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It’s time to get serious. One of the major themes of this daily e-letter is that major western governments are flat broke. This is not the first time that a major world power has gone bankrupt, and we need only to look to history to see the consequences. Thousands of years ago, as
One of the truest aphorisms in the world of investing is that Brazil is the country with the MOST potential… and always will be. There are few other countries on the planet blessed with such an abundance of resources—fertile land, plenty of water, a huge population, incalculable mineral and natural resource wealth, etc.
This is WAY beyond ‘if you see something, say something.’ In a series of pamphlets circulated among local governments in the United Kingdom, British parents are now being encouraged to spy on their own children, and to report any instances of possible ‘radicalization’. Of course this advice comes with a nifty set of
First things first: Congratulations to Mark Zuckerberg. And no, not for the obvious. The Zuckerbergs are brand new parents. And while that’s exciting, it’s far from unique. New babies are born every second. But what’s far from commonplace is that Mark Zuckerberg just screwed the US government out of billions of dollars of
Talk about a difference between fantasy and reality. It was just a few weeks ago that the International Monetary Fund predicted that Saudi Arabia would likely be bankrupt within the next five years. Saudi Arabia’s financial position is deteriorating rapidly, and the government is burning through cash like a coked-up rock star. Just
They called it a “historic moment in international finance”. And so with great fanfare, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced yesterday that they would be including China’s renminbi in the basket of currencies that comprise their institutional monetary unit, the SDR. The IMF invented the SDR back in 1969 to be used as
On August 12, 1961, Walter Ulbricht, the Chairman of the State Council in East Germany, signed an order to close the border and begin building a wall around East Berlin. It happened quickly. Soldiers began tearing up the roads leading into West Berlin almost immediately and actually stood with weapons at the border
In astronomy, there’s an important concept known as ‘parallax’, which refers to how a star’s position appears to change based on the position and motion of the observer. The earth is constantly moving along its orbit around the sun. And as this happens, the position of a star in the night’s sky will
Sometimes you just have to stand in awe at the level of corruption and incompetence in government. Case in point, the new highway bill in the Land of the Free. And, trust me, you’ll love this. The latest version of the highway bill is called the “Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for
Lately when I talk to my friends around the world, I get the distinct sense that there’s a dark cloud hanging in the air. I feel it particularly from those in North America and Europe. Terrorism is on everyone’s mind. All the headlines have to do with ISIS, who’s been killed in police
On April 5, 1793, decorated French military commander Charles Dumouriez caused a sensational panic in Paris when he fled the country and defected to Austria. It had been nearly four years since French peasants stormed the Bastille, the event that historians generally regard as the start of the French Revolution. And hardly a
[Editor’s Note: This letter was written by Tim Price, London-based wealth manager and frequent Sovereign Man contributor.] Léon Walras is the patron saint of modern economics. In other words, he was a clueless failure who hijacked immutable principles from the world of physics and misapplied them to the economic realm. The result, predictably
In 1875, right around the time the United States overtook the UK as the largest economy in the world, the American Express Company established the very first private pension plan in the US. American Express had a simple goal: attract the best and brightest employees by giving them retirement security. At the time,
On September 25, 1794, US President George Washington issued a proclamation authorizing the use of military force against a group of defiant citizens. It had all started a few years before when a handful of politicians had succeeded in passing an excise tax on liquor, something that became known as the Whiskey Tax.
I’ll admit that when I was a kid, I used to spend hours watching wrestling on television. Hulk Hogan, the Macho Man Randy Savage… I loved all the old-school guys from the WWF, as they used to call it back in the 1980s. It was mesmerizing, a bit like I’d imagined gladiator combat
