It's the coverage of the random but useful stuff like this that I really like about the Economist (and non-mainstream-American media in general)

. . . become law by June 16th, any American who wants to surrender his passport has only a few days to do so before facing an enormous penalty.

That penalty is buried in an innocuous piece of legislation with the veto-proof name, Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax (HEART) act.

I have vaguely considered trying to gain citizenship in another country. Some passports, I hear, get you into more other countries visa-free than a U.S. passport does, and there's no way that I would want to pay for health coverage in the U.S. at current prices. I hear New Zealand and Scandanavian countries are good choices.

I never thought about it too seriously. A Chinese passport doesn't seem nearly as useful as a U.S. one, and there's also the advantage that I could theoretically move back to the U.S. if I wanted to one day.

The comparison with North Korea is funny:

That expats want to leave at all is evidence of America's odd tax system. . . . Along with citizens of North Korea and a few other countries, . . . they usually pay twice.