Obama’s poorly coded message to investors is to take your money out of America and keep it out. Whether through excessive taxation, suffocating over-regulation, or thuggish confiscation, the lesson to be drawn by anyone with excess capital is to look for friendlier places to put it to work.

By Claude Sandroff at American Thinker

The list of friendlier places excludes North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran for the time being, but almost everywhere else qualifies. Russia’s president spent several days in Silicon Valley recently looking for adventurous investors and came away with a $1B commitment from Cisco Systems. For Cisco, sitting on a cash hoard of $30B, with years of experience partnering with the burgeoning Russian venture capital industry, the decision was probably not a very tortured one. And what a perfect opportunity for Cisco’s CEO John Chambers to keep his cash as far from Obama’s collection agencies as possible.

President Medvedev promises Cisco a capital gains tax rate of zero; President Obama promises to retire the evil George Bush capital gains rate of 15% and increase it to 20% in 2011. Cisco is merely telecasting to anyone who wants to tune in that Russia is taking advantage of Obama’s lurch towards socialism (or worse). While Russia is portraying itself as a stable bastion for capitalists, America is increasingly seen as the land that mauled Chrysler and GM bondholders. While erstwhile command economies are liberalizing, America under Obama is nationalizing. The lesson is clear: Don’t leave cash within the American financial system, earning minimal returns, with the fear that at any moment your assets can be confiscated or redistributed by a lawless and capricious federal government.

When will Obama decide that Cisco (or Wal-Mart, or Apple, or Google, or any other successful enterprise) is not paying its “fair share”? Aren’t the profit margins earned by Cisco on its routers — sometimes approaching 70% — too rich, or even obscene? Aren’t these gains, in essence, nothing but windfall profits resulting in the eventual gouging of the average American internet subscriber? Cisco might not drill in the Gulf of Mexico for its profits, but man-made disasters could await it too, in the form of arbitrary, BP-like shakedowns of its hard-earned wealth. Why risk shakedowns in gangland Obama when a much more competent criminal like Putin will guarantee your investments?

FULL STORY

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