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July 14, 2010 Bath, England For beginners, planting multiple flags can seem like a complex topic. How does one even begin selecting jurisdictions? How do you actually go about selecting the right offshore bank, or foreign real estate agent? What are the best passport opportunities available? Until now, there hasn’t been a ‘quick
July 13, 2010 Bath, England It’s no secret that the government– any government– has nearly unlimited authority to do whatever they want, whenever they want. They can bend the rules, spin reality, and use their national constitutions like a roll of cheap, single-ply toilet paper. Lately, governments have been unafraid to increase the
July 12, 2010 Bath, England The most expensive city in the world is not in the North America, or Europe, or even the Middle East… it’s in Africa. According to an annual cost of living survey that is sponsored by international HR consulting firm Mercer, the most expensive city in the world is
July 9, 2010 London, England Today’s letter is a bit early– I’m running out soon to meet up with several subscribers at the Clarendon lounge in Notting Hill. Feel free to drop by if you’re in the area tonight between 6pm and 7pm. On to this week’s questions, which are ironically all about
July 6, 2010 London, England It appears that Wachovia Bank has been a bad little boy and not following the rules. Recent reports from a US Justice Department investigation suggest that the bank didn’t follow anti-money laundering requirements from 2004 to 2007. During that time, over $378.4 billion of Mexican drug money passed
July 7, 2010 Berlin, Germany As I’m in Berlin for some quick business, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about planting flags in Germany; perhaps today is an appropriate day to do so as the Deutschland national football team is taking on Spain in tonight’s World Cup semi-final… and there
July 6, 2010 Berlin, Germany Last Friday, I read about how the US workforce shrank by over 650,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. Private sector hiring was also less than expected, suggesting that joblessness in the US will remain sluggish. Always ready to spin a bad story, US politicians immediately
July 2, 2010 Copenhagen, Denmark I’m in a bit of a rush this morning as I have to catch a plane to Copenhagen; it’s a great, clean city with lots of English speaking people and a reasonable banking system– I’ll tell you more about it next week. Before moving on to this week’s
July 1, 2010 Oxford, England — Happy Canada Day — One aspect of multiple flags that I don’t address too much is using corporations to your advantage. This is an important strategy that I think you should consider, and there are several reasons for doing so. Most importantly, governments generally respect businesses a
June 30, 2010 Oxford, UK I’m impressed by many insightful responses we received from yesterday’s letter. I’d really encourage you to browse the comments section and see how everyone weighed in on the topic of politicians protecting their interests at the expense of our civil liberties. It’s important to explore these issues from
June 29, 2010 Oxford, England My apologies for not writing to you yesterday… I was angry (a rare occurrence for me), and I hate writing to my friends when I’m angry. You see, the G8/G20 summits took place over the weekend in Toronto, and everything about these events simply boils my blood. To
June 25, 2010 Barcelona, Spain It’s early in the morning here in Barcelona– the part of day they refer to as ‘madrugada’ in Spanish… near dawn. I’m just wrapping a few things up here before heading out on a long drive. My weekend plans entail meeting up with a rather eclectic group of
June 24, 2010 Barcelona, Spain At the spur of the moment, I decided to fly to Barcelona yesterday to attend the ‘Fiesta de San Juan’. It’s common in many parts of Europe and Latin America to celebrate the official, astrological first day of summer, which also happens to be the longest day (and
June 23, 2010 Oxford, England Yesterday in the UK, something happened that has significant implications for us all. Old western economies are clearly losing their dominance. Particularly in Europe, the costs of broken pension plans and entitlement programs are bankrupting entire economies. Yet, national governments continue to perversely borrow and consume; politicians have
June 22, 2010 Oxford, England In our daily conversations, we talk a lot about planting multiple flags– this is the practice of diversifying sovereign risk in order to protect or asses and our assets. After all, sovereign risk is the greatest risk we face today as investors, entrepreneurs, professionals, and free individuals. Governments