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It took three speeding tickets in the south of France on the way from Monaco to Barcelona, but we made it to Spain late yesterday evening. I had forgotten how expensive it is to drive in France. Fuel is among the most expensive in Europe thanks to a series of extraordinarily high taxes.
Over the weekend in Vienna, I had the pleasure of dining with a very interesting gentleman (I’ll call him “Chris”) who is a subscriber and new inductee into the Atlas 400 club that I’ve mentioned before. Chris travels extensively, like me, and we discussed how many countries are quickly becoming police states. In
I tend to shy away from politics and policy. Sure I’ve discussed taxes, privacy, and healthcare a few times, but I don’t normally whine about government too much because (a) it’s unproductive, and (b) living a ‘multiple flag’ lifestyle means that governments have little impact on me. Last night, though, President Obama spoke
Please begrudge me the quote from V for Vendetta, but I’m really starting to worry about what’s going on in the United Kingdom. On Wednesday I wrote about the UK’s “Interception Modernisation Programme.” New rules under the program require wireless companies and internet service providers to archive phone records, web history, and emails
It was with great irony and despicable deceit that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was commemorating the fall of communism in Berlin on Monday. In his remarks, he insisted that the tide of history was moving towards our “best hopes,” and praised the people who helped end tyranny and bring down the
Amazingly enough, Hugo Chavez is giving us a gift. Allow me to explain. World leaders are gathered today in Berlin, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. What would have been the greatest armed conflict in the history of the world was successfully avoided… peace prevailed. Meanwhile, thousands of
Do you think your government doesn’t have the means to listen to your phone calls? Think again. Governments from around the world, not just exclusive to North America, have technologically advanced eavesdropping programs which can capture mobile phone conversations without anyone ever knowing. And just in case the government isn’t so technologically advanced,
While I was en route to China, somewhere over the Sea of Japan, gold hit a record high on ‘concerns’ about the long-term value of the dollar. Frankly, 1974 was probably the time to be ‘concerned’ about the long-term value of the dollar. The remaining institutional investors who are only now finding reasons
Last month, a Wyoming bank employee was routinely emailing some loan documents to a customer’s personal Gmail account. It sounds like a simple enough task, yet somehow the employee made an enormous error. Not only did he erroneously attach a file to the email that included the names, addresses, tax IDs, and loan
“We are very concerned with what’s happening in Panama, or to put it another way, what’s not happening.” — Jeffrey Owens, director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration Earlier this month, a group of tax commissioners, finance ministers, and NGO representatives descended upon Los Cabos, Mexico for the 5th annual
First of all I really appreciate all of your thoughts and comments this week; I would definitely encourage you to spend a few minutes reading the comments on ‘Give me Liberty or Give me Boarding Pass’ posted on Tuesday. One question in particular that I would like to address came from Amanda: “Simon
Roughly $100 billion. Even in today’s world where politicians throw out the word ‘trillion’ as if it were a casual dinner garnish, $100 billion is still a lot of money… especially when you’re desperate to sustain glimmers of economic growth and trying to plug a budget shortfall that amounts to 13% of GDP.
I’m in the United States through the end of next week out of necessity… I need to tie up some loose ends (read: taxes!). Once I get my confession mailed out to Uncle Sam, I’ll be out the door once again. Whenever I am in the United States, I always think deep thoughts
He was brown. A few inches shy of 6 feet tall and well-dressed in a tailored suit, my guess was that he was of Lebanese origin given his easy command of French, English, and Arabic… but regardless, he was standing in the US citizen line at the airport immigration checkpoint. I don’t know
Maximizing the flexibility of your retirement account is an enormous untapped area of Low Hanging Fruit for US investors. In fact, this might be the single easiest thing you can do right now to grow your retirement assets while shielding them from the lost decade yet to come. With a properly structured, self
