Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/04/30/2012-10274/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate

by secure1234 • 14 years ago

77 167 14 years ago

federalregister.gov

pinko• 14 years ago

Is anyone else slightly surprised that:

(a) this is public info online, and; (b) it's apparently public because, of all things, HIPPA?

trebor• 14 years ago

Sort of, but this kind of hypocrisy in US legislation is common. I've turned up only a few articles/links on this matter.

Apparently this falls under IRC 6039G, which appears to have nothing to do with HIPPA?

    Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 30 days
    after the close of each calendar quarter, the Secretary shall
    publish in the Federal Register the name of each individual losing
    United States citizenship (within the meaning of section 877(a))
    with respect to whom the Secretary receives information under the
    preceding sentence during such quarter.

http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Internal_Revenue_Code:Se...

phren0logy• 14 years ago

HIPAA is not really about privacy. The name is a good bit of marketing. Don't take my word, check it out for yourself.

artmageddon• 14 years ago

Anything beyond the exceptions listed in this link?

http://personalinsure.about.com/od/health/a/Hipaa-Definition...

I'm not really sure what you're referring to but I am curious.

Kadrith• 14 years ago

HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" there is nothing about privacy in the name.

MattGrommes• 14 years ago

I don't know about the wording of the law but in the actual implementations I've done it does provide a measure of privacy and accountability. HIPAA-compliant companies are required to keep your data from being seen by anybody you haven't allowed to see it and for like the programmers working on the HIPAA system who might be exposed to your data you're required to not provide raw access to the data and keep a auditing log of who saw it and when.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

It's a revenue offset for the actual HIPAA-y part of HIPAA.

IE HIPAA will cost the govt money, which will be offset by such and such provisions for raising revenue, including changes to the rules for taxing expatriates who renounced their citizenship for tax avoidance purposes.

michaelhoffman• 14 years ago

I think it should be public information online.

As far as as HIPAA, I was slightly surprised too (although I must say, not very surprised). The long title of HIPAA is "An Act To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to [lots of stuff about health care] and for other purposes." This definitely falls into the "for other purposes."

jlgreco2• 14 years ago

The US practices 'name and shame' for people who renounce their citizenship.

This doesn't make sense until you consider they're probably just bitter about lost taxes.

_delirium8• 14 years ago

It's not that uncommon for citizenship changes, in either direction, to be public record. In some countries they're even pro-forma passed as laws through parliament, which of course then becomes public record. (In Denmark, at least, only the parliament has the right to grant or revoke Danish citizenship for any reason, an old restriction intended as a protection against the King arbitrarily doing so. In practice the immigration authorities draw up lists of people, and Parliament rubber-stamps the lists a few times a year, reading them into the legislative record.)

Another reason to make them public is that otherwise there's no way to determine if someone is actually a U.S. citizen, since there's no central register. For example, someone with a birth certificate showing they were born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen by birth... unless they've renounced it. So to determine if someone is a citizen you need: 1) a copy of their birth certificate; and 2) a list of renunciations so you can check that they aren't on it. Sort of like how key revocation works in crypto— you can't actually haul back the original documents, so you have to publish a revocation list.

martey• 14 years ago

Looking at the law [1] it seems to be part of Section V, entitled "Revenue Offsets".

According to sources I could find online [2], it looks like prior to the law, people who gave up their citizenship were not required to report it to the IRS, even if they were doing so in order to avoid taxes (which is illegal [3]).

[1] http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-104publ191/html/PLAW-104pu...

[2] http://www.accidentaluscitizen.com/category/citizenship-renu...

[3] http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,...

sheraz• 14 years ago

Eduardo Saverin (of Facebook fame) is also on that list. Also in Singapore, I think. I wonder -- what their reasons are other than the US tax burden?

jwwest• 14 years ago

A cursory glance at Wikipedia suggests his middle initial is P. The middle name listed on the register is Luis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Saverin

neilc• 14 years ago

A cursory glance at Wikipedia also suggests that "Since 2010, Saverin has lived in Singapore."

_delirium8• 14 years ago

Singapore is one of dwindling number of countries that rejects the idea of dual citizenship, so it could be that they just wanted to become Singaporean citizens, in which case they have no choice but to renounce their US citizenship as a condition of doing so.

makmanalp• 14 years ago

So, looks like he's in Singapore now: http://sivers.org/singapore

theorique• 14 years ago

Does anyone know why?

Tax purposes, political protest, or what?

Also: it's funny that the government misspells the acronym of their own law, HIPAA.

marshallp3• 14 years ago

There's been talk recently of wealthy americans fleeing the country for tax reasons. If Obama gets reelected, as is expected, he's gonna go all out in his second term (I'm an Obama supporter but I dislike the idea of taxing the entrepreneurs more to fund the lazy government workers).

ajross4• 14 years ago

...Obama has a propsal to tax entrepreneurs?

Rant time: I despise what political discourse in this country has become. Rather than talk about policy we've trained everyone (like marshallp here) to regurgitate sound bites about how this or that politician is "gonna go all out" to do whatever evil thing sounds fun this week. Look: tax policy is a bunch of boring laws. You can read them if you like. You can look at proposed laws and make suggestions, and argue with the specifics of what our government is doing or what it proposes to do.

But slinging around loaded terms like "taxing entrepreneurs" or "lazy government workers" is hurting us all, and helping no one but the spin doctors. Stop it. Try to be smarter than that.

Edit: more spin terms from the reply: "out of our wallets", "my money". Spin if you want, but if you try to argue about policy using language you got from cable news, you'll merely perpetuate the current policy situation (designed almost exclusively to cater to the attention spans of cable news viewers).

maratd4• 14 years ago

> I'm an Obama supporter but I dislike the idea of taxing the entrepreneurs more to fund the lazy government workers

So is that like a very mild dislike or something? Otherwise, that sentence makes zero sense.

mikeryan• 14 years ago

Thats it, Derek Sivers is renouncing his citizenship so his hard earned money doesn't go to lazy people like school teachers and firefighters.

jakeonthemove5• 14 years ago

Obama is not your king... he doesn't make the laws (I know he can, but he'd be impeached faster than you can say "WTF"). You should broaden your view and... blame more people, I guess...

rada• 14 years ago

I don't know DS but my guess is, Singapore doesn't recognize dual citizenship, hence you must renounce your US citizenship to get a Singapore passport.

http://sivers.org/singapore

_delirium8• 14 years ago

That's correct. In fact Singapore is so against dual citizenship that even people who have dual citizenship by birth must choose one or the other once they become adults: by age 22 they must renounce all other citizenships, or lose their Singapore citizenship.

Denmark is another country with a similar law, which causes a reasonable amount of angst among Danes reaching that age. Particularly true of those with US/Danish citizenship, because once you renounce one or the other, it closes off a lot of options: being a US citizen can be quite good for a lot of career paths, while being an EU citizen can open up a lot of options in a different direction.

edit: Looking into a bit, one thing making Denmark's law somewhat less draconian is that former Danes who lose their citizenship via this process at age 22 still have some kind of special lifetime Danish work/residency permission. So they could opt for the U.S. citizenship while retaining the option to return to Denmark. They would lose the right to live/work in other EU countries under the freedom-of-movement agreement, though, since they'd no longer have an EU passport.

schouinard• 14 years ago

I think the problem is in the tax law. Even if you live abroad, you have to produce a tax declaration of your worldwide income. Check this site: http://www.taxmeless.com/page4.html

So it seems the only way to not do this is renouncing citizenship.

woe9• 14 years ago

We can only speculate about Sivers but generally speaking, for a US national residing overseas who will never go to the US, holding US citizenship is more trouble than it's worth.

Look at my daughter. She was born in Europe with three nationalities, including American. Say, for the sake of argument, she spends her entire life in Europe. She will nevertheless be expected to file a tax return with the IRS every year, to possibly pay US taxes, and to file an FBAR every year should she have more than US$10,000 in the bank.

(At the moment the requirement to pay US taxes generally only kicks in if your income exceeds certain thresholds, but given the lack of esteem Congress has for overseas US nationals I would not be surprised if the rules governing this became more onerous.)

These requirements are simply unconscionable for somebody who has never received and will never receive any services from the US government. And yet they will be imposed on her, unless she takes concrete action when she turns 18 to renounce her American citizenship - because she has US nationality, whether she likes it or not, along with the insane obligations that come with it.

akoumjian2• 14 years ago

I find it more interesting that this publication of names is part of HIPPA. I really wish each piece of legislation was restricted to small units of scope.

sp332• 14 years ago

Anything significant requires a lot of compromises in the legislature. It makes sense to put all the compromises in one bill so they can all be passed at once. Otherwise after a few pieces had been passed, the other legislators could reneg on their parts.

akoumjian2• 14 years ago

I could be wrong, but I believe a Schulze method would solve that. The compromises could remain independent pieces which pass or don't pass depending on a preference matrix.

snowwrestler3• 14 years ago

This is a consequence of attempting to make every piece of new legislation revenue neutral. If the main purpose of the bill will cost money, Congress will look elsewhere to find new revenue. That is how a bill about patient data portability ends up having tax implications for expats.

It would certainly be within the rules for Congress to just pass spending and revenue bills separately, but it would be politically difficult.

hornbaker• 14 years ago

OT, but I'm pretty impressed at that site's design, considering it's a .gov property.

andrewcarpenter• 14 years ago

Thanks--we appreciate it! More info about federalregister.gov (the site is fully open source, has a powerful API, etc) can be found on this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2839137

mahmud5• 14 years ago

As someone who holds three nationalities, and is 2 years away from a fourth: I look forward to the day I hold none.

Beligerence of the "State" knows no bounds, I hope we can free ourselves from this regressive construct and, once again, live in this world judged by our own merit and character, beholden to none.

jseliger• 14 years ago

Maybe, but if you're in a country that's going to hell (Russia invades Georgia, Rwanda in 1994) and you're a U.S. citizen, you can be evacuated.

In addition, if you're captured in the United States and labeled a "terrorist," you're less likely to be tortured and held in "black" facilities if you're a U.S. citizen. Perhaps not an optimal reason, but it still exists.

mahmud5• 14 years ago

The U.S. embassy has evacuated my family and we're still paying for it. It's not free. We could have hired a private militia and escaped to safety for 5% of what we paid the state department.

InclinedPlane5• 14 years ago

If we erased all governments and rulers from the Earth in the next second, by 2013 there would be a panoply of tyrants, warlords, and all manner of governments imaginable. There are only so many ways that people self-organize, and the perfect ideal of a peaceful anarchist commune is not one such method that is stable or practical with our current level of technology.

nirvana4• 14 years ago

Mind sharing which one you're pursuing or which ones you think are worthy nationalities to hold?

mahmud5• 14 years ago

Be a U.S. citizen but don't live there. That is the best option of them all, and one I took.

rdtsc4• 14 years ago

Normally these are collected along the way while "moving on up in the world". Start in some poor country. Get citizenship in another slight better country and so on. Now "better" is subjective and defined by the individuals. For example, most people would consider Belize better than South Sudan.

Some just optimize based on the most travel permissive citizenships. Like, say the British passports let you in quite a few countries without a visa, so does an US passport but the countries are different.

jarek9• 14 years ago

Personally I think a combo of one of EU countries and Australia or Canada is nice. You get pretty much all of the first world benefits, can live anywhere in the EU while it's still together with minimal hassles, have Australia/Canada when you're missing an environment a little more the U.S., without the crazy that's U.S. citizenship and corresponding tax laws. (But of course I'd think so as a dual CA/EU citizen.)

achille2• 14 years ago

Mind listing out the countries, and how one goes about becoming a citizenship collector?

My parents sacrificed an incredible deal to come to the US. For the life of me I can't comprehend why someone would do this. Loss of citizenship is permanent. Your kids lose it as well. Why would derek would do this to his kids.

secure12343• 14 years ago

His wife has dual citizenships in the U.S./India.

jarek9• 14 years ago

> For the life of me I can't comprehend why someone would do this. Loss of citizenship is permanent. Your kids lose it as well. Why would derek would do this to his kids.

Maybe he doesn't want his kids to have to deal with the U.S. I.R.S. every year of their life, regardless of whether or not they live in the U.S.? Just one of the possible reasons.

tzs2• 14 years ago

According to his blog, as of last year he had moved to Singapore and it appeared he intended that to be his permanent home.

Perhaps he has decided to obtain Singapore citizenship? Singapore requires those who obtain naturalized citizenship there to renounce all other citizenships they hold.

joering22• 14 years ago

you want to live in a "free state" but yet you are acquiring just another citizenship? it feels to me like a meat lover giving a presentation on a vegan conference how beautiful world would be if we all eat veggies only, lol!

btw: how is the custom board patrol treating you when you cross? some countries like in US while pulling up your name they can see all nationalities you have. I would assume they are hostile towards you in some way, right?

rdtsc4• 14 years ago

> some countries like in US while pulling up your name they can see all nationalities you have

How does a third world tell US which are its citizens. Doubt there is a global citizenship database? Is there?

InclinedPlane5• 14 years ago

The idealogically pure idea of stateless citizens working in harmony of their own free accord is a fantasy that doesn't mesh with reality and just as dangerous as any Marxist Communist fantasy. In the right here and right now states are far from perfect, and we are in the middle of a period where lots of forces are pushing for greater consolidation of power in the hands of the state. But the benefit of having governments (some of them at least) still outweighs the extreme dangers of not having them.

biomene• 14 years ago

In what way is communism dangerous? I fail to see any inherent danger in a form of society that distributes its wealth evenly across its citizens.

ma2rten• 14 years ago

I also hold three passports. I think that having multiple nationalities does make you see how arbitrary the concept of a nation state is (getting privileges solely because of your place of birth or who your parents are), however I don't see that changing anytime soon, because there is not really a realistic alternative.

EDIT: In case people are interested, my nationalities are: Dutch, German, Canadian. I was born with all three of them (even though I found out only much later). I would loose both my Dutch and my German citizenship if I were to acquire another one.

monochromatic• 14 years ago

The belligerence of the state doesn't hold a candle to the belligerence of unfettered individuals.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the discussion of Sealand on Ars Technica [1] was the notion of 'laws of state' vs 'laws of self' which is really nicely explained in this PDF http://illinoislawreview.org/wp-content/ilr-content/articles... . The money quote being:

"Juxtaposing these three theories of the rule of law allows us to see that there is something deeply anomalous in HavenCo’s simultaneous rejection of national self-government and embrace of formal legality and restraint on government. Having started from the premise that the political systems of existing nations could never be trusted to protect free speech, HavenCo needed a place outside of them to stand while it beamed its bits their way and undermined their national Internet laws.

That place needed to be able to stand up to annoyed nations, which led HavenCo to seek Sealand, with its colorable claims to sovereignty. And once HavenCo had chosen a protector with power, it also needed to be protected from the abuse of that power. HavenCo expected international law to protect it from the rest of the world and expected Sealand law to protect it from Sealand itself."

We can discuss and agree that people have fundamental rights, but having that discussion only makes sense in the context of establishing a way of enforcing those rights. The day you hold 'no' citizenship is the day that nobody is going to help protect your rights and you become someone else's slave. That isn't a day I would look forward too.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/sealand-and-...

patrocles2• 14 years ago

The US Tax Code incents US citizens to drop their citizenship before they have 2M USD in net worth.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/877

runako• 14 years ago

At best, you're referring only to US expatriates. The article you linked does not apply to people living in the US at all.

Also, political innuendo aside, Sivers doesn't mention tax avoidance in his reasons for moving to Singapore: http://sivers.org/singapore

jlgreco2• 14 years ago

IIRC, it is impossible to renounce citizenship (and have it be recognized by the US government) while in the US (being inside a US embassy is I believe not counted as being in the US, and is indeed required). Expatriation is assumed whenever you are talking about (American) citizenship renunciation.

branola• 14 years ago

Assuming it's true that he's dodging taxes, why would he want to rub everyone's noses in it? I wouldn't expect it to be a particularly well received blog post for example, not to mention potentially endangering his ability to successfully expatriate - since I believe you are not 'officially' allowed to do so for tax reasons.

rdtsc4• 14 years ago

Because if he did he would be in trouble. Renouncing citizenship for the purpose of tax avoidance is not something US govt. likes very much.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

The law in question defines things in such a way that it's assumed you are renouncing your citizenship for tax purposes if your income or net worth are over certain thresholds. It provides for exceptions under specific conditions and allows for govt officials to grant documented exceptions if you can convince them to do so.

The assumption, though, is probably correct far more often than not.

woe9• 14 years ago

US tax practice incents every permanent expatriate to drop their citizenship, regardless of net worth.

Every year around this time I stare at a stack of tax paperwork and contemplate the hours out of my life I'm about to lose to end up with a tax return that ends with "0" on the bottom line and I get sorely tempted.

Every year I also wonder if it's going to be the last with "0" on the bottom line. The foreign earned income exclusion this year is $95,100. My salary's higher than that. So far I'm always managed to make up the difference on the foreign housing exclusion, but sooner or later I'm probably going to end up being expected to cut a check to Uncle Sam.

Renouncing costs $450. Once my American tax bill hits that amount, that's probably me making an appointment at the embassy.

Let's be clear: I haven't set foot in the United States for ten years, and I will never move back. I hold an EU passport. I receive absolutely nothing from the United States. Being forced to file intrusive, time-consuming paperwork every year is bad enough, but having to actually pay taxes would be simply unacceptable.

mbesto• 14 years ago

Not sure if he reason is tax related, but I will say this...I'm not starting a company abroad without renouncing my US citizenship. I've been living in and out of the US for the last 4 years now and the fact that we get taxed when we are outside of the country is ludicrous to say the least. Are we really that arrogant?

rdtsc4• 14 years ago

I wonder it if it stems from entities like corporations and individuals being treated in a similar fashion by some law. So they don't want to all of the sudden to have every single US company to end up headquartered in the Cayman Islands.

Also if they don't do this. It pretty much guarantees that any wealthy individual will leave the country for a tax haven. Say you reach a $10M/year income if your tax rate is 30% in US, given your financial status, it would be very easy for you to move to Mexico or another country and just say "Well, I am not in US anymore, can't tax me".

Now in actuality this is already happening. They are just making it harder. They are trying to plug the holes in hunk of Swiss cheese.

woe9• 14 years ago

Even if we accept that this is undesirable, surely it is within the ken of mankind to devise a system that hits these wealthy tax evaders without placing unreasonable burdens on every single overseas national, regardless of their circumstances.

jakeonthemove5• 14 years ago

Don't be hasty - there are a lot of ways to hide your foreign income from the IRS. Find them and do it...

runjake• 14 years ago

A quick look at US federal records searches pull up at least 3 living "Derek Sivers". Is there any corroboration from "our" Derek Sivers that this is indeed him? Otherwise it seems disingenuous to post this on HN under the assumption.

run4yourlives5• 14 years ago

I'm a little disappointed that this would be posted and not include a commentary about the number of reasons that he would have for doing this.

It seems rather useless to simply troll government websites for "revealing" data and make no other comment about it. We can add nothing to this data point beyond conjecture without understanding why a person makes this decision.

EDIT: So people have figured out that he's moved to Singapore and married a Singaporean, which makes perfect sense given their stance on citizenship in general.

I know a Singaporean - they don't like losing citizens. Namely, because of the extensive government involvement in their lives in the form of everything from social services to national ID cards to military service. The approach is a much different path of democracy than what we'd be used to in North America.

secure12343• 14 years ago

He didn't marry a Singaporean. His wife was born in India.

run4yourlives5• 14 years ago

Good point, his wife is Tamil. I didn't delve into his personal details with great gusto. :-)

In that case though, given Singapore, it's a good middle ground between India and the US culture wise.

cletus• 14 years ago

EDIT: 48 upvotes in an hour and this submission just jumped from top 10 to second page? WTF?

Honestly, the US is the most invasive government in the "free" world I've had the misfortune to encounter.

I can't think of another developed nation that is quite so overbearing when it comes to foreign income. US citizens who haven't been in the US for 40 years and work in other countries STILL need to report their income to the IRS (as an Australian who lives and works in the US, Australia doesn't care about my income as one example).

The reporting requirements on tax residents in the US (citizens and non-citizens) is absurd. If I fail to disclose my retirement account in Australia, established well before ever working in the US, the US government can technically imprison me and charge me a penalty of 300% of the value of that retirement account (all in the name of "fighting terrorism").

What really doesn't sit well with me is the presumption of criminality that exists in US law (actual and enforced). The presumption of innocence seems to be some kind of anecdote in history.

I know I'll never take up US citizenship. No thanks. I'll stick with Australia/Britain (dual citizen) thanks.

In all honesty the only reason I'm even here is because I want to see it (New York in particular) before it's gone. The US reminds me of the crumbling, dying days of the Roman Empire.

Don't get me wrong. There are many great things about the US. Up until WWI, the US opened its doors to those seeking riches, a new life, freedom from religious persecution and any number of other terrible things in the Old World. In the span of a century (1800 to 1900), the US had turned itself from an agrarian backwater into an industrial superpower, a legacy that has lasted until the present day. The US has certainly played a key part in the technological progress of the 20th century.

But now the government seems to consist of self-interested parties who are happy to persecute citizens of every country including its own. It really seems like it's lost its way and I'm not sure how it comes back from that.

run4yourlives5• 14 years ago

Every country has requirements of its citizens. A lot force you to serve in the Armed Forces. The US doesn't do that.

While I agree that the US isn't as welcoming as it once was and has always had an onerous tax code, for foreigners it is still a huge benefit to work and do business there.

The funny thing is that Citizenship in the US has been essentially devalued by non-citizen working categories that have been developed in order to make the economy function. Unlike Europe or Canada, the US as a country doesn't really provide anything substantial to its citizens that make moving from a green card to a full citizen really worthwhile unless you care that much about voting.

Green Cards (or equivalent legal status) are gold though. Save the passports for EU countries or CAN/AUS. :-)

sjtgraham2• 14 years ago

Permanent Residents (Green Card holders) also have to pay tax on their worldwide income, even if they do not reside in the US.

mahyarm3• 14 years ago

PR Cards are canada are pretty close to citizenship. PRs get subsided educations and are treated like citizens for all rights and purposes. Other than voting, political office, passports and other standard citizen benefits I don't know how Canada's PR is any worse than a US PR.

jakeonthemove5• 14 years ago

The law in this case is unjust. Those who don't like it (practically the majority of people) can open a separate company in Hong Kong and keep their foreign money untaxed. Or they can just not disclose the money they make.

Yes, it's illegal - selling drinks was also illegal during Prohibition - that didn't mean it was right.

The US actually reminds me of the relationship between the British Empire and the East India Company - the organization was so powerful that the actual government didn't have as much control over it as they wanted. It's the same with the US gov and its citizens (including corporations/businesses).

I don't know where the country is going, though. Other countries (especially in the EU) are now very close, equal or better than the US when it comes to business and living conditions, so there's really no reason to "switch sides" now.

With a British and Australian passports, you don't even need to think about a US citizenship - it is indeed useless, however if you're from one of the less developed countries , it's still worth it.

drucken• 14 years ago

The US actually reminds me of the relationship between the British Empire and the East India Company

This is the key! It is the all-pervasive, highest priority plutocracy aspect that is causing the most damage to the US and its image.

When your prime concern is to treat your citizens as a tax fund and then on-top of that misappropriate those precious resources in mainly multi-decade long and continuous militaristic campaigns and development instead of socially cohesive and constructive policies that protect the long-term interests of your citizen base, then it is hardly surprisingly the amount of dissatisfaction caused, especially how citizenry itself is becoming globalised by communication and technology.

Of particular concern is:

* why banks are allowed free reign to cause so much damage without penalty or preventative regulation (e.g. now, subprime is starting all over again except in structured finance commmodity markets),

* why large corporates and high wealth individuals are so permitted to abuse accounting principles to avoid taxation even compared to the rest of the West (where do you think this tax revenue will now be sourced from?) and bypass social or environmental responsibilities,

* why political campaign funding is allowed to be so corruptingly privatised particularly at the non-federal level,

* why (highly funded) private lobbies, even of foreign governments, are permitted to be so powerful against the political system,

* why politicians are so protected in office even when they behave in ways that would be illegal in any other situation (e.g. trading based on inside information),

* the extreme lengths the "multicultural experiment" has been allowed to segregate and ghettoize their citizenry,

* the extreme punishment and lack of tolerance for even the most minor of crimes in the legal system, etc. etc.

Given the above, it is hardly surprising that US citizens are both turning to and incidentally discovering the many benefits of living elsewhere and dissociating themselves from their parent country's government.

nirvana4• 14 years ago

Many americans don't seem to understand this because they've grown up in the US media bubble and were educated in US schools which don't tend to really accurately portray the rest of the world.

Going out and living in other countries you find how impressively different things can be.

For instance, an acquaintance of mine who is a medical doctor who treats terminally ill patients, had his life ruined (and is in jail now) because the DEA decided he was writing too many prescriptions. Those same drugs- that he determined were medically necessary and he's a DOCTOR, can be bought over the counter in Chile, and many other countries south of the US border. Walking around chile you don't see a lot of stoners or drug addicts (in fact, I haven't seen any homeless at all) compared to the USA.

Nevermind that the person who decided he was writing "too many" of these prescriptions has no medical training and was doing so based on what amounts to a quota system whereby over time patients are increasingly denied the drugs they need as their doctors become afraid of the same fate that befell my acquaintance. This fear causes fewer prescriptions to be written over all, lowering the standard for "too many", causing those who didn't deny their patients the drugs they need to be prosecuted, installing more few, further lowering the numbers, etc. It is a self reinforcing cycle.

So, please tell me why a doctor had his life ruined for giving his patients- terminally ill, remember- prescriptions for drugs that you can buy over the counter in many countries? Please tell me why the USA is pursuing a program that ensures that ill people are in agony?

It is because the USA has gone off the deep end in certain areas.

Yet attempting to defend this doctor to others who also went to high school with him, mostly got no sympathy. To those americans' eyes he was a "Drug dealer" and a "scourge on society."

driverdan2• 14 years ago

There's a lot more to this story you're not disclosing. The DEA doesn't just imprison someone overnight because "decided he was writing too many prescriptions".

Bamafan• 14 years ago

"In all honesty the only reason I'm even here is because I want to see it (New York in particular) before it's gone. The US reminds me of the crumbling, dying days of the Roman Empire."

Thank god you got there in time! NYC TTYL is down to 5 years. Probably won't be there in 2020.

"But now the government seems to consist of self-interested parties who are happy to persecute citizens of every country including its own."

When has this not been the case in US history?

Sounds like you buy into the same "in the old days, things were better" pollyanna version of US history many of its own citizens do.

michaelcampbell4• 14 years ago

In the old days, things WERE better.

But that's because in the old days, I was 12.

kamaal• 14 years ago

>>The US reminds me of the crumbling, dying days of the Roman Empire.

Indian here, many of uncles visited US in the 90's and continue to visit even now. One of my uncles is a doctor who is now settled in US. Well as a kid my uncles would often talk to me about the infrastructure, opportunities and great things about the US. So naturally when I grew up I wanted to come to US and work there.

Not anymore, in the past few years the very same people are telling how futile it is to go to US now. How costly the cost of living and health care is, how the common masses are totally out of energy without access to affordable higher education, how china virtually dominates every aspect of the life of a ordinary US consumer.

You can do anything here in India, whatever you could possibly do in the US. Nothing really is impossible today in India and China. You can make the same money, get the same opportunities, buy the same stuff and afford the same luxuries. Many of my friends who went to US to their MS now desperately want to come back to India, the only thing that seems to be holding them back is the education loan.

India looks to be in the same place US was in WWI, tons of opportunities, high optimism among the masses and a lot of young population desperate for success. There is tons of money to be made out there.

US looks to be stuck in needless conflicts, prolonged wars and wasting its energy, resources and wealth on pursuits which are going to give nothing in return.

People generally ask about the resurgence of India and China on the global scene, sure outsourcing is huge factor in it. But US really dug its own grave. If even US had spent half the money its spending on military and wars on development, with the kind of infrastructure US has, it would be unbeatable.

jebblue4• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure I'd not pick that country to live in: http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1S...

Short link: http://goo.gl/0vEQj

michaelcampbell4• 14 years ago

To be fair, the guy in the story you're linking to overstayed his visa by over 6 mos. This cannot be seriously considered an "oversight", and Singapore is not known for leniency to lawbreakers, which he clearly is. He rolled the dice, and lost.

jebblue4• 14 years ago

I agree they were enforcing their laws but to me they seem a bit harsh. I'm glad that in the US you don't get harsh punishment for being here illegally.

Mz4• 14 years ago

OT: Anyone know of online resources regarding dual citizenship issues? (Specifically German-American.)

Thanks.

woe9• 14 years ago

Germany has a very restrictive dual nationality policy. Though technically their rules do permit an immigrant to apply to be permitted to keep his original nationality, this is not something you can expect.

Mz4• 14 years ago

Thanks for replying, though I seem to have given the wrong impression. I am a former military wife. One of my children was born in Germany. I have told him it would be a bad idea to just show up in Germany. My understanding is he has dual citizenship and could potentially be drafted. The discussion here made me wonder if there might be more info online regarding potential repercussions of his status. I have no plans at this time to move outside the country, so I was not inquiring about pursuing dual citizenship.

Again, thanks for responding.

noahc6• 14 years ago

For those wondering about the Tax issue, I doubt that is the case because of: http://sivers.org/trust

He put the company into a charitable trust, which isn't ever taxed except for on what he receives from the trust, which is set to the lowest amount possible.

patrocles2• 14 years ago

~20M dollar exit; in the US, trusts have to pay out 5% per year; he has a ~1M income provided the trust invests well.

noahc6• 14 years ago

My understanding is that ~1M a year isn't enough to justify most people loosing their US citizenship over. However, Derek isn't exactly most people.

My general sense on the issue is that money, in particular taxes, is something Derek worries about.

mariuolo• 14 years ago

Who?

Derek Sivers Renounces his US Citizenship

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