From Ronald Holland's upcoming fourth book, Restoring Our American Legacy. Get ready for a new 21st century reappraisal of how Americans should look at domestic and foreign investing, real estate investments, wealth preservation, American history and our global foreign policy. He asks if it is time to consider an improved political paradigm utilizing successful Swiss style direct democracy and the confederation model along with our existing political structure to return our nation back to the limited Republic form of government established by our Founding Fathers. In this new century of instant communications, 24 hour news, the War on Terror, exploding government and private debt, a falling dollar and America's declining status around the world it is time for a change. Americans must retake control over our government policies at home and abroad by restraining politicians, the bureaucracy and special interests to restore the control of productive American citizens back over our own government. Our wealth, prosperity and ultimate liberty depend on Restoring Our American Legacy before it is too late! The phrase coined in George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984, was “Big Brother is Watching You.” Orwell’s novel was only a work of fiction describing his fear of what our future could become if personal freedoms were stripped away. However this phrase certainly seems appropriate for our environment today under Washington’s War on Terror. Orwell was a prophet but his timing was 20 years off. The police state didn't happen in 1984 but it is here for all of us now in 2004.
In the novel 1984, so powerful was the state control over people’s minds that eventually everyone came to love Big Brother. One could ask today what would it take to turn America into the kind of society that Orwell warned about - a society that envisions war as peace, freedom as slavery, and ignorance as strength? Much of the transition warned about in 1984 has already been established in the US.
This might be an extreme statement in the eyes of many readers but take a quick look at how your financial privacy has eroded and come to your own conclusion about how a 1984 style Big Brother society is present today in the United States.
Here is a real world scenario of how our liberties have been destroyed. Each regulation listed below is pervasive in today's economic life but were non-existent in 1970.2
Ø All banking records photographed for Big Brother to see at will.
Ø All stock and securities transactions reported to the tax man.
Ø All real estate transactions reported to the tax man.
Ø All interest, dividends, etc. reported to the tax man.
Ø All part time work, even babysitters and teenage garden helpers reported to the tax man.
Ø All barter transactions reported to the tax man. Like neighborly affairs: "I'll help you with your rec room; you help me put in a new lawn." Big deal!
Ø All gambling winnings of significance reported to the IRS: casinos, race track, lotteries, etc.
Ø All foreign accounts, holdings, trusts, reported to the tax man.
Ø U.S. citizens living abroad, reported to the IRS by the U.S. Customs, on returning home.
Ø Passport applicants abroad must report to the IRS.
Ø Travelers checks and cash over $10,000 reported on leaving or entering the U.S.
Ø Any moderately large cash deposits or withdrawals from your bank account reported to the IRS.
Ø Heavy fines on banks for not reporting the above.
Ø A multitude of fiscal penalties for failing to comply with a myriad of petty tax rules, however innocent or inadvertent.
Ø Surveillance and penalties on tax preparers when preparing an inaccurate return.
Ø Tax shelters must be reported (whatever that means).
Ø Harsh and long prison terms for tax offenders far in excess of what violent criminals receive.
There is no doubt that the genius of the American political and legal system were created to defend the property and liberties of the American people. Just by reviewing the new regulations above which directly attack our personal and financial privacy makes it crystal clear where our political establishment is heading concerning your wealth and financial security. This long list of defeats for financial freedom should persuade every American with substantial savings and wealth to diversify more offshore and outside the U.S. financial and legal system. All it will take is a massive financial panic or another successful terrorist attack on Wall Street or other economic targets and the door will slam shut on your wealth and remaining liberties here in the United States.
Can our political action today influence the political establishment to such a degree as to cause it to once again defend our wealth and liberty? I believe the answer is a definite "no". Both the Democrat and Republican Parties and their candidates are so dependent on funding by special interests and their lobbying groups that the relative small numbers of productive wealthy Americans will continue to fight a losing battle in defense of tax breaks, wealth preservation, and individual rights.
American Democracy Today is Mob Rule - Pure and Simple
"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." -- Thomas Jefferson
Today we have a pure democracy where everyone has the opportunity to vote and, as Jefferson warned, are now using the ballot box to vote themselves programs and benefits from our tax dollars in the public treasury. This is a minor problem compared to the political power of corporate and foreign special interests over our government. Special interests promoting programs and benefits only cost us government revenue. Foreign and corporate special interests cost us money plus unbalanced and aggressive foreign policies which are now making the United States a pariah nation in the eyes of much of the world in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Contrast this special interest control to the early years of our Republic when voting had property restriction to prevent the system from degenerating into what it is today. Since productive Americans are far outnumbered at the voting booth and out-represented by the lobbyists in Washington on the payroll of foreign and domestic special interests, you can expect more of the same in terms of increasing taxes, fewer deductions and more attempts to steal the wealth you have worked so hard to earn in the private sector. This is not a pretty picture but I fear an accurate view of the next few decades.
There is no question that America has the strongest and most technologically advanced military in the world today. We can meet and defeat any other military on the planet with the possible exception of a land war against China. The United States is safe against conventional military attack and threats. However the problem isn't conventional forces or conventional attack but rather the threat of state or terrorist organization-sponsored attacks. In this kind of war, no one really knows the nation or group behind the attack which benefits those out to destroy the U.S. or others out to use our military power for their own corporate or national interests.
America cannot hope to defend itself against the terrorist threat and, in fact, most of our attempts to counter this threat actually increase the risk and further erode our individual freedoms and liberties at home. The terrorism threat to America, specifically to our financial system, is one of the more serious risks to your wealth and liberty during the next few years. I cannot stress enough the importance of protecting your portfolio accordingly.
As for the American legal system there is no reason to believe any legal or tort reform will be more than a publicity gimmick to take some heat off the trial lawyers associations. Our legal establishment and lobbyist groups have bought their way into Washington and are now one of our nation's most powerful special interests. You can forget political or legal action to defend your liberty or wealth as both systems have been corrupted beyond repair.
So what has happened to the once respected American Dream of liberty, private property and limited government?
It has been soiled and corrupted by our political and legal establishment and the many special interests supporting their efforts to legally steal your wealth and destroy your liberty. The mob rule Thomas Jefferson warned about is here today. They’re after your wealth and property though taxes, regulations, controls and legal actions. Yes, we have a democratic form of government, a "democracy" if you will, but a democracy is neither a permanent form of government nor of benefit to wealthy minorities in a nation. Alexander Tyler warned about the future of a pure democracy where everyone has the right to vote in contrast to our republic established over two hundred years ago with property limitations on the right to vote.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." -- Alexander Tyler (When the thirteen colonies were still a part of England, Professor Alexander Tyler wrote about the fall of the Athenian republic over two thousand years previous to that time)
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." --- Martin Luther King Jr.
High net worth Americans are now entering the bondage period of our nation's political cycle where accumulated wealth will be stolen over time through democratic, legal means. Your only real choice is to do nothing and become a victim or defend your wealth now while you still have the chance. Political action in our special interest controlled democracy is meaningless in today's political system. The only vote you can make that really matters is to vote for wealth preservation by moving a portion of your wealth to a protected strategy and program offshore. On the other end of the spectrum, you can also choose to vote with your feet as I have and move not just your wealth but yourself, your family and your career offshore until such time as the "mob rule" passes and our nation returns again from bondage, to spiritual faith, to courage and back to maximum liberty.
I am praying that the fast transition of events and the lightening speed of communications now possible in the 21st century will hasten the rebirth of liberty in our western civilization and a return to the original republic vision of our nation's Founding Fathers. I believe all current attempts to defend wealth and private property will only postpone confiscation and delay those out to expropriate your wealth unless wealth preservation programs are combined with education, political action and the rebirth of liberty. Working together we can help to bring the American Dream back to reality for you, your family and for all of the American people.
Unfortunately, many Americans will continue to trust in the legal system and seek to reform and limit government plunder and bureaucratic excesses directed against productive Americans who have contributed so much to this nation. We fear, they will do so at their peril as a thorough reading of the history of lost wealth and liberties in other countries clearly shows that trusting in failed or corrupted political and legal institutions is costly, not only financially, but to personal freedoms and liberty as well.
"When plunder has become a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it." -- Frederic Bastiat
firm licensed in 47 states.Ronald Holland - For more information go to http://www.ronaldholland.com
Note, Ronald now lives at Asheville NC's Wolf Laurel Resort, where he markets ski property, homes and real estate in one of the highest elevation 4-season mountain resorts in the eastern United States. He is an internationally known financial & marketing consultant & author of 3 books and over a hundred articles & reports, a leading speaker at financial conferences in the US and abroad and editor of several internet based news sites. He invented several financial products & services including the first gold IRA account and the first Swiss franc denominated variable annuity portfolio in the US and was president of a Swiss owned investment
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Ronald
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