More Americans Denouncing Citizenship

This starts as a trickle, but expect a torrent. Note that these folks are likely to be top earners. This is just the beginning of a wave of brain and capital flight.
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WASHINGTON — Amid mounting frustration over taxation and banking problems, small but growing numbers of overseas Americans are taking the weighty step of renouncing their citizenship.
...
American expats have long complained that the United States is the only industrialized country to tax citizens on income earned abroad, even when they are taxed in their country of residence, though they are allowed to exclude their first $91,400 in foreign-earned income....
 ...
Yet the notion of double taxation — and of future tax obligations for her children, who will receive few U.S. services — finally pushed her to renounce, she said.
“I loved my time in the Marines, and the U.S. is still a great country,” she said. “But having lived here 20 years and having to pay and file while seeing other countries’ nationals not having to do that, I just think it’s grossly unfair.”
“It’s taxation without representation,” she added.
Stringent new banking regulations — aimed both at curbing tax evasion and, under the Patriot Act, preventing money from flowing to terrorist groups — have inadvertently made it harder for some expats to keep bank accounts in the United States and in some cases abroad.
Some U.S.-based banks have closed expats’ accounts because of difficulty in certifying that the holders still maintain U.S. addresses, as required by a Patriot Act provision.

 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/us/26expat.html?hp

How Mass Healthcare Law Reduces Employment

I have a fellow working for me as an hourly temp worker. W2 wages.  He was working 37.5 hours like everyone else. Turns out if he works more than 24 hours, we owe him health care benefits to the tune of 12k+ per year.  I want him to work 37.5 hours, he wants to work 37.5 hours, the owners of the company want him to work 37.5 hours. We can't give him a massive raise, nor a big paycut to fold in the benefits, so we had to cut his hours to 24.  Note that ALL parties are worse off for the lack of voluntary exchange here, and the collective is poorer for fewer goods and services being produced.

My first "real" job that positioned me for a career in my field was earned by working 80 hour weeks for hourly pay with no benefits, and I'm not the only one. This gateway to opportunity has been slammed shut by labor laws ostensibly written to "benefit" employees. Some benefit.

Unbelievable Volcano Images

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skarpi/

Trust in Government

Awakening

http://reason.com/assets/mc/rbalko/2010_04/PewTrustPoll.jpg

NV Women Gets Life Sentence for Letting Minor Touch Breasts

ELKO, Nev. — A Twin Falls woman convicted of forcing a 13-year-old boy to touch her breasts was sentenced Monday to life in prison.
Michelle Lyn Taylor, 34, was convicted of lewdness with a minor under 14 in November after a week-long trial in Elko County, Nev., District Judge Mike Memeo’s courtroom.
With the conviction, Taylor faced a mandatory life sentence, and Memeo set parole eligibility after 10 years, the minimum sentence. If released on parole she must register as a sex offender and will be under lifetime supervision.
The district attorney’s office did not offer a plea agreement in the case, said public defender Alina Kilpatrick, who argued the sentence is unconstitutional and doesn’t fit the crime.
“The jury was not allowed to know the potential sentence in this case and the Legislature doesn’t know the facts,” she said, alluding to the minimum sentence set by the Legislature in Nevada Revised Statute.
Kilpatrick said despite the parole eligibility after 10 years, there should be no mistake that it’s a life sentence for Taylor.

“She is getting a greater penalty for having a boy touch her breast than if she killed him,” she said.

Spot the trend

Explains a lot:

Happy Dependence Day

"We're being gifted with a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts itself from it, signed by a president who also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

http://www.salemnews.com/puopinion/local_story_092212015.html?keyword=topstory

Dig Giant Hole- Dump Endless Money

Suppose they can fine Toyota enough to pay GM and Chrysler's liabilities?

DETROIT — The pension plans at General Motors and Chrysler are underfunded by a total of $17 billion and could fail if the automakers do not return to profitability, according to a government report released Tuesday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/business/07cars.html

Why the "Pre-existing Condition" mandate will bankrupt the Health Scare system

Well, duh. Why buy fire insurance if you can just buy it after a fire?

Short-term customers boosting health costs

Lesson for US overhaul in gaming of Mass. system

The typical monthly premium for these short-term members was $400, but their average claims exceeded $2,200 per month. The previous year, the company’s data show it had even more high-spending, short-term members. Over those two years, the figures suggest the price tag ran into the millions.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/04/short_term_customers_boosting_health_costs/

Indiana Police Tase 10 Year Old

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. – Two officers called to a home day care to subdue an unruly 10-year-old have been suspended after one used a stun gun on the boy and another slapped him in the mouth, a central Indiana police chief said Thursday.
The child suffered no significant injuries. Both officers have been placed on paid administrative leave while police investigate the confrontation Tuesday at Tender Teddies.
Martinsville Police Chief Jon Davis said he believed the officers could have controlled the 94-pound boy without using force.
"I think they could have just restrained the young man," he said at a news conference. "Just held him down. Might have ended the situation."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100401/ap_on_re_us/us_police_shock_child

Ruling: Bush Admin Violated Wiretap Laws

About time already!
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Court Says President Bush Violated Wiretapping Laws With Warrantless Wiretap

from the wow dept

In a huge ruling, a court has said that the US government violated wiretapping laws in eavesdropping on phone calls without a warrant.

If you haven't been following the fight over the legality of warrantless wiretapping, this case, involving lawyers working with the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, is extremely important. When it was revealed that the Bush administration was wiretapping phonecalls without a warrant, lawsuits were filed -- but the "problem" was that the parties (such as the ACLU) that filed the lawsuits didn't have "standing" because they had no evidence that they, personally, were impacted by the warrantless wiretapping. This created a ridiculous Catch-22 situation. As long as the government hid its illegal activities and never said who it spied on, it could spy on anyone illegally. No one could bring a lawsuit, since there was no proof that they had been impacted by the illegal spying.

Then the feds screwed up. They accidentally sent the evidence of wiretapping some lawyers for the Al-Haramain group to those lawyers. Suddenly there was evidence. But, of course, the government tried to cover it up. For a while it claimed that even though it had revealed that it had illegally spied on these lawyers, and everyone knew it, since those documents were classified, everyone had to pretend that it was still a secret and no one knew about it. This resulted in a series of positively ridiculous hoops that lawyers had to jump through to bring the case, without actually using the document.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100331/1228088813.shtml