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Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: May 17, 2012 Reporting From: Undisclosed location, United States

In Business, Business/Political Trends Worldwide, Government, International Diversification, Money and Finances, Offshore accounts, Opportunity, Personal on May 21, 2012 at 1:18 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: May 17, 2012
Reporting From: Undisclosed location, United States

I’ve been in the US for a little more than 24-hours. And having flipped through the TV channels trying to figure out what useless drivel big media is passing off as ‘news’, I realized that I’m going to vomit if I hear the word “fair” one more time.

This concept of ‘fair’ seems to be dominating discussion of the US government’s dismal fiscal condition. The talking heads say that it’s ‘fair’ for wealthy Americans to pay higher taxes and bail the country out… or that everyone needs to pay his/her ‘fair’ share.

The whole logic is absurd: you do not ‘fix’ the country’s fiscal imbalances by giving the idiots in charge even more resources to squander… it’s like dumping gasoline on a forest fire. Somehow the debate seems to have missed this point.

This ‘fair’ nonsense is also very dangerous.  Just ask any three-year old– ‘fair’ is completely arbitrary. It’s like a Wiki version morality… if enough people agree on it, it’s fair.

In this case, ‘fair’ is defined in the sole discretion of those who are the direct beneficiaries of confiscating other people’s money. But let’s look at the numbers:

According to the IRS statistical database, the top 1% of income earners in the United States pays roughly 40% of all US individual income tax. They also get audited at least 5-times more than anyone else. Fair?

The other major complaint seems to be that the wealthy are ‘abusing’ capital gains rules in order to pay a 15% rate instead of a 35% rate. Duh. That’s why they’re wealthy, and stay wealthy… they don’t WORK for a living, they OWN assets which are subject to capital gains.

It seems so bizarre that a country once regarded as the freest, most economically enviable in the world would treat its productive citizens with such hostility.

This is where Eduardo Saverin comes in. The Facebook co-founder, who finds himself a few billion dollars richer this week, recently renounced his US citizenship. And, to the intelligentsia, it’s not ‘fair’.

‘Saverin needs to pay his fair share! He owes America more,’ they whine, completely ignorant that the 30-year old is already forking over a $500+ million exit tax (which may end up in the billions).

Apparently it’s not good enough that the company Saverin co-founded has created tens of thousands of jobs, spawned entire industries, and produced oodles of new millionaires. Oh yeah, it’s also made things damn easy for the CIA, NSA, and FBI. You’d think Uncle Sam would pin a medal on his chest.

But no. Saverin left behind a lot of value and decided to move on to greener pastures in Singapore. Now the do-gooders in Congress are cooking up new legislation (the EX-PATRIOT Act) designed to permanently bar ‘renunciants’ like Saverin from re-entering the United States.

It’s interesting that, rather than change their ways of doing business and introducing legislation that provides incentives for productive people to come here and stay here, they maintain policies that chase people away, and introduce new ones to lock the door after they’re gone.

The lesson here (especially for natural-born citizens) is this: simply by accident of birth, you are born with a lifelong obligation that you never signed up for to finance the corrupt misdealings of the political class. And if you choose to abandon this obligation, they will bar you from ever entering your homeland again.

Regardless of what the propaganda says, this is not how a free society treats people. It might look and feel like a representative democracy on the surface, but under the hood it’s the modern day equivalent of feudal serfdom.

The land of the free has certainly fallen a long way.

Until tomorrow,
sig.jpg
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: May 7, 2012 Reporting From: Asuncion, Paraguay

In Business, Chile, Continental Travel, Entrepreneurship, Expatriation, Food and Staples, Gold, Opportunity, Travel on May 7, 2012 at 5:17 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: May 7, 2012
Reporting From: Asuncion, Paraguay

Long-time readers know that I’m unabashedly bullish on agriculture. The supply and demand fundamentals for food speak for themselves, but let’s briefly review:

On the demand side:

1) World population isn’t getting any smaller for now. Even some of the most Malthusian models show a continued rise in global population for the next few decades until peak resources and economic conditions begin to thin the herd. In the meantime, demand for basic sustenance will continue to rise.

2) More importantly, millions of people in the developing world are being lifted from poverty into the middle class. More wealth means demand for more Calories. Not only does this increase general food demand, but often specific demand for things like beef which require far greater resources to produce.

On the supply side:

1) While industrial farming techniques and genetic modification have dramatically increased productive yield, cultivated land is on the decline. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that, over the last several decades, cultivated land per capita has declined by 43% worldwide.

2) Topsoil erosion, anomalous weather, and lack of water availability are becoming especially problematic in certain countries, further reducing the supply of arable land.

3) Rising input costs (particularly oil prices) have pushed many farmers out of business in recent years, reducing the already low number of people who dedicate their lives and land to feeding everyone else.

And of course, there’s the monetary side… arguably the most important factor:

1) Central bankers continue to expand their balance sheets and create more money at an alarming rate. This pushes up the price of real assets like agricultural commodities as there is simply too much paper chasing to scarce resources.

2) Meanwhile, politicians have enacted completely idiotic policies to subsidize and encourage inefficient biofuels, further reducing food output.

It’s true that technology may very well save the world from its agricultural woes one day, but this is unlikely to take place over the next few years.

As such, the above points suggest that, at a minimum, food prices are bound to keep rising.

I see this over and over again throughout the world as I travel, particularly in developing countries where food purchases often comprise more than half of a typical household budget.

Rising food prices mean that people are forced into making very difficult choices. And history teaches us that, while people generally put up with a lot of BS from their governments, all bets are off if a food crisis strikes.

From the French Revolution (Let them eat cake!) to the Arab Spring, messing with someone’s ability to put food on the table for his family has almost always caused a restructuring of the social contract.

Politicians understand this. It’s why some governments (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait) provide retail food subsidies, and why others (Russia, Argentina) foolishly mandate food export bans… or even try price fixing.

Between the obvious supply and demand challenges, the political and monetary idiocy that exacerbates the problems, and the potential revolutionary spark, it makes sense to have a position in agriculture.

The most comprehensive way to do this, by far, is to own agricultural property. Sure you could buy ETFs and futures contracts, but just like in the gold market, such instruments are full of counterparty risk and exposed to a manipulated financial system.

Owning a farm or ranch is like owning physical gold. Instead of trading one kind of paper (fiat currency) for another (ETFs), buying agricultural property or physical gold is essentially trading paper for a real asset.

Regionally, the best deal in the world right now on a risk-adjusted basis for farmland or grazing land is definitely Latin America, specifically Chile, Uruguay, and here in Paraguay.

Paraguay is, in fact, still the cheapest place in the world I’ve seen for agricultural property… particularly in the dry Chaco area where you can pick up an acre of land for the price of a couple of pizzas.

To give you an example, a friend of mine is looking at a 5,000-acre plot in the central Chaco for less than $300,000.

On the other side of the country near the quaint town of Paraguari, I’ve seen a small 50-acre, fully planted personal farm with a spacious home for just over $100,000. Based on my math, they’re selling the house for the cost of construction and giving away the land for free. Not a bad deal…

The carrying capacity, growing conditions, and soil quality in Paraguay are lower than in most of Uruguay and central Chile, but the net yields (particularly for cattle, soy, corn, and stevia) are still strong.

The dark side to Paraguayan agriculture is that ultra-cheap prices have attracted the likes of Monsanto, which is using some of Paraguay’s countryside as proving grounds for its genetically modified seeds.

Overall, though, Paraguay is definitely worth the trip if you’re interested in foreign agricultural property. The barrier to entry is quite low given the ridiculously cheap prices and reasonable foreign asset ownership rules, while the potential for both yield and speculative upside are quite high.

Until tomorrow,
sig.jpg
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com 

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: May 1, 2012 Reporting From: Santiago, Chile

In Business, Business/Political Trends Worldwide, Constitution of The United States, Continental Travel, Entrepreneurship, Expatriation, Gold, Sovereign Man, Taxes, United States Debt on May 1, 2012 at 3:44 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: May 1, 2012
Reporting From: Santiago, Chile

Friedrich von Hayek, a major figure in the Austrian school of economics, wrote in his seminal work the Road to Serfdom,

“By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.”

It’s hard to ignore Hayek’s prescient warning when you hear about the US government’s newest (and 17th) spy agency that it wants to roll out… because hey, 16 spy agencies just isn’t enough.

Or the Transportation Security Administration ‘aggressively screening’ a 7-year old girl with Cerebral Palsy at JFK Airport in New York (causing the family to miss their flight)… and then later issuing a statement defending its agents’ actions.

Or Congress authorizing the IRS and State Department to revoke US citizens’ passports on suspicion of tax delinquency; as of last week, the bill has passed both the House and Senate, and is now awaiting a final agreement before going to the President for signature.

Then there was the National Defense Resources Preparedness executive order that President Obama signed last month– an order which gives the federal government autocratic power to seize and redistribute all agricultural resources in the event of a national emergency.

When you step back and look at the big picture, the writing on the wall seems so clear, so obvious. In Western Europe and the United States in particular, bankrupt, insolvent governments will resort to any means necessary in order to maintain the status quo: keeping them in power at our expense.

This means continuing to reduce personal liberty, eliminate economic freedom, vanquish privacy, debase the currency, stifle innovation, eradicate financial opportunity, and destroy the savings and livelihoods of millions of people.

These tactics are not new, this time is not different. Empires on the slide have always resorted to cannibalism– feeding off the productive class in order to keep the party going a little while longer.

In the fourth and fifth centuries (AD), for example, the Western Roman empire resorted to centrally planned labor allocation, price fixing, rapid currency devaluation, capital  controls, civil asset forfeiture, and tax rates that were so high that the few citizens who remained welcomed the invading barbarian hordes with open arms.

Most of the smart, productive Romans had already moved on to greener pastures long before. As the situation worsened, more and more people began to leave until there was a mass Exodus of over 90% of western Rome’s population in its final decades.

Similarly, the Ottoman Empire, having reached the zenith of its expansion in the 16th century, established a massive, unsustainable bureaucracy that was far more costly than any other administrative hierarchy in history, including Rome’s.

Soon Ottoman bureacrats began to see the people as existing to provide them with position… rather than their position existing to support the people. Sound familiar?

Huge spending in the Ottoman Empire gave way to a massive public debt (on which they defaulted in 1875), which eventually begat currency debasement, inflation, an absurd tax system, and a substantial reduction in civil liberties.

History shows that freedom is almost always the price that societies pay to maintain the status quo and keep their rulers in power. When the system finally collapses under its own weight, though, things can go from bad to worse as the people cry out for CHANGE.

The French, for example, traded an absolute monarch in Louis XVI for an absolute dictator in Robespierre. Similarly, the Russians traded the empire of ‘Bloody’ Tsar Nicholas II for the Red Terror of Soviet Russia.

As the Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky said in 1937, “The old principle of ‘who does not work shall not eat’ has been replaced by a new one– who does not obey shall not eat.”

Two words: Screw that.

Everybody has a choice to make. On one hand, we can either bury our heads in the sand, pretend that everything is OK, and continue being the boiling frog in the pot… just like the poor schmucks who stuck around Rome until the 5th century getting taxed out of their minds and watching their livelihoods inflate away.

On the other, we can recognize that the rise and fall of empires is part of history’s normal cycle… that it’s been happening for millennia, and this time is no different. We can look to the rest of the world and understand that, for all of the turmoil, this is one of the most exciting times to be alive and that the world is full of incredible opportunities.

Just like the Romans who left for Byzantium, the Ottomans who left for Europe, the Europeans who left for North America, there are always regions in the world that are rising while others are falling.

It’s the people who get there first after acknowledging reality and basic historical truth that can reap the greatest reward.

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Until tomorrow,
sig.jpg
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com 

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: April 30, 2012 Reporting From: London, England

In Business, Continental Travel, Gold bulion, Gold coins, Government, History, International Diversification, Jobs, Offshore accounts, Opportunity, Personal on April 30, 2012 at 6:37 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: April 30, 2012
Reporting From: London, England

[Editor's note: Tim Price, a frequent Sovereign Man contributor and Director of  Investment at PFP Wealth Management in London, is filling in for Simon today.]

In a week that saw Britain slide into its first double-dip recession since 1975, we quite fittingly also saw evidence of the sort of insular bigotry and protectionist narrow-mindedness that one associates with that same ugly, painful decade, when Barry Sheerman, Member of Parliament, said:

“I’m getting increasingly worried about the free movement of people across Europe. It’s a very competitive world out there, and my constituents resent that.”

The signs of unravelling are not confined to British shores. French voters in the presidential elections shocked markets by

(a) favouring the socialist Francois Hollande; and
(b) giving almost a fifth of their votes to the far-right extremist Marine Le Pen.

Meanwhile in another turn of the sovereign debt screw, Spain was downgraded toward reality. And the Dutch government collapsed altogether.

Amazingly, the people of Europe just don’t seem that keen on austerity. Yet it’s worth asking– why hasn’t the recession of today produced the same sense of crisis from the 1970s?

Chris Dillow of the Guardian newspaper suggests that average real wages are much higher now, so although standards of living are falling, they’re falling from a much higher level that softens the pain (even though the real pain of austerity hasn’t even really arrived yet).

But there is one outcome from the 1970s that is genuinely to be feared… the risk of which seems to be rising every day, if it has not indeed already arrived: Stagflation.

Stagflation– the utterly painful combination of stagnating growth and steep inflation that marked the 1970s– and will be the natural side effect of extended central bank quantitative easing during a period of widespread deleveraging.

In other words, stagflation is the consequence of printing money that nobody wants.

Moreover, an outbreak of serious stagflation will decimate conventionally managed debt and equity portfolios. And given that most people invest with the crowd, with conventional investments or conventionally managed portfolios, stagflation will wipe the savings and livelihoods from untold masses.

But, we live in strange times– times, for example, that reward bankers handsomely for bankrupting the economy. This is why the likes of so many politicians and financial commentators are able to insist with impunity that central bankers should ‘keep printing more money’ despite never having provided a scintilla of evidence that such tactics work.

Case in point– in a letter to the Financial Times from April 26, 2012, economist Roger Alford remarked:

“The utterly disparate time horizons and the very different experience and skills required… make it virtually impossible for any one person to have the experience and depth of understanding to provide effective leadership [as head of a major central bank].”

Intellectually constrained by his faux science “profession”, Mr. Alford does not take this argument to its logical conclusion: if the institution is so difficult to govern and the role so difficult to effect, why have it in the first place ?

We know the answer to this question. Central banks exist to protect the banking system and to finance the government’s debts at all costs… even if it means bankrupting the taxpayer and productive economy.

Yet the urgent need for austerity and an insoluble sovereign debt crisis make for uneasy bedfellows.

By definition, we cannot shrink our way back to the sort of growth required to service the West’s accumulated debts. Something has to give.

That something will ultimately be social and political disorder on a continent-wide basis, particularly as the taxpayer becomes increasingly frustrated in his obligations to fund the rapidly growing and untenable costs of Big Government.

Such disorder is almost universally feared– by politicians, by markets, by institutions. As the London-based marcoeconomic research consultancy Capital Economics recently commented:

“The last thing that the markets need right now is increased political uncertainty at the heart of Europe at a time when the economic outlook is already bleak…”

The only reasonable response to this is: tough. If social and political disorder is what it takes to shift an unsustainable status quo in which vampire banks and clueless bureaucrats suck the life out of the productive economy, bring it on.

Tim Price
Director of Investment
PFP Wealth Management
Sovereign Man Contributor

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: April 27, 2012 Reporting From: Santiago, Chile

In Business, Business/Political Trends Worldwide, Continental Travel, currency, Entrepreneurship, Expatriation, Gold, Gold bulion, International Diversification, Money and Finances, Offshore accounts on April 27, 2012 at 6:20 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: April 27, 2012
Reporting From: Santiago, Chile 

Today’s letter will be a bit abbreviated, we’re about to jump in the car and head south to our farm for a few days. I’m giving a tour to a couple of friends who are in town, including two students from our Liberty and Entrepreneurship camp last year.

(One of them, Julian, posted a video on the event’s website, BlacksmithCamp.com. He’s the second from the top.)

This is perhaps the greatest benefit that we get from holding these camps each year– forming lasting relationships with bright, energetic, creative young people who understand that the rules of the game have changed… and that they’re going to have to make their own way in life without relying on some insolvent government.

We hold these camps each summer as intensive workshops to help teach critical entrepreneurship skills… and discuss the importance and meaning of personal freedom.

The camps are completely free of charge to attend for those who are selected, and we’ve already received some fantastic applications. It’s encouraging to see how many motivated young people are out there.

The deadline to apply is approaching, and I really want to encourage people who may be interested to apply. You can find out more about it by going to BlacksmithCamp.com.

With that, let’s go to this week’s questions.

First, Jamie asks, “Simon, you spend a lot of time in Chile; what do you think about buying and storing gold in the country?”

Candidly, Latin America in general isn’t really the best region in the world to buy gold. By comparison, Asia (and Europe in some cases) is much, much cheaper and more cost effective to buy.

Chile is among the cheaper places in the region, though premiums can vary wildly in my experience… along with inventory. The 100-peso Chilean gold coin is reasonably popular; it contains a little more than half an ounce of gold and seems to be in stock much more than, say, Eagles or Maple Leaf coins.

Some banks sell gold coins, though on top of the spot price and potentially high premium, you’re going to have to pay 19% VAT. No bueno. Smaller mom n’ pop shops (casas de cambio) that sell gold coins usually don’t charge VAT, but you’ll have to hit up several shops to find the best deal.

What I have found is that, for investors in rare coins, Chileans frequently unload gold and silver coins at antique fairs (there’s one every week near my house across from the W Hotel) at far below numismatic value.

In terms of storage, most Chileans just use bank safety deposit boxes…though there are a few private options. Brinks (www.brinks.cl) provides secure storage service for valuables, and they have a few locations around the country.

Next, David asks, “Simon, what do you recommend is the best way to move email and web hosting offshore?”

This is an easy one, though it’s not something that most people think about. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. (and I suppose a handful of people are still inexplicably using AOL) will be the first ones to hand your data over to the government, freeze you out of your accounts, turn off your websites, etc.

Moving abroad to an offshore provider gives you an extra layer of protection against your email data or website being turned over to some bureaucrat.

I’ve put together two guides that I’m pleased to give away to you absolutely free. The first is a general guide to Offshore Hosting and Email that includes a number of links and offshore service providers that you can use.

The second is a step-by-step guide with screen shots, for how to actually transition your email to an offshore provider.

Using the information in these free reports, you should be able to start planting a ‘digital flag’ immediately.Have a great weekend.
Until tomorrow,
sig.jpg
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com 

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: April 26, 2012 Reporting From: Santiago, Chile

In Business, Constitution of The United States, Continental Travel, currency, International Diversification, Offshore accounts, personal and business on April 26, 2012 at 5:02 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: April 26, 2012
Reporting From: Santiago, Chile

“Should we crawl into bed with the IRS?”

Thanks to the steady barrage of US government regulation ranging from the obtusely  insipid Dodd-Frank financial reform to the impossible-to-implement Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), banks everywhere have to make this decision.

In short, Congress has arrogantly passed legislation to control foreign banks on foreign soil. FATCA, for example, requires that every single bank on the planet enter into an information-sharing agreement with the IRS.

Banks that don’t comply will face severe penalties, including being subject to a steep withholding tax on funds sourced through the US.

In the long-run, Congress will have put the final nail in the coffin of the US banking system as the market will simply establish an alternative destination to source, clear, and transfer funds.

For now, though, many banks are simply walking away from US customers altogether… throwing their hands up and saying “we would rather not do business with this entire market rather than deal with Uncle Sam ever again…”

To be clear, this is a bank-by-bank decision that each one is making individually. And we’re seeing -a lot- of banks around the world, from Singapore to Panama to the Cayman Islands, say ‘thanks but no thanks’ to US customers.

But, as the saying goes, whenever one door closes, another one opens. OK, maybe not exactly 1 for 1… but there are still plenty of options around the world where US taxpayers can establish foreign bank accounts to diversify their savings abroad.

Not a bad place to visit your money...
Not a bad place to visit your money…
[As an aside, establishing a foreign bank account is one of the most important steps to take in order to safeguard your livelihood. It's critical to move a portion of your savings to a jurisdiction that is not under the control of the bureaucrats in your home country, so that your funds cannot be frozen with a single mouse click or phone call.]While I’m not able to list (for the most part) individual banks, the following jurisdictions have multiple banks that are still happy to work with US customers. I should know, I have an account in most of these places:1) Andorra. This tiny low-tax nation nestled high in the mountains between France and Spain has long been a favorite of well-heeled Europeans. Today, despite all the turmoil in the rest of Europe, Andorra has one of the most well-capitalized banking systems on the continent.

2) St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This country is more famous for being the filming location for Pirates of the Caribbean rather than as an international banking center. The banking sector is still quite small, and as a result, banks are still willing to do the extra paperwork required to deal with US customers in order to boost their balance sheets.

3) Mongolia. Perhaps one of my favorite places in the world to bank, you can get paid upwards of 13% interest in Mongolia, easily the fastest growing economy in the world.

4) Belize. Even though it’s just a short flight from a number of cities in the US, several banks in Belize will open accounts for US citizens through the mail without you having to leave town.

5) Hong Kong. One of the original international banking centers, Hong Kong remains one of the most efficient places in the world to bank. It’s cheap, it’s fast, and you have unfettered access to opportunities in mainland China. Many of the big name banks, including HSBC, will still open accounts for US citizens.

6) The Bahamas. With the local economy already so closely tied to the United States, most banks in the Bahamas have made the decision to stay in bed with Uncle Sam rather than rock the boat.

7) Chile. Among the most well-capitalized banks in Latin America, Chile’s banking system marches to the beat of its own drum. It’s very difficult (though possible) to open an account without obtaining residency first, but fortunately it’s a straightforward process to obtain residency in this thriving country.

8) Turks and Caicos. Like the Bahamas, T&C’s economy is heavily dependent on the United States for trade, tourism, and its financial sector (which constitutes 30% of all economic activity). While a few private banks have closed their doors, some larger multinationals (like Scotiabank) still readily accept US customers.

Until tomorrow,
sig.jpg
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com 

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: April 2, 2012 Reporting From: Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada

In Business, Chile, China, Constitution of The United States, Continental Travel, currency, Entrepreneurship, Gold, Money and Finances, Offshore accounts, Opportunity on April 2, 2012 at 5:37 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: April 2, 2012
Reporting From: Vancouver, British Colombia, CanadaAfter a long trip up from Santiago and making stops in both Miami and Dallas, I arrived to Vancouver last night a bit tired… but excited for the the trip ahead. I’m leaving in just a few hours for a 2 1/2 week, 11-country tour that includes Hong Kong, Singapore, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and much more.[By the way, I highly recommend the new Fairmont Pacific Rim if you find yourself in Vancouver.]

Aside from getting a lot of business done and inking a few deals that my partners and I have been working on, I’m excited to just be spending time in the region again. I enjoy strong, vibrant economies where optimism and opportunity dominate the scene– not chaos and negativity.

There are a lot of places around the world that fit this mold– their economies are healthy and people are legitimately confident about the future. From Estonia to Hong Kong to Andorra to Singapore, there are common elements in these countries that have greatly contributed to their success:

1) They’re small.
2) They have governments that generally stay out of the way.

An obscure 20th century economist named Leopold Kohr wrote extensively about these factors; my colleague Tim Price introduced me Kohr’s writing last year, and his 1957 book The Breakdown of Nations has proven quite prophetic.

In the book, Kohr extols the virtues of ‘smallness’ and indicates that most of the political challenges in the world– military over-extension, debt, poverty, bureaucratic stodginess, etc.– are caused by the unsustainable expansion of nations.

For Kohr, it is simply a matter of scale. Once a country becomes too large, any system of government will become oppressive.

Small countries, conversely, don’t have the resources to wage wars or build huge bureaucracies. They’re forced by circumstance to allow the market to work and the private sector to flourish.

Singapore and Hong Kong are great examples. They’re not waging wars, dropping bombs, or establishing far flung military bases. Both countries are devoid of any natural resources, and their only means of survival and success have been to step out of the way and let the market take over.

In a matter of decades, they have become two of the most prosperous nations on the planet, and remain among the healthiest today.

Conversely, the ‘big’ countries of today have assembled massive states which have spawned massive governments that require massive resources to administer… and quite oppressively I might add.

Democracy may look great on paper, but in modern practice of today’s ‘big countries’, it is a terrible perversion of the principles of liberty. Like Rome and the Ottoman Empire before, the individual now exists to support the state, not the other way around.

This is exactly what Kohr warned would become the ‘crisis of bigness’. Faced with economic challenges and a debilitating cost structure, big governments and bloated bureaucracies will only beget more bigness, more bloat… until the only possible outcome is collapse.

It reads like a playbook of exactly what’s happening today in the west. Already suffocating from too much debt, governments are going deeper and deeper into debt, and hiring more and more workers to administer ‘stimulus programs’ and an ever-expanding tax code.

To politicians, the solution is to expand the state and expand their authority. This is the exact opposite of what they should be doing… and as has happened numerous times throughout history, it may very well lead to an entire system reset.

Until tomorrow,
sig.jpg
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com 

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: March 26, 2012 Reporting From: London, England

In Business, Business/Political Trends Worldwide, Chile, China, Constitution of The United States, Continental Travel, currency, Expatriation, Fuels, Gold, Interesting places, International Diversification, Offshore accounts, Opportunity, Personal, Social Security, Sovereign Man, United States Debt on March 26, 2012 at 6:22 pm

 

Notes from the Field

Date: March 26, 2012
Reporting From: London, England

 

[Editor's note: Tim Price, a frequent Sovereign Man contributor and Director of Investment at PFP Wealth Management in London, is filling in for Simon today.]Acclaimed screenwriter William Goldman (The Princess Bride, among many others) famously began his autobiography with three telling words: “Nobody Knows Anything.”

The same logic would seem to apply to much conventional reporting of the financial markets. Any investor looking for informed analysis of market developments can therefore save themselves a few minutes every day by choosing not to read any of the ‘Companies and Markets’ section of the FT, which typically constitutes a fantastic piece of fiction.

(If there is a more thankless task in finance than trying to explain why certain markets did what they did yesterday, we don’t know what it is… unless it’s working in the PR department at Goldman Sachs.)

But as Soc Gen’s Dylan Grice has frequently pointed out, human beings are suckers for stories. We seek meaning from just about everything, and financial markets are no exception. Why else would otherwise rational people shell out ~£2.50 every weekday just to read a selection of vapid and contradictory speculations about recent market price action?

————————————————————————————————–

Is this How America Will End? For several years, S&A Founder Porter Stansberry has been predicting the “End of America.”

Not the literal end to our nation or political system, mind you… but rather a loss in the world’s faith in the U.S. dollar system.

And now, Porter says he knows exactly how this will all play out. He’s published brand-new research to bring you up to speed. You can access the full file here.

————————————————————————————————–At the risk of going out on a limb, here is our own inherently subjective “take” on the current market environment: Investors seem to believe that the euro zone debt metastasis has gone into remission. There is an uneasy calm to both equity and bond markets — it feels like the calm before the storm.

Both Goldman and Barclays have issued research notes recommending equities over bonds. It is certainly difficult to get excited about G7 government bond markets except from the perspective of shorting them. As Stratton Street recently observed, there are over $10 trillion in marketable US government securities, yet their average yield amounts to less than 1%.

But it might yet be dangerous to adopt Goldman’s binary response which is to advocate blanket support for stocks. This is not a black vs. white issue; just because most government bond markets are uglier than sin does not automatically justify going ‘all in’ on the stock market, even as deposit rates remain painfully thin.

We nurse an ongoing fear that equity markets are being largely supported by the inflationist antics of central banks. This may have led to many investors becoming addicted to the effects of cheap credit, and they may not like it when cheap credit is ultimately withdrawn.

But whatever is driving equity sentiment, there are undoubtedly pockets of value for those with the stamina and patience to embrace them. In Don Coxe’s latest and typically excellent letter, “All Clear?”, he highlights the opportunity in precious metals mining companies:

“If there were one over-arching theme at the BMO Global Metals & Mining Conference, it was that the gold miners are upset and even embarrassed that their shares have so dramatically underperformed bullion…

“On the one hand, they were delighted in 2011 when it was reported that since Nixon closed the gold window, a bar of bullion had delivered higher investment returns than the S&P 500 for forty years– with dividends reinvested. But some gold mining CEOs find it an insult that what they mine is more respected than their companies’ shares…

“In our view, we have entered the most favourable era for gold prices in our lifetime, and the share prices of the great mining companies will eventually outperform bullion prices.”

Gold remains one of the most widely misunderstood assets in the investible world. Indeed, it may be better to refer to it as a means of saving that does not expose the saver to counterparty or credit risk or to the depredations of the monetary authorities.

As Don Coxe makes clear, governments are running deficits “beyond the forecasts of all but the hardiest goldbugs five years ago; central banks are printing money and creating liquidity beyond the forecasts of all but the most paranoid goldbugs a year ago.”

The choice for the saver is essentially binary: hold money in ever-depreciating paper, or in a tangible vehicle that has the potential to rise dramatically as expressed in paper money terms.

Gold prices have now softened, offering investors yet another chance to get back on board what is perhaps the most compelling form of money- and portfolio insurance available.

Why large cap gold miners are being so undervalued by equity investors relative to gold is an open question that takes us back to the realms of stories. That the discount exists is undeniable; all that is required to crystallise that value, we believe, is patience.

Tim Price
Director of Investment
PFP Wealth Management

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

Sovereign Man, Notes from the Field Date: March 21, 2012 Reporting From: Santiago, Chile

In Business, Business/Political Trends Worldwide, Chile, Constitution of The United States, Gold, Government, Social Security on March 21, 2012 at 6:21 pm


Notes from the Field

Date: March 21, 2012
Reporting From: Santiago, Chile

This is something out of an Orwellian science fiction movie.

The Italian tax authorities are now field testing a new system called ‘redditometro’, a database thatautomatically collects and analyzes taxpayers’ tax data vs. spending data based on automated collection of credit card and banking information.

For example, if the credit card reports show that you have an expensive gym membership… or perhaps you bought too fancy of a mobile phone, then the system will flag you if your annual tax liability isn’t commensurate with such spending habits.

Big Brother would be proud.

Preliminary results showed that a full 20% of Italian taxpayers will be initially flagged , much to the delight of agency director Attilio Befera. According to Befera, “We have €120 billion of tax evasion, and to cope with this emergency, we need to take emergency measures…”

Naturally, the way to deal with fiscal urgency is to treat everyone like a suspect. Befera has dismissed criticism from privacy groups, wrapping himself up in a blanket of duty and righteousness–’desperate times call for desperate measures’ and all that nonsense.

It’s the same rationalization you see with these lowlife government agents who molest children at airports; they look in the mirror each morning and convince themselves that they’re keeping the country safe from criminal terrorists. Their mission is noble… and that justifies the means.

Italy is in a world of hurt, no doubt. Despite all the talk of austerity and eliminating the budget deficit by 2013, recently released central bank figures from Banca d’Italia showed that the 2011 state budget balance actually deteriorated by 11.49%.

Moreover, the first numbers released so far for this year show a whopping 197% increase in central government borrowing requirements from January 2011 to January 2012. Hardly the right direction.

Throughout it all, Italy’s public debt has been steadily rising and is now closing in on 2 trillion euros, much larger than the country’s economy. Meanwhile GDP actually shrank in the 4th quarter of last year by an annualized rate of 2.6%.

In typical form, the government is sticking it to the people. Buying Italian bonds has become an issue of patriotism with strong calls and intense public pressure for citizens to plunk down their hard earned savings and bail out the government. They even have footballers and celebrities endorsing government bonds.

On the flip side of this coin are the Big Brother financial tactics– shaking down every last citizen based on a computer algorithm’s judgment of their spending habits. Given that one of the categories that the tax authorities are looking at is investment spending, buying Italian bonds may very well, in fact, get people flagged by Skynet.

If you step back and look at the big picture, this system is truly mind boggling. For years, politicians have been running wild, showering themselves with power and privilege at taxpayer expense.

When the magical fairy dust ran out and it became time to pay the toll, they’ve made it a patriotic issue for society to bail out their malfeasance, and are now proceeding to milk the people dry through Draconian tax policies and collection schemes.

Serf. Slave. Milk cow. Pick your metaphor. Their privilege, our expense. It’s an absolutely absurd system that’s ripe for change.

Until tomorrow,
sig.jpg
Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com 

This article appears courtesy of SovereignMan.com: Notes From The
Field
, a free newsletter dedicated to individual freedom,
internationalization, asset protection and global finance. For a
complimentary subscription, visit http://www.SovereignMan.com

AMERICA, The U.S. Population, Wake Up…George Soros is HERE…..via e-mail to Admin..

In Business, Business/Political Trends Worldwide, Constitution of The United States, Government, History, Homeland Security, Money and Finances, U.S. Congress on March 20, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Glen Beck has been screaming about this guy for 2 years. Every one calls Glen crazy. Maybe now that CBS “60 Minutes” has investigated George Soros and came to the same conclusion as Glen, maybe America will wake up. 

Whether you like President Obama or not you should read this. 

It is quite long but very true. This guy funds hundreds of organizations doing their best to bring down America. I always said Obama was a puppet for some one and now we know the puppeteer. Ironic that Obama has blasted Wall Street and Soros made all of his money working on Wall Street in hedge funds and speculation. 

The two parts of Wall Street that has done the most damage. Speculation is one of the driving forces for the oil prices now.
Soros, One Evil HumanThis is very interesting material. Glen Beck has been developing material to show all the ties that Soros has through the nation and world along with his goals. This article begins to piece together the rise of Obama and his behavior in leading the nation along with many members of Congress (in particular the Democrats, such as the election of Pelosi as the minority leader in Congress)

If you have wondered where Obama came from and just how he quickly moved from obscurity to President, or why the media is “selective” in what we are told, here is the man who most probably put him there and is responsible. He controls President Obama’s every move. Think this is absurd? Invest a few minutes and read this. You won’t regret it.

Who is Obama? Obama is a puppet and here is the explanation of the man or demon that pulls his strings. It’s not by chance that Obama can manipulate the world. I don’t think he knows how to tie his shoe laces. After reading this and Obama’s reluctance to accept help on the oil spill you wonder if the spill is part of the plan to destroy the US ? “In history, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet someone planned it.”/ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Who Is George Soros? He brought the market down in 2 days. Here is what CBS’ Mr. Steve Kroft’s research has turned up. It’s a bit of a read, and it took 4 months to put it together. “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States . “George Soros”

George Soros is an evil man. He’s anti-God, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-good.” He killed and robbed his own Jewish people. What we have in Soros, is a multi-billionaire atheist, with skewed moral values, and a sociopath’s lack of conscience. He considers himself to be an elitist World class philosopher, despises the American way, and just loves to do social engineering and change cultures.

György Schwartz, better known to the world as George Soros, was born August 12, 1930 in Hungary . Soros’ father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of the Esperanto language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first global language, free of any national identity. The Schwartz’s, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the Gentile population, as the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s

When Hitler’s henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary , to oversee the murder of that country’s Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him on his rounds.

Soros has repeatedly called 1944 “the best year of his life.” 70% of Mr. Soros’s fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year, yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect” During an interview with “Sixty Minute’s” Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his “best year.”

KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson. SOROS: Yes. Yes.

KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from your fellow Jews, friends and neighbors. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.

KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many, years. Was it difficult?

SOROS: No, not at all. Not at all, I rather enjoyed it.

KROFT: No feelings of guilt?

SOROS: No, only feelings of absolute power.

In his article, Muravchik describes how Soros has admitted to having carried some rather “potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble.” Be that as it may. After WWII, Soros attended the London School of Economics, where he fell under the thrall of fellow atheist and Hungarian, Karl Popper, one of his professors. Popper was a mentor to Soros until Popper’s death in 1994. Two of Popper’s most influential teachings concerned “the open society,” and Fallibilism.

Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. (Then again, I could be wrong about that.) The “open society” basically refers to a “test and evaluate” approach to social engineering. Regarding “open society” Roy Childs writes, “Since the Second World War, most of the Western democracies have followed Popper’s advice about piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, and it has gotten them into a grand mess.”

In 1956 Soros moved to New York City, where he worked on Wall Street, and started amassing his fortune. He specialized in hedge funds and currency speculation. Soros is absolutely ruthless, amoral, and clever in his business dealings, and quickly made his fortune. By the 1980s he was well on his way to becoming the global powerhouse that he is today.

In an article Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote for “The American Thinker” she says, “Soros made his first billion in 1992 by shorting the British pound with leveraged billions in financial bets, and became known as the man who broke the Bank of England. He broke it on the backs of hard-working British citizens who immediately saw their homes severely devalued and their life savings cut drastically, almost overnight.”

In 1994 Soros crowed in “The New Republic,” that “the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire.” The Russia-gate scandal in 1999, which almost collapsed the Russian economy, was labeled by Rep. Jim Leach, then head of the House Banking Committee, to be “one of the greatest social robberies in human history.”The “Soros Empire” indeed. In 1997 Soros almost destroyed the economies of Thailand and Malaysia. At the time, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad, called Soros “a = villain, and a moron.” Thai activist Weng Tojirakarn said, “We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people.”

The website Greek National Pride reports, “Soros was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia and caused trouble in Georgia , Ukraine and Myanmar [Burma] Calling himself a philanthropist, Soros’ role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. He is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality.”

France has upheld an earlier conviction against Soros, for felony insider trading. Soros was fined 2.9 million dollars. Recently, his native Hungary fined Soros 2.2 million dollars for “illegal market manipulation.” Elizabeth Crum writes that the Hungarian economy has been in a state of transition as the country seeks to become more financially stable and westernized. Soros deliberately driving down the share price of its largest bank put Hungary’s economy into a wicked tailspin, one from which it is still trying to recover.

My point here is that Soros is a planetary parasite. His grasp, greed, and gluttony have a global reach. But what about America? Soros told Australia’s national newspaper “The Australian.” “America, as the centre of the globalised financial markets, was sucking up the savings of the world. This is now over. The game is out,” he said, adding that the time has come for “a very serious adjustment” in American’s consumption habits. He implied that he was the one with the power to bring this about.”

Soros: “World financial crisis was “stimulating” and “in a way, the culmination of my life’s work.”

Obama has recently promised 10 billion of our tax dollars to Brazil, in order to give them a leg-up in expanding their offshore oil fields. Obama’s largesse towards Brazil came shortly after his political financial backer, George Soros, invested heavily in Brazilian oil (Pet rob ras).

Tait Trussel writes, “The Pet rob ras loan may be a windfall for Soros and Brazil, but it is a bad deal for the U. S. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that oil exploration in the U S could create 160,000 new, well-paying jobs, as well as $1.7 trillion in revenues to federal, state, and local governments, all while fostering greater energy security and independence.”

A blog you might want to keep an eye on is SorosWatch.com. Their mission: “This blog is dedicated to all who have suffered due to the ruthless financial pursuits of George Soros. Your stories are many and varied, but the theme is the same: the destructive power of greed without conscience. We pledge to tirelessly watch Soros wherever he goes and to print the truth in the hope that he will one day be made to stop preying upon the world’s poor, that justice will be served.”

Back to America. Soros has been actively working to destroy America from the inside out for some years now. People have been warning us. Two years ago, news sources reported that “Soros [is] an extremist who wants open borders, a one-world foreign policy, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and on and on. This is off-the-chart dangerous.”\\ In 1997 Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote, “Soros uses his philanthropy to change or more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people. His “open society” is not about freedom; it is about license. His vision rejects the notion of ordered liberty, in favor of a PROGRESSIVE ideology of rights and entitlements.”

Perhaps the most important of these “whistle blowers” are David Horowitz and Richard Poe. Their book “The Shadow Party” outlines in detail how Soros hijacked the Democratic Party, and now owns it lock, stock, and barrel. Soros has been packing the Democratic Party with radicals, and ousting moderate Democrats for years. The Shadow Party became the Shadow Government, which recently became the Obama Administration.

Discover The Networks.org (another good source) writes, “By his [Soros'] own admission, he helped engineer coups in Slovakia , Croatia , Georgia , and Yugoslavia . When Soros targets a country for “regime change,” he begins by creating a shadow government, a fully formed government-in-exile, ready to assume power when the opportunity arises. The Shadow Party he has built in America greatly resembles those he has created in other countries prior to instigating a coup.”

November 2008 edition of the German magazine “Der Spiegel,” in which Soros gives his opinion on what the next POTUS (President of the U. S. ) should do after taking office. “I think we need a large stimulus package.” Soros thought that around 600 billion would be about right. Soros also said that “I think Obama presents us a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U. S. needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights.”

Although Soros doesn’t (yet) own the Republican Party, like he does the Democrats, make no mistake, his tentacles are spread throughout the Republican Party as well.

Soros is a partner in the Carlyle Group where he has invested more than 100 million dollars. According to an article by “The Baltimore Chronicle’s” Alice Cherbonnier, the Carlye Group is run by “a veritable who’s who of former Republican leaders,” from CIA man Frank Carlucci, to CIA head and ex-President George Bush, Sr.

In late 2006, Soros bought about 2 million shares of Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s old stomping grounds. When the Democrats and Republicans held their conventions in 2000, Soros held Shadow Party conventions in the same cities, at the same time. In 2008, Soros donated $5,000,000,000 ( that’s Five Billion ) to the Democratic National Committee, DNC, to insure Obama’s win and wins for many other Alinsky trained Radical Rules Anti-American Socialist. George has been contributing a $ billion plus to the DNC since Clinton came on the scene.

Soros has dirtied both sides of the aisle, trust me. And if that weren’t bad enough, he has long held connections with the CIA. And I mustn’t forget to mention Soros’ involvement with the MSM (Main Stream Media), the entertainment industry (e. g. he owns 2.6 million shares of Time Warner), and the various political advertising organizations he funnels millions to. In short, George Soros controls or influences most of the MSM. Little wonder they ignore the TEA PARTY, Soro’s NEMESIS.

As Matthew Vadum writes, “The liberal billionaire-turned-philanthropist has been buying up media properties for years in order to drive home his message to the American public that they are too materialistic, too wasteful, too selfish, and too stupid to decide for themselves how to run their own lives.”

Richard Poe writes, “Soros’ private philanthropy, totaling nearly $5 billion, continues undermining America’s traditional Western values. His giving has provided funding of abortion rights, atheism, drug legalization, sex education, euthanasia, feminism, gun control, globalization, mass immigration, gay marriage and other radical experiments in social engineering.”

Some of the many NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) that Soros funds with his billions are: MoveOn. org, the Apollo Alliance , Media Matters for America , the Tides Foundation, the ACLU, ACORN, PDIA (Project on Death In America ), La Raza, and many more. For a more complete list, with brief descriptions of the NGOs, go to DiscoverTheNetworks. org.

Poe continues, “Through his global web of Open Society Institutes and Open Society Foundations, Soros has spent 25 years recruiting, training, indoctrinating and installing a network of loyal operatives in 50 countries, placing them in positions of influence and power in media, government, finance and academia.”

Without Soros’ money, would the Saul Alinsky’s Chicago machine still be rolling? Would SEIU, ACORN, and La Raza still be pursuing their nefarious activities? Would Big Money and lobbyists still be corrupting government? Would our college campuses still be retirement homes for 1960s radicals?

America stands at the brink of an abyss, and that fact is directly attributable to Soros. Soros has vigorously, cleverly, and insidiously planned the ruination of America and his puppet, Barack Obama is leading the way.

The words of Patrick Henry are apropos: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
————–

Above information researched by CBS Steve Kroft
Americans have their heads in the sand….wake up everyone!!!!

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