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May 4, 2011 Manila, Philippines [Editor’s note: Tim Staermose is filling in for Simon Black today. ] My wife just celebrated her 35th birthday. If you ask me, she doesn’t look a day over 25. She may be quiet and angelic, and not much more than 5 feet tall. But she’s a strong
May 2, 2011 Montevideo, Uruguay Despite being one of the most cerebral societies in the history of the world, the Ancient Greeks condemned one of their greatest philosophers to death for asking too many inconvenient questions and pestering the status quo. Certain things, as it turns out, are sacrosanct and beyond debate. Good
April 29, 2011 Lago Ypacarai, Paraguay Greetings from paradise. We have a lot to cover today, so I want to get right down to it. First, long-time readers know that I don’t really do public speaking gigs or interviews. We get a lot of requests for these but usually turn them down
April 28, 2011 Asuncion, Paraguay Jim Rogers saw the writing on the wall for America several years ago. He uprooted his wife and family from New York and went where the opportunity was– Singapore. Rogers has famously said that the best career advice he can give a young person setting out to make
April 27, 2011 Asuncion, Paraguay Paraguay isn’t exactly ‘on the radar,’ so to speak. Most people who research living overseas usually end up in the hyped up places like Panama, Costa Rica, or even Ecuador. Those places are fine and good, but Paraguay may truly be a hidden gem for many. Like Ecuador,
April 26, 2011 Manila, Philippines Silver’s rise (in US$ terms, at least) over the past several weeks has been nothing short of phenomenal. The chart has effectively “gone parabolic,” and people I’ve never met have started to e-mail me (in my capacity as a registered investment advisor) for advice on silver. It doesn’t
April 25, 2011 En route from Santa Cruz, Boliva Anyone who has any doubt that central planning and corruption destroys an economy should head to Bolivia. The country is a classic example of a resource-rich nation whose economic potential has been squandered by socialism. It wasn’t always this way. Bolivia has had several
April 22, 2011 Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia Fortune smiles upon Santa Cruz. With abundant natural gas reserves that generate immense wealth for the local economy, some of the best weather in South America, and more beauty queens per square block than anywhere else on the planet, Santa Cruz should indeed a
April 21, 2011 Asuncion, Paraguay A friend of mine here in Asuncion is a partner in one of the leading investment firms in town. We were having drinks at my hotel the other evening talking about events around the world and thinking about what might happen next. At one point he told me,
April 19, 2011 Manila, Philippines Tim Staermose here. Simon is out looking at property in Paraguay today and asked me to fill in. Simon has been writing a lot lately about how the financial opportunities overseas are often greater than at home. More specifically, the opportunity to make money by ‘creating value’ overseas
April 18, 2011 Asuncion, Paraguay When I woke up this morning and scanned through my usual digest– boots on the ground reports from overseas contacts, market summaries from Asian and European bankers, commentary from friends still in the intelligence community– a couple of things caught my eye that I want to tell you
April 15, 2011 Asuncion, Paraguay I’ll be in Paraguay again for the next week. This is a country that has quite a bit to offer… it’s incredibly cheap and they sell property for nothing. I’ve seen land in the Chaco region for as little as $25/acre. Investment deals are also fairly interesting; companies
April 14, 2011 Santiago, Chile Doing his best to appear convincing yesterday, President Obama outlined his plans to make deep cuts to America’s budget deficit. “If our creditors start worrying that we may be unable to pay back our debts, it could drive up interest rates for everyone who borrows money…” This is
April 13, 2011 Santiago, Chile Recently, a small town accountant tipped off the IRS that his employer was shorting the government on taxes. He was rewarded with a big fat check for $4.5 million (minus a 28% federal tax withholding, of course). I’m sure the government thinks this reward is money well spent–
April 12, 2011 Vina del Mar, Chile Did you ever see Minority Report? It’s one of Steven Spielberg’s often forgotten about movies based on the short story by Philip K. Dick. In the movie, pre-couch Tom Cruise plays a police officer in the year 2054 who works for the highly specialized ‘pre-crime’ division.