Interesting. I could speculate as to why, but has he said anything besides the anti-christ thing? That thing wasn't illuminative in any way. So is it:
* fear of new wealth taxes in the US styled in the California way
* fear of being shot like UHC CEO
* legal retaliation from a new adminstration
Perhaps a little of each but what weighting? And what else? Personally, I'm definitely working to ensure my wife and children have OCI status and their Taiwanese citizenship locked in so that we have escape hatches.
My wife is Taiwanese and I'm Indian. I'm certainly not stupid enough to read the average HN/Reddit thread on Indians and believe that things cannot rapidly change around me.
You'll find that Americans tend to vastly overestimate how much people in Taiwan actually think about the threat of China. Is there a threat? Yea. But its likelihood is very much still unknown.
In the meantime, Taiwan offers a pretty excellent quality of life, and it's a great option to have in your back pocket, if you're fortunate enough to have a legal pathway to live there.
Lol. I don't know why I'm responding to an account with "I like Elon and Trump, and don't feel ashamed for it." in it, but what the hell.. Let's do it:
1. That Xi quote is, as best I can tell, not real. Want to share a source if you've got one? Best I can tell, it's a bad reference to the Davidson window? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidson_window). For fun, here's a key line from this Wikipedia page: "The Center for Strategic and International Studies found 83% of China experts reject that China plans kinetic action against Taiwan by 2027. Representative Jim Himes called 2027 invasion scenarios 'really dumb' given economic costs."
2. Since 1949, Taiwan has had mandatory 1-3 year military service for all but 5 years (2019-2024). In 2022, they decided to resume 1 year military service starting in 2024.
3. History buffs may recall the PRC and the ROC have a history of conflict. Maintaining military preparedness is par for the course for Taiwanese history.
All this to say: a threat does exist (which I acknowledged in my post you've very much miscategorized). This same threat has existed throughout Taiwan's history. The government (rightfully) treats it with importance. But day-to-day Taiwanese citizens aren't losing any sleep over this. The likelihood of a Chinese military invasion is exceedingly slim. It would be an almost certain blunder for China to attempt something so bold for a litany of reasons.
If you've never been to Taiwan, you should check it out. It's a lovely place. While there, ask someone if they're worried about China invading. 95% chance they laugh, and comment that that's such an American question. And then tell you "no".
I guess that makes things like roads, schools, and hospitals a ‘handout’
In an interview with Joe Rogan on YouTube, Peter Thiel said that if people want roads, they should come together and build them or pay for them to be built.
yes, i'm sure thiel would be against bailouts. but palintir got their start spying, so they know the wierd shit the govs want them to build, and hapilly will build for a price.
Billionaires don't need roads, hospitals and schools for their own family.
What they do need is a large marketplace of wealthy customers to buy their products, a large pool of educated people to choose their employees from, safe global transportation, a trust based economy where contracts can be relied on, where the fallback of using the court system is reliable enough that courts or extra judicial means are very rarely needed.
IOW billionaires need modern Western society far more than modern society needs them.
Yup corporations that don't think they should pay taxes are entitled. You didn't school the populace, build the roads, provide natural disaster relief, etc to make your company possible in the first place.
many countries offer the Investment Visa option. Canada does, as do places like NZ:
> New Zealand offers the Active Investor Plus Visa, which requires a minimum investment of NZD $5 million for the Growth category or NZD $10 million for the Balanced category. This visa allows investors to live, work, and study in New Zealand, with pathways to permanent residency after maintaining the investment for the required period.
After 5 years of investment, the visa holders can apply for Permanent Resident status, and after 5 years of PR, citizenship.
Thiel buys 3 Hungry Jack's and creates an IT consultancy company + some land deals, then rides em to citizenship.
It’s done, it’s great, fantastic and even unparalleled. Thiel is gonna do the same with Argentina, the acronym even remains the same so the China-made hats can be reused.
it's still a work in progress for the Thiel-Yarvin crowd.
part of their goal for domination is/was eventually pushing for a civil war and abolishing the US Fed gov. that's gonna be a... messy... process, and one that will probably involve lots of groups purging one another, Robespierre-style.
presumably, he'd prefer to sit that out. gotta worry about the Roth IRA money but otherwise can chill out in a different hemisphere while his minions do the dirty work.
put another way, if you're doing be renovations of your house you move out to a sublet for a few months while they demo the place.
I wonder why he thinks Milei is going to bring continued change over time? Argentina's economy has been a mess as long as I can remember, decades and decades. Why is Milei so different that's he's willing to move there? He must really see a change he can exploit.
Argentina is, indeed, quite puzzling. They shouldn’t be a mess, and they should vote better, but, yet, they never get to have a stable period of progress.
There are only two countries in the entire South America that DO NOT have the experience of having a democratically elected leader overthrown in a US-backed coup.
The billionaires can’t handle “losing” money to taxes so they’d just never come here. Whether that would prevent the raid or enable it remains to he seen.
> Thiel has purchased a six-bedroom mansion in Palermo Chico, a leafy central neighbourhood full of embassies. He has also bought land to build a home near Punta del Este, a Uruguayan beach town popular with Argentina’s wealthy, said one person familiar with his plans.
Great. So he is doing to Argentina, and now Uruguay, what he did to America
It's pretty funny that he's fleeing the US for fear of instability and rising anti-oligarch sentiment to Argentina. As though their collapsing society will treat him much better when the shit hits the fan.
> “This idea of wealth taxes on the super-rich has a clear connotation of envy,” Milei told Neura. “We consider taxes to be theft.”
> “The billionaires of the world who want to flee increasingly high-regulation and high-tax countries are very welcome to come to Argentina, the new land of freedom,” Adorni said.
How true is this in practice? Argentina's income taxes are not low by any standard (35%), capital gains are not zero (15%), and there is a wealth tax if you hold foreign assets.
I happen to be Argentinean, and got out of the country around 2 decades ago because of the trouble and practical taxation when working remote for foreign companies.
I definitely like what this article says, but it doesn't seem to hold true at the moment? That said, I might be missing something, as I've been mostly detached from Argentina's economics and politics for a long time now.
He is a profound believer in the absolute freedom of the individual, provided that specific individual is him, and perhaps three of his closest friends.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
> Tired of seeing politics on the front page. I come here to avoid that crap.
Well, I quite enjoy getting this community's perspective on current events and political topics. I wish more people would care about the ways these things intersect with their areas of interest and expertise. One man's crap, I guess!
I come here for a fresh perspective on a lot of things, politics being one of them. When techbros hook themselves deeply into the government, entirely bypassing the political system, gaining unchecked power without any representation to back it up, I’d think it’s well inside a hacker’s interests.
At least, they pwned the government very thoroughly.
> … connotation of envy. We consider taxes to be theft.
Wow. Envy. I don’t think there’s any way to refute this that would click with those that believe in it. Just… impressive.
I had some income on Germany’s 42% bracket. The marginal tax ends up lower. Regardless, I was constantly appalled by how envious everyone is. That 1% solidarity tax: envy. My public, not-for-profit health insurance: envy. I don’t know. I’m sure people at a hospital are going there just to spite people that earn lots of money.
Yeah, it’s envy. Nobody wants a good, shared society, and it’s clearly not been skewed towards making life harder for the low and middle classes. Nah. We’re just jealous mate.
I want my family to be healthy and happy. My kid to grow up in a comfortable-ish world without climate catastrophes. He’ll go to public school. Has a library card. You know, the basics. We don’t need a million euros. We don’t give a shit about the billionaire lifestyle.
Taxes are theft, sure, but one we collectively agree with in return for… well, everything else.
My partner touches the 40% bracket in Belgium. 40% hurts when you know a millionaire or even billionaire here will pay marginally less because of how we tax wealth and capital gains. But it’s alright, taxes are lower on the lower brackets; and a great deal that is, because those with less get the same benefits while paying less! Crazy, right? What a stupid system… (/s)
These people might want to put down Atlas Shrugged and read some Pratchett, maybe a Tolkien. I don’t know, something chill and heart-warming.
