For those looking for a different, and maybe deeper perspective on this; this was an interesting podcast. It is maybe the latest example of the shock doctrine / disaster capitalism pattern where disasters often lead to profits for those with access to capital.
The source really undermines itself with the starting sentence - both the crypto-bros and the dystopia assertion without any text elaboration.
That sounds kind of obvious from a capital standpoint alone. Disasters cause expensive damages so anyone in a position to repair stands to make money. Anyone who lacks the reserves and needs loans and financing would be needed. I don't think it in itself qualifies as unethical even - while uncomfortable to make money from the misfortune of others the alternatives are worse.
Now other associated unethical practices may be involved like price gouging, and probably happened with certainty given both the breadth of history and human greed. It goes without saying that causing the bad situation and then benefiting is an ethical failure even without any bad intent. Deliberately causing it being clear evil.
Price gouging drastically reduces shortages because anyone with supply will be tempted to quickly move in to capture the high price on the curve. It also encourages people to actually plan ahead so the entire population isn't trying to buy a full tank of gas the same day.
You think price gouging is unethical, I think price capping is unethical and harmful since it encourages hoarding and shortages.
Puerto Rico, a territory that has nationalized every major aspect of its economy and was running massive deficits as part of vote-buying schemes, as an exemplar for 'disaster capitalism' is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen.
It's up there with Venezuela and Nicaragua as a self-inflicted victim of the South/Central American 'pink wave' that has caused so much economic devastation in the last decade.
The Dig is like EconTalk for leftists. Even if you’re not onboard with the ideology, the intelligence, researched depth, and interest of the host Daniel Denvir is matched by little else in media today.
Governments should be competing for wealthy taxpayers. And as income sources become divorced from physical locations, they will be forced to do so more and more every year.
I run venture backed businesses. Teams are distributed. So I count days across the world and do not pay taxes anywhere (i am not a US citizen so it is much easier). In the process my company and I benefit from low cost of capital raised in silicon valley, low cost of excellent talent hired in russia, my personal expanded social network in markets in Asia. And it easily pays for itself just in terms of not needing to pay any taxes anywhere.
It just makes sense to live this way once you have high income, are building something that is not physically in one location, understand how to be healthy/social/etc while living in many places.
the current tax system has no future. the fundamental reason is that there is simply no point for anyone to pay crazy taxes. the United States (or any other country) just do not deliver enough marginal value from being there for more than X days per year to pay an extra 20-40% in taxes.
to help your community – donate to things you care about and add value for other people that way. i want health research to benefit. it makes much more sense to donate/invest there, than to send the fruits of my work to the NSA to fund them to spy on me.
What is parasitical about GP? I presume they pay for everything: labor, food, accommodation, travel costs. Are tourists parasites? Why do you think they must pay taxes, and to what country, and in exchange for what? Would you pay taxes to the government voluntarily if you legally didn't have to do it?
i pay my way, create jobs for people, fund/promote things i consider valuable for humanity (e.g. medical tech).
i have never claimed a medical, educational, unemployment etc. benefit in my life. and i am a citizen of a country that will never give me any such benefits anyway.
my approach adds more value to society than funding inefficient social programs, armies of bureaucrats and bloated spy agencies.
The best trolls are the ones where you legitimately can’t tell if they truly believe the shit they say. This one is more “cartoon villain”. It’s a characature—what many people believe an evil, mustache-twirling rich person might say. Pretty transparent, but good effort.
I'm not sure why some think the parent is trolling. I read this and I was smiling because I almost literally do the same thing and call myself a "Digital Nomad".
The difference is probably that I'm not as rich or as successful yet. But my business is growing steady and I can manage a remote team on different timezones pretty well. The clients in the US don't even realize I'm not in the states a lot of times and they're happy as long as the work is being delivered.
This life is not for everyone but there are a lot of people who love traveling and for whom settling in one place gets boring (for me at least). Saving bay area rent and spending that on stays in interesting places helps a lot! Also, shout out to some awesome Virtual Office services offering mail scans / check deposits, etc :)
Absolutely. Though nomad lifestyle isnt really for me. Malta has a cool residency program [1]: pay only $15k/yr + territorial tax and live and work from there. Georgia is a good and cheaper option, a more natural and open country but not as developed (developing very fast though). Best thing is ease of getting residency, if you can afford it you will get it. No artificial barrier. So can bring your employees from all over the world and open an office.
So yeah not paying $20+k/yr to any goverment either. The moment I hit that I am out.
I know a few people who practice this -- and as it becomes more common, tax regimes in the world will figure out a way to make it harder. Israel has apparently already addressed this:
If you are an Israeli citizen, and spend more than half the year outside Israel, you don't generally owe any taxes on income generated outside of Israel ... provided that you can prove you are a tax resident somewhere . If you can't, then you are assumed to be an Israeli tax resident. If most countries had such a law, you could still shop around for low rates, but it would make it harder to avoid taxes altogether.
one can be a tax resident of monaco for 0% tax. or give up the israeli passport for something else. it is easy to acquire new passports.
plus at some point it becomes taxation-without-representation and has to be fought more overtly by bringing to power governments that don't do this kind of shit.
people don't realize that a century ago governments provided security and courts for a blended tax burden of under 10%. all the increase since then was to pay for medical services (mostly really dumb end of life care rather than educating people how to live healthy lives) and social safety net (which i would argue adds much less value to the well-being of the average person than technological progress does).
If you're actually serious, I tip my hat to you. Usually when I've talked to people what you've outlined, their eyes glaze over.
So, if you are actually being truthful here, would you mind sharing when you first started out w/this? I mean did you always plan to do this and structure your business dealings accordingly or did you get your money and figure out what do after the fact-- which has never really made any sense to me, but is what I've always been told by the lawyers & accountants w/whom I spoke (I suspect because they make more money that way)?
haven't yet written about location changing specifically but will at some point... but you can read about my general approaches on that blog on hackernoon. it is mostly about health, optimizing efficiency, long term planning etc.
Politics aside, Puerto Rico’s Act 20 is an interesting opportunity for American SaaS businesses. Avoid most federal income tax and employ at least 3 locals in the process.
This is the kind of thing that people mean by "disaster capitalism". PR is wrecked and desperate for money, so it resorts to tax competition - but only for wealthy foreigners, not its own residents. This drives up local inequality while also taking away from the mainland's tax base. And in the end it doesn't quite manage to solve the problems for the rest of PR.
Why is this a bad thing? Last time I checked, most places love patronage from tourists (who don't pay income taxes either), and these “residents” are almost like permanent tourists.
It's tolerated. I'm from another island tax haven and I can tell you that it's part of our culture to act welcoming and happy to see you. It's an act; anyone in any service industry can confirm this. People do this because their choices otherwise are limited.
"Sorry 5 'middle class' Puerto Rican families that lost your homes. A rich guy wanted a nice new big second vacation home. So here is a half sized condo at twice the price."
> And in the end it doesn't quite manage to solve the problems for the rest of PR.
As long as the Jones Act is still in place, there is no tax policy Puerto Rico could implement that would solve its economic problems in the long-term.
That is like 99th on a list of 100 of PR's problems. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/18/broken-bonds-wall-streets-ro..., poor access to capital/need for capital after Maria, and an apathetic (if not antagonistic) administration are absolutely worse right now.
How much would you really estimate is wasted above what would be paid for non-US flagged ships? How would a race to the bottom in terms of flag-of-convenience destinations be detrimental to the long term interests of the US shipping/shipbuilding industries? Would repealing it have any security impacts? Who would benefit most from it.
I don't expect you to answer those, but they are all complicated questions and worthy of better discussion than this.
In theory once you attract a big enough cluster of “tax hackers”, the government can then modestly increase taxes on these folks and that can be a high leverage thing once you’ve attracted a large revenue base.
But many of these people have sufficient mobility that you have to remain under the tax level of your competition. Most of them have no actual tie to Puerto Rico and would leave in a heartbeat if they found a better deal.
It seems like a "repairative spite" game theory move for funding. Cause more tax loss to the mainland when neglected to solve the problem one way or another.
Actually, in addition to the rich-person tax scheme, there's also a pretty reasonable tax-abatement scheme for any person, resident or not, who starts a PR-based business employing five people or more in one of a number of target industries, including online services and recycling.
Readit News
https://www.blubrry.com/thedig/34718421/naomi-klein-and-merc...
That sounds kind of obvious from a capital standpoint alone. Disasters cause expensive damages so anyone in a position to repair stands to make money. Anyone who lacks the reserves and needs loans and financing would be needed. I don't think it in itself qualifies as unethical even - while uncomfortable to make money from the misfortune of others the alternatives are worse.
Now other associated unethical practices may be involved like price gouging, and probably happened with certainty given both the breadth of history and human greed. It goes without saying that causing the bad situation and then benefiting is an ethical failure even without any bad intent. Deliberately causing it being clear evil.
You think price gouging is unethical, I think price capping is unethical and harmful since it encourages hoarding and shortages.
Some of the alternatives are worse, not all. In fact, lots of people help alleviate misfortune without profiting from it.
Dead Comment
It's up there with Venezuela and Nicaragua as a self-inflicted victim of the South/Central American 'pink wave' that has caused so much economic devastation in the last decade.
I run venture backed businesses. Teams are distributed. So I count days across the world and do not pay taxes anywhere (i am not a US citizen so it is much easier). In the process my company and I benefit from low cost of capital raised in silicon valley, low cost of excellent talent hired in russia, my personal expanded social network in markets in Asia. And it easily pays for itself just in terms of not needing to pay any taxes anywhere.
It just makes sense to live this way once you have high income, are building something that is not physically in one location, understand how to be healthy/social/etc while living in many places.
the current tax system has no future. the fundamental reason is that there is simply no point for anyone to pay crazy taxes. the United States (or any other country) just do not deliver enough marginal value from being there for more than X days per year to pay an extra 20-40% in taxes.
to help your community – donate to things you care about and add value for other people that way. i want health research to benefit. it makes much more sense to donate/invest there, than to send the fruits of my work to the NSA to fund them to spy on me.
i hope more and more people do this.
Deleted Comment
i have never claimed a medical, educational, unemployment etc. benefit in my life. and i am a citizen of a country that will never give me any such benefits anyway.
my approach adds more value to society than funding inefficient social programs, armies of bureaucrats and bloated spy agencies.
yeah, i glorify this.
The difference is probably that I'm not as rich or as successful yet. But my business is growing steady and I can manage a remote team on different timezones pretty well. The clients in the US don't even realize I'm not in the states a lot of times and they're happy as long as the work is being delivered.
This life is not for everyone but there are a lot of people who love traveling and for whom settling in one place gets boring (for me at least). Saving bay area rent and spending that on stays in interesting places helps a lot! Also, shout out to some awesome Virtual Office services offering mail scans / check deposits, etc :)
So yeah not paying $20+k/yr to any goverment either. The moment I hit that I am out.
[1] https://www.ccmalta.com/publications/malta-global-residence-...
If you are an Israeli citizen, and spend more than half the year outside Israel, you don't generally owe any taxes on income generated outside of Israel ... provided that you can prove you are a tax resident somewhere . If you can't, then you are assumed to be an Israeli tax resident. If most countries had such a law, you could still shop around for low rates, but it would make it harder to avoid taxes altogether.
plus at some point it becomes taxation-without-representation and has to be fought more overtly by bringing to power governments that don't do this kind of shit.
people don't realize that a century ago governments provided security and courts for a blended tax burden of under 10%. all the increase since then was to pay for medical services (mostly really dumb end of life care rather than educating people how to live healthy lives) and social safety net (which i would argue adds much less value to the well-being of the average person than technological progress does).
So, if you are actually being truthful here, would you mind sharing when you first started out w/this? I mean did you always plan to do this and structure your business dealings accordingly or did you get your money and figure out what do after the fact-- which has never really made any sense to me, but is what I've always been told by the lawyers & accountants w/whom I spoke (I suspect because they make more money that way)?
Thanks...
i blog about a lot of stuff around how i organize my life here: https://hackernoon.com/biohack-your-intelligence-now-or-beco...
haven't yet written about location changing specifically but will at some point... but you can read about my general approaches on that blog on hackernoon. it is mostly about health, optimizing efficiency, long term planning etc.
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Deleted Comment
https://www.quora.com/Do-Puerto-Rico-Acts-20-and-22-apply-to...
https://prbusinesslink.com/act-20/
Why is this a bad thing? Last time I checked, most places love patronage from tourists (who don't pay income taxes either), and these “residents” are almost like permanent tourists.
Why indeed?
As long as the Jones Act is still in place, there is no tax policy Puerto Rico could implement that would solve its economic problems in the long-term.
How much would you really estimate is wasted above what would be paid for non-US flagged ships? How would a race to the bottom in terms of flag-of-convenience destinations be detrimental to the long term interests of the US shipping/shipbuilding industries? Would repealing it have any security impacts? Who would benefit most from it.
I don't expect you to answer those, but they are all complicated questions and worthy of better discussion than this.
Now I see how I mistook the argument you were making.
But many of these people have sufficient mobility that you have to remain under the tax level of your competition. Most of them have no actual tie to Puerto Rico and would leave in a heartbeat if they found a better deal.
So that one's well-considered, I think.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency...
https://youtu.be/ycPr5-27vSI
I think its a net benefit to Puerto Rico to be in this position.
Small slice from a big pie is better than big slice from non-existent pie.