The day you always knew coming has now arrived. Capital controls are here.
If you’re a reader of this site, chances are you knew that. Western governments and the U.S. in particular have been chipping away at your financial freedom for some time. It took on new meaning when “terrorism” entered the lexicon in a real way twelve years ago.
Now, with populist support, governments are emboldened to take more and more drastic action to stop the flow of your money. The day you always thought “will be here eventually” is here.
I just read a letter written by William Olenick, an American expat living in Switzerland. For twenty-five years, he’s been working to open markets for American-made products overseas. He’s been living abroad ever since.
But no more.
Thanks to far-reaching U.S. tax laws designed to (ostensibly) stop tax cheats, he says he’s returning to live in the U.S. on account of his bank in Switzerland informing him he is no longer able to wire money back to the U.S.
When your overseas businesses’ suppliers are located in the U.S., capital controls cause some big problems.
Olenick is how heading back to Vermont to farm. His situation perfectly illustrates how the U.S. government doesn’t care about him or its expats.
Perhaps even worse, it understands so little about the global economy that it doesn’t know it’s shooting itself in the foot.
At a time when high unemployment plagues the country and the trade deficit widens by double digits, the American government is using the tax code and FATCA to shut down cross-border commerce and American exports.
More troubling, it’s just another example of how the U.S. and their overbearing “democratic” counterparts view you as another slave to abuse. If you escape the plantation, they’ll get you back by hook or by crook…
Even if that means they have to shut down your ability to move money, run your business, or make a living.
And while U.S. politicians work to pass legislation allowing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship on the basis that it’s the humanitarian thing to do, they are entirely unconcerned with the ability of legal emigrant families to stay together as their draconian rules impact the everyday lives of their own citizens abroad.
If you don’t fit the neat little profile of having a checking account, small savings account, and credit cards in your home country, you’ll be singled out as an instigator… a traitor or a terrorist. After all, you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.
If you’re waiting for the day when your government will tell you what you can do with and where you can send your money, wait no longer. Capital controls are here – and they’ve been here for some time.
Don’t be brainwashed by the uninformed jingoism that your country is the best there is, or that, while not perfect, is still the most free place on earth. Be careful mistaking more and more limited freedom for freedom itself.
The world’s “most free economies” are on a downward spiral, and they’ll need your money to save themselves. They only hope you can be forced to keep it handy for them.
