“SMART DIPLOMACY?” Obama Has United the World…in Opposition to Bad U.S. Tax Policy. “This FATCA law basically imposes a huge regulatory burden on all companies that have international transactions involving the United States, and all foreign financial institutions that want to invest in the United States. It is such a disaster that even the New York Times has taken notice.”

Cynics might suggest that this is the beginning of capital controls designed to keep American capital in America, or at least in positions where it will be more easily confiscatable by the government during an Argentine-style financial collapse and response. That may be paranoid, but on the other hand the cynics have had a pretty good track record lately. And, of course, simply by provoking such fears measures like this will almost certainly prove counterproductive.