Americans Giving Up Citizenship / New Roman Empire?

[Matt84]

I know this topic has been discussed before (and I know I haven't frequented these forums in a while) but I'm intrigued. Any thoughts on the issue, from Americans or not would be appreciated.

This appeared in red in the Drudge Report, the headline being Amnesty for Immigrants.

It would appear to me that the US is following the same steps as the Roman Empire: Seeking Universalism. The gentry leaves or regulates or ascend in Nepotism, and 'Barbarians' are given citizenship.

Hispanic is the New Germanic.

Welcome to the Holy(woody) American Empire of Hispanic Nations.

http://www.businessw...gher-rules-loom
Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship surged sixfold in the second quarter from a year earlier as the government prepares to introduce tougher asset-disclosure rules.
Expatriates giving up their nationality at U.S. embassies climbed to 1,131 in the three months through June from 189 in the year-earlier period, according to Federal Register figures published today. That brought the first-half total to 1,810 compared with 235 for the whole of 2008.
The U.S., the only nation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that taxes citizens wherever they reside, is searching for tax cheats in offshore centers, including Switzerland, as the government tries to curb the budget deficit. Shunned by Swiss and German banks and facing tougher asset-disclosure rules under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, more of the estimated 6 million Americans living overseas are weighing the cost of holding a U.S. passport.
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[ajoknoblauch]

Anything that appears in the Drudge Report is, ipso facto, an error or a lie.

 

[Matt84]

Anything that appears in the Drudge Report is, ipso facto, an error or a lie.

even the links? they seem to work fine. The article is from Business Week.
yellow journalism can, sometimes, be a useful thermometer

 

[Ries]

I would agree about Drudge-
but, even if you read the business week link- a grand total of about 3500 citizens are projected to give up their citizenship this year.
There are 315 million citizens in the USA.
so, the "big increase" is still so small as to be a rounding error in the big picture.

Also, although Businessweek, much less Drudge, doesnt specify, Historically, the vast majority of people renouncing their citizenship are IMMIGRANTS returning home, because they decided the USA was not for them.

Historically, about 10% of immigrants return to their home countries from the USA. Sometimes this takes decades. Many immigrants work in the USA, and retire back home. And, usually for tax reasons, renounce US citizenship.

This would include Irish, Italians, Greeks, Scots, Finns, Norwegians, Germans, and, yes, today, Indian software engineers, Mexican construction workers, and Peruvian sheet metal mechanics.

In other words, far from showing that the USA is going to the dogs, this is completely normal, and probably a LOW figure- in the early teens and twenties of the 20th century, the percentages were much much higher.

 

[camberiu]

That is the canary in the coal mine. Once more people realize how screwed up things are in the USA, more will leave.


http://youtu.be/27uM25FvXrE

 

[Matt84]

Ries it might be a small increase but this batch of emigrants includes long time Americans that can benefit from air travel, including Permatourists that find out new life choices outside America during a vacation.

Comparing the USA to the Roman empire is hardly saying is going to the dogs (but it implies it might)

 

[ajoknoblauch]

I wonder what the comparable figures are for Argentina.

 

[Matt84]

The interesting thing about this article is the nature, not the quantity, of those who are seeking citizenship and those who are seeking to renounce it.

Argentina is neutral to immigrant.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

even the links? they seem to work fine. The article is from Business Week.
yellow journalism can, sometimes, be a useful thermometer

If not a mistake or an outright lie, at the very least misleading.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

The interesting thing about this article is the nature, not the quantity, of those who are seeking citizenship and those who are seeking to renounce it.

Argentina is neutral to immigrant.

The US is overwhelmingly net immigrant. My understanding is that Argentines cannot renounced their citizenship, but they can acquire another.