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In early March 1938 in a dusty corner of the Arabian desert, Max Steineke finally had the breakthrough he was hoping for. Steineke was the chief geologist for the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), a venture owned by what we know today as Chevron. And he hadn’t had a lot of success
This was the one of the easiest offshore bank account experiences I’ve ever had. It only took me 20 minutes to open this offshore bank account in Georgia. Read on to learn how and at which bank you can easily begin banking in Georgia. In 1991, the country of Georgia gained its independence
Every year the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse publishes a detailed report about Global Wealth. And while drawing conclusions about ‘wealth’ (i.e. ‘net worth’) for the world’s 7.6 billion people is far from an exact science, the report routinely offers some interesting insights and trends. This year’s report was just released this morning.
With the nearly daily moves to record highs among the hundreds of cryptocurrencies that currently exist, talking about ‘regular’ currencies seems about as out-of-fashion as that hideous shoulder pad trend from the 1980s. [Millennial readers: see here if you’re confused.] But there are actually a few currencies out there worth talking about right
The Great Financial Crisis happened because Wall Street was financing homes for people who couldn’t afford them. Leading up to the GFC, there was a voracious appetite from investors for “AAA”-rated mortgage debt. So lenders would make lots of loans to subprime borrowers and sell them to Wall Street. Wall Street would pool
In the late 1500s, an Englishman named William Lee invented a revolutionary knitting machine that could efficiently do the work of dozens of men. Given how important the garment industry was at the time in English, Lee’s invention was truly disruptive. But Queen Elizabeth wasn’t so excited. When Lee came to visit her
On the plane ride back to Chile last night, I was sitting next to a particularly chatty woman who wanted to know my whole life story and what I was doing in Mexico. I played along and explained to her that I had been on a cruise for the past week speaking at
It seems like every time I come to Panama now the first word that springs to mind is “impressive”. I first traveled to Panama back in 2003… fourteen years ago. I remember landing at Tocumen International Airport for the first time– it was a depressing backwater that was barely functioning. And on the
Let’s say you have two equal size safety deposit boxes. One box you completely fill up with stacks of $100 bills. The other box you fill up with gold. Which of the two is “worth” more? It’s easy to calculate. A stack of 100x $100 bills is 6.14 inches long, 2.61 inches wide,
Earlier this week the German government leaked a frightening 69-page memo entitled “Concept for Civil Defense.” Citing multiple terrorist attacks, cybercrime, and a host of other threats, the report states that Germans should prepare for an event that could “threaten our existence.” Yikes. The report proposes a number of mandatory countermeasures, including that
When you think about ‘insurance’, chances are you probably think about term life, home insurance, or liability insurance. But one of the best insurance policies you could ever get your hands on is a second passport. Like most types of insurance, it’s one you hope you never have to use. No one wakes
By 2014, inflation was at 50% in Venezuela. Just paying the bill at a restaurant now required a thick stack of cash. When that happened, some people simply tightened their belts and stopped going out to eat. Others saw this as a warning sign to look for another, more stable country. Then in
“Global yields lowest in 500 years of recorded history. $10 trillion of neg. rate bonds. This is a supernova that will explode one day.” Those were the words of famed bond fund manager Bill Gross. (Gross was actually the first portfolio manager inducted into the Fixed Income Analyst Society’s “Hall of Fame”. And
“Offshore”. It’s practically a dirty word now. The O-word. The mere concept of “offshore” is automatically associated with criminal activity, tax evasion, and terror financing. Consider the notion of offshore banking. The immediate image that comes to mind is some moustache-twirling billionaire tax cheat hiding his ill-gotten gains in a nefarious island bank.
Recently I was having drinks with a friend of mine who is an ultra-successful US real estate developer and investor. He told me that his team had just closed a large real estate transaction worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they got a sweetheart deal from the bank. The bank is loaning
