Is it Taxes or Opportunity that Cause Migrations?
QUESTION: The invasion of children from the Mexican perspective is to have a better life. The U.S. perspective is all these people do not pay taxes and take jobs. Is this common throughout history?
ANSWER: The Mexicans are not coming here because of taxes but forOPPORTUNITY. Americans are complaining they do not pay taxes and take jobs. Obviously, this is just the surface of the issue. It is always economics not taxes that have been the great stimulant for migrations if we define that as survival regardless if there is a government or taxes.Taxes have some impact on movement as in multinational movement of capital today to avoid taxes, but by no means is this the issue in a grand sense at the individual level for migration.
The old saying the streets are paved with gold was common during the 19th century because of the gold discoveries in California and Alaska and this helped to fuel the mass migration from Europe among the Italians and Irish in particular. So their expectations were the same – opportunity. They were not fleeing taxes. Keep in mind that income tax was a 20th century phenomenon and that did not even impact the average citizen until after World War II. So taxes in that sense are like global warming, a modern impact at the mass level. Yes taxes became abusive in Rome and resulted in people just walking away from their property. But that was not just taxes, it was the breakdown or society and security that went hand-in-hand.
Historically, the reason for migration has always been opportunity. The trend toward nationalism where people are against the immigrants is common throughout history just as the riots in the mid 1800s against the influx of Irish. This emerges during economic declines where domestic people see few jobs and then blame immigrants for their hardship even when there is no actual direct evidence as is the case with the Mexicans today.
Nevertheless, the terms applied to crime in the USA such as someone is a “hooligan”is a derivative of an Irish name Holigan that has survived from that era of social riots of the 1840s. The term “vandal” refers to the Vandals who invaded Rome and stole everything they could. This type of resentment against the Mexicans may be excused with taxes to justify the reasoning, but in reality it is the economic decline and not actually taxes. It is consistent throughout history. Even in the stone age they did not take kindly to new tribes moving into their territory for better hunting. There is evidence of war extending back a very long time.
This is why I say if that IF the REASONING in taxes, which it is only a justification, then eliminate income tax and go to consumption tax and it does not matter who is here – everyone pays. After all, that is how taxes were before Marxism for thousands of years. Then you will see the real reason is opportunity from the immigrant’s perspective and competition for resources from the domestic perspective and that is always during an economic decline in lean times. People always blame the economic decline in jobs on immigration the same as a decline in scarce resources in ancient times – competition.
Government NEVER Tells the Truth
It is really beyond me that whether we are talking about people who commit crimes, terrorists, or just reporting statistics and accounting, those in government just can NEVER tell the truth and quite frankly there is NO controlling mechanism to ensure they will ever tell the truth. It is a criminal offense to lie to Congress but it is standard operational procedure to lie to the people. At least the Romans created the office of the Tribune who could prosecute anyone in government. Of course, under Imperial Rome, the Emperor usurped that power of the Tribune. We lack that mechanism in our modern societies and honestly, we are getting what we deserve – crops of professional liars
Now on June 12th some fiscal-conservative senators have sent a letter to Defense Department Comptroller Robert Hale demanding that the Pentagon to stop an accounting practice widely known as “plugging,” These plugs are fictitious dollar amounts inserted into financial ledgers to make it appear that the Pentagon’s books balance. Effectively, if you did that the IRS would imprison you. This is the same thing the VA Scandal. They just have false books and records to hide a disaster.
This is common in Europe and Japan. The numbers are just not the numbers. When this blows up, everybody will wonder why it come from nowhere.
Gold
Gold began the bounce on target but we need a daily closing ABOVE 1295 to suggest any further upside pressure. The low was on June 2nd so technically we have fulfilled the first target in time for a June seasonal low. We would need a weekly closing above 1355 to really suggest a brief sustained rally is possible while resistance is starting at 1307 on our weekly models.
The current bounce is due to the shift in currencies. Keep in mind that for a real bull market to form long-term gold must rise WITH THE DOLLAR. Only when it rises in all currencies will we see a bull market. We can see in Euros, the December low is the major low while in dollars we have a double bottom.
We can see the broader pattern in gold expressed in euros. The flat top is a warning that we will see new highs in gold in euros, It appears that our timing models in euros is highlighting an important shift in trend in September 2016.
