United States Heading towards a Depression?

More interesting news about how the Obama administration is driving the best and the brightest Americans overseas:

According to public records, just over 500 people worldwide renounced U.S. citizenship or permanent residency in the fourth quarter of 2009, the most recent period for which data are available. That is more people than have cut ties with the U.S. during all of 2007, and more than double the total expatriations in 2008.

An Ohio-born entrepreneur, now based in Switzerland, told Dow Jones he is considering turning in his U.S. passport. Mounting U.S. tax and reporting requirements are making potential business partners hesitate to do business with him, he said.

"I still do dearly love the U.S., and renouncing my citizenship is not something I take lightly. But more and more it is seeming like being part of a dysfunctional family," said the businessman, who asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution.

"The tax itself is only a small part of the issue," the Swiss-based entrepreneur said. "It's the overall regulatory environment."​

Source: http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-ma...p-citizenship-as-irs-gets-aggressive-overseas

 

tx for the info, Will. You must like that. More chickens and quitters. The founding fathers who faced severe problems and issues must be turning in their graves at seeing the volume of chickens and quitters. They must be disgusted to see that the great nation which they helped to create by facing difficulties and hardships that make today look like pattycake...has spawned so many people without fortitude.

 

Which founding fathers? "This one" or these ones?

 

The founding fathers are definitely turning in their graves. Flight from tyranny was what created this country, and we have become what we despised. The economy isn't just starting to show signs of life, it is raging ahead at full speed (without jobs). You don't just pump a couple trillion dollars into an economy without results. It should be interesting to look at inflation come this November's election day when we are still above 8% unemployment, above 20% underemployment, housing prices are still falling, and gas is back to $4.00 a gallon. My guess is that the 500 number is the start of a trend.

 

Won't it be nice when that $4/gal gas has another 15 cents or more Federal Tax on it?

This is the first time I remember a democrat getting into office and NOT raising taxes before spending...

They spent, now they are gonna look for ways to pay.

VAT, Gas, Burgers, Juice, Tans.. What's next BJ's?

 

Got to legalize the pay per service, then it can be taxed. The funny thing about all the taxes being proposed is that they are taxes aimed directly at the poor. VAT for instance, will raise the cost of everything by around 20%. Nobody disputes this. Most of the rich use their money in investment rather than consumption, which means they avoid the tax altogether. The middle class, on the other hand, have very little left over after consumption of the basics needed to survive(Car,Gas, Food, Clothing, etc), so the majority of their income will be hit by Obama's new proposed tax. The hardest hit will be the poor, who will not only pay VAT on 100% of their limited income, but also excise sin taxes on products like alcohol, junk food, and cigarettes, all of which are products consumed in larger percentage by the poor. Obama will then use the plight of the poor as a rallying cry to set up more giveaways for minorities(he's already set up more giveaways than most of his predecessors, including repeal of Clinton's welfare reform). Of course those giveaways will require more taxes so we can all wait by patiently to see what new dog turd the president and congress serve up for us then.

 

The Democrats have succeeded in correcting a failing economy and passing major legislation - consolidating their accomplishments and progressing forwards to the midterms is a likely and now plausible scenario.

 

Why do you say that? Cause the stock market is up?
Some of the crap spewed out here daily is enough to drive a man insane.

Corrected a failing economy by spending 3 trillion more unaccounted for dollars. Hmm..

Wow.... I'd like some of what you are smoking.

 

The authorities responsible for defining the start and end of a recession decided not to officially call an end to this recession. Currently in this era they post determine the official beginning and end. They have agreed on a start date; Dec. 2007, and are arguing whether it is appropriate to determine an official end date. There are mixed signals. There is also a concern about a "double dip" recession, though the authoritative reaction to the late 1970's to early 1980's was to declare a double dip recession w/ the second officially occuring during 1982-1983.

This recession will be the longest lasting post the depression, assuming at some point it is officially declared ended. If not officially declared ended it will of course be the longest since that period.

There are many mixed signals, of course. GDP is increasing. Of interest there have been very large measurements for productivity increases. Productivity increases are the great and underlying power behind growth in an economy. OTOH, the increases in productivity are being made without and probably because businesses aren't hiring to any great extent......yet. In that they aren't hiring productivity increases are a mixed blessing.

The big isues are in no order of importance:

Unemployment; fed govt. debt, private, business, and financial institution debt; the housing market, fears of inflation. What will happen with interest rates and how that impacts the govt. and others.

Recessions take time for recovery.

 

If these people are anything like you and your friends, this can increase the average IQ of the remaining population and lower the pressure on welfare system significantly. ​

 

I can't speak to IQ, but I can tell you they are all high net worth individuals with some degree of certainty. I wonder what the impact is on our economy of 500 of the nations top 1% earners and employers removing their tax dollars and jobs from the US. Considering the extraordinary portion paid/employed by such people, it doesn't take to many to have a very profound effect.

 

Good point, and the reason Rush indicated he'd leave. That's another stream of high revenue leaving the US. There will be more of us, unfortunately. Remember, our descendants left Europe for the same reasons. Religious freedom, and to avoid taxation without representation.

 

The stock market usually is ahead of the present economic conditions as a future indicator by ~ 6 months and is very inclusive of the capitalist market.

The Democrats have captured both chambers of congress and the executive branch in the past two elections - just holding their own at present will be a victory and the market is indicating a more positive environment than the immediate past.

Republicans need to just get over the cost of recovery and find something positive in their own positions.....for a change.

 

A good modern day example to look at is Venezuela. A modern thriving, democratic, oil rich state with a healthy middle class. Chavez came in, legislated the wealth from the middle class to the poor(while taking his enormous cut) and literally everyone with money moved out. He uses the state controlled media, and government sponsored gangs to bully anyone left who still opposes his rule. A strange coincidence that he is Venezuela's first mestizo president(I believe). He should have taken a que from Mendela.

 

I think its great that these people leave. Workers stay, quitters leave. Nuts, selfish people and radicals leave. I'm old enough to recall the Vietnam period. Leftists left the nation and were branded as traitors. Today the phrase "traitor" is easily bandied about by the Right Wing and used as one of those emotion driven character assassination words. It doesn't reflect the true meaning. I think quitter is an apt description. QUITTER!! Definition: a person who gives up easily; defeatist, deserter, or shirker

BTW: I was intriqued by one small reference in the Newsweek article I referenced above. The article, published a few days ago referenced that combined market cap for Google and Microsoft was about $398 billion. Its nicely over $400 billion today. In 2008 Apple market share surpassed google for the first time and combined market cap for the 2 companies was about $330 billion at the time.

Great examples of thriving in a market based economy.

The Rightists are funny. They H.A.T.E when good things occur in America when a Democrat is in office. How frigging unAmerican is that?

 

Those who left during Vietnam were either dodging the draft or protesting American foreign policy. I guess the draft is a good comparison to what is going on to day(perceived oppression by the government), but leaving because you think your country stinks is not. Very common amongst liberals. "I'm moving to canada" was a common catch phrase during Bush, but there was no draft. In other words, this age of bigger government is just about as welcome as the draft. How can you be for either one of those things?

Apple and Google market cap are, by your own admission, one aspect of this economy. You'll have a hard time selling that boom market mentality to your average american today because they certainly don't feel it. Google is also a monster that needs to be broken up. Anyone who owns that much of the search engine market should not also be in the business of selling things other than the use of it's search engine. I'm surprised nobody is calling for this yet.

that is simply untrue. I often cite good things that not only happened during the Clinton administration, but Clinton's contribution to those things. You are just going to have a hard time producing any net positive being effected by the Obama admin right now. You should read up on his orchestration of the press coverage of his Nuclear summit. The man cant take the press so he removes them entirely. Maybe Nixon would be a better comparison than Carter. A close match up either way.

 

2 things. So O_nation wants to see google broken up. Hahaha. What is a greater example of government power than utilizing the govt's ability to break up monopolies. Better watch it O_Nation: If the right wing correctness society hears about this they are booting you from the party. You are a pariah!!!!!

2ndly: I forgot to reference that at the start of the decade combined market cap for Google and Apple was a couple of billion dollars versus the above referenced market cap in excess of $400 billion as of yesterday.

Needless to say the 2 companies have hired a sh!tload of employees over the years. They could, and hopefully will hire in the near future. As of end of 2009, per their financials both companies averaged about $1.2 million in revenues per employee. Talk about productivity. It also means as they see growth potential they have tremendous capacity to hire additional people.

In any case they are great examples of businesses that are thriving in a market economy.

no net effect.....duh....the economy whipped to sh1t by Rightist extremism in removing any oversight and control over the financial markets has been rebounding. The economy has been bouncing back. Now we need the same smarts that helped turn the economic indicators around to tackle job issues.

Hey O_Nation; maybe since you are for using big govt. to break up google you might like to see the govt. hire a bunch of people to figure out where google's market domination exists and how to break it up. O_Nation you big government people just surprise me, day after day.

 

i m not agry with it,they will never got this kind of problem

 

You made a mistake of assuming I am a "right winger". Government has it's role, and preventing monopolies is one of them. Becoming a monopoly is not (read health care).

Wonderful. AIG, Bear Stearns, Goldman, and the rest also hired a large numbers of people. You've obviously missed the point, I have no issue with companies doing well and hiring people. You'll not that despite the success of Google and Apple, the unemployment rate remains unchanged, and unemployment claims actually jumped this week.

LoL. Which right wing extremist were you referring to, Clinton who legislated the non-regulation of CDS contracts, or the Democrats in Congress who prevented oversight of Fannie and Freddie in the ramp up to this mess?

So you want Bush back in office? If we are to credit "smarts" and legislation with the supposed "bounce back" of the economy, I'm not sure how you can exclude the author of TARP from the credit list. The whole premise of your statement is laughable as, from your own admission a few posts up, the overall health of the American economy is very much in question. Many economists are predicting 8% employment to be the number we settle at for at least a decade. Welcome to Europe.

That seems obvious. When you control the single biggest marketing engine the planet has ever seen, you are in a position to pick which products make it and which don't. Google currently owns 72% of the US market share for search engines. The same argument was made here in the US as well as Europe for the break up of Microsoft. Microsoft owned(owns) 95% of the desktop marketplace and used that position to destroy competition for every piece of software that ran on windows(Word processors, mail programs, browsers, etc). Lack of competition may have sent Microsoft stock value up exponentially so they could "hire more people", but monopolies are bad for everyone except those who run them. Most Democrats agree on this issue, except when it comes to government being a monopoly.

So far, Google has not made any obvious missteps that I have seen in the way of monopolistic activities, but they are definitely spreading their tentacles and the allegations are starting to fly. One area, which applies specifically to P & R, are claims of de-ranking sites with right wing information during elections (Google CEO is a self proclaimed leftist). As Google starts to produce more and more products, outside of the search engine(Financial Sites, News Sites, Browsers, etc), it will be difficult if not impossible for competitors to get recognition when the primary means that any product gains recognition is via Google. At some point, Google needs to be a search engine company, and all the other products need to be spun off.

 

O.K., BW, since you have such a strong understanding of economics, can you please explain to me why the Democrats didn't give the middle-class an immediate payroll tax cut? You know - politicians putting more money in the hands of the working people, instead of politicians giving trillions of dollars of OUR money to huge corporations that financed the Democrat's campaigns (yes, I saw the Frontline episode on PBS last night).