How Can We Escape?

Photo by James Qualtrough 🇮🇲 on Unsplash

I spent over forty years in the City of London very largely specializing in pension & trust fund management. The latter decade in tax effective investment. We live in a kleptocracy which seems to have become more malignant year by year. Britain is now more highly taxed & indebted than at any time since the war.
The burden falls most heavily on the professional middle classes, the very poor or very rich are immune.
Europe & North America are similarly hit.
Formal taxation is not the only way governments steal your money.
We tend to think only in terms of income tax, VAT, inheritance tax, fuel & booze duty, corporation tax, carbon tax, rates & the myriad of other lesser taxes.
But the real crippling tax is the more ephemeral but deadly tax of inflation.
Housing, food, booze, energy, holidays, school & college fees have rocketed in price. The middle class standard of living has been frozen for a generation. Remember the traditional middle class family of the 1950s & 60s paid the mortgage brought up the children, paid for the annual holiday & contributed to their pension fund out of one income. Dad was the bread winner mum the home builder & divorce was relatively unusual.
Almost no professional middle class family could now exist on one income. Divorce is rife, the State education system is hopeless & the health care system is dysfunctional.

For fifteen years I have run a website & written books pro bono publico attempting to edit pages on independent scientific, economic & health. I provide information for working families which used to be on tap from public service broadcasting & quality news papers. Long since disappeared.

My gold page celebrates its tenth year explaining, with the help of fellow professionals how gold protects savings from monetary debasement. It is now the most comprehensive gold page in Britain.
I have written before on this magazine on the advantages of this aspect of wealth preservation but I digress.
In my professional City life from which retired in 2001 I was also responsible for making portfolios tax efficient. (Note the $ has fallen 81% against gold since then)
Tax havens were then easier to access especially for inheritance tax reduction.
Let me stress that tax avoidance is legitimate & your responsibility to your family, tax evasion is illegal.
As an Austrian School economist I regard State tax as a form of theft.

In addition to savage taxation in the professional classes the whole way of life for most of us is under threat. Fifteen minute towns, mandatory experimental health treatment coupled with a highly targeted assault on our cultural lives with mass immigration, net zero, gender politics & wokism in our state institutions. Our constitution & principles of English Law are abandoned.

The popularity of my gold pages has begged the question from a number of professional women as to how to manage protection for their maturing families. It is one thing to protect family wealth against inflation but how do we stop the state from simply stealing it. Venezuela has seen its gold confiscated at the direction of Washington. Russia likewise. Whatever your views of world politics monetary confiscation without due process of law threatens us all.
The Founding Fathers sought religious & personal freedoms four hundred years ago. They set sail to the New World.
Where can we go now though for fiscal, cultural & personal freedom?

I thought it might be interesting to try & find out.
My first port of call was Douglas, Isle of Man.
Why?
In my previous professional life it was one of the go to places for wealth preservation. Many might raise an eyebrow, surely there are more exotic places?
Why did I start there ?
The IoM has the oldest parliament in the world, it has a very long history of resistance to the Crown from smuggling to press gangs. It has a flat tax rate of 20%, no inheritance tax & modest duties. There are no pot holes, low crime, little yobbery & litter, no illegal aliens in hotels, largely sensible commissioners (They are by no means perfect) & schools where English the first language for 100% of children. (They also learn Manx, their ancient language).
Interestingly there is an old world courtesy not easy to find outside rural England & mid Wales.
In short a very pleasant place to live & work, many I met went to work for a year or two but stayed.
It enjoys many of the advantages of the Channel Islands but they are really for the super wealthy. The IoM suit the professionals, artists & skilled artisans. I cannot imagine the Isle of Man commissioners taking any notice of the WEF inspired nonsense such as fifteen minute cities, but I suspect vulnerable to WHO fascism, which requires serious political will to combat, but that could change in the future as the scamdemic truth unravels in coming months.
The world looks on once a year for the TT Motor cycle races when the island becomes very crowded with an international flavour. Interestingly most local businesses resist inflating their prices, a worthy reflection on their national psyche.
Manx men & women are dog friendly but parks, beaches & some coastal paths are not. I suspect the result of one or two irresponsible dog owners, the scourge of many a mainland town.

You might wonder why I pick this subject, it may seem trivial but if you focus on what you want out of life & why & perhaps these days importantly what you don’t want, it can settle your mind.
 

© Godfrey Bloom 2023 – Godfrey Bloom Online

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