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February 4, 2013 Santiago, Chile Midway through the Super Bowl stadium blackout yesterday evening (which seems a convenient metaphor for the decline of the West… something ripped out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged), I briefly ducked out on my guests to check email and read the news. Some friends had jokingly sent
January 23, 2013 Sovereign Valley Farm, Chile Let’s do a little math problem today. As you probably know, in 2010 the US government passed one of the most arrogant, destructive, poorly conceived pieces of legislation in history, now known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA heaps all sorts of reporting
Reporting from: Santiago, Chile Last week in the Land of the Free, a five-year-old girl in Pennsylvania was labeled a terrorist threat. Fortunately for the citizens of Northumberland County, local authorities managed to detain this nefarious kindergartener before she could exact her villainous deeds on thousands of innocents. Authorities were tipped off after
Location: Santiago, Chile A few years ago back when I used to watch an occasional bit of television, I would always have an internal debate with myself: which was more funny– Comedy Central, or CNBC? It was always a toss-up. One channel has talking puppets. The other has Steven Colbert. Both are satires
January 10, 2013 Santiago, Chile Lately I’ve had a ton of friends and family writing me about visiting Chile. “We’re fed up with this place,” is how the emails usually start. People are hitting their breaking points and starting to consider their options abroad. There are a lot of fantastic places to be.
January 9, 2013 Sydney, Australia [Editor’s note: Sovereign Man Chief Investment Strategist Tim Staermose is filling in for Simon today.] No matter where you live in the Western world right now, the sands of your local economic landscape are likely shifting. To gain your footing, it’s essential to learn classic arbitrage techniques.
January 7, 2013 Talca, Chile There are few original thinkers in professional finance. It’s much easier for an individual to step back and say, “Holy Meltdown, Batman, this system is deeply, woefully, fundamentally flawed…” I can see it, you can see it. But somehow, as soon as they put someone in charge of
December 31, 2012 Buenos Aires, Argentina As we slide into the end of yet another year in which the nominal price of gold has posted a positive return, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on history to get a better understanding of where we are today. It’s obvious
In the days of ancient Rome when the republic was still a republic, Lucius Cassius, one of the city’s most venerated consuls, famously coined the phrase cui bono. It means As a benefit to whom?, and Lucius Cassius, inquisitive and analytical by nature, was always asking the question… whether he was investigating a
Credit expansion, wrote the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, is not a nostrum to make people happy. “The boom it engenders must inevitably lead to a debacle and unhappiness.” That seems a pretty accurate summary of the current situation for the western economies: a debacle, and unhappiness. Von Mises also wrote that
December 14, 2012 Santiago, Chile Many years ago, back when I was a fresh second lieutenant straight out of the academy, my battalion executive officer summoned me to his office one day saying that he had a ‘mission’ for me. I hurried over, wondering what this special mission might be. Several members of
December 10, 2012 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.] Clearly, investing is a probabilistic endeavour. There are no certainties to speak of. We can only operate on the basis of rational analysis and prudent, considered
December 10, 2012 São Paulo, Brazil Brazilians are the luckiest people on the planet. Aside from being blessed with great weather, gorgeous beaches, and beautiful people, their country is one of the few that can exist in a state of complete independence from the rest of the world. They have their own energy
December 5, 2012 Hong Kong [Editor’s Note: Sovereign Man Chief Investment Strategist Tim Staermose is filling in for Simon today.] Since 2009, the benchmark Shanghai Stock Exchange index has been in a deep funk. Last week, in fact, the index hit 4-year lows and dipped below the psychological 2,000 level. Further, a recent
If you want to send a roomful of 100 wealth managers into an icy chill, have Russell Napier address them. This is exactly what happened at Citywire’s Smart Beta retreat at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hampshire recently. Napier’s presentation, “Deflation in an Age of Fiat Currency,” is thought-provoking, and the precise polar