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August 11, 2015 Istanbul, Turkey When I was a kid, I ‘accidentally’ lit my parent’s living room carpet on fire. A friend of theirs had been over the night before and left his cigarette lighter on the coffee table. And as I had never seen such magical technology before as instant fire at
July 31, 2015 Lausanne, Switzerland On June 6, 1932, President Herbert Hoover imposed the first ever national gasoline tax in the United States, initially set at 1 cent per gallon. It was a major success for the federal government; the tax on gasoline alone was responsible for over 15% of their 1933 tax
July 30, 2015 Lausanne, Switzerland Usain Bolt has got nothing on Leonidas of Rhodos. Born nearly 2,000 years ago, Leonidas holds the record as the greatest sprinter of all time, winning more Olympic titles than anyone else in human history. At four straight Olympic games, Leonidas dominated all three sprinting events– the Stadion
July 29, 2015 Aritzo, Sardinia, Italy On January 31, 1940, the very first Social Security check ever delivered went to Ms. Ida May Fuller, a former legal secretary who had recently retired. Ms. Fuller had spent just three years paying into the system, contributing a total of $24.75 to Social Security. Yet her
July 28, 2015 Aritzo, Sardinia, Italy High up in the mountains of central Sardinia, it’s hard to even think about finance. The weather is perfect. Sunshine abounds. The vistas are absolutely incredible. The food is amazing. This is definitely one of the nicest places I’ve ever been. And yet it’s almost impossible to
July 21, 2015 Prague, Czech Republic I’m at a complete loss for words. I keep waiting for the deep baritone of that guy who voices all the action movie trailers to chime in. But it doesn’t come. Because this all real. I’m talking about the trailer George Clooney has just released to promote
Hanoi, Vietnam July 17, 2015 As Europe burns, Puerto Rico sinks, and China violently gyrates, it’s nice to know there are still some exciting bright spots of growth in the world. Vietnam is certainly one of them. The first thing you should know about Vietnam is that it’s a really wonderful place to
July 16, 2015 Kunming, China “The first form of culture,” wrote historian Will Durant, “is agriculture.” And he was right. When human beings discovered 10,000 years ago that the soil would provide more food than they could possibly eat, this changed everything. For the first time ever, early humans could actually work WITH
July 15, 2015 Kunming, Yunnan province, China It’s here in southwestern China’s postcard-perfect Yunnan province that the mighty Mekong River rises. From its source in a nearby mountain range, the river proceeds south, cutting its way across Southeast Asia’s fertile lands through Burma, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The Mekong is hugely important;
July 13, 2015 Yangon, Burma Have you ever walked into a restaurant and seen a table full of people staring at their phones instead of talking to the real live human beings across from them? That used to never happen in Yangon… simply because no one had mobile phones. It was actually pretty
July 10, 2015 Hong Kong Spontaneous combustion. Alien invasion. Zombie apocalypse. What do these have in common? Their likelihood is next to impossible. So why worry? This is how people tend to think about the financial system. Mentioning even the possibility, for example, that the US could default on its debt is met
July 9, 2015 Hong Kong It’s eerily befitting that at this very second, all of South China is frantically anticipating a major storm bearing down on the region. In this part of the world they call them typhoons, which comes from the Chinese ‘tai fung’, meaning ‘strong wind’. And strong they are. Here
July 9, 2015 Hong Kong Standing before the European Parliament yesterday, it took Nigel Farage just four minutes to completely destroy every argument supporting the Eurozone. A few years back when he spoke at one of our Sovereign Man events in Santiago, he anticipated everything that we’re seeing right now. Today it’s not
July 8, 2015 Manila, Philippines Thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece, it was a commonly held belief that the gods walked the earth among us humans. And that perhaps even Zeus himself might show up at your doorstep disguised as a vagabond. From this sprang the legendary sense of Greek hospitality, known
July 6, 2015 Bangkok, Thailand While all eyes were on Greece this weekend, one of the largest banks in Lithuania quietly posted an awkward announcement to its customers. Interest rates are now negative. So negative, in fact, that the bank actually has to pay interest to some of its borrowers. And the bank
