I have been mostly staying out of the reopening conversations because I have always advocated different places doing different things. (I can dredge old posts if needed) If we all do the same thing, it takes longer to get through the mistake phase. I may not agree with certain things, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried. Everyone has enough information to make their own choices now. And honestly the fastest way to get through this is to nut up and let people go. They will figure it out.
Having said that - I just learned last night you can still get arrested in Texas for not wearing a mask. Which was quite a shock. For months every person ~not living~ in California was crowing about how WE had the strictest rules. Despite a simple google search would have shown we have been open many times. In the Fall we even had indoor dining. But everyone wants to make a political point and made it seem like we have all been cowering in our houses the whole year. It's super frustrating because TWO days ago Fox News was still repeating this lie of us being locked down hard the whole time. It would literally take two seconds to see that is not true.
For MONTHS every news story has been about how California has the same numbers as this State or that STATE despite "the most severe restrictions." When in reality life is more nuanced. Right? We have all the mandates, but no one gets arrested! Look. Let's do a google search with exactly the same criteria. Here it is for Texas. And here it is for California.
The only way to get arrested in California for Covid is having a huge underground party. We have been ticket only pretty much the whole time. And I've never heard of ANYONE getting a ticket. But I have heard of hair dressers getting arrested. IN TEXAS!
So.... I would say that California has NOT had the strictest rules obviously.
"... can dredge old posts if needed ..."
ReplyDeleteLet's not and say you didn't. :-)
That's like some Wikiprotester ("[citation needed]") shit right there.
There's someone who used to be around here who would do that kind of stuff ... key phrase being used to be. :-)
I'm not expecting most people to be consistent about this, but as I've seen it unfold, I've seen an even stronger case for libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, or agorist solutions and an even weaker case for brute force government interventions.
Let's take a specific set of cases: I know some people who would retire to the Philippines, buy up some land, start some new businesses, and generally get to employing the locals, but thanks to Duterte's death threats and absurd shutdown, those people would never consider doing such a thing now or ever.
And so the Philippines loses about a quarter billion USD worth of investment.
Tough shit.
Texas has clearly lost a lot of its competence when it comes to everyday life, and so the only thing that incompetent Texas bureaucrats in power can do is to threaten harm. This wasn't as bad when I still lived in Texas, but there was a definite trend, and I now see that Dumbass Always Wins when it comes to being able to drag down any structure that could support something other than Dumbass.
So I could have moved my multi-company tax-avoiding structure to Texas and had most of the benefits that we had in Washington and Florida, but guess what, Texas?
Tough shit.
There's a reason I'm a Refugee from the Capital of Texas. :-)
Maybe after some people realize that There Is No Voting Your Way Out Of This, Texas can go on to be some kind of minimally competent supply chain country while Florida figures out how to be the next Channel Islands for all of the low-tax-seeking investor types.
California can embrace Socialism, have it fail, and then watch as its major companies decide that they like "fascism without the government" by becoming more powerful than any governments of the past.
You may even get a peaceful transition out of that, although I doubt it.
But I got out for three major reasons.
US citizenship limits where you can invest and where you can keep bank accounts. FATCA means that you have very few options where you can park your cash, have the equivalent of a checking account for bills, and even have a safe deposit box or vault space. Compliance with FATCA is reason number one why non-US banks won't deal with you.
(Dealing with the permis C issue versus a visa reclassification, which is in the works, is relatively minor by comparison.)
US citizenship also puts a target on your back, both inside and out, because if one of the US government levels isn't fucking with you, there's some tax thing, some trade thing, and so on that means you're probably secretly a multiple felon and never knew it.
(This is why some people can go after Donald Trump now -- I don't believe it's any more possible to follow the US tax code to the letter than it is to pay all of your taxes in Italy and still have any money left. We eventually had a complex US tax structure not because of avoiding taxes as much as avoiding legal liability.)
But ultimately, US citizenship puts you front and center in a culture war that is going to erupt to such an extent that it will be impossible to avoid the war pretty much anywhere you can go in the US, and that was really at the top of the list.
Want to plan for the eventual "score settling phase" of what this could turn into?
ReplyDeleteBuy the kinds of firearms and ammunition that make nice big holes in some of the neighbors you have that you like the least? Maybe that will work out.
Bunker down and try to make your house look the most functionally abandoned in a Sarajevo meets Johannesburg violence block party situation? Might work if the "purge by multiple vax phases" theory turns out to be correct.
For now at least, Switzerland is a more stable situation.
I don't have to worry about my "barbarous relics" being absorbed by The State nearly so much in a place like Zermatt as I would in any US safe deposit box, bank, or vault.
"But everyone wants to make a political point and made it seem like we have all been cowering in our houses the whole year ..."
I looked at what Washington's doing, and California's not that severe.
There are places in Florida that were threatening mask arrests, such as when the Tampa mayor decided that all of the non-mask-wearing people who went to the Super Bowl deserved to be arrested.
What is clear for me is this: I'm no longer interested in negotiations.
If you want to screw yourselves out of investment, out of any hope that your tourist economy will ever grow back to what it was before this, out of having any functional airlines or long-distance travel options, keep doing this totalitarian crap. Maybe when the shit hits the fan, it'll go full Havana Hilton in a few places with even less warning that it's time to get the hell out of Dodge City.
I still want to do the B&B thing, but now I want to see if I can work it from a specific angle: if I can help the visitors get multi-month tourist visas, they can enjoy their "mandatory quarantine period" in certain B&B rooms and then get moved into another part of the B&B where they're free to roam around the town and the country.
Because I figure that the people who would be taking advantage of this won't want "the vax", won't want to do testing, and would prefer to be holed up for two weeks in order to show that they have no symptoms before moving on.
It's like the Heckler & Koch firearms brand motto: in a world of compromise, some don't.
Negotiations are therefore over.
Now come the savage beatings that were always to follow.
"and I now see that Dumbass Always Wins when it comes to being able to drag down any structure that could support something other than Dumbass.""
ReplyDeleteYou are just figuring out dumbass always wins? It's not only that dumbass wins! He is rewarded! It's fucked up. And people who do the right thing are penalized.
"US citizenship also puts a target on your back, both inside and out, because if one of the US government levels isn't fucking with you, there's some tax thing, some trade thing, and so on that means you're probably secretly a multiple felon and never knew it."
Yeah! It's why those guys always wind up over here. We don't care if you are a foreigner. People like to think that other countries are more tolerant than us because other countries are phonies. There is a reason the US floats like a weeble. That's why it's such a bummer that you not only closed that door but you welded it shut.
"Bunker down and try to make your house look the most functionally abandoned in a Sarajevo meets Johannesburg violence block party situation? Might work if the "purge by multiple vax phases" theory turns out to be correct."
Pretty dramatic don't you think?
"I looked at what Washington's doing, and California's not that severe."
Thank you! I tried to talk about this last year and no one wanted to listen. They are too busy dunking on each other. And the news media likes to amplify it. They make it seem like we were locked down like China or something. It's just lazy and wrong. Because it makes people think that it doesn't matter what they do.
California was locked in cage houses the whole year and it made no difference they say. And that is NOT true. We have pretty much had free movement since the end of the first wave. We have been under lockdown orders many times, but we've also been open many times. Even when we are under lockdown we aren't prohibited from movement. It's just there if things get out of control.
I'm probably the only person that hasn't saved money in this pandemic because if it was open, I knew my favorite places would need help. This really sounds like a humble brag, but it is complete selfishness I assure you. Sometimes benevolence comes from being selfish.
"If you want to screw yourselves out of investment, out of any hope that your tourist economy will ever grow back to what it was before this, out of having any functional airlines or long-distance travel options, keep doing this totalitarian crap. Maybe when the shit hits the fan, it'll go full Havana Hilton in a few places with even less warning that it's time to get the hell out of Dodge City."
I don't think anyone cares about your money at this point. They can just print it. What do they give a fuck?
As as Texan, Grabbot Abbot was a disgrace on this mask issue. He should have done this months ago like last year.
ReplyDeleteThe problems is you have these dumbass managers with an allegedly university education believing the stupidity spouted by the CDC about masks. If you can't grasp the fact that this is a viral particle or so they say, then a flimsy surgical mask, gator, or bandana is not going to save us. It is actually worse wearing these things all the time. But now the covidiocy continues with the private sector.
I am not having the mask conversation again. At all. This horse is so dead. It's every man for himself.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't see what is happening in Europe and Canada...you just can't save people from themselves. The quickest way through this is for people to touch the fire now. I don't care if you wear a mask. Don't wear a mask. Lick doorknobs. I'm not fighting about this anymore.
"You are just figuring out dumbass always wins?"
ReplyDeleteYou used to be able to buy your way around it.
Why else would you live off Brickell Avenue in Miami but to have a place where you could buy your way to more everyday competence? Why live inside the Loop in Chicago?
Well, no worries about that these days.
Raising all boats together with a high tide has to be the best reason why it's worth the higher costs in Switzerland.
"That's why it's such a bummer that you not only closed that door but you welded it shut."
I'm not missing it.
In fact, if I'd have known this would have made investment and living a lifestyle I like much easier, I'd have done it years earlier.
"Pretty dramatic don't you think?"
Oh, absolutely! You'll have secret police and paramilitary death squads first.
I remember as a near-teenager being in a certain Pre-Revolutionary Republic about two years before it decided that it wanted to be a Permanent Revolutionary Republic.
It was my last trip there with my father who was in the country on extended business.
Prior to this last trip, I could get around the largest city on my own with not much more than the occasional police or concerned citizen asking me if everything's going OK and if I needed help finding my way.
The last time was very different, because I was shadowed by the secret police.
They apparently were doing this for my protection, and when I told my father about it, his reaction was swift, severe, but totally expected: I was out of there within the week, and he wrapped up his business permanently there.
You don't have the frame of reference for things getting Extra Revolutionary Spicy. I've seen people who were my friends or friends of friends attacking people who looked a lot like I did, all in color on the news.
Apparently there's a bar/restaurant in Burbank that's having a blast defying government orders. The authoritarian pricks in the local council have decided they don't deserve electrical service, while the freedom-loving locals have decided they should be able to survive on an infinite supply of portable generator power.
I figure at some point, the secret police will be deployed to keep the paramilitary death squads from killing such authoritarians, and then it'll get very, very interesting in the US.
All the more reason to be here.
"I'm probably the only person that hasn't saved money in this pandemic ..."
You didn't rent a cargo plane for over a week.
"I don't think anyone cares about your money at this point."
You don't print Philippine pesos out of thin air because they'll nearly instantly trade at their new worth. The Indonesian rupiah is another fine example of this happening on a continual basis.
That's why when I was in Jakarta, I'd use bank cards instead of cash and put up with the conversion fees. Same in Manila, actually.
The Tokyo Olympics decision has been interesting, and it's everything I expected.
I'm not even considering going to Japan anymore because I can't trust that the Japanese government is going to do anything but be extra-whipped when their health care establishment bullies them into yet more lockdowns.
So I don't give a shit that I'd have to formally apply for a visa and present an itinerary to visit Japan sometime in the future, because it's just not going to come up.
As for the Tokyo Olympics, if it's just a spectacle put on TV now, why does it have to be held anywhere else but the original locations in Greece?
Besides, the Olympics organization was just a cover story for all of Francisco Franco's thugs to have some kind of power over money.
Why fund the Olympics? Why fund Japan or the Philippines?
Why not lean into the ever-growing tourist apathy instead?