Comment Cash grab of a bankrupt country (Score 1) 825
The thing is: The money this tax is aimed at is not in the US and - by international law - was not earned in the US. To impose such a tax, the US must do some combination of violating signed treaties and forcing foreign jurisdictions to subject themselves to US domestic law. The US might have been able to pull something like that off, say, during the Cold War. Now? After the 2008 banking crisis? After the total muck the US has made of the Middle East? After Snowdon and the NSA revelations? Forget it, the US has lost too much credibility for such a naked power/cash grab to ever work.
Option a: The current US administration really is this clueless. Sadly, a real possibility, given the other idiocies they have shown.
Option b: This is a distraction. Just like a magician - attracts your attention with one hand, while, the other hand...someone is getting his pocket picked.
The US is bloody bankrupt, with current debt approaching $20 trillion and unfunded liabilities of around ten times that amount. It's all about cash, to keep paying for the bread and circuses, so that the political elite can put off the inevitable reckoning just a little bit longer.