And now it is a good day. The tree guys just came and hacked off some over grown suburban shrubbery and some oak branches that hung periously over our home. Chain saws and heights. I could never do that job. Sunlight is streaming into my office and I'm happy.
Here are some quick links before I leave the house to take care of some chores:
The worst job interview evah.
Eduardo Saverin is likely to barred from reentering the US. Hurrah!
Andrew Rotherham questions whether there really is a student loan debt crisis.
Donna Summer just died.
What should you do when a newspaper steals your blog post.
Apt. 11d 
Long time reader, first time commenter here:
I’m genuinely befuddled by the reaction to Eduardo Saverin. This isn’t some guy living in the U.S. trying to funnel all his money through the Cayman Islands. This is a man who doesn’t have any desire to live in the United States, who will pay a hefty tax bill on what he earned here, and who is leaving for another country.
You are aware that no other country in the world taxes based on citizenship rather than residency, right? As in, if I’m a French citizen and live in London, using U.K. services, I pay taxes to the U.K., not France, and nobody has the slightest problem with this. The reason Savarin gave up his citizenship is because of the inane, Hotel California taxation policies of the United States.
And the U.S. alone claims the power to tax, for life, people who have long left, who receive no service. Usually when the United States’ policy is wildly out of line with every other civilized country, people on the left are tripping all over themselves to explain why America is wrong. Here the United States adopts a tactic of saying that even if you choose to live elsewhere and give up your citizenship you still should be punished, and the mob can’t wait to cheer. I find it quite mystifying, and frankly appalling. People are not the property of the nation they were born in, for life. Even rich people.
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Any job interview is better than no job interview. Any job interview resulting in a job is better than one that does not result in a job. When I lived in the US I found it impossible to even get an interview for an adjunct position.
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“People are not the property of the nation they were born in, for life. Even rich people.”
And Saverin wasn’t even born in the US. He’s from a Brazilian Jewish family and has apparently only been a US citizen since 1998.
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That kind of makes it worse. He was just using us to get ahead and dumped us when he got rich.
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He was naturalized as a kid, so is his becoming a US citizen really something he had a lot of choice in?
My husband is a Canadian citizen but has lived in the US since graduate school. If we had to file taxes to the Canadian government for income earned in the US every year, as well as filing US taxes on the same income, I would be seriously ticked off.
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Filing’s not the worst of it. If you have a foreign spouse, but you have joint bank accounts, or if the spouse has retirement accounts (or indeed, pretty much any kind of account) they have to be reported to the IRS and may be liable for US taxation.
There’s a fair number of people who are so-called “accidental Americans,” in that they acquired citizenship unwittingly and now find themselves liable for US taxation. There’s been a fuss in Canada.
http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/static/business/article2059284.html
Banks reporting obligations on Americans holding accounts are onerous, puzzling, and potentially dangerous for the banks. I am hearing stories of point-blank refusals to open accounts for US citizens, maybe even of forced closures of accounts.
Chris the first-time commenter is quite right.
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Funny that TED caved to pressure. Well, not so funny but not surprising. Trickle down economics is as mythical as the trope that “anyone can make it if you just work hard enough”. The rising tide raises only SOME boats. And these myths justify pulling up the ladder by the upper classes.
Oh look, the emperor has no clothes…
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well, TED has super-caved to more pressure.
Interesting conflict, actually. It seems to me that part of the issue is that people are editing curated work nowadays, without understanding a philosophy of editing.
So, TED editor (who isn’t really an editor) decides he doesn’t want to post the talk (’cause he doesn’t like it, or he doesn’t think it was popular, or his friends don’t like it) and creates a firestorm.
My issue with the Hanauer talk is that I don’t understand why hearing a venture capitalist talk economic theory of equality should convince me of anything. That tends to be my issue with a number of TED talks, which overvalue the person saying them compared to what they’re saying. Celebrity intellectuals aren’t more worth listening to than other intellectuals (but then, I’m weird).
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There’s a fair number of people who are so-called “accidental Americans,”
I had a cousin who was an accidental Italian (military parents but somehow not born on base) and he scrambled to do some paperwork before he went to Italy.
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“Filing’s not the worst of it. If you have a foreign spouse, but you have joint bank accounts, or if the spouse has retirement accounts (or indeed, pretty much any kind of account) they have to be reported to the IRS and may be liable for US taxation.”
Terrible!
I think we should take a golden rule approach to taxation outside our borders. How would we feel if other foreign countries were doing this stuff to US citizens?
“My issue with the Hanauer talk is that I don’t understand why hearing a venture capitalist talk economic theory of equality should convince me of anything”
That’s a very good point. Aren’t these talks supposed to be experts spoon-feeding 20-minute versions of their subjects to audiences?
Also, isn’t this TED thing very similar to the CHE/Riley thing? CHE isn’t obligated to give Riley a platform, just as TED isn’t obligated to give this venture capitalist a platform. If he is offended, he can re-tape and put it on youtube. No biggie.
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They did give a forum though. He gave a TED talk. The question was whether it would be placed on the TED archive online. And now, I think they have put it there.
My problem with the celebrity intellectual isn’t just Hanauer. It’s a bunch of TED talks.
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I have a colleague who found out that he was an accidental American. He didn’t realize that he was considered a US citizen until this past year when he was badly treated at a border crossing (the American border guard berated him for traveling into the US on a Canadian passport given he was born in the US). Now he’s canceled all trips to the US and is investigating what he’d need to do to renounce citizenship: I can’t blame him since he’s never seen a modicum of benefit for his citizenship, only headaches.
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I can’t blame him since he’s never seen a modicum of benefit for his citizenship, only headaches.
Same for Herbert Hans Haupt.
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bj,
Same deal. Riley’s blog post was on CHE’s site (so she had a platform there), just as the venture capitalist was able to give a TED talk. They both had and then lost a platform. Very similar situations, I think.
“My problem with the celebrity intellectual isn’t just Hanauer. It’s a bunch of TED talks.”
Who have the other offenders been?
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“I think we should take a golden rule approach…”
We’ll make a Democrat out of you yet, Amy!
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Thanks, Chris, for the good comment. And thanks for chiming in. I never quite know who is reading this blog and why.
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