Category: Trends & News

Maybe it’s greed. Or fear. Or blatant irrationality. But there’s something inside human nature that makes us think unsustainable situations can last forever. One of those has been the meteoric rise of the US dollar, particularly over the last year. The dollar became king once again in 2015, towering over oil prices, gold

Human beings have come up with some crazy ideas for money and finance over the years. Conch shells. Beads. Animal skins. Salt. Rice. All of these were used as a form of money at one time or another. But the strangest by far has got to be the Rai Stones of Yap Island.

Over 4,000 years ago during Sargon the Great’s reign of the Akkadian Empire, it took 8 units of silver to buy one unit of gold. This was a time long before coins. It would be thousands of years before the Lydians in modern day Turkey would invent gold coins as a form of

Every time I come to Viet Nam, I’m always astounded at the incredible growth and opportunity here. This time around I’m reviewing a number of suppliers to buy raw materials from for a new business we’re acquiring in Australia. Just a few years ago those supply contracts would have easily been awarded to

Just stunning. German newspaper Der Spiegel reported yesterday that the Bavarian Banking Association has recommended that its member banks start stockpiling PHYSICAL CASH. Europe, of course, has been battling with negative interest rates for quite some time. What this means is that commercial banks are being charged interest for holding wholesale deposits at

In the middle of a heated battle against my jetlag yesterday, I finally decided to exercise the nuclear option and turn on CNBC in order to stay awake. I figured someone would say something completely ridiculous, and it would get my blood boiling enough to power through the next couple of hours. Within

Before there was an America, before there was a Britain, before even Rome and Ancient Greece, there was Assyria. For more than five centuries, the Assyrian empire was the wealthiest, strongest superpower in the world. If you could go back thousands of years during the reign of Ashurbanipal and suggested even the possibility

On January 26, 1841, two years into the First Opium War between China’s Qing Dynasty and the British Empire, Commodore Sir Gordon Bremer hoisted the British flag above Possession Point in Hong Kong. At the time the island’s population numbered less than 10,000. Most were illiterate fishermen. Hong Kong was also devoid of

I had an amazing time this weekend sharing the stage at an investment conference in Miami, with other speakers like Robert Kiyosaki, Peter Schiff, and G. Edward Griffin among others. During a panel on the future of money and banking we discussed how the financial system is rapidly losing control of its own

Hot off the presses, the US government just published its audited financial statements this morning, signed and sealed by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. These reports are intended provide an accurate accounting of government finances, just like any big corporation would do. And once again, the US government’s financial condition has declined significantly from

Last week the Canadian Island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, off the Atlantic Seaboard near Maine, made an unusual offer to the American public. If Donald Trump wins, move to Cape Breton. There’s even a whole website about this, though not one officially affiliated with the local government. This is something that happens

Last week the FDIC released its annual financial statements, giving the public a glimpse into the financial condition of the organization responsible for backing up the entire US banking system. The numbers are pretty incredible. The FDIC maintains the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), which is the emergency stash for nearly all bank deposits

Years ago back in my days at the academy and in the military, I used to hear this phrase “freedom isn’t free” over and over again. It was almost a sort of motto for a lot of military units– a self-motivating expression that freedom came at a price, and it was our solemn