"So, you want to live in a place that is likely to grow. You want to own a home there. You want to own 20 more in 20 years. Where should you move to? If you want a large city, you should move here. If you want a smaller city, you should move here. Are a lot of them in Texas? Of course. Does Texas have a state income tax? No. Is the weather good? Yes. Is real estate cheap? Yes. Are people armed? Yes." Continue reading →
"T.S. Kalyanaraman opened a shop in the southern Indian state of Kerala in 1993 and taught customers how to test the purity of their gold to expose cheating craftsmen. He was also the first jeweler in town to attach price tags to his gold and gem collection, angering competitors who accused him of ruining the trade. Two decades later, the 65-year-old has become a billionaire as a 12-year rally in gold prices fails to damp demand in India, the world’s largest consumer of the precious metal. He owns 44 stores in India and plans to open 36 more by March 2014, including five in the Middle East." Continue reading →
"My wife and I traveled to Cuba with 22 other Americans (January 9-16) on a tour organized by Road Scholar; a Boston based nonprofit travel agency formerly known as Elderhostel. Road Scholar has a license issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department to conduct People-to-People interactions. On January 9 we took an early morning one-hour charter flight from Miami International Airport to Cienfuegos, a port city of about 100,000 in the southern central part on the island. In addition to our group dozens of Cuban Americans were on board to visit their families." Continue reading →
"Ordinary North Koreans live in a near-total information bubble, without any true frame of reference. I can't think of any reaction to that except absolute sympathy. My understanding is that North Koreans are taught to believe they are lucky to be in North Korea, so why would they ever want to leave? They're hostages in their own country, without any real consciousness of it. And the opacity of the country's inner workings--down to the basics of its economy--further serves to reinforce the state's control. The best description we could come up with: it's like The Truman Show, at country scale." Continue reading →
"The US boss of a joint venture run by North Korea and the Unification Church of South Korea said Tuesday he has been granted rare honorary citizenship by Pyongyang, in a bid to encourage new investment by him. Park Sang-Kwon, CEO of Pyeonghwa Motors told South Korea’s Yonhap news agency that he received the citizenship in Pyongyang last month. 'This means that North Korea has acknowledged the trust they had put in me. They were also encouraging me to start new projects in the North, more freely and aggressively,' Park was quoted as saying." Continue reading →
"For many years, California entrepreneurs and investors have taken advantage of the deduction. But now the state has apparently decided that it no longer needs to encourage entrepreneurs to start and keep their companies in California. So it is eliminating the tax deduction. Far more startling, the state is eliminating the deduction retroactively--going all the back to 2008. In other words, anyone who sold their California company in the past 5 years and took advantage of the tax deduction is now going to have to pay the tax. With interest!" Continue reading →
"Americans will be subject to a new 3.8 per cent tax on investment income that kicks in this year to help pay for the government's new healthcare program, known as Obamacare. Lawyer Kevyn Nightingale, a Toronto-based U.S. tax expert, estimated tens of thousands of Americans living in Canada could be affected by the new tax and find themselves owing money for the first time. The problem, the Globe said, is that unlike rules that allow expats to claim credits for taxes they've paid in the countries where they live, they can't offset this new tax." Continue reading →
"A number of Taiwan residents with dual nationalities have chosen to renounce their American citizenship to avoid taxes under FATCA, formally known as Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, according to local media reports. Ruling Kuomintang Legislator Lai Shyh-bao was quoted as saying that scores of owners of small- and medium-sized enterprises and management executives have begun proceedings to relinquish their U.S. citizenship." Continue reading →
"The U.S. previously had correctly warned that Western attacks on the Islamist enclave in Mali could inflame Islamic militants worldwide and lead to blowback terrorist attacks in the West. Yet now, in a replay of the war in Libya, with France forcing its hand, the U.S. has been forced to back its ally’s aggressive action and even provide help. Northern Mali was taken over by battle-hardened Islamists, who brought in heavy weapons from Gaddafi’s formidable stockpiles in Libya after the West’s overthrow of him. The U.S. foolishly had trained Malian units led by generals who were Tuareg, an ethnic group that been rebelling against the Malian government for a half century." Continue reading →
"French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday the end goal of France’s military action in Mali was to retake control of the whole country from Islamist militants who have seized the north. 'The goal is the total reconquest of Mali. We will not leave any pockets' of resistance, Le Drian said on France 5 television. Le Drian also said Malian forces had not yet been able to retake the town of Diabaly, seized nearly a week ago by Islamists and then heavily bombed by French planes." Continue reading →