FATCA Unconstitutional Even in Canada
In the land of the free and home of the brave, we just have to concede, the constitution is just a fictional story for children. It has been buried long ago and what remains above the sand is just for show. It now seems the only way for Americans to get a fair hearing about their constitutional rights is always in another country. Federal judges are just appointed by the President and the likelihood of them ever ruling against the government on any tax issue being unconstitutional is up there along with an alien visitation that solves our debt crisis. Well to be honest – I hear the small grey guys are more liberal so perhaps they would be more likely to help than a federal judge.
Two women in Canada have filed in court alleging that the deal cut with the USA under FATCA violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada because it exposes them to potential U.S. criminal penalties without a hearing, it allows their financial information to be seized without a warrant, and because it discriminates between those defined as “U.S. persons” and everyone else.
Of course these challenges should be winners in a US court. But for an American to even file in a US court would allow the IRS to seize all their property in advance and thereby deny you counsel ending the lawsuit. Perhaps if someone had 2 years to live, a lot of friends to take care of them, they might have a the guts to file, but the likelihood of a victory is somewhere in the area of below zero.
Our Greek Tragedy – Endless Repetition
QUESTION: I have followed you for decades and use adaptions of your theories in my trading. However there seems to be some contradictions in the way you analyse the world. Like me, you see developments as cyclical. Yet, and this what I find strange, you criticise players for what is happening, when they are just pawns to the cycles.
The cycles choose the players through the public etc. Can’t have it both ways, its the players OR its the cycles.
JC
ANSWER: No, it is just the cycles. People react the same way to such events. If there is a stock market crash, there will always be an investigation and government will try to blame someone in the private sector never investigating their own role in this tragic play.
I do not believe we can change the business cycle because there is just way too much incorporated within it. I look around the landscape and see the larger trend in motion and that allows for confidence that if x y and z have taken place, then the cycle will flip and we will be A B and C.
History is a catalogue of solutions because it is constantly repeated because the passions of mankind simply will never change. Here is a quote from Cicero. I use to give seminars in the 1980s asking what famous senator said these words. The audience resorted to someone in the Republican camp. They would guess with all sorts of name and then I would say – no, Cicero 55BC.
We live in a Greek tragedy that constantly repeats. We are just mice in a maze looking for the cheese and have not figured out we are even in a maze running down the same corridors. I think we first have to recognize where we are and then try to expand our horizons.
I do not criticize any one individual for no single person. Never is there ever just one person or firm that is the cause and effect. Government will always prefer to prosecute someone and say that will solve the problem. This is simply propaganda. The present over $200 billion in fines on the banks will only undermining the banking system and hurt society. They have already rendering small banking in Switzerland bankrupt. The value of small banks have fallen to zero because the liability from fines for past accounts is undefinable with no set fines for any perceived violation that was never a law to start with decades ago. What good do such fines do other than lining the pockets of governments? Agencies are using these fines to justify staff. If government were really to care about society, regulate the issue definitively and restore Glass-Steagall. Instead, they let the banks do as they like and then hold out their hand pretending it is a fine instead of just a bribe. Government does not really outlaw the conduct or they would restructure them to prevent anything unfolding again.
We are just in an endless cycle that will continue to unfold no matter how many prosecutions take place or pretend investigations they stage.