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June 7, 2011 Panama City, Panama Several years ago, I was briefly involved in a deal here in Panama in which the local owner of several fast food restaurants was looking to sell. If memory serves, he had the Panamanian master franchise agreement agreement for a large North American burger chain with over
June 6, 2011 Panama City, Panama One of the things that’s really great about Panama is how open the country is to foreigners. All nationalities are welcome in Panama, and if you spend any time on the ground, you’ll quickly find people from six continents and dozens of countries. Panama is an example
[Editor’s Note: Tim Staermose is filling in for Simon today from Macau] June 3, 2011 Macau When you read these reports about the “most expensive places in the world,” there are a few that routinely top the lists. Hong Kong is one. Macau, with its glitzy and glamorous lifestyle, is starting to make
June 2, 2011 Undisclosed location Here’s a great story. I left Santiago yesterday, quite happy that I had managed to lock up a major property deal at the 11th hour right before my international departure. I cut it so close, I literally had to run from my attorneys’ office back to my flat
May 31, 2011 Santiago, Chile As I told Sovereign Confidential subscribers on our monthly teleconference yesterday afternoon, I’ve been focused over the last several months on sniffing out the best deals in Chilean farmland for our planned resilient community. We’re definitely close. My base in Chile is here in beautiful Santiago, however, and
May 30, 2011 Santiago, Chile I had the opportunity to tour Chile’s national military school yesterday. As you may know, I spent some time in the military myself in places that were not especially pleasant, so the visit was quite meaningful for me. My host was a particular gung-ho Chilean Army officer; curiously,
May 27, 2011 Santiago, Chile The destruction of a currency is, without doubt, positively devastating for a society. History is generous with examples dating all the way back to 212 BC when Rome first devalued its denarius silver coin by 50%. Recent examples are also plentiful. Zimbabwe’s hyperinflationary period is well documented; what
May 26, 2011 Hong Kong One of the most interesting things going on here in Hong Kong at the moment is the gradual displacement of the US dollar, and even the local Hong Kong dollar, by the Chinese Yuan. Walking around town, the signs are obvious: from shops that gladly accept Chinese Yuan
May 25, 2011 Santiago, Chile Debt is slavery… or at least indentured servitude of the worst kind. That looming mortgage, the high interest credit card debt, the short-term car loan– these are the forces that keep people from breaking free and taking action. Ironically, debt begets more debt. According to FinAid, the average
May 24, 2011 Santiago, Chile Just about every day now, a ‘crisis’ unfolds somewhere in the world as if carefully adapted from the pages of Atlas Shrugged. It’s such a massive aberration and departure from the free market… yet amazingly enough, this elitist system of sociopathic narcissism passes as democracy– “rule of the
May 23, 2011 Santiago, Chile The world is now divided into essentially three categories: (1) those nations that can effectively sidestep catastrophic meltdown; (2) those nations that cannot avoid meltdown, but can afford to kick the can down the road (3) those nations that must face their grim, unavoidable meltdown reality now The
May 19, 2011 Hong Kong [Editor’s note: Tim Staermose is filling in for Simon today who is out looking at property for the next several days.] Two days ago I hit the banks along Des Voeux Road in Central Hong Kong to check out what gold bullion coins are available, and what the
May 18, 2011 Santiago, Chile Take a moment and conduct a mini thought experiment. Imagine that you’re from the future many hundreds of years from now, researching what life was like in the early 21st century. You pull up an archive of newspaper headlines from the year 2011 and read the following: “US
May 17, 2011 Santiago, Chile There are certain times in life when a man is faced with overwhelming adversity… times when he has no reason to adhere to society’s norms anymore. It is in these instances that the true quality of his character comes shining through. One of these situations is when he’s
May 16, 2011 Santiago, Chile On June 10, 1215 AD, after prolonged rebellion and frustrating negotiation, a group of England’s most influential barons entered London to force the disastrous King John Softsword into accepting a revolutionary charter of individual freedoms. Five days later in the Runnymede meadow of Surrey County, John affixed his
