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September 7, 2012 Cape Town, South Africa One of the unequivocal laws of the universe is that governments tend to screw up everything they try to do. When life gives them lemonade, they make lemon laws. Even if grounded in good intentions, all they know how to do is blow other people’s money and pass destructive
September 6, 2012 Windhoek, Namibia Whenever you eat at a street side cafe in a developing country, it’s always best to order an extra plate of French fries.That way, as people come around asking you for money, you’ll have plenty of finger food to give away. No more wondering whether the chap is
September 5, 2012 Windhoek, Namibia When you were a kid, did you ever look at a map of the world and notice that South America and Africa seem to fit together like two giant jigsaw pieces? Geologists tell us that this was actually the case… and there are a lot of oil companies
September 4, 2012 Windhoek, Namibia Every time I hear one of these western central bankers or politicians talk about how there’s no inflation, it just makes me want to vomit. This is one of the most arrogant, disingenuous, intellectually dishonest statements one can make. And if these guys ever got off their butts and traveled somewhere,
August 30, 2012 Zurich, Switzerland A few weeks ago, western governments’ war on productive people took an interesting twist when US immigration authorities detained two teenage children of an asset manager based here in Switzerland. The kids were traveling through the United States by themselves to visit extended family, and they were interrogated for six hours
August 29, 2012Rome, ItalyIf you haven’t heard yet, the United States of America just hit $16 trillion in debt yesterday. On a gross, nominal basis, this makes the US, by far, the greatest debtor in the history of the world. It took the United States government over 200 years to accumulate its first trillion
August 27, 2012 Spoleto, Italy All over the world, no matter how good or bad the economy might be in a certain country, there will always be some cites and regions enjoying above-trend population growth and economic expansion. If you are looking for new economic opportunities, a simple strategy is to choose such a place and
August 23, 2012 Spoleto, Italy On the way from San Marino yesterday, I had to stop for some gas near Rimini, a beautiful beach town on Italy’s Adriatic coast. As an aside, Italian gas prices are among the highest in Europe… and the world… at €1.77 per liter (almost USD $8.50 per gallon). Naturally, the vast
August 22, 2012 San Marino They call it “The Most Serene Republic of San Marino”. That’s actually the official name. And with good reason… because it’s easily one of the most ideal places on the planet to be. Perched atop limestone cliffs overlooking the Adriatic coastline, San Marino is the oldest surviving sovereign state in the
August 17, 2012 Carthage, Tunisia Banking tycoon Baron Rothschild is credited with saying that ‘the time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.’ Rothschild took his own advice, making a fortune buying deeply undervalued assets following Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Tunisia’s uprising was some 18-months ago, so it hardly qualifies as blood
August 16, 2012 Carthage, Tunisia Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has made an admirable habit of enraging western governments over the last few years, particularly the United States. Most notably, his release of classified diplomatic documents in 2010 proved ruthlessly embarrassing, shining a spotlight on the absurd, petty little world of international relations. Ever since, the US
August 15, 2012 Tunis, Tunisia rev-o-lu-tion (n) 1. a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system. 2. the single completion of an orbit or rotation. On the morning of December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi started his workday like any other. The 26-year old street merchant laid out the day’s
August 14, 2012 Somewhere beneath the English Channel I’m writing this letter to you whilst throttling at a high rate of speed somewhere beneath the English Channel en route to Paris. My ultimate destination is actually Tunisia, where I will spend the next few days on the ground checking out how the country has fared since
August 8, 2012 Oxford, England I’ve noticed something strange over the past few weeks, maybe you have too. It seems that every ‘contrarian’ website out there has joined together to collectively bash the Olympics and anyone who tunes in to watch. This seems nuts. Nobody should feel guilty for wanting to see athletes in peak condition push
August 7, 2012 Oxford, England Last Friday, US Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced HR 6357, a bill which aims to ‘prohibit the extrajudicial killing of United States citizens’ by the federal government. In other words, in the Land of the Free, they need to pass a law to prevent the government from indiscriminately murdering its own citizens. Now
