language of the bill, “as very soon, the only option U.S. citizens have when it comes to investing their money, will be in government-mandated retirement annuities, which will likely be the next step in the capital control escalation, which will culminate with every single free dollar required to be reinvested into the U.S., likely in the form of purchasing U.S. Treasury emissions such as Treasuries, TIPS and other worthless pieces of paper.
“Congratulations, bankrupt America -- you are now one step closer to a thoroughly non-free market.” Our friends at Zero Hedge do the heaving lifting on this one. If you care at all what’s happening to your country, you’ll take a look, here.
“Capital controls have been used since the days of the Roman Empire,” comments Doug Casey in yesterday’s Whiskey & Gunpowder. “A country debases its currency, raises taxes beyond a certain level and makes regulations too onerous -- and productive people naturally react by getting their capital, and then themselves, out of Dodge. But the government can’t have that, so it puts on capital controls. They’re all but inevitable at this point.”
Indeed, they are law. Doug suggests a few things you can do about it, here. Doug will also be live and in person at our Vancouver symposium July 20-23, 2010. The subject of capital controls and alternative investments just gained a whole new level of expedience for this year’s discussion. We’re tentatively theming this year’s symposium: The Assault on Enterprise. Would you join us at the event to discuss what’s happening to the U.S.? Details for the symposium, including available discounts, reside here.
The second disturbing act comes from the Senate.
S.3081 -- Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010 would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Our friend Ernest Hancock digs into this bill on his Web site.
Since the Hutaree ring got rounded up in Michigan a week and a half ago, we’ve seen more than one congressperson mouthing off about “our enemies.” They aren’t just Islamic extremists anymore; we must be wary of the “homegrown terrorists” now.
It’s very expensive now to move your money to friendlier tax jurisdictions. Taxes in the U.S. are most assuredly going up. And they’ve developed a fine apparatus to enforce collection. Goodness… we are paranoid.

No comments: