Posted  Originally on Sep 10, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |  

Britain has become a textbook example of what happens when politicians believe capital is imprisoned by geography. Billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Rokos is leaving the UK and moving his tax residency to Greece. This is a man who reportedly paid about £330 million in British taxes last year, ranking him among the country’s largest individual taxpayers. He also pledged £190 million to Cambridge University. Britain should be asking how to keep people like this. Instead, government keeps looking at successful people as if they are nothing more than an ATM that cannot walk away.

Greece understands something London has apparently forgotten. Capital goes where it is treated best. Greece offers qualifying wealthy newcomers a flat €100,000 annual tax on foreign-source income for as long as 15 years, provided they satisfy the requirements, including a substantial investment in Greece. Foreign assets can also receive favorable inheritance-tax treatment. Athens has now gone even further to attract the financial industry, introducing a 5% tax on bonuses and carried interest for qualifying private-equity and hedge-fund executives who relocate as part of substantial Greek operations. Britain has been moving in precisely the opposite direction.

This is not some abstract economic theory. Rokos reportedly paid himself £477 million last year and handed roughly £330 million to the British taxman. Now Greece gets the wealthy resident, potentially an Athens office, employees, spending, investment, property purchases, and all the economic activity that follows capital. Britain gets to congratulate itself for being “fair” while watching one of its largest taxpayers leave. Politicians never understand that the objective should be to expand the tax base, not destroy it.

Foreign income and gains become exposed to UK taxation after the new four-year window, and longer-term residents can also bring worldwide assets into the inheritance-tax net. Meanwhile, Britain already has a 45% top income-tax rate in England, and carried interest is taxed far above Greece’s new preferential 5% rate for qualifying executives. Then politicians float wealth taxes and wonder why wealthy people start calling Athens, Milan, Dubai, and Switzerland.

This is exactly how capital flight begins. It does not require people loading gold onto ships in the middle of the night. Today capital is electronic and international. A hedge fund manager can change residency, establish another office, move key employees, redirect investment, and eventually move an entire ecosystem around him. Governments remain trapped in this medieval idea that because somebody became wealthy in Britain, Britain somehow owns that person forever. It does not.

The socialists always imagine they can make the rich “pay their fair share.” Fine. Rokos paid approximately £330 MILLION in one year. How much more constitutes his fair share? According to one estimate raised in Parliament, replacing that tax contribution would require the income taxes of roughly 38,000 average workers. When somebody paying hundreds of millions leaves, government does not magically collect the same money from an empty chair. The burden ultimately shifts toward everyone who cannot leave.

Greece is doing what governments SHOULD do when they need investment: compete for it. Athens wants these people to actually establish operations there, which is why the new financial sector incentives include requirements intended to ensure that firms have a genuine economic presence.

Britain is suffering from the same disease spreading throughout Western Europe. Debt keeps rising, government refuses to seriously reduce itself, and therefore politicians constantly need another source of revenue. They raise taxes because reforming government is politically difficult. When revenues disappoint, they raise taxes again. Eventually confidence breaks and productive capital begins leaving. Then the remaining taxpayers must carry an even greater burden.

Greece was the poster child of the European sovereign debt crisis not long ago. Now Greece is standing at the door welcoming capital while Britain is effectively showing it the exit. That should embarrass every politician in Westminster. You cannot tax a nation into prosperity, and you cannot confiscate capital that has already bought a ticket to Athens.

Posted  Originally on Sep 10, 2026 by Martin Armstrong |  

QUESTION: I know you have said you disagree with the whole tariff war. I believe you also said when you were here in Calgary, there was no way even Alberta could or should become the 51st state. Would you comment on this latest post of Trump draping the American flag over all of North America?

EP

ANSWER: This whole 51st state nonsense is just unrealistic. If Alberta became the 51st State, it would disrupt politics for then they would get two senators and untold congressmen. The Democrats would demand Puerto Rico and Guam be allowed to become states along with Washington DC. If somehow all of Canada and Mexico became part of the United States, who knows what that would disrupt politically. I suspect it might benefit the Democrats more than the Republicans. I could threaten to flee to Aruba anymore.

So, is Trump just poking fun at Carney? If he spoke to the State Department, they would surely be screaming are you insane! I’m not sure this could be serious even on Trump’s part. The process for a territory to become a state is established by the U.S. Constitution and granted specifically to Congress, not the president.

The specific authority is found in Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution. This section is often referred to as the “Admissions Clause” and states that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State…without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

Therefore, Trump I believe is having fun and he has to know that his meme is absolutely impossible. It seems to be more of a dig at Carney, but it was Trump’s rhetoric of making Canada the 51st State that got Carney elected in the first place. This tariff war is absurd and there is NO RESOLUTION that will benefit both sides anymore. We do not know the demands that actually broke the deal since both sides point at the other. I can say that Carney’s claim that the deal would restrict Canada’s sovereignty by limiting its ability to strike trade deals with other countries is really dodgy. That is the #1 way people circumvent tariffs and trade restrictions. You cut off trade with a given country so they cut a deal with Canada and the products appear to then be Canadian.

Chinese companies have been setting up plants in Mexico, and this strategy is widely seen as a way to circumvent U.S. trade barriers. Mexico’s location and its trade agreement with the U.S. make it an attractive “nearshoring” destination for Chinese manufacturers. I helped Japan to reduce its trade surplus buying gold in NYC, exporting to London to resell and this revolving door worked.

If Carney really killed the deal claiming this impeded on Canada’s sovereignty, I cannot believe he really believed that when in fact that is the #1 way to circumvent trade issues used by everyone.

If we examine the numbers, Canada did have a trade deficit in 2025. The data shows that its merchandise trade deficit widened significantly over the course of the year. For 2025, the annual merchandise trade deficit was C$31.3 billion. This was the largest annual shortfall since 2020 and a substantial increase from the C$7.2 billion deficit recorded in 2024. Focusing on just the USA & Canada, in U.S. dollar terms, Canada had a trade surplus with the USA in 2025 of about $50 billion. This implies that others are importing goods into Canda creating their trade deficit overall, but are then selling then to the USA creating the trade surplus with the USA.

Chinese-made goods are shipped to Canada, relabeled as Canadian, and exported to the United States without sufficient processing to change their country of origin. This is customs fraud if it is done to evade U.S. tariffs. U.S. and Canadian authorities have both acknowledged that this occurs, although its overall scale is difficult to measure. Recently, U.S. officials have stepped up scrutiny of alleged transshipment. The White House has claimed that rerouting goods through third countries—including Canada—is costing billions of dollars in lost tariff revenue, and U.S. Customs has increased enforcement efforts using AI and other investigative tools.

Carney may think he is defending Canada on this issue, but an all out trade war with the USA will also reduced the imports from other countries to circumvent trade restrictions. This is part of the problem.

Trump’s taunting Canada as the 51st State does not help matters when it is impossible anyway. Then there is the very issue of tariffs and jobs. This is a Marxist philosophy but overpaying people to keep jobs means the people are subsidizing jobs overpaying people who should get another job. You do NOT grow a head of lettuce in the Saudi desert importing war and top soil so the cost is $10 a head when you can buy it from someone else got 50 cents. You do NOT make American Great Again by bringing back overpaid jobs.

Detroit destroyed its auto industry like Mandami assuming they had endless revenues that they could tax. Not one auto manufacturer was left by 1937 in Detroit. They did not leave because of cheaper labor. They left because of taxes.

NYC was once the largest port in the USA. Between taxes, regulation, and corrupt unions, they chased everyone out to other ports. Until we look at the REAL reasons manufacture left, you cannot bring these back to America and they are exploited by progressives like Mandami. JP Morgan now employs more people outside of NYC and the financial Wall Street is abandoning NYC all because of Mandami. NYC will be a shadow of itself by 2030.

Categories:Canada