The Average US Couple Could Be Facing A New Tax Of $180,360

The average US couple could be facing a new tax of $180,360

Notes From The Field By Simon Black 

February 10, 2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

The average US couple could be facing a new tax of $180,360

Today the federal government will release a nearly $5 TRILLION annual budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2021 (which begins on October 1st of this year).

Needless to say, that’s more money than any government has ever spent in the history of the world.

And there are a few things in particular that are worth highlighting:

First-- this budget proposal would create yet another trillion dollar annual deficit. And that’s simply astonishing.

Think about it: this is supposed to be the ‘everything is awesome economy’. The stock market is at a record high. Corporate profits are at record highs. Unemployment is at record lows.

If the government can’t make ends meet when the economy is this good, how many trillions will these people burn when the next economic downturn arrives?

Second-- and perhaps even more importantly-- the budget proposal aims to *cut* funding to Medicare and Social Security by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.

Bear in mind that these programs are already insolvent, i.e. they can’t pay for the obligations they’ve already promised. AND they also lose money according to their own financial statements.

Right on page 5 of the 2019 Social Security annual report, the trustees explicitly state that “Trust Fund asset reserves become depleted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2035.”

And on page 2 of the report, they state that “Social Security’s cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010,” and that the cost of Social Security for 2019 exceeds non-interest income by $81 billion.

The Medicare annual report is even more bleak in its outlook:

 “The Board projects that expenditures will increase in future years at a faster pace than either aggregate workers’ earnings or the economy overall . . .”

“[A]ny of these scenarios would substantially increase the strain on the nation’s workers, the economy, Medicare beneficiaries, and the Federal budget.”

“[T]ax income and other dedicated revenues will fall short of [program] expenditures in all future years”

“The financial projections in this report indicate a need for substantial changes to address Medicare’s financial challenges.”

They even state that the government needs to give taxpayers ample time to “adjust their expectations and behavior” to the major changes that will end up being made to the program as a result of these fiscal realities.

And they also project that Medicare’s largest trust fund will be fully depleted in 2026, just six years from now.

Again, don’t take my word for it. These are official government reports signed by (among others) the Treasury Secretary of the United States.

This is not some wild conspiracy theory. This isn’t even a political problem. It’s an arithmetic problem… and one that will never add up.

Both programs estimate their funding gap to be nearly $20 TRILLION.

This is a level that is obviously beyond the government’s capacity to bail out. The federal government loses a trillion dollars each year and is already in debt by $23.25 trillion.

(And to be clear, that is a record high amount. In other words, the federal debt level right now, today, is the highest that it has ever been in US history.)

They don’t have the money to scratch the surface of saving Social Security and Medicare, so a bail-out is not an option.

But like I said earlier-- they’re actually moving in the other direction. Today’s budget proposes to CUT nearly a trillion dollars from the programs over the next decade.

So the government is hastening the decline of Social Security and Medicare, not bailing them out.

Option 2 is default. And by ‘default’, I mean default on the obligations and promises they’ve made to tens of millions of taxpayers over the last 50+ years.

They have a number of ways to do this.

For example, they could push out the retirement age by 5 years or so. But this is effectively stealing retirement funds from people who have been paying into the program for their entire working lives.

Right now the average married couple receives $36,072 in Social Security benefits per year. So delaying benefits for five years means that the average couple loses more than $180,000 in retirement benefits that they’ve PAID FOR and been promised.

This is tantamount to a tax of $180,360 per couple.

Alternatively, Uncle Sam could simply cut benefits altogether. Social Security’s trustees have already indicated that a 23% cut in benefits would cover the short-term funding gap.

But based on average life expectancy in the US for seniors, this works out to be a total reduction of $160,400 per couple from the benefits they were promised… which is also tantamount to a tax.

It would also turn people’s lives upside down. Life isn’t cheap in the Land of the Free, and living on a fixed income is difficult. Slashing that income by 23% will hit a lot of people hard.

Bottom line: The government isn’t going to fix anything. According to today’s budget proposal, they’re actually making it worse. You’ll have to fix this yourself.

The good news is that there are plenty of ways to save more money, including turning your hobby into something that boosts your retirement savings.

Seriously-- 15-year old kids are earning good money playing video games on Twitch. Instagram starlets make money from butt selfies. People sell homemade crafts online, rent their spare bedrooms out… I mean, there are countless ways to make extra money.

And if you’re smart about how you structure it, you can divert most of that extra cash into an inexpensive, tax-advantaged retirement account.

This will go a long way in solving an obvious problem.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/the-average-us-couple-could-be-facing-a-new-tax-of-180360-27155/

To your freedom & prosperity, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

.A Single Investment Can Produce A Lifetime Of Income

A Single Investment Can Produce A Lifetime Of Income

Notes From The Field By Simon Black  January 23, 2020 

An eight-minute recording can produce a lifetime of income…

That’s the story of musician Don McLean.

Fifty years ago, McLean was just an obscure American folk singer. But in 1971 at a café in Saratoga Springs, New York, he wrote a song that would change his life forever.

The song was a long ballad about an experience he had as a 13-year old boy, in 1959. It began with a radio bulletin that said that 1950s rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly had died in a plane crash. McLean was crushed. And a dozen years later, he harnessed this memory and took the world by storm with his song.

If you haven’t guessed by now, McLean’s song was “American Pie.”

“American Pie” stayed atop the Billboard music charts for more than a year. And the song turned this once obscure folk singer into a global sensation.

More than that – McLean was immediately set for life. I’ve been told by people in the industry that he still earns several hundred thousand dollars each year from that one song.

Imagine still being handsomely paid for something you did nearly half a century ago.

This story holds the key to one of the greatest business models ever invented: the idea that you can create something once and be paid on it for life.

I’m talking about the royalty business.

A royalty is a cash payment that you receive over and over again from an asset that you created, developed, or own.

Every time a song is played in public, purchased, downloaded, streamed, or used in a television commercial, the performers, producers, investors, and songwriters collect a royalty.

Fortunately, you don’t need to have any musical talent to generate royalty income.

It’s actually possible to buy other people’s royalties and receive their income.

I’ve done it myself; not long ago the bank that I own acquired partial rights to a popular song, entitling my bank to royalty income from downloads, streams, etc.

The investment was $225,000. But within roughly the first year it earned a total of $29,851.41. That’s a yield of around 13%.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/blog/

To your freedom & prosperity, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

.“Now We See The Violence Inherent In The System”

“Now We See The Violence Inherent In The System”

Notes From The Field By Simon Black  1-22-2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Apparently Bill Gates has sat on his * and contributed nothing to Microsoft’s success over the past 44 years… at least, according to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

At an event commemorating Martin Luther King on Monday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told the audience that wealthy people “sat on a couch” while “undocumented workers” earning “slave wages” created all the wealth and value.

“No one ever makes a billion dollars,” she said. “You take a billion dollars.” And the crowd went wild.

She went on, chuckling that “there is a case” that “billionaires are inherently, morally corrupt,” and that “if Jeff Bezos wants to be a good person he’d turn Amazon into a worker cooperative. . .”

And this is the solution that AOC is posing; she wants to completely upend the system and turn the country into a Marxist collective.

It’s worth noting that AOC is not stupid. Conservative media likes to beat up on her and make her out to be an idiot. She’s not.

AOC is clearly an intelligent person, and some of what she says is true. One of her central themes, in fact, is that a lot of people are getting screwed by the system. And it’s hard to argue with that.

The primary danger, as is the case with most politicians, is that AOC doesn’t seem to have a grasp of the problem.

Why are people getting screwed by the system? Why is healthcare so expensive? Why is education so expensive? Why haven’t many workers’ wages kept up with inflation?

She makes no attempt to understand the root cause of these issues, and that’s extremely counterproductive. No one can solve a problem which they haven’t properly defined.

Instead, AOC simply blames wealthy people for all the ills of the world-- the wealth gap, environmental issues, social injustice, etc.

And her solution for everything is to confiscate their property.

Not to be outdone, two separate sets of video recordings have recently been leaked by Project Veritas in which Bernie Sanders campaign staffers call for violent revolution and for wealthy people to be incarcerated in forced labor camps.

One of them even said, “Guillotine the rich!”

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/now-we-see-the-violence-inherent-in-the-system-27089/

.Is Your Bank Actually Safe

Is Your Bank Actually Safe

Notes From The Field   By Simon Black

Here’s an easy way to tell if Your Bank Is Actually Safe

March 15, 2013 was a pretty normal day in Cyprus. It was a Friday, and most people were looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

 The next morning the entire nation woke up in horror. Their politicians had been up all night, negotiating with international lenders to provide an emergency loan to the country, and its banks.

It turned out that the banks in Cyprus were all insolvent; just like banks in the United States during the 2008 sub-prime crisis, banks in Cyprus had been making idiotic decisions with their customers’ hard-earned savings.

And by 2013, the banks’ losses were too great to ignore.

Unfortunately for depositors, the government of Cyprus was also broke, and they were unable to bail out the banks.

So they came up with a new idea. Instead of a bail-out, they had a bail-IN.

First, they closed all the banks. ATM machines quickly ran dry and ceased functioning altogether. Then they just started confiscating deposits. They called it a ‘tax’, but it was theft, plain and simple.

The government just came in and grabbed money from people’s bank accounts... then gave it right back to the banks to bail them out.

It was an incredibly important lesson about banking: most people simply assume that their bank is in good financial condition… that, since the bank is regulated and insured by the government, our money must be safe.

Sometimes that’s an incredibly dangerous assumption to make.

Even in the US, we’ve seen how quickly banks’ idiotic decisions can unravel. Back in September 2008, the entire US financial system came crashing down, practically overnight, just like in Cyprus.

A big part of the reason is that banks have very little incentive to act conservatively and responsibly with your money.

Think about it-- you walk into a bank and hand them your paycheck, and in exchange they offer you a ‘free checking account’.

Really? Free? If it’s free, then how does the bank pay for all of those fancy buildings and huge bonuses?

Simple. By taking RISKS with your money. They make loans and other investments-- bonds, auto loans, home mortgages, etc. And each of those carries some kind of risk.

To pretend otherwise is foolish. There’s risk in everything you can possibly do with money… whether buying a government bond, stuffing cash under your mattress, or owning Apple stock. There’s always risk.

And they take these risks with upwards of 97% of their deposits.

Current US banking regulations, in fact, require as little as ZERO PERCENT of customer deposits to be held on reserve, meaning almost all of your money can be gambled away on whatever investment fad makes the bank the most money.

And that’s the problem: the incentives are all wrong.

Banks make money by putting YOUR money at risk. But they don’t share the reward. They pay you some pitiful interest rate like 0.02%. And then keep all the rest for themselves.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/offshore-bank-account/fbar/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sm_notes&utm_campaign=notes&utm_content=20190415_high_taxes

To your freedom & prosperity,  Simon  Black,  Founder, SovereignMan.com

.Uncle Sam Just Used Its Financial Nuclear Weapon Again

Uncle Sam Just Used Its Financial Nuclear Weapon Again

Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 15, 2020  San Juan, Puerto Rico

In August of 1945, the United States became the only country to drop nuclear bombs on an enemy.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely destroyed in the blink of an eye. And the Japanese had no choice but to surrender to the Allies, finally ending World War II.

Ever since, world superpowers have been rapidly advancing weapons technology, constantly raising the bar for destructive power.

It won’t surprise you to find out that the most powerful and destructive weapon in the world, though, by far, is claimed by the United States.

But this weapon has nothing to do with America’s nuclear arsenal. It doesn’t even require bullets.

I’m talking about the US dollar.

The US is still the world’s dominant superpower, still the largest economy in the world. And the US dollar is still the world’s dominant reserve currency.

This means that the VAST MAJORITY of international trade and cross-border financial transactions take place in US dollars.

When Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company sells petroleum to the Chinese, that transaction takes place in US dollars.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/uncle-sam-just-used-its-financial-nuclear-weapon-again-27056/

.People Who Take Precaution Seriously Are Well-Protected

People Who Take Precaution Seriously Are Well-Protected

Notes From The Field By Simon Black

January 13, 2020 Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Do You Have A Backup Generator?

The news headlines read, “Deadly 6.4 Magnitude Earthquake Plunges Puerto Rico into Darkness”; and “Powerful Puerto Rico Earthquake Knocks Out Entire Island’s Power.”

It was enough to prompt my mother to call, four times, to make sure I was OK.

There’s been a string of fairly strong earthquakes lately in Puerto Rico... which is incredibly unusual for this part of the world. It’s been more than a century since the island was rocked by anything of this magnitude.

But I explained to my parents that the press had blown things out of proportion as usual. They were running video footage that made it seem as if the island had been blasted back into the Stone Age.

It’s true that there were some displaced families and property damage near the epicenter.

But most of the island was not substantially affected. None of the major news organizations bothered to show footage of busy shopping malls, crowded restaurants, and packed movie theaters teeming with consumers.

It’s also true that the electrical grid went down: the island was without power for some time. Here in my community, the power came back on after 2 days. Some people had it on after a day, some after 3 or 4 days.

But here’s what people don’t realize-- the electricity problems in Puerto Rico have a lot less to do with the seismic activity, and a lot more to do with the island’s decade-long economic depression.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/do-you-have-a-backup-generator-27052/

Bolsheviks Want To Shut Down Puerto Rico’s Tax Incentives

Bolsheviks Want To Shut Down Puerto Rico’s Tax Incentives

Notes From The Field January 8, 2020 San Juan, Puerto Rico

[Editor’s note: This letter was written by Sovereign Man team member Joe Jarvis, who recently moved to Puerto Rico.]

Local Puerto Ricans invariably tell me I’m overpaying on rent, and that I could have found a cheaper place to live. I’m sure that’s true. But somehow I’m not upset about my gorgeous view over the ocean and private roof deck. Beautiful beaches are right in front of me, along with three pools, a gym, and tennis courts.

At the nearby food trucks, Esteban makes a mean margarita. A native Puerto Rican, he recently went from bartending to owning his own kiosk. Same story for the father-son team who owns the ceviche truck.

They have a ton of new business now thanks to all the foreigners who are moving in to take advantage of Puerto Rico’s incredible tax incentives.

That’s why I’m here; I moved down to Puerto Rico last month to take advantage of Act 20, the Export Services Act (now reorganized under Chapter 2 of the Incentives Code).

Much of the work that I do qualifies as ‘exported services’. So I pay myself a salary that is considered reasonable by Puerto Rican standards (the median wage here is less than $20,000 per year).

And the rest of my profit is taxed at just 4%.

I owe no taxes to the US federal government. After all, as a resident of Puerto Rico I can’t vote in Presidential elections, and Puerto Rico’s member of Congress doesn’t have voting power. No taxation without representation.

This is all great for me, but it’s also benefits Puerto Rico.

This is an island that has lost more than 10% of its population over the past several years due to the seemingly interminable, decade-long recession.

As US citizens, Puerto Ricans can move to the mainland and freely live and work just like any other US citizen. And with the local economy having been in the dumps for so long, many of them have done exactly that.

These tax incentives have started to lure wealthy foreigners and entrepreneurs to the island. And when they come, they spend a LOT of money. They invest a LOT of money. They create a LOT of jobs. They generate a LOT of tax revenue.

Puerto Rico benefits. The foreigners who move here benefit. And, by the way, even local Puerto Ricans can receive the same 4% corporate tax treatment… so everyone can benefit. It’s a win/win.

But as we’ve talked about before, Bolsheviks don’t like win/win situations.

Four members of the United States Congress, including the Queen of the Bolsheviks, Rep. Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, sent a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury in December asking him to investigate the fact that “Puerto Rico has become a tax haven from the Federal government.”

They take aim at Act 20 (as well as Act 22, which allows investors to pay 0% on certain investment income). 

These Congress people have no idea what they’re talking about. In the letter, they couldn’t even properly name the tax incentives, mixing up which one was Act 20 and which was Act 22.

They also erroneously claim that the tax incentives “have not resulted in any benefit for Puerto Rico.”

That’s absurd. The government of Puerto Rico itself released a report a few months ago stating that the tax incentives have been incredibly beneficial to the island.

The government states that they have issued 1,680 Act 20 tax grants. And those grantees have generated $210 million in total tax revenue for the island.

That’s taxes across the board-- sales tax, payroll tax from any employees hired, the 4% corporate tax, etc.

That works out to be an average of $125,000 in tax revenue for every single person who comes to the island to benefit from the incentives.

Those same 1,680 Act 20 grantees have also created over 16,000 jobs-- nearly 10 jobs per person. And the average salary of those jobs is DOUBLE the median household income in Puerto Rico.

Moreover, between Acts 20 and 22, the grantees have invested billions of dollars on the island, injecting much-needed capital into Puerto Rico.

This strikes me as a win/win.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/international-diversification-strategies/bolsheviks-want-to-shut-down-puerto-ricos-tax-incentives-27033/

.I Sure Am Glad That I Own Gold…

I Sure Am Glad That I Own Gold…

Notes From The Field By Simon Black

January 6, 2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

The price of gold is up nearly $100 since Christmas, reaching around $1,575 per troy ounce as I write this letter.

This most recent price bump is due to the panic over Iran. But the gold price is up nearly 20% over the last year, so there have obviously been plenty of other factors driving the price higher before the Middle East started flaring up again.

And there will be plenty more after these tensions cool down.

Trade wars, economic crisis in China, Bolshevik nonsense in the US, Brexit woes… the world is definitely not lacking in major issues that could continue to drive gold prices higher.

Throughout history there have always been periods of relative calm and stability, followed by periods of chaos and uncertainty.

The 1960s were incredibly chaotic, for example. Riots, assassinations, war, etc. were the dominant stories of the time.

By comparison, the 1990s were relatively calm. Peace and prosperity reigned. And life was so easy that the biggest problem of the decade was Bill Clinton’s love stain.

We seem to be sliding head-first into another period of turmoil (though I would argue that we’ve been there for a few years).

Stability is gone. Trade wars, shooting wars, terror attacks… pretty much everything is back on the table now.

Bolshevik politicians are taking hold all over the world, even in places like the United States, where, only a few years ago, it would have been considered preposterous for a socialist candidate to run for President.

Now there’s more than a dozen.

Most of all, the Social Contract is breaking down; people everywhere are becoming angry and unglued. We’ve seen it in the streets in places like Hong Kong, Spain, Chile, Lebanon, France, etc. And we see it every single day in social media.

People are demanding change and revolution in everything from our basic system of economics, down to the very words we can and cannot use.

This is all part of a level of conflict and turmoil we haven’t seen in decades, and it’s possible we’re just in the early stages.

I somehow doubt that all of these woke social justice warriors will suddenly capitulate their war on gender pronouns, or that Bolshevik presidential candidates will abandon their Marxist ideology and embrace the free market.

Now, don’t get me wrong… I’m not suggesting this is the winter of our discontent. I’m incredibly optimistic about the world and it’s opportunities.

But I sure am glad that I own some gold.

It’s not the fact that the gold price is up $100 in a month, or that precious metals have performed very well as an asset class. (Silver is up 21% in the last six months alone.)

The investment benefits are a nice bonus. But the real value of gold is that it’s one of the best things to own in times of turmoil and uncertainty.

Gold is a global asset with a 5,000+ year history of value and marketability. It’s a hedge… an asset you can rely on when you can rely on little else.

In many respects it’s like a life insurance policy… with the added cherry-on-top that you don’t have to be dead to benefit from it. And your gold dealer is probably not going to give you a prostate exam first.

I know this is the time of year where people make all sorts of predictions about what’s going to happen in the year ahead.

Frankly I don’t think anyone can credibly say that they have any idea what’s going to happen in the world in 2020. And that’s why I own gold.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/international-diversification-strategies/i-sure-am-glad-that-i-own-gold-27029/

.There’s A Major Banking Crisis Unfolding In China

There’s A Major Banking Crisis Unfolding In China

Notes From The Field By Simon Black

December 27, 2019  Bali, Indonesia

[Editor’s note: This letter was written by Tim Staermose, Sovereign Man’s Chief Investment Strategist]

The Chinese government isn’t exactly famous for its honesty and transparency.

So when the Chinese regulators are starting to openly report trouble in their banking system, it’s time to take notice.

According to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)’s “2019 China Financial Stability Report,” 586 out of 4,379 Chinese lenders were officially deemed to be “high risk”.

But that overall figure, bad as it is, may be masking the true extent of the problem.

According to the same report, over one third of rural lenders are deemed to be “high risk.” One in three banks in rural China. Hmmm.

And this lack of confidence is beginning to cause bank runs.

Yingkou Bank in Liaoning Province, and Yichuan Rural Commercial Bank in Henan Province, both faced bank runs in early November.

In May, the government took over troubled Baoshang Bank in Inner Mongolia – the first such government intervention to nationalize a private Chinese financial institution in more than 20 years.

A joint bailout by three state-owned financial institutions was also organized for the Bank of Jinzhou in July.

And just recently, the government put together a consortium to bail out Hengfeng Bank in Shandong Province.

It was this latest bailout that put the issue of non-performing loans and bad debts in China’s banking system firmly back on our radar.

The Hengfeng bailout is particularly interesting because:

a) Hengfeng Bank has failed to file its financial statements since 2016; and,

b) The bank’s past two chairmen were each separately investigated and charged with corruption… the first in 2014, the second in 2017.

All told, the Hengfeng Bank bailout is $14 billion US dollars. That’s just for one small regional Chinese lender.

According to the regulator’s own report, there are another 585 institutions in addition to Hengfeng that are “high risk”. So it’s possible the size of this problem could easily go into the TRILLIONS of dollars.

The Chinese banking system at present completely dwarfs banking systems everywhere else in the world, including in the United States.

The total size of China’s banking system has now reached roughly $40 trillion. That’s more than TWICE the size of the US banking system, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

But perhaps even more importantly, China’s vast banking system is more than three times the size of its entire economy.

To your freedom & prosperity, Simon Black Founder
To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/theres-a-major-banking-crisis-unfolding-in-china-26999/

.It Depends on The Meaning of The Word ‘Is’...

It depends on the meaning of the word ‘is’...

Notes From The Field By Simon Black

December 19, 2019  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

By February 1868, President Andrew Johnson had been at odds with Congress for years.

Johnson had been Vice President for barely a month when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1864, and his battles with Congress started from practically

Day 1.

Johnson shared Lincoln’s view that the Confederacy should be swiftly and gently reintegrated back into the Union after the Civil War; neither wanted to penalize the South.

But at the time, Congress was filling up with politicians known as “Radical Republicans” who were anything BUT moderate.

They wanted to punish the South and mandate reunification with all sorts of strings attached-- the opposite of what Andrew Johnson wanted to accomplish.

So Johnson vetoed nearly every reunification bill that Congress passed.

Congress only had one key ally in the Executive Branch-- Secretary of War Edward Stanton, a Radical Republican who did not see eye-to-eye with his President.

And just as Johnson was about to fire Stanton, Congress passed a bill called the Tenure of Office Act, which prohibited the President from firing ANY member of his cabinet.

The law was specifically designed to ensure that Stanton could not be fired-- which is COMPLETELY unconstitutional.

Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress had enough votes to override his Presidential veto… so the Tenure of Office Act still became law of the land.

Johnson ignored this unconstitutional law and fired Stanton anyhow. And within a matter of days he was brought up on 11 articles of impeachment. In addition to violating an unconstitutional law, Johnson was also accused of:

* Making speeches to the public which were “intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous...against Congress amid the cries, jeers, and laughter of the multitudes...”

* bringing “the high office of the President of the United States into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace, to the great scandal of all good citizens...”

Mostly, Johnson was severely disliked by these Radical Republicans. He was a southern ex-slave owner… a potent combination that attracted seething hatred from his contemporaries. And his impeachment articles were just code for “We hate this racist **.”

Realistically, though, Johnson’s impeachment was just an attempted coup.

Congress had a policy agenda they wanted to pass, and Johnson kept getting in the way. So they came up with a bunch of silly charges, including the fact that he violated an unconstitutional law, in order to neutralize him.

Johnson was ultimately acquitted by the Senate and finished out the rest of his term. But it still set a precedent.

I know there are countless people losing their minds today because Congress just impeached the President of the United States on charges they find incredibly flimsy.

And there are plenty of talking heads saying that if a President can be impeached on such flimsy charges, that it ‘sets a very dangerous precedent.’

Well, technically this dangerous precedent was set more than 150 years ago; accusations against Andrew Johnson were appallingly flimsy, yet he was still impeached.

In the tenth charge of his Articles of Impeachment, for example, Congress cited a speech Andrew Johnson had given in 1866 in which he said, “God willing, with your help I will veto [Congress’s] measures whenever any of them come to me...”

According to Congress, that simple statement was an impeachable offense… and set a precedent that they can impeach anyone for anything.

So if you think that today’s impeachment charges are too flimsy and set a dangerous precedent, this is really nothing new.

At the same time, there are also countless people losing their minds because they think ‘there’s a crime in progress’ and they want the President thrown out of office immediately.

Well, if you’re going to impeach someone and throw him out because he’s ‘abused his power,’ then you should apply the same standard to EVERYONE.

Politicians invariably abuse power for personal gain. Every time Barack Obama went to a campaign event for his own re-election in 2012, it cost taxpayers millions of dollars between the Secret Service, Air Force One, Presidential motorcade, etc.

Taxpayers foot the bill for his benefit. And every President in modern history has done the same.

These people pardon their friends, elevate campaign donors to important government posts, and lie constantly.

They spend taxpayer resources and pass legislation for the sole purpose of elevating their approval ratings or solidifying their legacy.

Presidents do it. Cabinet secretaries do it. Senators and Members of Congress do it.

And it’s all abuse. Terrible, terrible abuse.

But if people are so juiced up to see one person punished for abuse of power, then why not have a real purge and throw everyone out? I would humbly nominate my 5-week old kitten to take over.

At the end of the day, though, we know this is just more bread and circuses. There’s no chance of anything real happening other than a giant waste of time and money.

Two decades ago they caught then President Bubba Clinton lying through his teeth when he said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!” and “There’s nothing going on between us,” referring to White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

It was later found that, yes, in fact, Clinton used Lewinsky as a cigar holder. And when confronted about his lie, he had the most remarkable response in US political history:

“It depends on what the meaning of the word is is...”

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/it-depends-on-the-meaning-of-the-word-is-26984/

Congress Gives America A Special Christmas Present: Higher Taxes

Congress Gives America A Special Christmas Present: Higher Taxes

Notes From The Field By Simon Black

December 26, 2019  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

You’ve got to hand it to these people-- Congress really knows how to bring out the holiday cheer.

They have some sort of pathological need to pass the most absurd legislation at the VERY END OF THE YEAR giving people very little time to react.

Two years ago, for example, they passed comprehensive tax reform in late December 2017… and the new tax code went into effect only a few days later.

Taxpayers had no time to even understand the new law, let alone plan around it.

That’s the funny thing about taxes-- people plan their entire lives around the tax code.

They set up special structures, invest in particular assets, and go through all sorts of legal and accounting work, to make sure they’re following the tax code while they take care of their families.

And then, poof, Congress changes the rules overnight.

Well they just did it again.

A few days ago they passed a 643-page spending bill. And, buried deep within that legislation are provisions that were originally part of the SECURE Act.

I told you about this a few months ago-- the SECURE Act was intended to ‘help’ Americans save for retirement. And there are certain sections which are great.

For example, they removed the age limit for contributing to an IRA. It used to be that you could no longer contribute to your retirement after the age of 70 ½.

That limit has been lifted… which should prove useful for many people.

They also increased the age for Required Minimum Distributions to age 72, up from age 70 ½. So you have an additional 18-months before you’ll be required to start taking distributions from your retirement account.

On the other hand, they also passed new rules which are really bad for inherited IRAs.

Under the old laws, your IRA could be bequeathed to your heirs when you pass away. And while your heirs were required to take distributions from your IRA over time, they had the option of stretching out those distributions over the course of their entire lives.

This was a really great way to give your heirs a tax-efficient safety net.

If they suddenly needed a lump some of money, for example, to buy a new house, pay for university, or offset a major medical expense, they could tap into the IRA that they inherited from you.

But if they didn’t need the money, they only had to take a small distribution each year, and keep the tax consequences to a minimum.

Those rules have now been torn up.

Under the new rules, almost all inherited IRAs must be fully distributed within 10-years, whether your heirs need the money or not. And that’s going to trigger significant tax consequences for them.

Again, in fairness there are plenty of provisions in this law that many people will find helpful. And other provisions that people will find terrible.

But that’s not really the point. It’s not about whether the law is good or bad. The issue is that Congress doesn’t give people any time to react.

Responsible people plan around their taxes… especially when it comes to retirement and estate planning. People have to plan literally DECADES in advance and think through generational impacts.

So it’s a pretty nasty surprise when Congress tears up the rules at the very end of the year. They’re basically saying, “Unless you die by Tuesday at midnight, everything you’ve planned over the last several decades won’t work anymore. Merry Christmas.”

This highlights a very important reminder: these people can and will change the rules at any time, with no warning whatsoever. And they couldn’t care less how their changes impact you.

Now, all that said, I’m always an optimist-- where there’s a will, there’s a way. And there are definitely ways to dull the negative consequences of this new law.

We can explore these in more detail another time. But to give you an example, transferring your IRA to a special type of trust called a charitable remainder unitrust could still ensure that your heirs receive lifelong favorable tax treatment on an inherited IRA.

To your freedom & prosperity, Simon Black Founder,

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

  https://www.sovereignman.com/tax/congress-gives-america-a-special-christmas-present-higher-taxes-26996/