On April 29. the US Department of Justice “unsealed” a 2023 indictment of one Roger Ver, better known in cryptocurrency circles as “Bitcoin Jesus.” He was arrested in Spain and as of this writing awaits extradition proceedings.

The indictment claims that Ver failed to hand over a sufficiently large extortion payment to the US government  in 2017, after  leaving the country and renouncing his citizenship in 2014.

The DOJ press release doesn’t put it quite that way, of course. Instead it claims that  “[A]s a result of his expatriation, Ver allegedly was required under U.S. law to file tax returns that reported capital gains from the constructive sale of his world-wide assets …. He was also allegedly required to pay a tax — referred to as an ‘exit tax’ – on those capital gains. … [Ver] concealed the true number of bitcoins he and his companies owned.”

Yes, you have that right. Roger Ver left the US in 2014. Roger Ver renounced his citizenship in 2014. He’s charged with not paying a $48 million bribe to the US government after selling some of his Bitcoin in 2017, when he was neither a citizen of, nor resident in, the US.

In 1931, Germany’s Weimar Republic instituted something called the Reichsfluchtsteuer — “Reich Flight Tax” — to prevent wealthy Germans from going, and taking their money, elsewhere … or at least to grab much of that money.

After the Nazis rose to power in 1933, the tax was instead used to seize everything of value from Jews trying to flee the new government’s persecution.

But, so far as I can tell, even the Third Reich didn’t display anything like the sheer gall and temerity of the US regime, chasing down emigrants years later and extorting additional money from them. Hitler’s goons limited themselves to things like pawing through emigrants’ luggage and stealing their jewelry.

Roger Ver’s wealth was never any of the US government’s business (neither is yours), and he never “owed” them a cut of it even when he lived here (nor do you).

This “nice life you’ve built elsewhere,  shame if anything happened to it” routine  is a giant, audacious step beyond most governments’ protection rackets.

To add insult to injury, “Bitcoin Jesus” has probably done you more good — with his investments in, and evangelism for, cryptocurrencies —  than “your” government ever has.

Which may or may not be why they’re after him. But either way, telling Hitler “hey, hold my beer” just isn’t a very good look.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“Americans aren’t having enough babies,” Catherine Rampell writes at the Washington Post. “Ironically, pro-life politicians might be making the problem worse.”

Her suggestion for addressing the supposed problem: “Slash the tax burden for families with young kids, a traditionally bipartisan policy that a few Republican senators are currently blocking.”

I’ve got a few problems with that suggestion.

One is that most “child tax credit” proposals of the type implied are actually subsidies — that is, they are “refundable,” such that beneficiaries can actually receive a net payment FROM the government (in other words, from the taxpayers), rather than paying any taxes at all TO the government.

Another is that I don’t like social engineering by government.

Using tax policy to influence how much beer people drink, what kind of cars people drive, or how many babies people have is just a way of imposing some people’s social preferences (and the costs of exercising those preferences) on other people.

Americans, Rampell tells us (citing polling data), are “having fewer kids than they say they want.”

She doesn’t cite any polling data on how many kids those same people want to pay the costs of conceiving, delivering, and raising. I suspect the latter number would be lower.

I want one more Tesla than I currently own (the latter number is zero), but I don’t want to pay the advertised sticker price. Nor do I support taxing you, or Ms. Rampell, more to buy me one (or to give me a tax credit to reduce my cost of buying one).

Ms. Rampell does posit substantive “problems” arising from “a population that fails to replace itself” — a smaller work force that doesn’t pay as much in taxes, for example.

And to her credit, she notices that there’s also a ready “solution”: More immigration.

A healthy economy attracts people from elsewhere to fulfill demand for goods and services.

As it happens, those people tend to come from cultures where having babies hasn’t gone quite so out of fashion as it seems to be getting here.

And instead of demanding subsidies for having those babies, they’d be paying the taxes that the “missing” babies would have eventually been paying. “Problem” solved.

[Note: I don’t consider taxes, or paying them, a good thing, but I guess I’m a sort of “moderate” — if we’re forced to pay them, I consider using them to engineer desired social outcomes worse than using them to fill potholes, but better than using them to murder poor brown people in the Middle East and Central Asia.]

How many babies are “enough?” As many as people choose to have in the expectation of covering the costs without subsidies. Any other number is just damaging political interference.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

I’m too young to remember the campus convulsions of the 1960s, but older friends who were there tell me that the growing campus protest movement against US support for Israel’s war in Palestine bears a striking resemblance to those days.

I happen to support that movement’s goals, at least to the extent of wanting to see the US government butt out of other people’s arguments.

I’m told by some “pro-Israel” friends that the student protesters  are all “anti-semites” and “supporters of Hamas,” and that if I support them I must also hate a particular ethnic group and support terrorism as a tactic.

But I don’t hate any ethnic groups, nor do I support Hamas any more than I support the Israeli Defence Forces.

I don’t doubt that SOME of the student protesters fall into the “hater” category, simply because the protests are a convenient bandwagon for “haters” to ride on. The next large political event I attend that doesn’t have a least a few weirdos hanging around, trying to grab a little unearned credibility by association, will be the first.

I just want a government that claims it works for me to stop handing out weapons and cash to other governments. Especially, though not only, to crybully regimes that constantly play the victim while also occupying territory outside their borders for decades on end, imposing apartheid regimes on the inhabitants of those occupied territories, murdering anyone who resists (along with many who don’t), etc.

To the extent that the kids on campus are seeking the same thing, they’re doing God’s work and have my full support.

Heck, I may even make myself a sign, see if I can find my old gas mask (just in case), and go hang out at the university campus nearest me this weekend if I’m feeling nostalgic (I’ve attended protests on and off for about 40 years, but not lately).

I consider the protests a positive sign to the extent that campus movements tend to be bellwethers.

The protests against the US war in Vietnam didn’t end the war, but they did presage wider popular opposition to the war, and 15 years or so of a general “well, let’s not do THAT again” temperament in America after it ended.

The campus movement to end US support for apartheid South Africa was also broadly successful and contributed to the fall of that vile regime.

Whatever your opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement, those protests (on and off campus) put cops on notice that they might finally be held accountable when they murder citizens.

These protests are probably the beginning of the end for a US foreign policy offering unconditional support to Israel. That’s a good thing.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY