by Doug Casey, International Man:

Joel Bowman: When we left off last, I think you and I were talking about burning one’s passport, which seems like a natural enough subject for a couple of anti-statists to address. While we’re on the topic, I can’t help but notice that the number of U.S. citizens who are renouncing their citizenship continues to rise. Last year was another record, in fact, up 25% from the year before. The absolute number is still relatively small, but it’s been growing steadily since the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act was passed in 2010. Is this a trend you see accelerating?

Doug Casey: Yes. It used to be that a U.S. passport was the most valuable of travel documents, and being a U.S. citizen had many, many advantages. Now there are no significant advantages to being a U.S. citizen and many, many disadvantages. For instance, it’s the only major country in the world that attempts to tax you simply because you’re a citizen, even if you never intend to enter the country again. And, as big and powerful as the U.S. government is, they can enforce their will on you. Being a U.S. citizen has turned from being an asset into being a liability. More and more people are going to renounce their citizenship every year.

Joel: It’s incredible how quickly things can turn around. So what about America, then? I feel like there exists two mutually exclusive narratives when it comes to the story there. While a non-trivial percentage of the population firmly believes that Mr. Trump has set the country on a course to MAGA, an equally vociferous portion of the population believe him to be the devil incarnate. Are these simply twin delusions? What do you make of the situation?

Doug: Well I support neither the Republican nor the Democrat narrative. Frankly, a pox on both their houses. That said, I’m very glad Trump was elected because he’s not a card-carrying member of the Deep State, and he’s not Hillary Clinton. The very fact that the members of the Deep State hate him so much is a good sign. There’s truth to that old saying that “the enemy of my enemy may be my friend.”

Unfortunately he’s done some manifestly stupid things, like continuing the wars in Syria and Afghanistan, where Americans have precisely zero interest; most people can’t even locate the places on a map. And risking—perhaps starting– trade wars with China and Europe. It could bring down the world economy—which is a house of cards.

On the bright side however, he’s made some genuine efforts to deregulate the economy. That’s a very big deal. And he’s put through some minor, but very welcome decreases in taxes. He’s trying to stem the mass migration of aliens into the US; it’s becoming serious enough to actually change American culture in a radical way. Last, I applaud his trying to create a rapprochement with North Korea; talking is always better than fighting.

Of course, it’s likely to end badly for him because we’re in a stock market bubble, and a bond market hyper-bubble. A real estate bubble too. These markets are all likely to roll over soon—worse than what happened in 2008. And, when they do, Trump will be blamed—whether or not it’s actually his fault.

The real problem is who we get for the next president. My guess is it’s going to be a Democrat, probably a left-wing general, because the only thing Americans trust anymore is the military. That’s quite a change, incidentally, from the ‘60s and ‘70s, when absolutely everybody hated and despised the U.S. military. Now everybody thinks the U.S. military is the best thing since sliced bread, and you’re supposed to say “thank you for your service” to anyone wearing a uniform. In fact, I hate to encourage heavily-armed government employees. It’s funny how things change.

Joel: And in such a short period of time. You hear it everywhere, people referring to the bulging archive of state-sponsored atrocities and saying, “Well, it could never happen here,” as if their own society is somehow magically immune to the reliable fallibility of state actors.

Doug: It’s disturbingly true. The fact is, members of the military are quite well compensated in terms of salary and benefits, both current and in retirement. Not to mention their new-found social standing. And it’s really not that dangerous a job, certainly not when compared with being, say, a roofer or a farmer or a trucker.

Joel: Not to mention that the roofer and the farmer and the trucker are actually adding value to the broader economy, while the military represents an enormous and growing cost to taxpayers.

Doug: The trillion dollars the US Government spends on “national security” every year is both bankrupting the country, and destroying what’s left of the freedoms they’re supposed to defend. Plus making loads of foreign enemies. The days of an affable GI Joe being welcomed with flowers and kisses in Europe at the end of WW2 are long gone.

Read More @ InternationalMan.com