Editor's note: The following article is a submission for an American expatriate who currently lives in Panama and it deals with some of the reasons he decided to move his family and his business offshore. We have talked with many American expats over the years about the reasons that caused them to leave the USA and find that this story is a common one among expats. For that very reason we present it to our readers.

I grew up in a country where the palm trees danced melodically to the wind and "tomorrow" was the most used word in the language. A place where electricity and running water were luxuries, not a right; and paved streets and working telephones a dream, not a reality. Those were reasons enough for my father to feel that moving to the USA was the most appropriate move if we wanted to live like modern humans. So he did what he thought was right and moved his family to Florida.

I remember vividly the day we arrived to America. The crisp blue sky and the luscious green of the vegetation blended in perfectly to create a spectacular scenario. What a sale that day! US 1 was packed bumper to bumper with shiny new cars. All the drivers patiently waited one behind the other following the instructions of a battalion of police officers who regulated the afternoon rush hour. No trash, no noise, no chaos! The perfect scenario, the picture-perfect view. Welcome to America, land of law and order. What a welcome to our new home!

As I write these lines, back where I was born, I cannot thank the USA more for the opportunities and the chances that great land and it's people gave me. It would not be fair to say that I do not feel a great sense of gratitude and that I do not owe what I have left to that great land of opportunity.

Today, almost 20 years later, that beautiful picture and that great scenario my father introduced his whole family to is not there. I worked hard for twelve years and was able to accumulate less than 62% of what I earned. The few dollars I was able to keep and I "wisely" invested were taxed again. And when I decided to look for my financial freedom and become my own boss, the regulations and demands of the system kept me "in line", unable to fulfill my dreams.

My wife and I had a dream. We wanted to own and operate a small bed and breakfast in a coastal area in Florida. Nothing fancy, nothing big, just a quaint little place that we could call our own and guests could call heaven. We started looking for the perfect spot and after a few months we found it somewhere on Florida's east coast. We had the money to purchase the place and what we thought would be enough to wait until the business took off. Then we found out about the reach of big brother's arm. We started looking at permits, health department compliance regulations, bureaucratic red tape and the list went on and on and on. Thousands of dollars were to be allocated to satisfy bureaucrats who probably were on the big corporation's pay rolls. Our cash reserves were suddenly coins and we could not live our dream. Months later, we found out that a large corporate hotel chain was looking to open a hotel in the same area we were hoping to. You draw your own conclusions.

Because of this I went offshore to start my own business. I found out through a friend of mine that the government of Panama had passed a law that favored those who invested in fomenting tourism. The Panamanian government granted tax benefits to start tourist oriented ventures as long as I generated employment for it's people and complied with very logical rules. So I, just as my father had done years ago, packed up my family and moved to Panama. I now enjoy a tax free status for 20 years which will allow me to get a solid business started as opposed to a book of regulations and a list of compliance items that are enacted to "dissuade" the middle class American dream.

As much as I hate to say it, it is true; the land of opportunities is now the land of regulations. The American dream has become the American nightmare, and the land of the free has become the land of the policed. Perhaps you do not have to flee the country to make your dream come true, but what you do not know is that dreaming offshore is a lot easier and the nightmares are fewer.

The Libertarian Library has reprinted this article with permission from The Marc M Harris Analysis.

Copyright © 1998 by The Harris Organisation