mozartpc27 wrote: can't imagine a guy who is trying to run a baseball team that is struggling to win games - in Chicago, of all places, the President's home city - wants to stir up a racial fight.

Which means this is all much ado about nothing.

Alexis Tsipras, head of Greece's radical left party, said in an interview there is little chance Europe will cut off funding to the country and if it does, Greece will repudiate its debts

Senate Democrats on Thursday unveiled the Ex-Patriot Act (Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy,) a bill to punish Americans who renounce their citizenship for tax purposes. The move was a reaction specifically to Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who last fall withdrew his citizenship in advance of the company's multibillion-dollar initial public offering, set to take place Friday.

Saverin could save $67 million in tax costs after the Facebook IPO deal by dissociating himself from the United States, and the bill's sponsors say they want to ensure that money ends up in the U.S. Treasury.

Werthless wrote:Ex-PATRIOT Act is bogus. It's bad enough that US citizens have these arcane and convoluted reporting requirements overseas. Now you can move to another country permanently and Uncle Sam still has his hand in your wallet.That's bullshit.

jerseyhoya wrote:It's the sort of shit a dictatorship pulls. If you don't want to be a citizen anymore, you shouldn't have to be a citizen. Respecting the right of people to emigrate seems to be pretty basic. Being a citizen isn't and shouldn't be a lifelong contract. Is it sort of shitty that the dude is renouncing citizenship to avoid paying taxes? Sure. If they wanted to pass a law making anyone who renounces citizenship can't ever reapply, I'd be OK with that. But if he prefers living somewhere else to sticking with the US of A and the pluses and minuses that come along with it, then whatever.

drsmooth wrote:the guy made himself a target for "selfish rich guy exploits system then flips it the bird when he's made his pile" claims.

Happily, not all filthy rich types share this narrow view of how stuff should work:

Nick Hanauer on rich guys' role in job creation
http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2 ... ow-you.php

Youseff wrote:haven't watched the TED talk yet. For those that have, is it really mediocre by TED standards?

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It's the sort of shit a dictatorship pulls. If you don't want to be a citizen anymore, you shouldn't have to be a citizen. Respecting the right of people to emigrate seems to be pretty basic. Being a citizen isn't and shouldn't be a lifelong contract. Is it sort of shitty that the dude is renouncing citizenship to avoid paying taxes? Sure. If they wanted to pass a law making anyone who renounces citizenship can't ever reapply, I'd be OK with that. But if he prefers living somewhere else to sticking with the US of A and the pluses and minuses that come along with it, then whatever.

I was going to make a snarky crack about how far in the bag you must have been to write this drivel

But in all candor, you've been at this long enough to recognize both the proposed statute and your reaction as the rankest sort of bullshit

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It's the sort of shit a dictatorship pulls. If you don't want to be a citizen anymore, you shouldn't have to be a citizen. Respecting the right of people to emigrate seems to be pretty basic. Being a citizen isn't and shouldn't be a lifelong contract. Is it sort of shitty that the dude is renouncing citizenship to avoid paying taxes? Sure. If they wanted to pass a law making anyone who renounces citizenship can't ever reapply, I'd be OK with that. But if he prefers living somewhere else to sticking with the US of A and the pluses and minuses that come along with it, then whatever.

I was going to make a snarky crack about how far in the bag you must have been to write this drivel

But in all candor, you've been at this long enough to recognize both the proposed statute and your reaction as the rankest sort of bullshit

I was good and sober when I wrote that. I dunno, I think it's pretty crappy that Schumer would propose it, and both here and a few of the folks I was at dinner with last night expressed support for the bill. Why is my reaction the rankest sort of bullshit?

Youseff wrote:Nothing dictatorial about it whatsoever. The guy is renouncing his citizenship solely for the purpose of skirting taxes that is owed to our broke ass country. That we're at least exploring ideas for creating consequences is reassuring.

Whatever Mr. Saverin's motivation, the more important point is that it is his decision, however misguided. America was built on millions of similar individual decisions to come to our shores. It is precisely that ability to decide for oneself that has made America such a magnet for two centuries.

The way to continue to be a magnet for the best and brightest is not to impose Soviet-style exit taxes to punish people who want to leave the country. That is what oppressive and demagogic regimes do, and it's humiliating to see U.S. Senators posture in such fashion. The way to punish Mr. Saverin is to make the U.S. so appealing and dynamic again that he'll be sorry he ever left.

jerseyhoya wrote:So we aren't allowed to criticize legislation when we think it'd be an awful law because it's unlikely ever to be passed by Congress? The third ranking Democrat in the Senate proposed a bill that elicited positive and negative reactions from other people in this thread before I posted my thoughts on the policy. It was one of the main stories in national politics yesterday.