================================================= Expat Worlds Bi-Monthly Digest ================================================= 17 August, 2005 Vol. 7, Issue 14 .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== THE STORY =================== -=The Passport Report (continued)=- ==== OTHER EZINES ================ ==== EW SPECIAL ================== -="No-Name" ATM Bank Card=- ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... == -=Trivia=- -=News Story=- -=Jokes=- ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============= -=Lucky downloads search tool=- ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD == -=Table of Content=- ==== THE STORY ================================== Continuing from last Expat World Digest - an excerpt from 'The Passport Report' - one of the best books ever written from our favourite author W.G. Hill. Although written few years back the basic principles still apply. Banking Passports In the course of writing the first few editions of The Passport Report, we often heard lawyers use the term "Banking Passport". Until then, we had never heard of it. But after our initial rejection of the concept as something possibly illegal and certainly unpatriotic, we have had a change of thinking. Especially for people who live in unfree countries, the concept of a "Banking Passport" now seems quite reasonable. Let's say that Mr Smith is a citizen of the United States of Arrestia. As you know, Arrestia, hereafter called USA has all sorts of currency laws and restrictions. USA makes the unreported transfer of cash abroad a major felony-crime of money-laundering punishable by 25 years in the poky. It makes having a secret account abroad to preserve assets against government confiscation (by inflation or otherwise) a crime. Incredibly, failure to file detailed reports of all activities four times a year and pay one-third of your income to the State is also a crime. One can file all these reports and pay, but such disclosure defeats the whole purpose of most Arrestians. To have a nest egg that is judgment proof and above all, government proof. There are persistent rumors that the USA will follow the example of its mentor the former USSR and simply declare all banknote over US $20 to be null and void because cash is something used only by criminals and drug dealers. Confiscation of private property is the logical solution of bureau-rats to all conceivable civic problems. In our example, Mr. Smith is an Arrestian who has wangled the right to travel abroad freely. He also makes an occasional deal where the profits could be paid into a foreign account. He would probably be glad to pay a reasonable tax on such profits. But if he did pay a tax and reveal the nature of his foreign business (or publicly report where he keeps his assets), he would never have anything squirreled away for emergencies or retirement. So he stashes his cash and unwillingly accepts the risks of being a criminal by depositing some of his wealth outside of the US. The father of President John F Kennedy once remarked that there were so many laws, it was impossible for any businessman not to be a criminal. That was 60 years ago! Now, laws on the books have multiplied 10,000 times. As a result the US (as in the United States of America) has a prison population ten times as big as the average country in Europe and is in fact the number one jailer on a per-capita basis, in the world, surpassing by far South Africa and the former Soviet Union who were the old champs at keeping their citizens in the poky. The United States of Arrestia is only slightly better. Thus, Smith wants to be low profile. "Offshore Financial Advisers" tell Mr. Smith that he can control yet conceal, secret assets by means of trusts, holding companies, foundations and other expensive legal entities requiring annual costs of at least £2000 or more to set up and around £1000 or more per annum for care and feeding. The disadvantage of such arrangements (necessary for active businesses, but not needed for mere asset management) is that not reporting such activities is illegal anyway. To make things worse, with offshore trusts or other vehicles: a) Someone else knows your business. Those persons are not necessarily: 1. Discreet 2. Honest 3. Cheap to feed b) Your advisers (or new partners in crime) will say they need to be able to sign checks (to insulate you, they say) and control your funds. But all too often the adviser: 1. Makes bad business decisions 2. Makes mistakes 3. Is not available when you need him 4. Steals or at best 5. Gets into some difficulties unrelated to you and to save his hide gives you up. You can't sue anyone for telling your secrets without stirring up an even bigger can of worms. As Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos learned when their personal financial records were splattered all over the newspapers, they could be charged with many crimes even though advisers assured them that everything was "legal". [Moral of story: There is little or nothing one can do in business, politics or tax-avoidance that can't be turned into a criminal prosecution. Once you are in court, you will be financially ruined before you are finished - win or lose.] The best protection may be to do whatever you are doing without witnesses or paperwork. Avoid giving information to friends and confidants. They could turn into enemies! THE BANKING PASSPORT IS AN OPTION FOR A CHIEVING PRIVACY AND CONTROL The old alternative was setting up a corporation, foundation or trust. You create a separate legal entity. Perhaps it was offshore, which just means not in your native country. The corporate treasurer (not you) signs checks. You are supposed to control things behind the scenes. It works, sometimes. But what if you create another person with another nationality and a full set of identification? Will this serve the same purpose more cheaply and effectively? Can this be done legally? For the person with passive investments, the answer is, yes! So let us now return to Mr. Smith. Assume that the Grand Duchy of Freedomia will accept any (rich) person as a citizen and issue them a passport. Assume further that Freedomia (like most English speaking countries) permits its citizens to use any name they like on their passports. Presto! Shazam! You have created something like a corporation or holding company or foundation, but you have complete control. The new person you have created is the only completely reliable and trustworthy person in the whole world. Why? Because it is you, yourself! Thus Mr. Smith, does not go to his lawyer and say, "Set me up with an offshore holding company". Instead he says, "Set me up with a new passport from a truly free country, or if none is available, then at least a country that does not care about its offshore citizens. That way, I won't have to serve in any army to kill people, spend half my time filling out silly forms, pay any more income tax or inheritance tax, VAT etc. or allow myself to be treated like some sort of resource, whose only purpose is to be exploited to pay for things I don't even believe in. Give me a new name and a new passport." For a one-time fee in the US $20,000 range, that is exactly what many lawyers can do. If Mr Smith read The Passport Report he might do it himself, for free! Either way, Mr. Smith, now stops at his safe-deposit box just across the border whenever he leaves Arrestia. He deposits his passport. Then, like Superman, he switches passports, thus changing identity to (for instance) "Sherlock Holmes Acourt, Earl of Freedomia". The noble title is, of course, an optional extra, and for low profile purposes is definitely not recommended! But we like a little humor in our otherwise dull presentations. So as a sideline we help deposed ax-monarchs peddle noble titles. Titles can impress young girls, sometimes. But we digress, back to that new PT with the new ID, Mr. Smith. If Sherlock Holmes Acourt, also known as Smith of Arrestia is a PT, he probably never visits either Arrestia or Freedomia with his new Freedomia Passport. He keeps the two identities completely separate. When back in Arrestia for rare visits, Sherlock Holmes Acourt doesn't exist, at least not on any Arrestian computer. If any Arrestian spy should ever learn that someone named Sherlock has an account at the Terribly Secret Bank & Trust Company of Liechtenstein Ltd. the Arrestian investigator will ignore it. What does he care if some citizen of Freedomia has a secret account. Everyone knows that the Freedomia government is a bunch of anarchists who don't tie up their citizens with the heavy Arrestian ball and chain of taxes on worldwide income, currency restrictions and long jail sentences for almost everything. For those readers who haven't figured it out, Freedomia is every country in the world except the "Socialist Republics" and the Union of Socialist Arrestia (USA). Getting back to Smith and his new passport. What has he accomplished? Smith has a new identity. With it he can judgment-proof his assets and do things that have no connection with Mr Smith of Arrestia. He can even do things that are legal everywhere else, but might be slightly illegal in the eyes of the despots of Arrestia. Even if those dastardly secret snooper agents of Arrestia (planted in Swiss banks etc.) should intercept a communication or letter regarding "Sherlock Holmes Acourt" there would be no connection between Sherlock and Smith. Unless Smith sent out communications direct from Arrestia in his alias or blabbed about his new arrangements. If some day the vicious Arrestian dictator, Cardinal Flimsy Wolsey decided to torture all citizens by making them come home to Arrestia and constantly listen to his renditions of Le Figaro, Smith would have the option of staying abroad as Sherlock. If the Arrestian government decided it would not renew the passports of citizens abroad unless they paid some exorbitant sum (like 50 per cent of their income) just for the privilege of having an Arrestian passport, Smith could simply become Sherlock for good, stay away from his native country and put his expensive Arrestian passport to its highest and best use. Perhaps as toilet paper. As a dual Arrestian-Freedomian, it is possible that many countries would accept Smith as a tourist (without requiring a visa) or resident just because he was a citizen (and/or noble) of Freedomia. In any event, with two passports to choose from, he can travel or immigrate more easily in an emergency than most people. If you read PT (Parts I and II) you know why having a second passport is such a good idea. The concept of a "banking passport" is simply that for a one-time expense and/or effort, one can become a new person. This separates one from activities or assets best kept confidential. In the perfect world of our imagination, private property would of course be a sacred protected right. There would be no laws against an individual using (or hiding) his legally acquired assets any way he wants to, but unfortunately, the rulers of Arrestia think (and have passed laws to support their views) that all property is theirs to re-distribute. Your ass and your assets are equally the property of the State. Politicians can always figure out new ways to squander your money. National budgets expand to absorb available resources. A favorite boondoggle is to hire more bureaucrats who don't work or produce anything but are very good at tying us up in red tape. If we are to exercise our natural right to own property and the duty to provide first for our family and our own comfortable retirement, we must figure out some way to place our nest egg somewhere beyond the grasp of those socialist minded officials who now have power over our A+A (Ass and Assets or, if you prefer, Property and Posterior). The "banking passport" is just one of many tools available in the pursuit of freedom. It is nothing magical, and it is nothing new. International types have been using passports of convenience ever since passports were invented by Napoleon to prevent Frenchmen from leaving their country to avoid excessive taxation and military service. Passports have always been nothing more than a way to restrict freedom and to control people. In order to overcome unnatural barriers to the basic human rights of free travel and freedom to move assets, we can consider obtaining second or third sets of travel documents. Circumventing restrictions with appropriate paperwork is the traditional job of lawyers. It has always been the way to regain freedom or keep assets that governments would steal. Only wicked governments restrict travel. Only criminal governments who fear having their citizens living freely abroad force their citizens to return in person to renew passports. Only greedy and unreasonable governments make passport renewals dependent upon the payment of large sums of money (like an income tax on worldwide income - without any benefits). Only the most evil, despotic governments forbid or make dual-citizenship difficult for their citizens to obtain. If your government does any of these things, it may be time to vote with your feet and move your Ass and Assets elsewhere. Or at least position yourself to be able to move when the time is ripe. Who, these days, can seriously argue that their government will "provide for and protect them"? Only people who do not love freedom submit to the dictates of despots. The PT will make governments exercise some restraint upon their greed and arrogance. If more people had the paperwork in hand to put A+A out of their jurisdiction, governments would no longer be the number one cause of misery and premature death in the world. Just as citizens of the ancient Mayan civilization disappeared into the jungle when the government began claiming all the best young virgin girls for human sacrifice (as a form of tax payment), such wasteful misuse of our A+A must be stopped today. We hope this has given you some food for thought! The author welcomes all input, suggestions, improvements. As Ben Franklin said, "If we don't all hang together, we will hang separately!" ==== OTHER EZINES & BOOKS ======================== ASIAN TIMES ONLINE Asia most trusted source for news, business,commentary and analysis from throughout Asia and our world. (www.atimes.com). ----- SURVIVAL BOOKS Go to and check it out! ----- japan-guide.com Extensive, up to date online guide on Japan living and travel related information. http://www.japan-guide.com/ ==== EW SPECIAL ================================= OUR NEWEST HOT PRODUCT A $300,000 monthly "No-Name" ATM Bank Card -- An anonymous way to use YOUR money. Expat World in full cooperation with a premier provider of banking instruments is please to be one of the very few organizations offering this new product - the PTCard. This product is a must for those who cherish their financial privacy. For details go to . ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... ================ NEWS STORIES But when they get the munchies, watch out! MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's long winter will just fly by for a herd of Russian cows which, a newspaper reported on Tuesday, will be fed confiscated marijuana over the cold months. Drug workers said they adopted the unusual form of animal husbandry after they were forced to destroy the sunflowers and maize crops that the 40 tonnes of marijuana had been planted among, Novye Izvestia daily reported. "There is simply no other way out. You see, the fields are planted with feed crops and if we remove it all the cows will have nothing to eat," a Federal Drugs Control Service spokeswoman for the Urals region of Sverdlovsk told the paper. "I don't know what the milk will be like after this." Drug use in Russia took off with the decline of the Soviet Union and police have been fighting drug smugglers -- often shipping heroin from Afghanistan -- for years. Such large hauls are relatively common, although they are normally burned. --- Library launches 'borrow a person' IF you're one of those people who thinks all lesbians are sexually frustrated or all animal rights activists aggressive, then a Swedish library project that allows you to "borrow" a human being rather than a book may provide some useful insight. The Living Library project will enable people to come face-to-face with their prejudices in the hopes of altering their preconceived notions, Ulla Brohed of the Malmoe Library in southern Sweden said. "You sometimes hear people's prejudices and you realise that they are just uninformed," she said. This weekend, nine people, including a homosexual, an imam, a journalist, a Muslim woman and a gypsy, will be available at the Malmoe Library for members of the public to "borrow" for a 45 minute conversation in the library's outdoor cafe. "Maybe not all journalists are know-it-all and sensationalist, just unafraid and curious. Maybe not all animal rights activists are angry and intolerant, but intelligent and committed," she said. The nine "items" on loan were not hard to find, Ms Brohed said, but admitted they would be paid "a small sum" for their efforts. If the project is a success, the Malmoe Library may run it again later this year. --- Gulliver's XXX Travels A Russian book publisher claims the original version of Gulliver's Travels was a pornographic novel. Neonilla Samukhina says it featuries Gulliver in steamy encounters with 6ins tall Lilliputians or working as a sex toy for 60ft giants. Ms Samukhina, from St Petersburg, is to market the 'original version' after buying the manuscript. The Erotic Adventures of Lemuel Gulliver is to go on sale in Moscow book stores this weekend. Ms Samukhina refused to name the seller, but said the family had bought the manuscript from the Ford family, who were descendants of a close friend of author Jonathan Swift. "They had tried in the past to get it published but had never been believed that it was genuine, and I was sceptical, but historians have authenticated the age of the material and even style of writing," she said. A foreword to the book includes a complaint allegedly written by Swift himself about the removal of the erotic passages, which were supposedly a fundamental part of his original novel. The book has Gulliver describing how Lilliput women give him and themselves sexual pleasure - and how his semen was discovered to have healing properties on Lilliput. Hermann Real, director of the Ehrenpreis Center for Swift Studies based in Germany and one of the world's leading experts on the writer, dismissed the new work as "an elaborate hoax, mainly devised to promote sales". And Joseph McMinn, professor of Anglo-Irish literature at the University of Ulster, added: "Every few years somebody comes up with news about unknown manuscripts of famous writers found but very often those things are not real." ----- Oxymoron: bigger half ----- Lieberman's law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. ----- If you can't live without me, why aren't you dead already? -- Cynthia Heimel ----- "In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman." -- Margaret Thatcher ----- Why is it so hard for women to find kind, sweet, sensitive men in this world? Because they already have boyfriends! ----- A guy walks into a bar with his pet monkey. He orders a drink and while he's drinking it the monkey is running wild. The monkey jumps up on the pool table and grabs the cue ball, sticks it in his mouth and swallows it whole. The bartender is livid and says to the guy, "Did you see what your monkey just did?" "No. What did that stupid shit do this time?" says the patron. "Well, he just swallowed the cue ball off the pool table, whole" says the bartender. "Yeah, well I hope it kills the fucker because he's been driving me nuts" says the patron. The guy finishes his drink and leaves. Two weeks later he comes back with the monkey. He orders a drink and the monkey starts running wild around the bar again. While the man is drinking his drink, the monkey finds some peanuts on the bar. He grabs one, sticks it up his ass, then pulls it out and eats it. The bartender is disgusted. "Did you see what your monkey did now?" he asks. "What now?" responds the patron. "Well, he stuck a peanut up his ass, then pulled it out and ate it" says the bartender. "Well, what do you expect?" replied the patron. "Ever since he ate that damn cue ball he measures everything first!!!" ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============================ Lucky downloads search tool Lucky Downloads search is a utitity that enables you to find thousands of downloads in Internet. The program resides in your system tray and waits until you click the icon. After that you enter a search query and get results from Lucky Downloads web site. Does not contain spyware/adware. Easy install and uninstall. Get it at ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD =============== EXPAT WORLD NEWSLETTER (VOL.17 ISSUE 06) Table of Content: - GETTING THE UPGRADES - BITS & PIECES - A SECOND PASSPORT - PANAMA INFO - THE KNOWLEDGE BOX - LIVING AND WORKING IN GERMANY, IT COULD BE A TAX DISASTER - RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT! - BEATING THE BUREAUCRATS - THE LETTER YOU SHOULD ALWAYS CARRY IN YOUR POCKET - EXPAT WORLD'S PRIVACY WORLD - BEYOND "1984" - REAL ID ACT HAS PROBLEMS - CROOKED COPS ARE ENEMIES TO FREEDOM - A LETTER TO EXPAT WORLD - LETTER FROM AMERICA - MORE COVER UPS AND LIES - DAY 114 OF BUSH'S SILENCE - AMERICA'S LIMITS - THE OFFSHORE WORLD by EXPAT WORLD - CANADIAN COMPANIES STASH OVER US $88 BILLION IN THE CARRIBEAN - EXPAT WORLD'S WORLD OF PRIVACY - FIGHTING BACK - INTERNATIONAL SNIPS AND CLIPS - AROUND THE WORLD With EXPAT WORLD - SAINT-PIERRE & MIQUELON -- Where France Meets North America - CRAPPER RAPPER - NUDES & PRUDES - MURPHY'S LAW YOU MISSING SO MUCH Each week the EXPAT WORLD DIGEST gives you just a smattering of what you can find in the EXPAT WORLD newsletter that we produce once a month. Why not get the whole story and subscribe now to our electronic version for just US $30 per year. Go to our website: www.expatworld.net to sign up. ********************************************************************* EXPAT WORLD - the newsletter of international living URL - http://www.expatworld.net Email - office@expatworld.net ---------- End of Expat World Digest --------------------------------