This joyous holiday season, those still living in the US should give thanks for one thing: that it's not 2012 yet. If you haven't begun the countdown, now's the time. And there's not a whole lot left of it before it's too late. 

You see, the overlords in DC have a host of new disciplinary and capital-control legislation ready to be unleashed upon the populace starting in less than a month.

So, in celebration of the coming new year, here are two more reasons to move your assets out of the good ol' "land of opportunity" immediately before 2012:  

NEW LAWS, SAME OLD TOTALITARIANISM: CAPITAL CONTROLS

The Nazis used them. The Soviets used them. It's not as if capital controls are a new idea. Atlas is shrugging. And the kleptocrats in Congress have been frothing at the mouth hoping that the public indoctrination system worked its magic and has blinded you to the obvious closing net around you so you can't escape before it is too late. Before the capital controls soon to be unleashed by Obamacare, there was the aforementioned Dodd-Frank Act, and before that there was the HIRE Act, both of which "incentivize" Americans to keep their assets within the US.

A brief review: The Dodd-Frank Act, which has been in effect since July of 2010, prohibits U.S gold dealers from contracting with specified gold-supplying countries. Such prohibitions have probably already affected the price of gold. The fewer gold suppliers there are, of course, as demand continues to sky rocket, means the price continues to rise as well.  There will be fewer (legal) gold dealers as our masters hope that Americans would tame themselves in light of such regulatory harnesses by investing in worthless domestic treasury bonds rather than looking for opportunities abroad. But wait, there's more...

The HIRE Act, in effect since March of 2010, bestows upon every foreign (and domestic) financial organization that receives income from all US tax-payers the duty to report the names, address, taxpayer identification number, balance, gross receipts and gross account withdrawls to the IRS annually. Just one more reason to say good-bye to your right to privacy if you don't say good-bye to the USA instead. Failure to comply with the US government "subjects the foreign entity to a 30% withholding tax on any payment of U.S.-sources investment income, including interest and dividends." The penalty "begins at $10,000, with an additional 40% tax underpayment penalty on underreported foreign assets."  And last but not least...

THE FUTURE: "UNIVERSAL, GUARANTEED RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS"

Still have a 401K? Enjoy it while it lasts. Of course, soon those will belong to the state! While the government hasn't succeeded – yet – in mandating that your financial savings accounts be turned over to them, they are sharpening their knives.  Since 2009 the socialists in power have been pushing hard for a "universal retirement system."  As if the corrupt ponzi scheme, Socialist Security weren't an obvious enough failure in American central planning, the government is now pushing to confiscate your 401Ks by mandating a 5% payroll tax to be redistributed to the general population... well, in the end, the "general population" will get the scraps after government bureaucracy steals and destroys most of it.  

ARE YOU GOING TO WAIT ANY LONGER?

Can you literally afford to wait until 2012?  After all, as Gary Kinghorn reported yesterday, the US Government is already setting up detention centers and training the National Guard on how best to arrest, detain and re-train anyone in the population who doesn't want to go along.  Just remember the 'mantra' being echoed in the National Guard video yesterday, "Of the troops and for the troops"!  So much for supporting and defending the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, eh?

This photo from a New Jersey army base in 1969, sent in from friend and TDV Subscriber Doug H., shows what many in the military consider freedom to be to begin with:

We at TDV strongly advise that you invest your time in acquiring citizenship in another country, beginning the process by finding a new passport (check out our Dominican Republic passport program), other than the one forced upon you by the thieving hands of Uncle Sam.  We highly recommend reading Mark Nestman's The Lifeboat Strategy and Terry Coxon's Unleash Your IRA for beginning the process of expatriation from the Empire. Or mull over a move to Doug's Gulch in Northern Argentina or Jeff's Gulch in Acapulco. The brutes of the American Empire and many of the western governments will only bear their teeth even more in 2012.

This holiday season, be thankful there's still time to find financial and personal opportunities outside the US. How much time, however, is another question.

Reprinted with permission from The Dollar Vigilante.

December 15, 2011

Jeff Berwick [send him mail] is an anarcho-capitalist freedom fighter and Chief Editor of the libertarian, Austrian economics grounded newsletter, The Dollar Vigilante. The Dollar Vigilante focuses on strategies, investments and expatriation opportunities to survive & prosper during and after the US dollar collapse.

http://lewrockwell.com/berwick/berwick24.1.html