America is one of the few countries that could get away with this, as being American has such a premium. It'd be nice to see them use their clout to force through legislation that stopped companies from playing silly beggars with their offshore profits if they wanted access to US markets.
What premium is that over say being the holder of passport from the UK, NL, DE, FR, ES, IT, CH, SE, DK, NO, FI, BE or any one of a host of other countries that don't have such crazy tax rules?
>What premium is that over say being the holder of passport...
You tell me; there's a whole article written here about how hard it is to give up the US passport. Here we have a woman who doesn't live in the country and doesn't want to pay taxes to the country, yet is torn up about not being "American". I don't get it.
Patriotism can be as deeply ingrained in people as religious beliefs. From an outsiders perspective the US seems like one of those countries where people defend it blindly like they would a religion.
I think it's important to note that, for the most part, both patriotism and religion need to be deeply ingrained in a person at a very young age for them to defend either so blindly.
US families take care of the religious aspect; US public school take care of the patriotism. If you weren't of the age where you simply don't question what you're told yet, I believe (perhaps hope?) both of these would die out in a few generations.
One of the supervisors for my Master's thesis was American but has lived in Canada since the '70s. He hasn't bothered to get Canadian citizenship. He's now retired living in BC. I'm wondering if he'll do it now.
The US economy and quality of life commands that premium.
Note - My fiancee is British and I've lived for 4 years overseas in the EU (UK 3 years, DE for 1). As the tax code as an American begins to squeeze more and more, I've become more reluctant to "pay" that premium, but there are indeed aspects of American life and opportunity that don't currently exist in the EU.
I constantly have to remind myself that people who browse HN learn strongly libertarian and are mostly well-off white males. Otherwise, saying that the US quality of life exceeds that of the UK, Germany or Switzerland is just blatantly false.
There was a time when Germany used to be the leading country in the world where almost all major thoughts and works were produced. Whether it was Literature, Art, Philosophy, Cinema, political thinking, Germany was the place to go (and because of close interactions, Austria).
Before that, it was Arab World, before that Ancient Rome, before than Ancient Greece.
Today that status belongs to America. If you want to produce anything which would make impact in the world, the most fertile ground for that is America. Even if a talent rises up say in Germany, the network effect of America attracts those individual to come to America. Maybe there is a smarter Elon Musk in South Africa, but the main point is that Elon Musk never came to America, this Elon Musk did.
I am not saying that somehow by being in America you automatically will be more likely to produce great thinking. Rather its more like being among more challenging and talented peers will bring your exposure and contribution to another level, something which isn't possible currently (even with the Internet) to be in Germany or Switzerland.
Just so I get this straight, you are claiming that America currently is the go to place for literature, art, philosophy, cinema and political thinking?
I'd accept such a claim for web scale technology and some other fields but for all of the above definitely not so much.
I missed technology and science in my list of things, but yeah that too.
If we use Nobel prizes as a metric, then US beats other countries by a wide margin in everything except Literature. (Surprisingly Germany and UK, the old world leaders still come close second, but then we ARE considering nobel prizes awarded between 1901-2014). In terms of per capita, US is ranked 19th, and UK, the only large country in terms of population ranks higher.
It's true that USA is world's third largest populous country, so in terms of absolute numbers it beats other nations hands down, but there are two things which need to be considered. If EU was a single nation with single language and no immigration restrictions, then you will get the same benefit of being in EU(400+ Nobel prizes) as much as you'd get of being in America(350+ nobel prizes), that is, more integrated intellectual networks. But EU is fragmented into different nations, and despite of being an open border, the linguistic and cultural disparities do fragment the number of people you could have been connected to.
Second point is, almost all major figures in art and literature in America have lived in NYC at some point or the other. This usually means that if you lived in NYC, there are future nobel laureates living here with whom you might be interacting. So I think that not only you need to be in America in order to access the biggest network effect of anything, you need to be in one of the larger cities like NYC or SF.
2. Where you see fragmentation, we see diversity and a richer ecosystem. Where you see cultural disparities, we see a complex interplay of different cultures over millennia. Homogeneous populations are actually at a disadvantage because they don't have that kind of activity.
> there are indeed aspects of American life and opportunity that don't currently exist in the EU.
But which are those? As far as I can tell, the only meaningful one I can see is unrestricted access into the US, and the ability to vote for the most powerful government in the world. That's not nothing, but it doesn't have much impact on most people's everyday life, unlike stuff like healthcare and pensions.
I suppose an American living in the EU does get to enjoy the best of both worlds in that regard, but is it really worth paying double taxes? Are there other aspects I'm missing?
What's the premium of having a US passport? Canadian, UK, Scandinavian, Dutch, HK, Japanese, really whatever developed nations passport seems to be a better deal.
> What's the premium of having a US passport? Canadian, UK, Scandinavian, Dutch, HK, Japanese, really whatever developed nations passport seems to be a better deal.
Exactly! I would be so happy to have a EU passport, that way I would have free travel/work access to the whole Euro zone and easier access to the UK.
That is a bit ambiguous, but it seems to be more of a reporting requirement and not the same thing. Anyways, even us expats are effected by it if we stay for more than 5 years without a 1 month break.
I've been in China for fifteen years, and haven't filed taxes for the past twelve, I think. I'm moving back to the States at the end of this year, and am deeply worried about integrating myself back into the good graces of the IRS.
Not sure if "powerful" is the right word either. It's more of a list of the best passports to have if you want to go on holidays. "Doesn't require a visa" usually means those countries don't require visas for short non-business trips (anything from 14 days to 6 months). E.g. you can visit the US with a German passport for 3 months for a holiday but it's extremely difficult to get a visa to move there indefinitely.
> E.g. you can visit the US with a German passport for 3 months for a holiday but it's extremely difficult to get a visa to move there indefinitely.
You do realise that works the same way for everybody and US visa-free entry is not a residence permit right? For instance as a US citizen you'd get visa-free entry to Iceland or Japan or New Zealand but can only stay for 90 days.
Yes, the point is that the ranking would look very different if it were based on the ease of long term residence instead of a short visit. Going from the US to Germany for a short visit is basically the same as going from the UK to Germany for a short visit, but going from the US to Germany for long term residence is much more difficult than going from the UK to Germany for long term residence.
And many countries have collaboration efforts going where one countries consular services will aid the citizens of another (usually neighbouring) country if they have no representation themselves.
For instance many EU countries embassies will give aid to the members of other EU states that do not have local representation.
One of the most important things embassies do is to give aid to citizens of their countries charged with crimes abroad.
> For instance many EU countries embassies will give aid to the members of other EU states that do not have local representation.
That's actually part of EU law. As an EU citizen, if you have no national diplomatic or consular representation in the country you're in you're entitled to help from any other EU member's embassy or consulate.
