It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Economy => Topic started by: Pandora on August 22, 2013, 04:24:11 PM
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There is a joke that the difference between American arrogance and British arrogance is the British think they run the world, whereas the Americans think they are the world. (http://www.samizdata.net/2013/08/the-difference-between-american-british-arrogance/#comments)
Well just last week I started doing some business with a European bank… a quite mainstream one I might add… and discovered something remarkable. I had to sign a series of statements that I did not do business in the USA, had no assets in the USA and was not a US citizen or resident. Only then would they do business with me. Indeed I had to sign more papers regarding this than any actually pertaining to the business I was doing with them.
And this is why…
The Internal Revenue Service on Monday launched an online registration program for the hundreds of thousands of financial firms around the world that must comply with a U.S. anti-tax evasion law or risk being shut out of financial markets.
Surely a significant European bank must do some business in the USA, I asked. Can the world’s largest economy really be so onerous that you truly want nothing whatsoever to do with it?
Well he was rather guarded and he knew I was a blogger, which I suspect made him a bit uneasy at the prospect of being quoted, which is why I am naming no names. But to paraphrase the reply I coaxed out of him, it was “yes, the USA is simply not worth the trouble and so rather than complying with their endless diktats and the uncertainties of what are increasingly capricious rules… well… there is a whole great big world out there for us to do business with that does not include the United States.”
Yet I suspect the powers-that-be in Washington could not care less and moreover the notion that sophisticated foreign bankers are starting to see American not as the land of opportunity, but as a place to be avoided at all costs, would strike them as preposterous. Indeed had I not had those documents laid in front of me asking me to attest to a complete lack of economic links to the USA or anything associated with the USA that the US state might claim extraterritorial jurisdiction over… well, I would not have believed it myself.
Moreover, after our business had been concluded and he relaxed a bit, the banker in question, who I very much doubt is on any Interpol wanted lists (well I certainly hope not given that he now has some of my money) said he would not even visit the USA or transit a flight through it, due to the US authorities propensity to detain foreign bankers and ask them questions if they even suspect any involvement with US nationals, particularly from ‘non-compliant’ banks such as his.
Am I the only one who is astonished things have come to this? I am suddenly very glad I do not actually live in Arkham, Massachusetts (not sure which is worse, the IRS or the Deep Ones).
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One of the things that cemented America's reputation as a virtuous and industrious country was when we judiciously made good on our debts to British lenders even when the War of 1812 was imminent. That served as a huge attraction to foreign investors and made the US dollar a premier currency.
And of course, doing the opposite gets you the opposite result. This federal government is just absolutely out of control.
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One of the things that cemented America's reputation as a virtuous and industrious country was when we judiciously made good on our debts to British lenders even when the War of 1812 was imminent. That served as a huge attraction to foreign investors and made the US dollar a premier currency.
And of course, doing the opposite gets you the opposite result. This federal government is just absolutely out of control.
Not just out of control, they are clueless as to how business works. Or maybe they know all to well how business works and it is another approach to destroying America.
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Yes, Ben, that is, I believe, correct.
And they're going a put it on afterburners.
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The rest of the world really needs to start telling American where to take a flying leap. Unfortunately, the only ones left to fill the vacuum is China.
/sigh
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The rest of the world really needs to start telling American where to take a flying leap. Unfortunately, the only ones left to fill the vacuum is China.
/sigh
You are all so correct. Thhis country isw as we've stated dozens of times before, nothing more than a banana republic.
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The rest of the world really needs to start telling American where to take a flying leap. Unfortunately, the only ones left to fill the vacuum is China.
/sigh
They already are and will continue to do so. China will have the new reserve currency as long as they play thier cards right and don't collapse before us. The NWO will of course try to use the IMF to issue a"worldwide" currency, but I epxect China will have had enough at that point, and to make it absolutely clear that the YUAN is the one to use, they will announce that the Yuan is backed to some degree by a collection of commodities - possibly not 1:1 but cakced so that you get 50% of the equivalent value in oil, gold, silver, rare earths, and coal or whatever. THe only question really is will this be a slow and gradual process over the next 10 years, or will we wake up one day to discover the preferecne cascade has occurred and that dollars are now worht 1/10th of what they were in the foreign marketplace and that a flood of dollars is washing over assests in the UNited States as Foriengers try to get something of value for the dollars they own before they get nothing. This will result in large price-inflation in the US - and the Government will have to decide how to counter it. They could raise Rates and try to suck it up - but then the govt can't pay its debts, and economic output drops dramatically as its been on Federal life support till now. . They could instead print even more money and put it on the EBTs for the Free Shyt Army - resulting in Spiraling hyperinflation. My bet is on hyperinflation because 1) doing what is right in not in their nature 2) it extends and pretends the system even a bit longer.
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I like it, this could be the butterfly effect we've been waiting for. And the Regime and the short bus riders in the bureaucracy as well as most of the politicos in congress are too stupid to know what is about to kick their ass. The ass-kicking is due.
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I like it, this could be the butterfly effect we've been waiting for. And the Regime and the short bus riders in the bureaucracy as well as most of the politicos in congress are too stupid to know what is about to kick their ass. The ass-kicking is due.
I want each and every one of the asshats that we are going to put down to know exactly why they are getting a new hole in their head their ass kicked, then I want everyone in the would to know why they were removed from power and to know that anyone that tries the same sh*t again they will get the same treatment.
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I like it, this could be the butterfly effect we've been waiting for. And the Regime and the short bus riders in the bureaucracy as well as most of the politicos in congress are too stupid to know what is about to kick their ass. The ass-kicking is due.
I want each and every one of the asshats that we are going to put down to know exactly why they are getting a new hole in their head their ass kicked, then I want everyone in the would to know why they were removed from power and to know that anyone that tries the same sh*t again they will get the same treatment.
!!
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BYOP
(Bring Your Own Pikes)
::thumbsup::