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The NYT reports that a loosely knit group of crypto-currency multi-million/billionaires have chosen Puerto Rico to set up shop -- several reasons are given including a tax haven for US citizens and low real estate prices since the hurricane Maria destruction last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html
Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.
And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.
For more than a year, the entrepreneurs had been searching for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico's infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.
[...] The movement is alarming an earlier generation of Puerto Rico tax expats like the hedge fund manager Robb Rill, who runs a social group for those taking advantage of the tax incentives.
"They call me up saying they're going to buy 250,000 acres so they can incorporate their own city, literally start a city in Puerto Rico to have their own crypto world," said Mr. Rill, who moved to the island in 2013. "I can't engage in that."
I suggest that the SN posters who write, "everything should be organized by contracts, not government" please buy a one-way ticket to PR now! And then see if you can actually make it work. [With limited electricity and thus limited internet, they may not pester the rest of us so often.]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:15PM (4 children)
If a person eats pork, I have no problem with that. I happen to eat pork myself, from time to time.
If a person spends the best part of his life telling other people that eating pork is evil, that eating pork will destroy society, that pork-eaters are the enemy within... and then goes on an all-pork diet WHILE STILL DECRYING THE EVILS OF PORK TO ANYONE STUPID ENOUGH TO LISTEN... that's when I have a problem.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:26PM (3 children)
Flawed analogy. Rand was forced to pay into those programs whether she liked it or not just like everyone else. Explain to me how getting her own back in any way negates anything she ever said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:40PM
Because by her own loudly-opined standards1, being reliant on welfare makes her a worthless, useless drain on society and a failure of a human being who should just do the world a favour by quietly starving to death. Why should anyone listen to the rantings of a failure?
1Not mine, hers.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:49PM (1 child)
So taxes aren't theft, we are getting the value we pay for. Thanks for clearing that up.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:07AM
You're not living in a wealthy society with quite a few freedoms and the ability to raise yourself up? You always have the option of getting dropped off somewhere on the Alaskan Highway, be self-sufficient and never pay taxes.