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I was talking with a business owner in town last weekend. He said that two other business owners locally were liquidating their businesses, cashing out, renouncing their citizenship and moving to lower tax countries. The term "Going Galt" comes from Atlas Shrugged and refers to people of ability going "on strike" and refusing to work under untenable conditions. This conversation got me wondering...just how prophetic was the book? And how much is this really going on? 30 seconds of googling came up with the following articles:
So...what do you predict? In the near future will we see a large exodus of smart, successful people cashing out and leaving the country? I would hope it wouldn't come to this, but it certainly is foreseeable.
Good, we have enough entitled whiners in this nation already. And I mean "entitled" in a true sense of the word.
This should free up room for some young upstarts with a stronger sense of patriotism. Any pointers on what might give them an extra pod to flee for Monaco?
If a person moves out of the country they still have to pay taxes don't they? If a person renounces their citizenship does this let them off the hook of ever paying taxes here?
If a person moves out of the country they still have to pay taxes don't they? If a person renounces their citizenship does this let them off the hook of ever paying taxes here?
How about moving to states with lower taxes? Like Texas?
Jobs, particularly in manufacturing, have been leaving business-unfriendly states and moving to more advanced ones for decades. I grew up in New York state, it was common to see mile after mile of rusty factories and abandoned warehouses. Same in NJ and Michigan. Yet when I visit my brother's place in Alabama, you see a great deal of new construction of manufacturing facilities. To an extent, the same is true where I am now (Idaho), businesses have moved in from high-tax California and Washington regularly. Though we have lost a lot of traditional resource-based (logging) industry. From what I understand, Texas is also open for business, with a host of new manufacturing companies opening up.
Still, it doesn't matter how pro-business the state is if the federal government taxes and regulates business into bankruptcy. At some point business owners have to sell out while they can. Hopefully we haven't crossed that threshold.
Very few people in any given year actually renounce their citizenship. I'd take notice if the number reached a million in a year, rather than a low thousands it has traditionally been for years and years. Until then, it's pretty much all bluster.
Besides, if people are vacating businesses that are actually profitable and serving economic demand, other businesses would simply move in or expand, and take over that demand. You don't eliminate demand by shutting down a business.
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