{"id":872,"date":"2012-05-23T19:38:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T02:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=872"},"modified":"2013-01-05T18:41:03","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T23:41:03","slug":"the-price-of-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"The price of citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After 30 years of living in the United States, my wife is becoming an American citizen. \u00a0I’m excited. \u00a0More importantly, she is \u00a0excited. \u00a0She loves the land in which she was born (Holland). \u00a0And while she is proud of her Dutch family (and visits them often!), she has raised three children here and has worked as a caterer, teacher, and social worker helping American families.<\/p>\n

A hard decision. \u00a0But she wants to be able to vote. \u00a0And she believes in both the idea and people of America.<\/p>\n

Now I read the co-founder of Facebook recently renounced his U.S. citizenship to become a citizen of Singapore. \u00a0Originally from Brazil, he’s lived in Singapore all of that last three years. \u00a0Why is he trading U.S. citizenship for Singapore? \u00a0Taxes, I’m told. \u00a0He didn’t want to pay them.<\/p>\n

Money. \u00a0I understand Eduardo Savarin is changing his citizen because we wants to save some money. \u00a0It isn’t because he is poor (he parents were wealthy Brazilians who moved to Miami for security reasons). \u00a0He is not only wealthy, he is obscenely wealthy. \u00a0And in Singapore, he won’t have to share any of it! \u00a0Oh, and there’s a bonus. \u00a0He’ll be able to enjoy cheap domestic help since Singapore has no minimum wage.<\/p>\n

I hope this guy really like Singapore. \u00a0I hear it is a very exciting place.<\/p>\n

But don’t bring Juicy Fruit. \u00a0I understand that they don’t like chewing gum. \u00a0They also seem to have a fetish for caning. \u00a0They do it for all sorts of things. \u00a0Including immigration violations! \u00a0They are also a big fan of executing people. \u00a0They are not fans of jury trials by your peers. \u00a0Got rid of that in 1970. \u00a0Too messy and inconvenient, I guess. \u00a0I read on Wikipedia that:<\/p>\n

“Amnesty International<\/a>\u00a0has said that some legal provisions conflict with the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that Singapore has ‘possibly the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population’.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One thing everyone agrees on is this: \u00a0Singapore loves money. \u00a0I’m reading in Wikipedia that “the Singaporean economy is known as one of the freest,[62]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0most innovative,[63]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0most competitive,[64]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0and most business-friendly. \u00a0The entry goes on to say:<\/p>\n

“Singapore has the world’s highest percentage of millionaire households, with 15.5 percent of all households owning at least one million US dollars.[94]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Despite its relative economic success, Singapore does not have a\u00a0minimum wage<\/a>, believing that it would lower its competitiveness. It also has one of the\u00a0highest income inequality<\/a>\u00a0levels among\u00a0developed countries<\/a>, coming in just behind Hong Kong and in front of the United States.[95]<\/a><\/sup>[96]<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is a democracy. \u00a0But one of those where the same party has won every election since independence in 1959.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. \u00a0I’m sure Singapore is a lovely place with wonderful people.<\/p>\n

My wife is changing her citizenship based on family, service, and ideals. \u00a0That is America.<\/p>\n

Savarin is changing citizenship based on money. \u00a0That seems to be Singapore.<\/p>\n

I think they both made a decision fit for each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 30 years of living in the United States, my wife is becoming an American citizen. \u00a0I’m excited. \u00a0More importantly, she is \u00a0excited. \u00a0She loves the land in which she was born (Holland). \u00a0And while she is proud of her Dutch family (and visits them often!), she has raised three children here and has worked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":879,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}