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August 16, 2010 Zakopane, Poland I am a mountain person. There’s something about peaks that just makes my heart sing; I’ll take fresh mountain air over beaches any day of the week. The really interesting thing about the mountains, though, is how unpredictable and unforgiving they can be. I was given a friendly
August 13, 2010 Zakopane National Park, Poland After finishing off a very successful liberty camp yesterday, some friends and I arrived in southern Poland last night where we plan on spending the weekend rock climbing in the High Tatra mountains. Perhaps it’s not particularly auspicious to kick off this trip on Friday the
August 12, 2010 Trakai, Lithuania The last couple of days have been among the most rewarding of my entire life. Since Sunday morning, I had the honor of hosting 50 Eastern European university students at a small, boutique resort that I rented just outside of Trakai, Lithuania. Most of these students grew up
August 9, 2010 Trakai, Lithuania Do you remember when the FBI used to be an ethical, highly respected police agency with only the purest of intentions? Neither do I. As far back as I recall, the FBI was the butt of jokes, jeered and sneered for its incompetence, bureaucracy, and extortionist approaches to
August 6, 2010 Vilnius, Lithuania Believe it or not, Vilnius is one of my favorite cities in the world. It’s a fairly large city with a metro population of just under 1 million, but in many ways it feels like a small town. English and Russian are both widely spoken, and there are
August 5, 2010 Vilnius, Lithuania Our website was down yesterday. You probably noticed… I think it was down for over 12-hours. Now, I’m normally a pretty laid-back guy, and there’s not a whole lot that bothers me. But when technology that’s supposed to make our lives easier suddenly doesn’t work, I become unglued.
August 4, 2010 Vilnius, Lithuania Remember the credit rating agencies– specifically Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P? Among other things, they take on the responsibility of rating the creditworthiness of sovereign nations. This is a pretty important task that has become critical to the global financial system. Bear in mind, though, these are the guys
August 3, 2010 Vienna, Austria There’s something I really like about the rural areas of Central Europe. Whether you’re in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, or Ukraine, just about everyone you meet outside of the major cities is an amateur farmer. As this area was the breadbasket of the old Soviet Union, it’s truly an
July 29, 2010 Budapest, Hungary “Take your package and shove it!” This was the tone set by Hungary’s new Prime Minister Viktor Orban last week as he engaged EU and IMF officials about his country’s bailout package. Back in the early days of the financial crisis, Hungary’s economy was one of the hardest
July 28, 2010 Vienna, Austria Austria has significant opportunity for anyone who wants to plant multiple flags. As one of the world’s 12 richest countries, Austria’s 8.3 million people enjoy a very high standard of living with relatively low unemployment. I find the country to be as nice as Switzerland, but without the
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July 26, 2010 Krakow, Poland By the late summer of 1939, Hitler’s forces had absorbed Austria and Czechoslovakia into his growing empire, and Germany’s military was massed at the Polish border clearly preparing for invasion. In an astonishing display of perhaps the greatest complacency in the history of the modern world, however, Polish
July 23, 2010 Krakow, Poland Krakow is always beautiful in the summertime. It has one of the most vibrant city-centers in Europe… and as the economy is fairly healthy here in Poland, there are always a lot of people out in the streets enjoying themselves. I’ll tell you more about Krakow next week;
July 22, 2010 Krakow, Poland If you pay attention to currencies much, you’ve probably been following the euro closely over the last few months. The euro hit its 24-month high in US dollar terms on November 30, 2009, right around $1.50. It’s been on a steady slide ever since. Earlier this year, serious
July 21, 2010 Krakow, Poland I was on the phone with a major bank last night. As usual, I had to navigate their automated phone system hitting ‘zero’ until my finger turned blue… I was finally forwarded to an offshore call center where the representative was more keen to follow the script than