Post-PATRIOT America: Will Russia and China Be the Last Bastions of Freedom?

.... this will include citizens who not only criticize the regime, but
expose the truth about the regime, since publications and/or periodicals can be
declared to be in violation of the recently strengthened 432 Statute of
the National Security Acts by the Attorney General.

People who understand expatriation and understand where the Bush-Cheney Regime is taking
the world, do not want to be in a country that has
signed on to the PATRIOT Acts in any fashion.

Russia and China are the sole rising powers on the planet, while the
US Empire continues to sunset under the scourge of Bushonomics.


http://www.almartinraw.com/

by Al Martin

Post-PATRIOT America: Will Russia and China Be the Last Bastions of Freedom?

(3-27-06) There are more new warning signs for U.S. would-be expatriates. Will Russia and China become the last bastions of economic freedom, capitalism, and individual asset protection? What sounds like political science fiction could become reality.

It should be noted that radical pro-Bush faction Senate co-leader Orrin Hatch has made recent pronouncements about extending the so-called 6-month conveyance clawback rule to 3 years. What he's talking about, by the way, is that assets from U.S. citizens now expatriating that are in a foreign jurisdiction could be still confiscated by the U.S. government up to 6 months after the citizen has formally expatriated him or herself. This is not just about leaving the country after the citizen actually gives up their citizenship

Hatch is interested in it because he presumably understands that there is an end to Bushonomics. After all Hatch has heard the same thing from the Comptroller General that everyone else hears, so he knows that Bushonomics becomes unsustainable after 2009.

Now a record number of people are leaving the country, not simply wealthy Republicans, who wouldn't be touched under any circumstances anyway, but we are now seeing record numbers of upper middle class retirees expatriating and taking their assets with them. These are people with a net worth of, let's say, between $1- 3 million. As that number rises, it will be an increasing drain on the economy.

And this is what it's all about. In its continuing effort to link sedition with asset confiscation, the regime is declaring citizens to be seditious who oppose the regime, especially those who have spoken out against the regime outside of a free-speech zone. But here's the hook, and this is a new twist – this will include citizens who not only criticize the regime, but expose the truth about the regime, since publications and/or periodicals can be declared to be in violation of the recently strengthened 432 Statute of the National Security Acts by the Attorney General.

To backtrack a bit -- what brought this to the fore was the announcement last week that the Bush Cheney Regime is placing 3,000 U.S. troops in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian regime has become very friendly to the United States, and now Bulgaria has allowed the U.S. to place garrison forces there for the purposes of conducting illegal covert operations or military operations in the Middle East and surrounding area.

We have also heard announcements that the regime is pulling US troops out of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan because of Russian pressure. So they need a new base of operations that is at least closer to the Middle East than the United States. Bulgaria, then, being so close to Turkey, is a good spot to put U.S. forces that are going to conduct illegal covert operations in the Middle East.

It should be noted that the Regime is secreting a small Treasury Department presence within these military forces in order to establish a FARCO (Foreign Asset Recovery Control Office) in Bulgaria. I believe the name has been changed to Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), which used to be called FARCO.

This office's new purpose is to seize assets of American citizens who have expatriated and are considered seditious. Surprisingly enough, Bulgaria was, and continues to be, a hot spot for American expatriates because, since the Communist withdrawal, Bulgaria has gone a long way in rebuilding itself. And actually it is a pretty nice place to live now. They have a reasonably modern infrastructure. The country is clean. There is a modern communications capability. English is widely spoken within the business community in Bulgaria. Very low taxes. Very lax cross-border currency controls. It really is a wealthy Republican’s dream.

But, what we find once again, is that a lot of upper middle class citizens have also expatriated to Bulgaria and purchased property there.

Many people ask me on the radio shows all the time -- what countries are best to expatriate to? And there’s no one answer since the situation is always fluid.

What you don’t want to be doing is expatriating to a country, which has signed on to Bushonian anti-terrorism provisions within the PATRIOT Act. In so doing, that foreign government has effectively adopted the PATRIOT Acts and has allowed the U.S. to seize assets of Americans living in that country under some sort of confiscation like, gold confiscation or a re-instituted currency confiscation.

People ask -- which countries have not signed these agreements with the United States? Are all the EU countries cooperating?

All of the Eastern European countries now are gradually signing these agreements. Even Poland and the Czech Republic. That's why the Czech Republic, which was a hot expatriation destination, is no longer as hot. People who understand expatriation and understand where the Bush-Cheney Regime is taking the world, do not want to be in a country that has signed on to the PATRIOT Acts in any fashion.

The irony is that the former and current so-called communist countries like Russia and China may become the last bastion in the world for asset protection.

Russia and China have taken advantage of this by advertising the fact that their laws, some of which have been instituted only from 2003, when expatriation from the United States has picked up, that an expatriated American's private assets are absolutely guaranteed in Russia and China, that they can never be reclaimed, recalled, encumbered or anything else by a coming Bushonian dictatorship, which would attempt to use the PATRIOT Acts in some sort of extension of a conveyance clawback to take back gold, precious metals, currency, gemstones or any other form of asset.

People believe that many expatriates would probably still keep their liquid cash and/ or other assets in Swiss banks, but that belief is gradually diminishing. Switzerland is not the preferred destination for money anymore. Switzerland has by and large signed on to the anti-terrorism provision and has watered down much of its own banking secrecy acts.

Actually, the only government in Europe (this was just announced Thursday March 23) in an official press release from the Liechtenstein government, which trumpeted its contention that they would not knuckle under to Bushonian pressure and would not relax their banking secrecy laws. In other words, they would not sign on to the American terrorism provisions.

You don't think this wasn’t done on purpose? Of course, it was. This was so that the Regime could say-- We've pressured Liechtenstein in our war to prevent terrorists laundering money. But really it was for the ability of the government of Liechtenstein to stand up and effectively issue a commercial.

As in -- Would-be American expatriates, as long as you're wealthy Republicans, you can keep your money in Liechtenstein, since there are so many Liechtenstein corporations and trusts that have already been formed by wealthy Republicans which would remain bullet-proof anyway.

And I think all this was a setup to allow the Liechtenstein government to effectively put out an advertisement and allow the Bush Cheney regime to say, -- Hey, we tried to pressure Liechtenstein to come into the fold on the PATRIOT Act and they wouldn't.

But to get back to Russia and China as potentially the last bastions of asset protection, this could be a hard thing for people to grasp. However knowledgeable expatriates, the 10% of the very top, or the most knowledgeable of the non-wealthy Republican upper middle class expatriates, are going to Russia. That's why there's such a big American upsurge in St. Petersburg, for instance, as there is also in certain cities in China now.

Former AIG Chairman Hank Greenberg has been visiting Beijing. Everybody in the United States is looking to do more business with Russia and China, since Russia and China are the sole rising powers on the planet, while the US Empire continues to sunset under the scourge of Bushonomics.

But what is going to be a hard thing for people to grasp is how the Bushonian Regime, the PATRIOT Acts and Bushonomics, which has caused the decline of the United States, have changed the global balance of power, and Russia and China now, as the rising powers, see it in their best interest to be accommodative to American expatriates who have some money.

The United States and Western European countries did this for years and years. If you came in from a friendly or quasi-friendly country with $3 million or more and were given what’s called Class H-1 visa that was a fast track to U.S. citizenship.

We attracted wealthy foreigners and encouraged them to expatriate to the United States and bring their capital with them, by giving them assurances that they would be fast-tracked for citizenship and that the United States would not recognize any claims by foreign governments or corporations against said foreign expatriates' monies.

Now the Russians and the Chinese have just simply taken a page from what used to be America’s playbook, promoting themselves as a destination for now upper middle class American expatriates.

I think this new clawback provision will then be included in PATRIOT III, which means it probably won't get passed until much later this year. And here's how PATRIOT III is going to get passed. It’s going to get passed, what I’d call, the hard way or the easy way.

If the Bush-Cheney Regime lose both houses of Congress, which, I think, is entirely possible, this is what’s going to happen, right after the vote, there’ll be a series of votes in November and the first couple of days of December, and PATRIOT III will be passed because the pro-Bush-faction Republicans don't have to be concerned about the political heat and they still control until the seats switch on December 9th.

They'll all be snuck in, in a last-minute burning of the midnight oil, as they call it in Congress -- the series of bills and amendments that old regimes try to get in before they get thrown out.

That's how the PATRIOT I was enacted in the first place. Nobody even had a chance to read the thing, evidently. PATRIOT III will be enacted the same way. Under the cover of darkness.

But, the long and short of it is this. Citizens have to understand that you don't necessarily want to be in Mexico, south-of-the-border countries or Caribbean Islands anymore. You don't want to be any where like that unless you are a wealthy pro-Bush-faction Republican. You don’t necessarily want to be in the same jurisdiction that attracts wealthy pro-Bush faction Republicans either -- if you're not one of them.

Why? First, it is unlikely, unless you are a wealthy pro-Bush-faction Republican, that you have the money to live in such jurisdictions. Second, you obviously would not enjoy the same protection from asset confiscation if you were not part of the circle.

So the fact is that US citizens should be prepared for Treasury agents will be swarming the globe and taking people's assets away in a new version of economic 'rendition,' as opposed to CIA operatives grabbing people and taking them to secret detention facilities.

Why do you think that the Regime has undertaken asset identification and has upgraded and extended U.S. Treasury Form 4789 to identify citizens moving currency, gold, silver and other bullion and diamonds out of the country -- where you actually have to list the foreign safe deposit boxes and banks where you’re keeping them? What’s the sense of having that information if, at some point in the future, you could not include those people in some sort of a backdated confiscation?

Why do Treasury agents in foreign countries have the power to confiscate assets of Americans, even those who have given up their citizenship?

In conclusion, with greater speed, the Bush-Cheney Regime continues to close the window through which non-pro-Bush-faction wealthy Republicans are able to expatriate and have their assets in a foreign nation-state with some degree of discretion and protection from the laws of said foreign nation-state.

Remember, once a country is signed on to the PATRIOT Acts or the anti-money-laundering provision of the PATRIOT Acts, the PATRIOT Acts ride supreme even over the laws of that country in terms of asset confiscation and protection of private wealth.

You have to be on the right side of the dividing line. You've got to be a wealthy pro-Bush-faction Republican. If you are not, or if you are in the classification of 'other', the window in which you are able to expatriate is shutting down. Then Communist or former Communist countries like Russia and China may be your best bet.



* AL MARTIN is an independent economic-political analyst with 25 years of experience as a trader on NYMEX, CME, CBOT and CFTC. As a former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors, Al Martin is considered to be a source of independent analysis for financially sophisticated and market savvy investors.

After working as a broker on Wall Street, Al Martin was involved in the so-called "Iran Contra" Affair as a fundraiser for the Bush Cabal from the covert side of government aka the US Shadow Government.

His memoir, "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider," ( http://www.almartinraw.com ) provides an unprecedented look at the frauds of the Bush Cabal during the Iran Contra era. His weekly column, "Behind the Scenes in the Beltway," is published weekly
http://AlMartinRaw.com , which also publishes a bimonthly newsletter called "Whistleblower Gazette."

Al Martin's new website "Insider Intelligence" (
http://www.insiderintelligence.com ) will provide a long term macro-view of world markets and how they are affected by backroom realpolitik.