Trump Almost Outdoes Himself

Trump managed to surprise me a little this week. I’ve known he is a vulgar, unpatriotic narcissist and demagogue.  I’ve known he is a fan of brutal dictators with a strong authoritarian streak of his own. I’ve known he is a scoundrel and a  pathological liar. I’ve known he is a blustering ignoramus.  Still his behavior this week displayed those traits so vividly that it was as though he were trying to outdo himself in being Trump with all that that implies.

When a hostile foreign power invades a country friendly to the United States, a patriotic American does not pick that time to praise the invaders’ dictator. When an aggressor attacks a peaceful neighboring country, an opponent of authoritarianism does not prattle admiringly about what a great deal the attackers made for themselves. When a war is breaking out in Europe, an occasionally honest and intermittently decent ex-president does not blame the war, not on the aggressors, but on the unfortunate fact that he is no longer running  things and repeat a lie that somebody, somehow cheated him out of his rightful place at the  top. Upon being told of a possible amphibious assault on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, an even slightly well informed ordinary American citizen does not jump to the silly conclusion that U.S. rather than Russian forces would be making the landing.   

It was something that Trump managed to do all those thing in a couple of days and on camera to boot.  Politics is a nasty business. I understand that Republicans need to placate Trump enough to keep him from sabotaging them in the mid-term elections or making a third party run in 2024. I just hope that in doing so, they also make sure he never gets close to getting their nomination. Maybe Garland or some state or local prosecutors could help them out. Trump did try to overthrow the republic in the days between December 14^th, 2020 and January  6^th, 2021. He may have gone beyond shifty to illegal in some of his dealings in business. Officials should be looking.

Perhaps a Warning

 People who do not trust their government to refrain from confiscating their wealth often want to keep some of their money in a foreign country where it would be impossible or at least more difficult for their home country’s larcenous officials to get ahold of it. People who only fear their government might react to its future economic difficulties by blocking its residents from or limiting their ability to move or spend money outside of the country often want to do the same thing. Most financial experts and people in  the financial media have dismissed such worries  by people in the United States and most of the rest of the world’s “developed economies” as misplaced or even paranoid. They have argued that democratic governments can be trusted since they do not expropriate, and it has been a long time since the postwar currency controls in western  Europe ended with no one planning to bring them back. The skeptics among them – some cryptocurrency enthusiasts, some gold bugs, and  a few libertarian financial writers here and there -  are a small minority arguing that expropriation or currency controls are possibilities to take seriously enough to justify precautions, because politicians and bureaucrats just about everywhere are vicious, avaricious, and untrustworthy. At least they have been a small minority.

 Justin Trudeau may be changing that, both for some experts and writers and for some ordinary investors. According to reports in the news, his government in Canada is blocking activity on bank and other financial accounts of protesters and people who donated money to support  the protesters and perhaps expropriating the money in those accounts.  (He is also stealing people’s trucks, threatening to murder their dogs, holding protesters without bail, and sending in thuggish cops to beat up peaceful protesters and their supporters, including women. Fidel would be proud of the boy.) Now people not only have arguments for the untrustworthiness  of even democratic govenrments, but also an important example of it to consider.

After considering that example many people may decide they would like to have some of their assets in places where it would be harder for their civil masters to steal or interfere with them. They may find such places hard to find. Americans with investment income have to report their foreign bank accounts, brokerage accounts,  and trusts to the IRS on their income tax returns.  The difficulty  in  American officials  getting their hands on those accounts would vary from place to place, but I would guess  the feds usually could do it if they really wanted to. They have certainly been able to bully the Swiss into abandoning their principles in regard to privacy.

Some people think cryptocurrencies are a solution to the problem. Cryptocurrency balances probably are harder  to find and grab than bank accounts, and transactions are more nearly private.  However,  people should note that every American who files an income tax return has to tell the feds under penalty of perjury whether he uses cryptocurrencies, and flocks of potential regulators are circling.  Cash is hard to trace and easy to hide, but it is not always easy to store safely. There are limits on how much cash an American can take out of the country at one time without telling the feds, and a person moving cash out of the country might have trouble finding a safe place to keep it if he did not want to use a foreign bank or brokerage house. Jewels and precious metals have the same drawbacks for storage as cash. Some people have suggested buying real estate in a foreign country. As far as I know, foreign property that does not generate income does not have to be reported to the IRS. However real estate is usually expensive and sometimes illiquid, and rules for foreigners owning real property vary by country.

If the remarkable events in Canada lead to many more  people in North America making  financial privacy and keeping some assets out of officials’ reach an important goal, it will be interesting to see what they can work out to accomplish it, if anything. The deck is stacked against them, and the house rules change in the middle of the game whenever the house decides to change them.

Canadian Truck Drivers

 Until today it looked as though the protesting Canadian truck drivers were winning. Several provinces ended or are ending restrictions. Millions of people in Canada, the United States, and other countries were  on the truckers’  side and showing it. Trudeau was blustering  like the Duce but seemed to lack the nerve or ability to do much else. I was glad for the truckers and proud of them. I am still proud of them, but the recent news is that Trudeau has declared something very close to martial law and plans  to imprison and/or financially ruin the protesters and people who support them. I hope he fails, and he may. Canada is not Cuba and Trudeau is not Castro, physiognomy aside.  

This protest is not the Boston Tea Party or the storming of the Bastille, but it is something important and not only for Canadians. It may be having an effect in this country too. Democrat politicians and officials who reveled in the chance to throw their weight around and demand obedience to even the most obviously useless or harmful  lockdowns, mandates, and restrictions for over  two years are suddenly deciding that, by golly, “science” is now telling them that it is time to ease up and reluctantly start treating people more nearly as free citizens. The main reason for this is probably the upcoming elections. (I will not be surprised if Fauci declares the epidemic over about forty eight hours before early voting starts in October.) But it may also be that the protesters in Canada and Americans’ support for them threw a scare into some of our civil masters. I hope so. They need it.

I believe getting vaccinated is a good idea and a very good idea for anyone who is old or sick. I expect many of the protesters would disagree, and some for foolish reasons. That does not matter. A free person does not have to do what I or anyone else down to and including the Trudeaus of the world would think wise.  It’s his right to choose. Besides this protest has grown into something more than a dispute over vaccines and masks. I would guess that Trudeau and his apologists know it and are panicking.  I hope that Trudeau’s cowardice will trump his power mania, and that  panic does not get some good people killed.