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March 5, 2012 Caracas, Venezuela Here’s a fun question to ask yourself: if you had to disappear and live out the rest of your days below the radar, where would you go? Think about it seriously for a moment… it’s an interesting thought experiment. Assuming you had a dream team of angry creditors,
March 2, 2012 Santiago, Chile When I was a kid, I remember watching that Schoolhouse Rock cartoon about how a bill becomes a law. That single cartoon probably brainwashed three generations of children into believing in the checks and balances fantasy of the US federal government. The reality is what we see everywhere
Date: March 1, 2012 Reporting From: Santiago, Chile Earlier this week, the British government announced that Barclays PLC, one of Britain’s oldest and largest banks, was facing an $800 million penalty for engaging in a tax avoidance scheme. Barclays had been exploiting loopholes in legislation in order to avoid paying a higher tax
February 29, 2012 Santiago, Chile In Warren Buffett’s latest round of gold-bashing last weekend, he described all the gold in the world as a useless cube that would fit snugly within a baseball infield.If you owned such a cube, you would only be able to ‘fondle’ it… but generate no investment return. The
February 24, 2012 Santiago, Chile I want to start off today’s letter by thanking the 120+ folks who’ve made the journey down to Chile over the past two weekends to break bread on the farm. Last weekend’s event was a real delight, and I’m looking forward to tonight’s festivities with the new group.
Eight Easiest And Fastest Citizenships & Passports To Get In 2023 AUTHOR LAST UPDATED Most people think having multiple passports is just for the “James Bonds” and super wealthy of this world. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, ANYONE can obtain dual citizenship and a valuable second passport. Whether
February 21, 2012 London, England [Editor’s note: Professional money manager Tim Price is filling in for Simon today from London. His thoughts below on gold, bonds, and the false pretext of investing in equities is delightfully insightful.] “No government has ever commanded the resources at the disposal of our ungodly Leviathan, which consumes
It’s official. Starting October 1, 2012, Singapore will be the best place in the world to store gold. As a major international financial center, Singapore is rapidly becoming THE place to invest and do business in Asia. Why? Because it’s just so easy. Regulation is minimal, corruption is among the lowest in the
This one’s hot off the presses. Just yesterday, our friends at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a press release on its latest ruling related to foreign ‘money service businesses (MSBs).’ An MSB is a private company that provides certain financial services like check cashing, money orders, title pawn, payday loans, travelers’
February 15, 2012 Santiago, Chile The Foreign Account Tax Compliance act, or FATCA, is one of the most arrogant pieces of legislation ever conceived. President Obama signed the Act into law in 2010, and there are a some key provisions that are important to understand. Reporting Requirements of US Tax Serfs holding Foreign
February 14, 2012 Talca, Chile One of the local papers here in Chile ran an interesting story a few days ago about the number of young Spanish immigrants coming to Chile in search of work. Fed up with the ridiculously high unemployment rate in Spain, and tired of being shut out of every
February 13, 2012 London, England [Editor’s note: Professional money manager Tim Price is filling in for Simon today from London. His thoughts below on gold, bonds, and the false pretext of investing in equities is delightfully insightful.] For value investors of a certain age (e.g. mine), discovering that Warren Buffett could be wrong
February 10th, 2012 Santiago, Chile One of the greatest thinkers of all time was Austrian economic Friedrich Hayek, and his work The Road to Serfdom is an absolute must-read. Hayek’s writings are incredibly powerful in these times. In light of the countless recent examples of governments changing the rules whenever/wherever it suits them
February 9th, 2012 Santiago, Chile After more than a decade of year-over-year appreciation, many people are wondering if gold is just another bubble waiting to burst. No commodity or asset class in our historical record has ever shown such long-term growth, and consequently the “B-word” is being tossed around regularly in financial media.
February 8, 2012 Santiago, Chile One of the most terrifying aspects of George Orwell’s seminal work 1984 was his description of how society had turned into one giant police agency. People were encouraged to rat each other out, groomed since childhood to be unpaid government spies: “[Children] adored the Party and everything connected
