Purchasing Atlantis from a debt-ridden country, but with autonomy built into the purchasing agreement?
Many of us, led by db and Kh, have been debating the subject of immigration. I would love to see America get back to her pre-1913 roots, but for numerous reasons, I think that such effort is a waste of time and resources.
Freedomforall, in response to my suggestion that America sell its "government land" to pay down at least part of its debt, asked if such a sale could include the right to secede.
That prompted me to consider the possibility of buying land from debt-ridden countries (some of which are experiencing hyperinflation) at rockbottom prices, with autonomy being required as a condition of purchase. As debt piles up all around the world, there will be some opportunities along these lines for vultures like myself to come scavenge the debris. Perhaps an island off the Venezuelan coast with some nearby oil? In our previous discussions about a physical Gulch, our premise had been to buy land that the nearby government would largely ignore based on its track record of freedom (or lack thereof). That may be the wrong premise to work from. Why should we not provide a value for value trade in their time of desperation? The question then is how long do we wait. The price for the land in such desperate countries should continue to go down, but the conditions in our own countries might get bad enough that we could get trapped by 10-289.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Thailand are working toward the development of micronations off their coasts. Interestingly, Google is developing the first such island. The linked article describes some of the first work along these lines.
Freedomforall, in response to my suggestion that America sell its "government land" to pay down at least part of its debt, asked if such a sale could include the right to secede.
That prompted me to consider the possibility of buying land from debt-ridden countries (some of which are experiencing hyperinflation) at rockbottom prices, with autonomy being required as a condition of purchase. As debt piles up all around the world, there will be some opportunities along these lines for vultures like myself to come scavenge the debris. Perhaps an island off the Venezuelan coast with some nearby oil? In our previous discussions about a physical Gulch, our premise had been to buy land that the nearby government would largely ignore based on its track record of freedom (or lack thereof). That may be the wrong premise to work from. Why should we not provide a value for value trade in their time of desperation? The question then is how long do we wait. The price for the land in such desperate countries should continue to go down, but the conditions in our own countries might get bad enough that we could get trapped by 10-289.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Thailand are working toward the development of micronations off their coasts. Interestingly, Google is developing the first such island. The linked article describes some of the first work along these lines.
(Having been born in the USA, aren't we all native Americans?)
One of the priorities would have to be making Atlantis a porcupine that's too much trouble to bother with. Make the cost to the attacker too high. Defense is always cheaper than offense.
I would attribute it if I knew the origin. I know Robert Heinlein used it in a few places.
Either the nation that sold the land or some other nearby nation would be unable to resist such a plum and would want to seize it. How would that be stopped?
You can have all the legal contracts giving you autonomy but governments are perfectly capable of ignoring them when there are assets to grab. Ask the Indians about this. They had autonomy on the lands they contracted for by treaty.
There would be lots of noble sounding reasons but the bottom line would be "pay up or we take you over".
Entering into a monetary agreement with them will give them legitimacy, stave off the inevitable, and undermine their indigenous population who are sick of the looters' rule.
What's more, if it is a looter state, it is pretty much a guarantee that they will never honor the agreement. They will whip up Marxist propaganda about how the land was stolen from them by greedy capitalists who took advantage of them in their time of need and who robbed them of their most resource rich land (and it must be the most resource rich, just look at how much better they are doing than us).
The attempt to reacquire the purchased land by force would be inevitable.
Once you pay Danegeld, how do you get rid of the Dane?
There must be a rule in the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition that applies here, something like JP Morgan's, "The best time to buy is when there is blood in the streets."
That said the closest to our hearts is probably number 257: "When the messenger comes to appropriate your profits, kill the messenger."
Obviously this will not stop a determined stronger opponent. That's where the second prong of the rests. The Swiss banking system rests. By holding vast sums of money from countries all over the globe, the Swiss make all these countries "allies." If a nation were to be aggressive against the Swiss, they have the money from the other countries of the world "hostage". Each of the other countries is now has an incentive to back Switzerland.
So the question may be what service/commodity can Atlantis offer to the world to gain a similar protection? Two items come to mind. One might be a true gold backed currency. Implemented not only as a physical currency, but also as a digital currency, like bitcoin, except every digital coin is backed by gold. With the master tracking of what digital coins are valid kept on servers within the Atlantis, every holder of the currency is now dependent on Atlantis.
The second item would be digital storage/processing. By supplying a neutral location Data Center which is not encumbered by the regulations and government interference like other nations, many multi-national corporations might decide to use Atlantis Data Center services. This would require an investment in data connectivity (ie fiber cables to provide multiple links to the global internet infrastructure), but would provide another guarantee against outside interference.
The basis of this strategy is to make in in the best interest of the world to protect Atlantis's independence.
Plus it would give us access to an increasingly crucial sphere of influence.
Sometimes you don't need to rely on "new" - just "more effective". ;)
Jan
Price for conquest will have to be high before this could be done without that sword of damocles hanging overhead.
Partnering with a company with clout, like Google or Apple would help.
Simply because to verify your access, you submit info from a third party and check what you see for that info.
Robert J. Ringer ("Winning Through Intimidation") identified three sources of power:
Real power comes from your legal or, if need be, physical strengths in comparison to those of a potential adversary.
Abstract power comes from the image you project to the world.
Performance power comes from what you can do for a potential ally.
Here I address a real power concern. It does no good to buy from the United States. Obama (or Mrs. Clinton) is likely to send the Navy in to repossess Atlantis if you buy from this country. You can buy from a country not having a navy, and then build your own navy double-quick. And watch out for the navies of known piratical nation-states in the region.
No His mind is not for rent,
To any God or government.
Rush - "Tom Sawyer"
1. Carriers - two to start. One to stand guard and the other to launch counter-offensives.
2. Submarines - if possible a half a dozen would be a good start. Four to go with the counter-offensive group (COG) and the other two to stay with the shoreline defense group (SDG). The larger the island the larger the SDG needs to be for full coverage.
3. Shoreline defenses - some well placed and defensible AA and AS missile batteries and gun emplacements. Also, while it may seem James Bond-ish, some torpedo launchers would aid in stopping landing craft.
4. Ground launched SDG fighter aircraft
For maximum efficiency all aircraft should be capable of carrier and land basing. The emphasis would need to be on interceptors and anti-ship jets (ie. torpedoes, missiles, and maybe bombs). Ideally as much as we could we would want to avoid sending humans out at range because we would likely be outmanned. That would likely mean some pretty extensive drone use - both in the air and at sea.
This last bit is, I think, where our best advantage would be. All naval powers are predicated on projection of force - which is reasonable for the size of the respective nations. However, our first and highest priority is local defense. As such we could design and employ highly specialized technology. Submersible drones are not something I see talked about publicly. However, an island nation with an armada of relatively tiny drones (compared to nuclear subs) would be able to employ something we've not seen at sea in many a generation (if ever): swarm tactics. In my estimation all current naval war vessels are rather susceptible to swarm tactics from under the waves. Primarily because it has never been an issue.
Just because it is cool, sit back, close your eyes and take a moment to envision a submarine version of an aircraft carrier. Except instead of launching aircraft, it controls and launches a multitude of undersea attack craft. If that is difficult, watch some Babylon 5 where they deploy their defensive one-man fighters. ;)
It is also possible they may be quite susceptible to swarms of small air drones, but that is less likely and a bit easier to counter. Depending on the drone you could use undersea drone carriers for this too.
The size of the drones would lend themselves well to "stealth" technologies. Cloaking something small is nearly always less expensive and simpler to accomplish than large things.
Combine submersible drone swarms with a well, and purposeful, built sensor net and you could be a greater threat to an armada than any air force simply by exploiting their existing weakness. As a side benefit pirates would not stand a chance.
We could also "go back" to something from the past (which is actually still constitutional in the U.S.: privateers. I'm sure there would be some who would be up for that. Especially if they were to hire themselves out as naval escorts for shipping fleets for income when we are not under attack or imminent threat of it (though if it were me I'd have a clause in my escort charter which gave me contractual escape to come back and defend the homeland if needed).
Edit: additionally modern carriers also carries a significant contingent of landing forces - something we wouldn't really need. Smaller carriers are a compound saving when designed for them. Smaller means less mass which means either less propulsion/power requirements or more maps budget can be allocated to defensive mass such as plating or active countermeasures.
Ultimately I think for a nation such as we're contemplating remote capabilities such as (initially RPV) drones are a primary resource. However, current and near-term tech is still low enough we'd need to either dramatically improve it or still have humans in the field.
Regarding cost, drones and small size are surprisingly cheap.
On a side note I'd argue one of the earliest forms of small combat drones were the San Antonio Bat Bombs of WWII. ;) As to the scale, I'm a very strategic thinking person so I can't help but look at the long term, then figure out how to get there. I left the space assets out for at least some sense of brevity. Given the piracy issue, there is a reasonable expectation that you could start relatively small as a naval export service (yeah, I giggled when I wrote that) and leverage that into a larger capability. Plus, when The Great Shrug came, pulling the escorts back to serve as a defensive navy would certainly add to the problems of looters looting looters.
Not to mention if you ever wanted to enact repossessions you know all of the sea trade routes... ;)
Unless a defense agreement could be made with a very well armed nation, we would be labeled as a cartel sponsoring financial terrorism and taken down by the biggest looter quickest to the punch. You can imagine the headlines.
A lot of people in our country know something is wrong. They're looking for answers and leaders. Now is not the time to abandon the battleground of ideas to the statists on the Left or the Right.
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/a...
Given all they've lived through, I can't blame them for trying to find more freedom. They are facing the real issues that would be inherent in any geographical 'Gulch'. I wouldn't call it thriving. I wouldn't leave here to go there; but it's probably a step up for them.
Liborland is not thriving, but Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia are not exactly thriving either.
In which case we'd have plenty generally worth taking overall but the cost (and difficulty) of doing so would be dramatically higher. These factors are one of the prime reasons early America was able to grow and thrive as it did.
Emigrate when you are leaving to go elsewhere
migrate while on the move
Immigrate when you are arriving elsewhere.
Taxes south of the border are not all that high. Depends on what status you hold.
Deduct the cost of not owning any property north of the border and treat the USA as someplace to visit (family considerations) when compared to a state like Michigan to which even Florida represents a huge reduction in cost but further south it can be a tremendous savings. I can't give you chapter and verse but up north in Mexico there are two ways besides just renting or leasing. One is buy or build the house and lease or rent the land. The other is own the land and the house. The third is live on a boat or in an RV.
tough if you are still working but instead of investing in US Land for retirement purposes think of south of the border land and visiting the grand kids.
Lot of changes down here all for the better. But as for working or starting a business that's another story - although why if you are retired?
It's a worth while goal. Especially considering the alternative.and more especially with a mini ice age starting up in the next few years.
Consider that a well deserved dig on the global warming scam.
(no panic needed for global cooling the prediction is .1 Centigrade cooler)
Which leaves us with the Mama Gump Theory.
Stupid is as stupid does.
It does always seem to come back to that and then like Hammus Alabamus to Ecstasy Sauce distill down to those who do and those who only talk. Which is not directed at any one but rather a general evaluation comment.
That leaves starting something in plain sight that would be NOT considered a threat to other countries until it was large enough to effectively defend itself. In the age of smart bombs and drones, I think it would be very difficult to actually defend a freedom loving country. Therefore, I think that the idea of a gulch prior to the absolute collapse of the statist countries is not practical.
Better to hide in plain sight preparing for the time one can "return" to the rebuilding when other ountries dont have the resources to attack a new startup.
Your point is a correct one.
In Shadows Live Under Seashells I had a man-made island called Teminus. Essentially it was a series of mountains with a wide valley at its center. In the book it was used for leisure and a departure point for one of Earths space elevators. In this way Atlantis could reside in international waters beside any coastal city in the world and trade for needed resources.
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d98u3jr47Fc/max...
A good idea may be to find an underwater mount (similar to New Utopia idea), for anchorage, but to be honest, I always thought of free floating. Engines-props can keep us in a stable position.
Once we are in international waters, who could object?
were buying rightfully belonged to that government
you were buying it from in the first place? Or did
that government confiscate it from somebody else
first? And then would not that victim be the rightful
owner, and not you?
Case 1: The land is private, but in a debt-ridden country. In that case, I can do value-for-value exchange with the individual(s), but have to also negotiate with the government(s) regarding autonomy, non-aggression, etc.
Cases 2 and 3: I think this is what you are asking about. The government claims to own the land. According to Objectivism, "government land" is land no one owns, but everyone pays for. Government undoubtedly confiscated it, whether it be via taxes on everyone or by failure to pay taxes by an individual or company. In the latter case of government auctioning off land for unpaid taxes, then there is no "victim", and I have no problem buing the land guilt-free. In the former case, however, of selling land that was never owned by individuals or companies, then there is an endless number of victims, but none were truly owners.
One of the Ferengi rules of acquisition applies here.
162. Even in the worst of times somebody turns a profit.
(I would like that to be me.)
a) In providing a value for value transaction, I need feel no guilt.
b) They are getting something to continue their meager existences. Eudaimonia criticized this concept earlier today, but if someone chooses to live in a country that is so debt-ridden that it is bankrupt, then either they are moochers, they are looters, or they are too dumb to get out.
c) For those smart enough to get out and want to come to a country of sanity, one of us will gladly employ them.
Those of us who have properties will begin a "time-share" Gulch where we can unite and teach for a week or two (or however long the stream-of-thought can last).
Then it will have time to properly grow into a "net" of sorts where skills and thought are shared and proselytized.
It will eventually become massive if we can last that long.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/20...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sc...
The Project Panther reference is in part because Florida Tech's mascot is the panther.
This first appeared in my local newspaper 6 days ago.
I'm thinking renting or leasing might work to get around the above. Using San Andreas (Columbia) off the coast of Costa Rica even with 200 days of rain per annum. Population I seem to recall about 85,000.
Location is indeed important. The main reason is geographics above water and below coupled to weather. What do you find in non or low hurricane areas? People.
The answer is still a combination of skills. Hide In The Open in such away as contributing the least amount possible to Washington DC in a low taxing area from the other country then fill in the blanks. Subsistence farming is not one of the correct choices in most areas. no power no sewer, no malls. It's not as easy as people think. Very few Jedadiah Smith's and Jim Bridgers left.
However if you think of the Gulch as a State of Mind it's easily done. If you prepare in advance.
Let's check something. A reason to move south of the border 'as a repeat tourist visa or free zone dweller might be raising the standard of living by living in an area with a favorable exchange rate and in an area of the new country with a low crime rate. Contrary to Hollywood and the former mainstream propagandists that starts about 50 to a hundred miles south of the USA/USM border.
Assume as I don't no significant changes. What is my first assumption. Taxes in the US will go up after the next election The question is how much.
Just one example. they also may curtail the movement of money across the border. happened many many times before. Plan on what to do in case of some similar eventuality.
Why all of this?
So you won't starve or get sick and die. That applies to any place in the USA come to think of it.
When I was a kid one could plan for and move to Canada and pick up some small plot of land. Same in Australia. A few iyears ago a popular books was live in Mexico for $500 a month.
None of that is true anymore.
As for working in other countries? Yes but most has to be under the table or because you married a local.
Which brings me to my senses but still leaves me living your dream.
But in an objective AND practical sense I'm thinking of changing the name of my hailing port to Galt's Gulch. or better yet Bight, ME. the only state I've never visited.
I consider taxation robbery; therefore, even if he
had been delinquent, I still consider that person a
victim.
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