Two weeks ago, the US media disclosed that Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, with a net worth of $19 billion, had obtained Cypriot citizenship. However, this news was obliterated by the election news at the time and did not attract much attention.
Bloomberg News reported on the 24th that wealthy Americans have exploded in gaining status in other countries through investment immigration. So why do these rich people “flee” the United States?
Americans’ demand for investment immigration has seen a “breaking bank” growth
Traditionally, investment immigration is not very attractive to Americans, but this year’s demand has soared, which surprised many immigration agencies. Bloomberg uses “Dam Burst” to describe the immigration enthusiasm of wealthy Americans.
Paddy Blewer, an executive at an immigration consulting company, said: “We have never seen anything like this.” The dyke break (normal demand) actually started at the end of last year. We didn’t realize it at the time, and the demand is getting stronger.
Taxation may not be the first consideration of the wealthy. Bloomberg’s analysis believes that tax incentives in destination countries are of little benefit to U.S. citizens because the U.S. adopts global taxation (The Wall Street Journal stated that the U.S. is the only two citizens that require citizens One of the countries that must file tax returns regardless of where they live; the other is Eritrea).
This rare wave of immigration predates the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, but the epidemic has undoubtedly boosted its growth. Due to its own ineffective control of the epidemic, the United States has been included in the EU’s travel ban list. You know, 19 million Americans traveled to Europe last year, but nowadays it is difficult to “travel the world” with a US passport.
The need for international travel has prompted some wealthy people to seek a second passport through immigration. St. Lucia’s Investment Immigration Department official, Nestor Alfred (Nestor Alfred) said, “Americans are thinking:’I want to have the ability to move freely as soon as possible, not to be trapped.
“International Living” is a 40-year-old company focused on providing Americans with overseas senior care information services. The company’s website data shows that since May, searches for “How to Move Out of the US” have soared by 1676%.
“The 16-fold increase in search volume proves that more Americans are seeking a better life abroad. Americans are seeking to escape”-the company’s interpretation. In these searches with the prefixes of “moving out of the United States” and “how to leave the United States”, the target countries with the largest increase were Spain, Belize, Costa Rica, etc., and even Mexico was also considered by many Americans.
The insecurity caused by the increasing division of the United States
According to a report by the U.S. political news website Vox, the growing demand for immigrants is partly due to concerns about political instability in the United States.
Apex Capital Partners, an immigration consulting firm, told Bloomberg that since the vote in the US general election this month, the volume of inquiries from clients has increased by 650%. For fear of social unrest, some people hope to obtain passports from other countries. Apex founder Nuri Katz said: “They (American customers) said,’We are not leaving the United States now, but we are worried and want to have more preparations just in case’.
This insecurity seems to be cyclical. Google search engine data shows that in the past five years, there have been two obvious peaks in American searches for “how to leave the United States”, both before and after the general election, once in 2016. In November, once in October this year.
On the one hand, the political polarization of the two parties in the United States has led to a high degree of social antagonism, and the election concentration has amplified the antagonism, which has increased people’s insecurity; on the other hand, it cannot be ignored that this year’s epidemic has caused the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States, as well as racial gaps. Further enlargement, leading to increasingly fierce social conflicts.
According to a report jointly issued by the “Policy Institute (IPS)” and other institutions last week, although the United States has not yet escaped the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, the wealth of the rich is increasing sharply. From mid-March to November 17, the wealth of 647 billionaires in the United States increased by nearly 960 billion US dollars; since March, the United States has added 33 billionaires.
The report points out that while the bosses of Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon are making a lot of money, the hundreds of thousands of employees they employ risk their lives to work on the front line to create more wealth for these companies. .
Dead knot
Compared with the rich considering how to move abroad, the needs of ordinary people are more basic. Search engine data shows that Americans’ search hot words on social issues are “unemployment, health care, crime, income”, etc., among which the search volume of “unemployment” far exceeds other keywords.
This is behind the outbreak of the US The cruel reality of tens of millions of people being unemployed; and the search for “tax the rich” reached its highest point in five years before the election.
Collins, a scholar of the “Policy Research Institute”, believes that the wealth and power of American society are becoming more and more concentrated. The rich use their power to manipulate the rules to obtain more wealth and power.
This is a kind of “spiral deterioration”. “. However, extreme inequality may trigger political backlash. Therefore, a series of reforms such as medical care and welfare must be carried out. At the same time, taxation will be increased gradually to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
However, these ideas face numerous obstacles in reality, especially in the election year. Sanders and other leftist Democratic candidates who advocate tax increases on the rich have been unanimously criticized by the rich and unable to cross the threshold of the party’s primary election.
Many local governments in the United States are also worried that increasing taxes on the wealthy will risk “forcing them away”, thereby affecting local fiscal revenues.
In the United States, which believes in the free market, high welfare and big government are regarded by many as a dangerous idea of the extreme left.
