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October 2, 2013 Santiago, Chile Human beings have an innate desire to thrive. And there are few things more soul crushing than to sit idle and unemployed during one’s most formative and energetic years. Traveling across Europe this summer, I was astonished at the economic decimation in places like Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, and
October 1, 2013 Santiago, Chile Try this experiment. Ring up your credit card company at the end of this month. Tell them that you and your spouse can’t seem to reach an agreement about how to allocate your monthly budget. So in the meantime, you have been forced to shutdown your household… but
September 30, 2013 Sovereign Valley Farm, Pencahue, Chile Last night I was speaking to a long-time mentor. And he’s unfortunately in very poor health at the moment. Most of his condition is a result of lifestyle choices over the past several decades. Too much junk food. Too much excess. Never enough discpiline or
September 25, 2013 Sovereign Valley Farm, Pencahue, Chile It goes without saying that parents want the best for their children… and that each generation wishes the next to be even more prosperous and successful. For the most part, this has been the historical pattern since the Industrial Revolution; every successive generation has enjoyed
September 23, 2013 London, England [Editor’s Note: Tim Price, Director of Investment at PFP Wealth Management and frequent Sovereign Man contributor is filling in for Simon today.] “This took guts.” – Comment by Steven Ricchiuto of Mizuho Securities in response to the Federal Reserve’s surprise decision to refrain from “tapering” its $85 billion
September 20, 2013 Santiago, Chile One of those generally accepted truths that most people believe is that banks are safe. We seem to be told this for our entire lives… that banks, in their grandiose buildings and marble floors, are veritable rivers of money. We’re also told that bankers are conservative fiduciary stewards,
September 19, 2013 En route to Chile “Truth. noun. The quality of state of being in accordance with fact or reality.” This is how my dictionary defines truth: it can be ‘fact’. But it can also mean ‘reality’. The people who control the system have figured this out– if they can change someone’s
September 17, 2013 En route to the United States In mathematics, the term ‘linearity’ describes a relationship in which the rate of change for a variable is constant. If you’re driving from Paris to Frankfurt at 100 kilometers per hour, then this is a linear system– your rate of change (speed) is constant.
September 16, 2013 Tokyo, Japan Suicide has long played a bizarre role in Japanese culture. In feudal Japan, for example, dishonored samurai would often commit seppuku, a suicide ritual that involved ceremonial disembowelment. It was torturous pain lasting for hours. In World War II, the Japanese military churned out suicide attackers known as
September 13, 2013 Hong Kong Financial circles in Hong Kong are buzzing today on the new Goldman Sachs projection that gold may drop below $1,000 an ounce. And in merely suggesting such a death sentence for the metal, Goldman’s pronouncement pushed the paper price of gold contracts down $20+. Many technical indicators underscore
September 12, 2013 Hong Kong In the summer of 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, sparking a worldwide crisis. The Suez links the Mediterranean to the rest of the world, and it’s one of the most important maritime thoroughfares in international trade. So this was a big deal. Britain
September 10, 2013 Bangkok, Thailand It’s a weird indicator, but I sometimes measure the strength of the US economy by the weight of my carry-on bag. You see, friends of mine who don’t have medical insurance (most of them in the US) often ask if I can bring them discounted pharmaceuticals from Thailand.
September 9, 2013 Bangkok, Thailand “Ladies and gentlemen. For the safety and security of all passengers, please remove your shoes as you enter the security checkpoint…” How many times have we heard that? Anyone who has traveled in, out, or through the Land of the Free, or airports just about anywhere in the
September 6, 2013 Singapore “At what point do we just start calling these guys the Stasi,” asked a friend of mine over coffee today. He was, of course, referring to the latest news out of the Guardian– the same British paper that published Edward Snowden’s original whistleblowing interview. First the world learning that
September 5, 2013 Singapore Asia is a damned excited part of the world. And Singapore is the financial epicenter of all of it. For the last 24-hours, banker and fund manager friends of mine have been telling me stories about oil refinery deals in North Korea, their crazy investments in Myanmar, and the