On Sun, 6 Oct 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

I will express my thoughts, my theories, and will develop systems and ideas as I see fit. However, I have no intention of putting my future at risk by taking steps such as "civil disobedience" or "assassination politics" which could very likely result in multimillion dollar fines (hint: such fines would have great meaning for me) or seizure of my assets and jail time.

Your mileage may vary, but this "amateur anarchist" intends to keep on doing what he's doing and is not interested in "crossing the line" to the point where his assets will be seized.

Interesting that if the transition to crypto anarchy includes any phase of conflict between the state and the individual, failing to properly protect those assets may result in their seizure anyhow. If they are attachable now, as you seem to suggest, then they are attachable then. I know that Mr. May has, in past, been a asset protection "naysayer," but this falls into a general, and disturbing, pattern. I'll wager, though I have no data to back it up, that most of the people in this forum who are uncertain about the safety of their assets don't bother to engage in the most basic of asset preservation tactics, namely: geographic diversification. Surprising considering the perfectly legal options which would protect many of them.

--Tim May

-- I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist unicorn@schloss.li

On Mon, 7 Oct 1996, Lucky Green wrote:

On Mon, 7 Oct 1996, Black Unicorn wrote:

...

I'll wager, though I have no data to back it up, that most of the people in this forum who are uncertain about the safety of their assets don't bother to engage in the most basic of asset preservation tactics, namely: geographic diversification.

Surprising considering the perfectly legal options which would protect many of them.

Not to me. Geographic diversification requires either significant research on part of the individual or trusting one's assets to the goodwill of third party consultants.

Investment in mutual funds requires the same leaps. Doesn't seem to stop people from buying them in record numbers. Why don't more people represent themselves in court? Because it requires significant research. But that's not to say experts are not to be found, nor that they should not be consulted. Unless you are an expert, you shouldn't be mucking around in engineering, crypto design, legal work, or asset protection. Consult an expert please.

There are a number of individuals on this list that have claimed in the past to know the detailed techniques required to achieve such diversification. Not one of them has ever posted "How To" instructions to the list. Sure, we heard many generalities, but never concrete instructions.

No one has ever posted any real worth while "how to" instructions as to how to diversify your stock portfolio either. That's what professionals are paid for. You get what you pay for. If you tell an investment manager that protection from seizure is a consideration in investment, you'll get results. No one bothers to do this. No one bothers to invest in careful ways. It's merely one more criteria and a rather mundane one at that. Yet no one bothers. I posted the massive kludge I did because I hoped it would increase awareness a bit. I did get a pile of encrypted messages asking me if I would help so and so invest $10,000 safely abroad for free. Not exactly the kind of work I do, but it does show the interest.

Tim has asked several times on this list for details, but, to the best of my knowledge, was never provided with a workable solution to secure his fortune, most of which seems to be held in stock in the US.

No one can expect real financial advice over an internet mailing list. Let's not forget where we are afterall. What I will tell you that it is possible, and there is a market for the service. A potent market. I don't know what Mr. May holds, what his interests are, nor what his specific problems or dispositions are. The thought that there is some list member who can say "Yeah, just dump it into a foreign shell corporation and reinvest it all in the U.S." is silly. It's on par with the radio ads which proclaim "You too can make a fortune in heating oil! Doesn't it make sense that prices will rise in the winter?" There is no one good solution, and anyone who sells you a universal package is selling you a bill of goods. Careful, professional, and highest quality service is required to properly design any investment design. Again, you get what you pay for. The precursor to getting the market for asset protection to be wider scale is to increase awareness. In the way that the stock market is available to the individual, I'd like to see (among others) the asset protection market available to the individual. Put the tools out there and begin to isolate the experts from the general public. There are, believe it or not, very few experts today. Most of them in banking secrecy jurisdictions where the clients are. That's stagnating. Let's change that.

Compare this to the dozens of FAQs available for crypto. If they were limited to "find some cryptographic software, it will protect your data", considerably fewer individuals would use PGP.

Crypto is mostly technological know how. It is easily reduced to code. I submit that asset management is not.. Were it then the measure of a profitable bank would be the power of its trading and investment software.

Crypto FAQs have URLs, step-by-step instructions, etc. I have not seen anything even remotely like it for asset diversification.

And if you are sending e-mail this is fine. If you are designing a crypto system for a financial instituion, it is not. I'm surprised I have to point out this difference. I cannot believe that anyone on this list could do more than tell the layman what NOT to do. I can't imagine that advice from someone on this list to a bank manager, or some other "real money" interest would be anything other than "Don't do it yourself, ignore the hype, ignore the how to guides and _seek professional help immediately_." I think also that many of the people on this list ARE the experts. That tends to make comparison to the level of asset protection content on this list a bit skewed. I don't know how many asset protection experts are on this list, I suspect the number is smaller than the crypto expert one. I will be the first to denounce the "pay no taxes" "hide your assets" "second passports" ads you see in the back of the Economist. In my personal opinion, "Scope" and all that perpetual traveler literature is trash. In my professional opinion, anyone with over US$200,000 in free assets can benefit from some restructuring. In some cases with minimal increase in long term fees and often with a _substantial_ increase in personal attention and service. The American banking market is robust, but hardly attentive. It is a retail market and is designed in most cases like fast food counters. U.S. banks make a pile of money on fees because people are lazy in the United States. They would sooner use the atm right in front of them than walk a block and save a buck in fees. Walking might be worth it, but I submit that the consequences of poor asset management are almost never worth it. I suggest that you just walk into a bank in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, perhaps in Switzerland and compare the experience to doing the same in the United States. It may be a bother to get to a real bank, but the difference in service, attitude, and skill can be substantial. You get what you pay for in sweat too. -- I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist unicorn@schloss.li

On Mon, 7 Oct 1996, snow wrote:

Mr. Unicorn wrote:

...

I suggest that you just walk into a bank in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, perhaps in Switzerland and compare the experience to doing the same in the United States. It may be a bother to get to a real bank, but the difference in service, attitude, and skill can be substantial. You get what you pay for in sweat too.

Yeah, but the walk to the bank in Liechtenstein is a real bitch in winter.

You get what you pay for. I thought I said that? Many banks open accounts by mail. I tend to recommend against this because I think it's important to face to face with your bankers.

-- I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist unicorn@schloss.li

On Sun, 6 Oct 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

At 1:40 AM -0400 10/7/96, Black Unicorn wrote:

...

Interesting that if the transition to crypto anarchy includes any phase of conflict between the state and the individual, failing to properly protect those assets may result in their seizure anyhow. If they are attachable now, as you seem to suggest, then they are attachable then.

I know that Mr. May has, in past, been a asset protection "naysayer," but this falls into a general, and disturbing, pattern.

Please call me "Tim," not the stuffy, formal, "Mr. May."

It is not that I am a naysayer, it is that the proposals I have read about or seen discussed here have not been convincing to me, in my particular situation. I've even done some on-site research in the Bahamas and Monaco, and neither seemed a good solution. (And a friend of mine travelled to several other Caribbean islands, plus the Channel Islands, Guernsey, etc. He had several schemes he was working on, but the laws in some of his best prospects changed and his plans fell through.)

I've never been fond of some of these for a myrid of reasons.

My primary concern is *tax avoidance* (I emphasize "avoidance" over "evasion"), not the "judgement-proofing" or "insurance settlement-proofing" most of the published books emphasize. (This is where someone will say, "Ah, but that's because they're the _published_ books, the ones available to Joe Doe in Barnes and Noble. The _real_ stuff is contained in self-published books, the kind the media conglomerates won't touch. Send $295 for this informative pamphlet....")

Someone will indeed say that. I am not that someone. The lack of tax avoidance materials directed towards U.S. interests is mostly because there are very few offshore tax avoidance options open any longer to U.S. citizens. Most have been very effectively legislated away.

It turns out that I would save nothing in taxes by moving some of my liquid assets to some particular coral atoll. (Unless I lie on my 1040, which is always an option.)

An unsurprising result.

If Black Unicorn would do things differently with my money, fine. But I have seen nothing that is very convincing to me.

If tax avoidance is your major concern, there is not a whole lot more I would do. I may have some suggestions, but taxation is not really the kind of thing I could do you any good with. Whatever I did suggest would be more fine tuning than anything else. Unless you are engaged in major international business, there are few taxation breaks for U.S. citizens. I believe I've discussed this before. But the concern I raised was not tax avoidance, for which offshore solutions provide little help to the average U.S. citizen, but asset protection. Political Risk protection.

And I've seen a lot of "creative" ideas that just don't fit my situation. The "perpetual tourist" notion, pushed by Duncan and others, doesn't fit my notion of living in one place. Nor do I want to bounce around Europe for years and years. (A great place to visit, but....) Nor am I much interested in protecting an asset as comparatively trivial as my vehicle by setting up a Nevada corporation which then leases me back the vehicle as part of my Amway distributorship, blah blah. Too much paperwork and "IRS alerts" for too little gain. And so on.

I wont presume to analyze your financial holdings, but it sounds like a substantial amount is in stock. That's vulnerable to all manner of nasties. I don't know your situation exactly, but it is my view that in general, and in my personal experince, holding large amounts of U.S. stock solely in your own name is a bad idea. I'm not suggesting that these assets be hidden from tax authorities, but involving the laws and stability of another goverment in the ownership determination is a nice thing to do. If an individual makes accurate disclosures on his or her tax returns is not something I'm going to get into. I'm simply talking about structuring the assets in such a way that attacks on you personally won't necessarly impoverish you as well as anything else.

...

I'll wager, though I have no data to back it up, that most of the people in this forum who are uncertain about the safety of their assets don't bother to engage in the most basic of asset preservation tactics, namely: geographic diversification.

Surprising considering the perfectly legal options which would protect many of them.

Well, I get pretty tired of these vague claims that float out, with no particulars ever presented. (I know, I know, if I want particulars I should hire you...sorry, not in my plans.)

I'm not for hire. I'd be happy to suggest, in person, some financial institutions in which I have no interests which you may wish to investigate, none of which are less than 100 years old. I can tell you some of the things that might be suggested to you. A banker might suggest estlablishing a foreign trust, in one of many different forms, and reinvesting the funds in the U.S. market as you wish. It will be suggested to you that you make all the proper disclosure to the tax authorities of the United States, but also explained to you that outright seizures of the funds will be resisted with vigor. Records will be outside of the United States with the exception of your tax filings which are of little use to someone trying to outright seize assets abroad. Much better than you can expect in the United States without doubt. You think Citibank is going to fight in court to withhold your records? It might be suggested, if you have more active interests, that a corporation be formed, that the assets be placed under management in that form and left more convertable. The point is that you involve another jurisdiciton in confiscation proceedings. This is not a matter of getting rich quick, or filling out this "declaration of personal sovereignty" form. It's not about tax evasion either. This is only one aspect of asset protection. If you don't trust the U.S. government to give you a fair shake, or if you feel you might eventually be the victim of a suspicious persecution, or if you are wary of the political winds in the United States, I would think you would run, not walk, to deposit some money abroad. Thousands of Europeans saved themselves, their families and their fortunes by being a bit skeptical about keeping their money in one country in the 30's and 40's. This was the original and completely legitimate reason that Switzerland and Liechtenstein became known for banking secrecy. They were equally friendly to Nazi's who hid wealth before during and after the war I might add. This is, in my view, as it should be. Financial institutions should not be interested in the politics of their clients. That nosiness is the path to more intrusive invasions and any financial institution which exhibits these trends should be avoided at all costs in my view. Most of the Islands came to popularity during the 70's and the 80's tax evasion and drug money crazes. Their reliability is to be considered in this context. I'm not selling my services here. I have enough to worry about without the cypherpunks rushing to retain me to manage their money. (As much of a fan of pseudonymity as I am, I will tell you not to give money to a nym for asset protection reasons unless you are that nym and I'm not about to expose myself to someone on the list because they claim to have $25,000 to invest). There are no U.S. banks which will do this kind of thing because banking secrecy and questioning the legitimacy of asset seizure proceedings is something viewed with suspicion in the United States. This is not so everywhere in the world. It is not illegal, last I checked, to give a foreign bank the privilege of managing your money. The day it becomes so is the day it becomes apparent that the United States expects eventually to have to wrech that money from you by force. It will also be the day it is too late. Look, I don't know if there is a revolution around the corner which will make numbers in the Citibank computer disappear or something, but I sleep better knowing that my money is not at the mercy of the political tide in any one country.

(Not directed at Black Unicorn, but at others: Please, let's not start a thread about how stupid Tim is with his money, about how all true goldbugs know how to convert their assets into 17 Kruggerands which they they bury in the backyard, about how foolish Tim is to ignore all the helpful free advice from fabulously successful fellow list members who have figured out how to avoid taxes, protect assets, and live the carefree life of the Perpetual Tourist! If your plan works for you, that ought to be enough--yoiu don't have to sell me on it. And please, no more advice about selling short against the box.)

Thanks for ommiting me. :) Seriously, there are much better banking and management services to be had than exist in the United States. I was talking to another list member about the differences. I don't recall who it was, but he might wish to chime in on the subject. I'll suggest some places to look to anyone who enquires seriously. Currently I don't do direct referrals, and I don't sell the financial services of institutions in which I have an interest. In the rarest of cases I would consider writing, free of charge, letters of introduction to european institutions for extremely serious and credible investors but I make no promises at all. This is not legal advice. You didn't pay for it. Do your homework whatever it is anyone tells you.

--Tim May

-- I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist unicorn@schloss.li