Anyone catch O'Bomber's commencement speech to young, unsuspecting new graduates of the US Naval Academy (ie: killing school)? So inspiring. Filled with lies, conjecture, empty promises, and more lies, and telling graduates they must be vigilant in preventing sexual assaults and help restore the country’s trust in the military… when did we have faith in the military?
It's Feedback Friday, your chance to get ask the TDV crew anything you like. Want to join in? Send your questions, comments, queries, and concerns to tdv@dollarvigilante.com, comment on a post, or get on the forums.
On to the feedback…
CHILE OR BUST?
Hey there,
Just a quick question: I'd like to make my way down to Chile, learn the language, build businesses & income… but I don't have a US passport. I've thought about getting one, but not sure if that's a good idea or not.
Any ideas on a good course of action?
Thanks!
K
Jeff’s Response:
Sorry to say, but you have no choice but to get a US passport in order to leave the US in the first place. This goes for any nation-state tax farm. They won't let you leave without the proper papers. In fact, the US may at some point in the future not even let its subjects fly without a passport.
The passport system began taking hold after WW1. Before that, people could ome and go about the entire planet as they pleased. They could settle wherever they chose as long as they could find a way to support themselves. There were no "immigration problems". Before passports, it was all just considered "moving." The government was no more involved in your moving from Spain to Canada or Botswana to the US than it currently is with you moving from New York to California.
Oh, how things have changed. Now the entire world has followed the model set forth by the totalitarian communist regime in early Soviet Russia. If you want to leave, then "papers, please."
Of course, once you get a US passport your next goal should be to try to get rid of it as soon as possible and get a passport somewhere far less oppressive and thieving (TDV Passports can help here). But, first things first. In order to get out you'll need a US passport to both get out and to get in elswhere.
DOWN WITH CAPITALISM…DOWN WITH ANARCHISM!
The following are three comments from anonymous posters on Jeff Berwick's recent article, "Never Go Full Commie",
It is kind of sad how poorly communism is portrayed due to western propaganda, when it was never even achieved. What was achieved were dictatorships.
Keep in mind i am not communist (I am an anarchist), but I think it is far far better then capitalism.Yet capitalism is the source of all problems, not keynesian economics.
–Anonymous
Selling land and calling yourself 'freedom-minded' doesn't seem ironic? Anarcho-capitalist is a fucking oxymoron. The privitization of land is for the power-hungry. Another Ayn Rand-jackoff out there making the world seem more inconsistent with itself.
–Anonymous
Anarchy is the cause of all social and economic problems:
All legitimate government is by voluntary consent – the very essence of civilized order. It exists, to at least some extent, where ever there are people – even in prisons and within totalitarian regiemes. The tyrants take credit for its achievements – all the while brutally repressing it.
As the state feeds off of the limitation and destruction of legitimate government, anarchy is its essence: where the state predominates, so does chaos, brutality and wars.
–Mark U.
Gary's Response:
Some days it's really hard to be an anarcho-capitalist. You've got the "anarchists" who think that property is a creation of the state and that without the state, private property would melt away and leave us all living in a bunch of voluntary communes. Then you've got the minarchists who love capitalism, but think anarchy means chaos and that some amount of the state — which is the initiation of force in centralized form — is required to let freedom and prosperity flourish.
First, to the "anarchist" communist. I will let old school anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre take care of my light work:
"An Anarchist-Communist is a person who is a man first and a Communist afterward. He generally gets into a great many irreconcilable situations at once, believes that property and competition must die yet admits he has no authority to kill them, contends for equality and in the same breath denies its possibility, hates charity and yet wishes to make society one vast Sheltering Arms, and, in short,very generally rides two horses going in opposite directions at the same time. He is not usually amenable to logic; but he has a heart forty or fifty times too large for nineteenth century environments, and in my opinion is worth just that many cold logicians who examine society as a naturalist does a beetle, and impale it on their syllogisms in the same manner as the Emperor Domitian impaled flies on a bodkin for his own amusement. Besides, a free Communist when driven into a corner always holds to freedom first. The State Communist, on the other hand, is logical. He believes in authority, and says so. He ridicules a freedom for the individual which he believes inimical to the interests of the majority. He cries: 'Down with property and competition,' and means it. For the one he prescribes 'take it' and for the other 'suppress it.'" ~Voltairine de Cleyre
Let me break it down a bit more. Communists of any flavor must necessarily hate liberty if they hate property. Property is a very natural phenonmenon which starts with ownership over one's own body. The fruits of what one does with that body naturally follow as surely as ownership of the things one needs to keep that body alive. Property is inescapable, a point I like to prove by snatching food off the plates of anarcho-communists. They like to protest online and in print about the violence that ultimately backs the defense of property. And make fun of us anarcho-capitalist, voluntaryist sorts when we try to explain the difference between aggressive violence and defensive violence. But then they will whine when you take "their" food (hey, are you saying it's "your" "property"??) and some might even resort to violence to defend it! In fact, in my experience, it's the communists of all stripes who are most in love with using aggressive violence to attain their ends. But as Voltairine points out, at least the overtly statist communist makes no bones about how much he loves violence, especially the centralized kind. The "anarchist" communists just strike me as a bunch of illogical, double-talkers who don't want to admit that communism fits most neatly with the state, while property is entwined with freedom. Property isn't violence; but suppressing the concept of property requires unbelievable amounts of aggression and is best handled by the state.
And as for Mark: I think you're using the word "anarchy" where you should be using the word "chaos"…because you want to justify your desire to be ruled.
I agree that the state just causes more chaos. Because the state is at its very base an immorality. It's the initiation of force. No matter its stated intention, its method is immoral. And from that can come no good. It's like trying to get someone to love you by raping them.
But to say that "legitimate" government is the answer is like saying that "legitimate" rape is the answer. And then calling what results "anarchy" is an insult to anarchy…on top of being plain inaccurate.
Anarchy is the absence of a ruler. It is the absence of government. That that equates to chaos indicates the same brainwashing that afflicts all statists. Minarchist conservatives and libertarians are philosophically no different from statists. They don't oppose the initiation of violence. Just like right and left wing statists who differ only on where the violence should be applied (more guns…or butter), minarchists quibble only about how much aggressive violence is needed. "Courts, police, national defense!" they cry…but then get angry when the more blatant statists ask for a minimum wage, or housing for the poor, or healthcare insurance for all.
How do you determine how much aggression to apply and where? That's where it's helpful to have a philosophy about these things. Instead of trying to tweak evil, you ask how does humanity order itself…without evil. You reject the multi-millenial project called the state and start realizing that humanity needs real liberty. The state isn't necessary at all. Stop trying to hold onto a tiny bit of it in your heart.
PURCHASING BUILLION
Dear TDV,
Is it better to purchase bullion through a Ltd. Corp (Canada) and hold it as a company asset (paying a lower tax rate) or to take income (at a higher rate) and purchase the bullion as a personal asset? (the Ltd. Corp. has very little exposure to liability) … I already bought some and any further purchases will require me to do either one of the above mentioned … my accountant is advising me to consider bank stocks instead … safest thing he can think of.
Vicki L.
Jeff’s Response:
Hi Vicki,
Give me a few minutes to wipe off my desk… I just snorted my vegetable juice through my nose when your accountant said that Canadian banks stocks are the safest thing he can think of!
Canadian banks are massively leveraged and Canada's real estate bubble is nearly ready to pop… in Vancouver it now takes 80% of the average person's income to pay for a mortgage on the average house! Plus, worse, in the most recent Canadian government budget for 2013 they put in their own version of what I call the "Cyprus Act" stating that in the event of difficulties Canadian banks can, like Cypriot banks, just take their own depositor's money. I wrote about that in "Canadian Deposits As Safe as Cypriot Deposits".
As for your question on taxes and owning bullion I prefer not to get too detailed on tax advice for anyone. Taxes are theft… extortion. And the best advice I can give on theft and extortion is to avoid it completely. You can still do that legally, especially as a Canadian, by expatriating to a non-tax jurisdiction. This, of course, is what we regularly talk about here at TDV. Canada is going to be a horrible place to be for the coming years as will the US.
As for bullion, my main advice would be to internationalize your bullion. Get a significant portion of it outside of Canada. If Canadian banks have the right to take their depositor's money then chances are they'll take what's in the safety deposit boxes in their vaults as well. We have written a detailed report on internationalizing your gold called "Getting Your Gold Out Of Dodge" that can give you more info. That report is free to all TDV subscribers as well.
You might want to subscribe to TDV for investment info… at the very least, stop listening to your accountant! He just recommended one of the most dangerous investments on Earth as being one of the safest!
