Our
constitutionally guaranteed rights are under attack, not
from some outside threatening force, but from our own
government - and our own people. For instance, the First
Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University conducted a survey
during February and March of 1999 and found that 53 percent
of those questioned believe that the press has too much
freedom. That is an increase of 15 percentage points from
1997.
"It's a
humbling reminder that fundamental rights of expression can
disappear if the press and public are not vigilant," said
Ken Paulson, the center's executive director.
The survey
was conducted to explore Americans' commitment to the
forty-five word First Amendment that guarantees freedoms of
religion, speech, the press, petition, and assembly. The
poll identified freedom of speech as one of the most
cherished of constitutional rights, followed by freedom of
religion and the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.
Nevertheless, when asked to name any of the rights
guaranteed by the First Amendment, 49 percent of those
questioned could not.
You don't
have to be a Rhodes scholar to know that the First Amendment
is under relentless assault on a daily basis, whether from
adverse court decisions, proposed laws, fanatic religious
groups, or citizen initiatives. Only 65 percent of those
surveyed thought that newspapers should be able to publish
freely without government approval of a story - down from 80
percent in a 1997 survey.
The
quotation from Bill Clinton listed above is not based on any
personal conviction. He was reflecting the current attitudes
toward personal freedom and the willingness of a growing
number of people to surrender certain freedoms in exchange
for some sort of security they believe will come with more
government control. This does not bode well for Americans
with money who enjoy the privileges of freedom. The federal
government works like a shark, it has to constantly devour
things in its path (i.e., by passing new laws) or it will
die.
With the
stock markets and individual productivity at record highs,
you might think people would be clamoring for less
government, but the truth is that 10 percent of Americans
own the lion's share of the wealth. This leaves plenty of
people in the other 90 percent to elect sycophants like
Hilary Clinton who relish using the government as a tool to
redistribute the wealth.
The
Litigation Explosion
Another
method of redistributing the wealth is to file a lawsuit and
ask the court system to assist you. The rising tide of
frivolous litigation filed by plaintiffs and their lawyers
has created an omnipresent threat to anyone with a positive
net worth.
One in
three Americans will be involved in a lawsuit sometime in
their life. The staggering cost in attorneys' fees to defend
a lawsuit is many times more onerous than the potential
outcome of the lawsuit itself. In the past, lawsuits were
filed when a point of law needed to be clarified or the
amount of a damage claim needed to be decided by a jury, but
that's changed. Because judges lack the backbone to assess
plaintiffs and their lawyers for attorneys' fees sustained
by the defendants in frivolous or groundless lawsuits, there
are legions of underemployed lawyers who have turned a
lawsuit into a live hand grenade. They roll it into a room
full of defendants and see who will pay.
There is
no purer form of extortion than a lawsuit; the defendant has
to decide whether to pay the plaintiff or pay his attorney
to defend the case. Oh, sure, every state bar association
pays lip service to enforcing a code of professional
responsibility allegedly designed to restrain its members
from filing unfounded lawsuits, but the real story lies in
the chilling statistics showing the alarming increase in the
number of lawsuits filed each year.
When I
started in business more than ten years ago, I had never
heard the words asset protection to describe a specific
field of business. It isn't that people were poorer back
then or that wealthy people didn't want to protect their
wealth, but with the explosion in litigation, the increasing
number of new lawyers, and the construction of new law
schools, litigation has become a blood sport used to employ
the overpopulation of lawyers.
Nowadays,
there is absolutely no moral compass involved with a
lawyer's decision to file a lawsuit. Judges have the power
to check this trend, but they are all lawyers themselves
with a self-interest in perpetuating the system. Congress
has the power to limit lawsuits, but most are lawyers as
well. And if they're not, they feast on the campaign
contributions of lawyers and their special interest
groups.
Ironically, collection lawyers, government agencies
such as the IRS, and everyone outside the asset protection
business make every effort to characterize asset protection
as dishonest, fraudulent, or worse. Of course, their motives
are transparent. They denounce anyone who successfully
thwarts their efforts to collect or seize assets, disrupting
the stream of income flowing in their direction. And they do
more than talk.
The
American Trial Lawyers Association is a brutally powerful
and influential private interest group that generously
supports any candidate, usually a Democrat, who helps them
keep the ground rules of litigation tilted in their favor.
They will fight for their right to litigate at all costs.
Litigation is their lifeblood. Be damned the innocent
parties who stand in their way.
The
Wealth Factor
Up until
the 1980s, you had to be a Rockefeller, Ford, or Kennedy to
be considered a wealthy person. With the advent of the
personal computer industry in the 1980s, and the explosion
of commerce on the Internet, the number of wealthy people
has grown exponentially. There has never been a larger pool
of people who need and can afford asset
protection.
As a
result, asset protection has become a growth industry.
Increasingly, people with wealth or even a modest nest egg
must come to terms with the fact that the threat from the
federal government or a frivolous lawsuit is
real.
I don't
pretend to know what the current definition of a wealthy
person might be, but I know for certain, as a former
collection lawyer, that there have never been so many
collectable defendants.
The
Peace of Mind Factor
There are
also people who will never be sued or be the subject of any
investigation. They may have quietly inherited their money
or passively invested their assets wisely. They live
modestly and spend prudently. No doubt, some people would
argue that the members of this group needn't worry or invest
in asset protection.
Nevertheless, at least one third of my client fall
into this category. They're not concerned about divorce or
the IRS; they just like to know at least some of their
assets are out of sight. They're not doomsday prophets
hoarding briefcases full of gold coins; they just derive
some comfort in the knowledge that part of their net worth
is outside the grasp of the U.S. court system.
I call it
bulletproof asset protection. They call it peace of
mind.
W.S.R
Chapter
1
