What’s the Bargain?
Let’s just run down the protections the United States has provided to Mr. Saverin, just from what we read in the paper:
1. It provided Saverin and his parents with a safe haven when Eduardo’s name showed up in a kidnapping-for-ransom plan in his native Brazil.
2. It provided a dependable business structure that gave him the confidence to invest in Mark Zuckerberg’s scheme to create what ultimately became Facebook.
3. It provided him with access to a judicial system that came to his aid when Zuckerberg tried to cut him out of the burgeoning growth of Facebook.
4. It provided him with a dependable trading floor on which to enrich himself when Facebook went public (with the shares that the judicial system had protected on his behalf).
Schumer’s correct. To enrich himself by accepting that level of protection from the Crown United States and then pretending he owes this country nothing as he gorges himself on the wealth the country helped him create is immoral. It’s hard to admire any of the people involved with the Facebook saga, but Saverin stands out as a truly contemptible self-seeker.
Haywood - All the points are obvious in the case of Saverin but I think that it is instructive to agree that points numbers 2,4 apply directly to Romney and 1 one indirectly since his family re-immigrated to the US after fleeing it to avoid the law against polygamy. Numbers 5 and 6 could be added in the case of Romney - 5) The US provided tax incentives that made all Banes investments more profitable while many times matching or augmenting those investments. 6) Providing a social safety net into which Bain could dump the casualties from their ventures