Something interest happened this week in Thailand that I think says a lot about the country and its people.

For the last several months… well, years, actually… a large group of organized protesters has stepped up its calls for the current government of Thailand to step down. The group is known as the “Red Shirts” for the uniform they wear, and their top priority is to have open and fair elections to select a new government.

Over the last few months, the Red Shirts have grown more vocal, staging massive protests and rallies across the country. Their latest move was devilishly clever, in my opinion.

In the last few days, group organizers mobilized about 40,000 Red Shirt volunteers to stand in the blazing Bangkok heat, roll up their sleeves, and give blood… not for some natural disaster relief effort, though. Just to make a point, and a bloody one at that.

In this case, the Red Shirts collected about 300 Liters of blood and dumped it in front of the Prime Minister’s residence in Bangkok… as my local friends have told me, now the PM must wade through a river filled with the blood of Thai people on his way to work.

I really admire the creativity. I could only imagine the media effect this would have in the United States if an antiwar group did the same thing at the White House.

Even moreso, though, I was struck by the peaceful nature of the protest, especially with such a strongly symbolic gesture.

You see, Thais are an extremely peaceful people. They have been fighting against one corrupt government or another as long as anyone can remember… but despite their passion for freedom, their rallies remain peaceful.

When the Red Shirts descended on the Prime Minister’s residence, it was tightly guarded with police and military forces. The guards let them through, they dumped the blood, said a few words for the press, and dispersed.

I think in a lot of other places, the energy of the situation would have turned violent quickly. In Thailand, it was peaceful and respectful, and I think this says a lot about the country and culture.

Fundamentally, Thailand is an incredibly safe place to live exactly for this reason… its people are peaceful, and not just for catchy slogans or tourism campaigns. In fact, if you want to get the best idea about the true nature of a culture, look for situations like this when the country is going through a tough time.

In Thailand, the river of blood episode comes on the back of two years worth of extreme economic uncertainty and political instability. This is far from Thailand’s finest hour… yet the situation is still completely nonviolent, a clear indication of the Thai people’s temperament.

Another example is what’s happening in Chile. Rocked by a series of historically powerful earthquakes and aftershocks, the country has been dealt a seriously bad hand lately. And yet, in their darkest hour, despite the difficult conditions without food or power, Chileans still conduct themselves in a non-violent, civilized way.

Mainstream media sources, always on the lookout for guns and violence, paint a different picture of both countries. Even if they have to make up facts, they want people to believe that Thailand is about to descend into chaos, and that Chile is already there.

It’s not true. Chile and Thailand are both going through some challenges at the moment, but the civilized and non-violent actions of the people are demonstrative of how truly safe both countries are, even during difficult times.

If conditions in the world happen to turn truly sour, I would have no problem calling Chile or Thailand home because both cultures have already been tested by adversity.

See the video of what I’m talking about here:

In response to your feedback on last week’s missive about New Zealand, I’ve once again asked my friend Mark, who is living there locally now, to pen a few words about the country’s immigration policies in response to your questions:

First off, thanks to all of Simon’s readers for the feedback. I need to point out that I am not a licensed immigration professional. The government of New Zealand has strict regulations about who can disseminate immigration advice (and a lot of other things… but I digress).

So, what follows should not be construed as ‘official’ immigration counsel; rather these are my observations and opinions only.

The first thing you should understand about retiring to New Zealand is that it can be challenging, especially if you are at/near retirement age. New Zealand is not Panama, so the country doesn’t offer a retirement visa program with an income requirement equivalent to a street beggar.

However, New Zealand is also not Monaco, so there is hope!

That being said, the local Otago Valley newspaper ran an article the other day discussing New Zealand’s recently unveiled temporary retirement immigration category, which is much more reasonable, in my opinion, than previous options.

According to the article, people over the age of 66 wishing to immigrate can be issued an initial, 2 year permit.  This program requires people to be of ‘good health and character’, to invest NZ$ 750,000 in the country, have an income of at least NZ$ 60,000, and have NZ$ 500,000 in assets.

The current USD/NZD exchange rate is about .70 cents.  So, that NZ$ 750,000 is about US$ 525,000.

This new visa program stipulates that the investments must be ‘acceptable’, which basically means they need to be investments into the New Zealand stock or bond markets, and have the potential to “contribute to the New Zealand economy,” which is quite subjective.

As the government is trying to prevent a property bubble from forming, the program also specifically bans direct or indirect investment in the residential property market… though it only includes investment property, not a primary residence.

So, what is meant by “good character” ?

Like almost every country that accepts immigrants, New Zealand will ask you to prove that you are not an international criminal, fraudster or escaping from somewhere else only to plague your new home with your unsettling past transgressions.

According to the New Zealand immigration website, as long as you have not served any prison time in the last 7 years, or been convicted but did not serve a sentence in the last 3 years, you should be OK.

Health requirements are also reasonable.  The article stated that applicants should be:
1) unlikely to be a danger to public health;
2) unlikely to impose significant costs or demands on New Zealand’s health services and/or education services; and
3) able to undertake the functions for which they were granted entry.

This is a brief overview, but it gives you a pretty good idea what is expected.  Keep in mind that New Zealand changes its immigration policies regularly, so if this scheme is something you can wrap your arms around I encourage you to move quickly and contact an immigration professional.

Simon again.

For the right person, New Zealand has a lot to offer, and I’m fortunate to have a close friend like Mark on the ground who can help people navigate through the immigration and property.

When you’re selecting a country to expatriate to, your fundamental guiding principle should be quite simple: 10-years from now, will this country be a better place to live than it is today?

In my opinion, New Zealand qualifies, mostly because of the wide open spaces (and natural resources) with relatively small population to spoil it.

More to follow.

Several months ago, I told you about a strategy for building substantial wealth and planting an important flag with your Individual Retirement Account.

There are a few trillion dollars worth of retirement savings trapped in the United States, the vast majority of which is eeking out inadequate returns that make the money managers rich and leave the rest of us grateful for crumbs.

With this important strategy, though, anyone’s IRA can be unchained and free to invest in whatever you see fit– physical gold and silver coins, foreign real estate, Asia/Pacific currencies, etc. But these examples only scratch the surface.

It’s called an Open Opportunity IRA, and at the time, I described this strategy as the biggest investment “no brainer” I’d seen in a long, long time. Today, it makes even more sense… and here’s why:

This year, for the first time ever, the IRS has opened up a window for everyone to convert their traditional IRA into a Roth IRA.  Frankly, I think they provide these retirement incentives because they know that social security is broke, so they try to give responsible savers an extra leg-up on retirement.

The huge plus for making the conversion to Roth is that when you eventually withdraw the money, it’s tax free.  Naturally, though, the IRS will tax you on the value of your retirement account when you make the conversion… but if you have one of these Open Opportunity IRAs, you can cut the tax bill in half!

For an IRA worth $200,000, the savings could be nearly $40,000. It works, and it makes a lot of sense.

Furthermore, most people have unfortunately little control over their retirement savings… they’re only able to invest in pre-packaged products with often meager returns.  That’s because the large, retail money managers have a larger incentive to make themselves rich than to make you rich.

What most people don’t know is that IRA’s were designed to be much, much more. Being able to take the gloves off and invest your retirement funds in just about anything on a tax-deferred or tax free basis is really the best game in town.

When I first started talking about this last year, it was before the IRS conversion change… and I didn’t really have a great resource to refer you to.

Fortunately, my friend Terry Coxon, best-selling author and renowned economist, just released a new e-book about the topic this week.  It’s called Unleash Your IRA, and I cannot recommend it more highly– it’s a highly actionable guide that walks you through Open Opportunity IRAs step-by-step.

If you have an IRA, you should consider this book. Terry is highly respected for good reason– his thoughtful work is always full of value and insight, and in his new book, he takes on a topic that EVERY American needs to fully understand and exploit… and yet it’s something that almost nobody knows is even possible.

Click here for more information.

I was laying in bed sick recently watching Conan the Barbarian… yes I admit it. Some people eat chicken soup, I drown myself in cheesy Hollywood violence.

If you haven’t see it, you’re not missing much of a plot– Arnold Schwarzenegger at his physical prime wields a big sword and searches for treasure to plunder.

As I watched the Governator decapitate his foes two at a time, I couldn’t help wondering if this was the image that Nouriel Roubini had in mind when he called gold a “barbarous relic” in the highly publicized tit-for-tat argument he was having with Jim Rogers…

In blasting gold and gold bugs alike, Roubini indicated that gold is a new bubble waiting to burst, and that the idea of $2,000 gold is merely speculative fantasy.

To be clear, I am not a gold bug… but I’ve found Roubini’s comments to be off-the-mark. How can there be a gold bubble without widespread gold mania? Wait until the shoeshine boy is having conversations with his customers about Eagles and Maple Leafs… that’ll be a clear sign of mania.

With all the ‘Cash for Gold’ locations I’ve seen sprouting up all around the world, we may be in the very early stages of developing this mania, but for now, the vast majority of people still don’t own a single ounce.

The chief problem with gold is that there is no reasonable way to value the metal, so it will be impossible to quantify when the metal finally has reached bubble phase.

Sure, there are a plethora of technical indicators and moving averages to consider, as well as a comparison between the market value and its production costs… but there is no clear means to define a clear price for gold.

As an example, you can value the balance sheet of a company against very clear, quantifiable assets– cash on the books or dividend yield for example– and determine if the company is undervalued or overvalued.

There is no similar approach for gold… and this makes direct pricing predictions the stuff of wizardry and good headlines.

My suggestion is that, if you want to speculate in gold, it’s probably better to buy shares of gold mining companies instead, which have audited assets and earnings to evaluate.

I view physical gold, on the other hand, much more like a form of cash instead of a speculation… a form of cash that is totally private, uncontrolled by any central bank, and to be used in emergencies only.

To give you an example, I have a euro bank account.  I don’t watch the euro spot price all day, buying/selling the currency based on its fluctuations against the dollar and constantly recalculating the accounts value in dollar terms.

Rather, I only care that the bank holds on to my euros and that I can access the funds to buy things priced in euro. If I have 100,000 euro in the account, I look at it as 100,000 euro, not whatever value it has in dollars at the moment.

I look at gold in the same way. I accumulate gold as money, and I even travel with a bit of it just in case I wake up one morning and find that the global financial system has completely collapsed.

(when you travel as much as I do, this is the best insurance policy, along with a second passport…)

The other benefit to me is that there are no reporting requirements, and no unpaid government spies that snoop over what I’m doing with my ounces. This form of financial privacy is definitely worth considering.

In terms of market value, though, I do not pay much attention to the fluctuations of the gold price in dollar terms, up or down.

I will not cheer if it hits $1,500, nor will I cringe if it drops below $1,000. Just like my other foreign currency holdings, the value of my gold in dollar terms has little significance… besides, obsessing too much about its dollar value defeats the purpose of accumulating gold to begin with: having a private alternative to the dollar.

Tomorrow I’m going to talk about a unique way to buy gold, write-off the storage costs, and hold it overseas in a tax-deferred or tax-free vehicle.

Stay tuned.

Greetings once again from the land of smiles.

First of all, I really appreciate all the responses after yesterday’s letter in which I announced that I will be speaking at the upcoming Casey Research Crisis and Opportunity Summit. I’m really looking forward to meeting with so many of you in Las Vegas.

For some reason, a few subscribers had difficulty with the link that gives more information about the event, so I want to re-post it here in case you’d like to join us:

http://www.caseyresearch.com/crpmkt/crpSolo.php?id=181

And with that, let’s move on to this week’s questions:

Stephen asks, “Simon – I don’t recall you mentioning the Seychelles as a potential offshore banking location? Any reasons not to incorporate there and/or open a bank account?”

Seychelles has a reasonably developed financial infrastructure and is a decent choice for offshore merchant processing… but I find it to be expensive to set up a company, and the due diligence requirements are fairly strict.

More importantly, though, I am generally mistrustful of very small countries that rely almost completely on their offshore industries. If the government has a string of bad years, they won’t think twice about imposing new taxes and fees on all the entities incorporated there.

Russ asks, “Simon, I know you’re busy, but I have a quick question regarding GoldMoney.com.  Is this account something that must be reported to the IRS as a foreign financial account?”

That’s a great question… a lot of people have asked it, and the bottom line is that there is no clear guidance one way or the other.

On one hand, GoldMoney should not be regarded as a financial account because it exists outside of the banking system and deals strictly with precious metals, which are not regarded by the government as a monetary instrument.

On the other hand, the service is clearly designed to be a banking substitute, and as all administrative and storage facilities are overseas, it certainly could qualify.

Jim Turk, the founder of GoldMoney.com, is one of the people who thinks that it does not qualify as a foreign financial account. Your best bet is to talk to your accountant and decide how you want to proceed.

Robert asks, “My father is Italian and based on my lineage, I am entitled to Italian citizenship.  I have already done most of the leg work, aside from getting the required apostilles, but I have been hesitant to complete the process as I live and work here in the good ‘ole USA.  In your expertise, would you find this to be a good option for a second passport?”

Western European passports are extremely valuable for most people– they entitle the citizen to live and work anywhere in the EU, and they’re fantastic travel documents, even better than a US or Canadian passport.

With any second passport, though, there are a few things that you really need to watch out for:

First, military conscription is a very real issue in many countries, including Italy. I believe the maximum draft age in Italy is 25, which means that anyone who obtains Italian citizenship between the ages of 18 and 25 must serve briefly in the military.

Second, you should also watch out for tax consequences. At the moment, Italy does not tax worldwide income, but as the economic situation there continues to deteriorate, it is entirely possible that the Italian government may start taxing its expats.

Christina asks, “Simon you’ve written before about the marquee international hospitals in Thailand like Bumrungrad International. Do you have any experience with ‘tier 2′ hospitals? Is there a major step down in quality?

I recently had the pleasure of carting myself off to the emergency room here in Pattaya. I’ve been to the ER in many countries, including in the United States, and as I think anyone could attest, you spend more time waiting around the ER than being treated.

Here at Pattaya International Hospital, though, I was literally being treated within -seconds- of my arrival. As soon as I showed up, I was met in the parking lot by two nurses who took me straight to a bed in the back where they triaged me.

The doctor came within 5 minutes, and he spoke flawless English, having studied in Canada.  To me, this speed is a major differentiator in quality and one of the reasons I routinely tell people that, in case I get sick, I really hope that I’m in a country like Thailand.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for bearing with me while I recover.

Today I want to make an important announcement in the hopes that you will join me in a few weeks time.

If you’ve been following this missive for any period of time, you know that I spend a lot of time all over the world, but only very rarely do I spend time in the U.S.

With so many great and interesting places I love around the world, it takes something really special (or an emergency of some kind) for me to choose to go to the U.S.

In this case it’s something really special…

Yesterday I accepted an invitation to speak at the upcoming Casey Research “Crisis & Opportunity Summit” which will be held in Las Vegas from April 30 to May 2. They’ve asked me to host a special panel on expatriation, and I’m really excited about the event.

If you’ve never been to a Casey Research summit before, I should take a moment and try to describe the environment. They’re unlike any other ‘investment conference’ out there, most of which sadly tend to degenerate into a marketing circus or political pep rally.

Conversely, the Casey summits focus strictly on information– providing actionable solutions to the most critical issues of the day, debated by the industry’s most knowledgeable and successful people.

The faculty at Casey Summits is always impressive– I have been to several of them and am always amazed at the caliber of individuals who speak… many of whom are household names.

Even more, though, I’ve been amazed at the caliber of individuals who attend– and that’s precisely why I hope you will come. The information you’ll receive at the conference will be immensely valuable, but the contacts you’ll make will be even more important.

Plus it will give us an opportunity to meet face to face and get to know each other a bit. In fact, Matt, my business partner, will be there as well, along with several Atlas 400 members.

Honestly, I can’t wait to host the expatriation panel… one of the nice things about Casey summits is that they don’t record the event, so speakers can feel more free to speak their mind… not to mention, it keeps the information exclusive to a small and intimate audience.

In my case, I plan on discussing some second passport and banking strategies that I normally only share with insiders… things that I absolutely don’t want to put in print.

Anyhow, I hope you will consider attending. There’s a steep discount to the normal price until March 15th, so don’t wait too long. If you’re interested, click here for more information, which includes the current (and growing) speaker list.

See you there!

Yesterday I apparently declared a premature end to major combat operations against the virus that has invaded my body.  Maybe it was just the celebratory Mexican food I ate last night to commemorate the end of my 4-day sickness, but I now seem to be experiencing my own W-shaped recovery.

Always the optimist, though, I’m actually grateful for a few things; namely, I’ve been too consumed with the rugby match being played inside my cranium to pay much attention to the most recent socialist musings of European leaders– something that would ordinarily have me spitting fire at the magnitude of their arrogance.

Most glaringly, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has been on a bicontinental tour seeking political support to eliminate some forms of derivatives trading… all with the goal of preventing “unprincipled speculators” from making money by betting on a Greek default.

Rather than misdirecting his criticism at speculators, though, Papandreou should look no further than the nearest mirror to levy criticism.  As a legendary Greek political family, three different Papandreous have spent a combined 10-years as Prime Minister, so there has been ample opportunity to get spending under control.

To lay blame at “unprincipled speculators” as a chief cause of the Greek crisis is thus completely ignorant and hypocritical.  Not to mention, Papandreou should be courting speculators to buy his country’s debt, not vilifying them.

His biggest ally in Europe right now is German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As head of the continent’s largest economy, she is completely on board with the idea of banning credit default swaps (CDS) for the sake of speculation.

A CDS contract for sovereign debt is a bit like an insurance policy designed to protect the downside risk of a bondholder in case the country defaults. As you could imagine, the price of the CDS contract rises and falls based on the creditworthiness of the bond issuer.

As an example, an investor who owns a lot of Greek debt may want to enter into a CDS contract so that he will receive a payout if Greece defaults. As part of the deal he makes payments (like an insurance premium) to the CDS counterparty… who is… guess what? A speculator!

Without speculation, there would be no counterparty on the other end of the deal, and without these credit default swap insurance policies, no one would be willing to buy Greek debt because the risk would be too high.

Meanwhile, in the opposite corner of Europe, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a rather frantic speech today as he struggles to stay relevant in the upcoming election.

For the duration of his remarks, Brown defended his response to the financial crisis, indicating that the borrowing and printing of unprecedented volumes of money were the only sensible things to do given the situation, and insisting that he is the right man to lead his country through the recovery.

When you look at the data, though, despite all the money he has been borrowing, printing, and spending, it doesn’t seem to be doing the UK economy much good.

Ah, nevermind those “conflicting statistics,” Brown said. And as for the UK’s AAA credit rating, which is under serious scrutiny due to the country’s significant debt and deficit, Brown insists that his country will not be downgraded.

How does he know? Apparently his gut told him. Or maybe his cat. Because he sure as hell didn’t ask Fitch, one of the groups responsible for the UK’s ratings.

Ironically, Fitch’s head of sovereign ratings recently said: “Britain had seen the most rapid rise in the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product (GDP) of any AAA-rated country. . . Why the UK thinks it has more time than other countries [before being downgraded], we’re not sure.”

Like most career politicians, Brown is completely clueless, yet concerned only about being reelected.  This is truly sickening, but unfortunately all too common.

So what are the investment implications of Gordon Brown continuing to ravage his economy, and Merkel handicapping European market liquidity?

For starters, I believe this will result in capital flight.  Of the major currencies in the world that can actually absorb huge capital flows, the dollar is, believe it or not, the least ugly one at the moment, so there will likely be some continued dollar strength against the pound and euro.

Not to mention, a stronger dollar would be most welcome by Europe’s exporters.

As the dollar is, however, fundamentally weak, I would expect the European currencies to post an even larger decline against the strongest Asia-Pacific currencies, as well as precious metals (a position I first recommended in December).

Lastly, I don’t think that any of this news is good news for European equities, and I personally plan on taking a large short position in those markets with some protective options.

To be clear, I will make a lot of money on these investments if Europe continues down this path of destruction… and I suppose that makes me an “unprincipled speculator” too.

First of all, thanks for all the well-wishes for my speedy recovery. I’m feeling much better today, no doubt due to this exotic root that my ladies have been giving me. I haven’t asked what it is yet, but rest assured I will be traveling with it from now on.

Since I’m still a bit groggy from my illness, though, I thought today would be the perfect time to introduce you to a colleague of mine who has kindly offered to pen a few words in my stead.

To give you a bit of background, Mark is a friend and sometimes business partner who has been traveling the world in search of a new home.  He’s traveled extensively in Latin America and Asia, and has been living in New Zealand for about 5-months to get a feel for the place.

Below are some of his recent insights from that country:

When Simon approached me to write a piece on New Zealand I was a bit surprised.

I’m just a regular guy… sort of.  Like Simon, I’m a serial entrepreneur.   I’ve pretty much always worked for myself.  I don’t have a family, but I am married.  Unlike Simon, there are no topless Peruvian sunbathers in my life…  My ‘work’, if you can call it that, allows me to travel wherever a cell phone and laptop can find a signal.

Nowadays that’s pretty much anywhere and everywhere, so New Zealand seemed a reasonably ‘safe’ bet for me.  Plus I had wanted to visit for as long as I can remember.  It’s a safe, clean, green and under-populated country where one can reconnect with nature and man’s inner spirit… and I think it lives up to its marketing hype.

So what makes New Zealand a place worth considering for an American or European expat?

Let’s start by looking at what was important to me, since my values are probably not that much different than most people, and see how New Zealand stacks up.  I’ll list my Top 10 ‘criteria’, in no particular order:

1.    Geo-politically and physically ‘Remote’
2.    Abundant and reasonably priced lifestyle type properties
3.    Plenty of water.  Ocean, lakes, rivers…
4.    Reasonable annual sunshine hours
5.    Clean environment
6.    Educated, English speaking population
7.    Safe, clean and readily available organic food
8.    Physical safety and the rule of law
9.    Fair taxation
10.    Accessible, high-quality health care

I can tell you that New Zealand checks all the boxes, with the exception of fair taxation; New Zealand is NOT a tax haven.  I believe the only ‘fair’ taxation is no taxation, but you won’t find that here, or anywhere.  Like most first world countries, taxation in New Zealand can get complicated.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not… but if it’s wide open spaces, beautiful beaches, majestic mountains, mirror perfect lakes, roaring rivers, quaint towns, empty roads, great food, cheap property (if you know where to look) and an educated, English speaking population that you seek… look no further.

I’ve been traveling the world, in a modest way, for the better part of the last few years.  I’m an American, so of course I started off in Canada, worked my way down to Panama (where I met Simon and continue to do business), Ecuador, Peru (an organic banana business gone wrong), Uruguay (where I enjoy residency), Argentina, over to Viet Nam (where I was involved with the first Vietnamese company to list its shares publicly in the US), and now New Zealand.

I’ve been here for almost 5 months, and it’s been phenomenal. While it doesn’t tick all the boxes, I’m sure that I’ll continue to live here on a part time basis unless/until I reach the point of becoming an ‘involuntary tax resident.’

Simon again. If you’re interested in hearing more from Mark about New Zealand, let me know by dropping a comment, and I will ask him to write something more customized based on your requests.

I managed to pick up some nasty bug that has knocked me into next Tuesday… But while I feel completely miserable at the moment, this little bacterial bout has given me the opportunity to experience, first-hand, the joys of the Thai medical system.

First, doctors make house calls. When you’re as sick as I am, the last thing you want to do is get dressed, sit in the car, and go to the doctor’s office. Not a problem in Thailand… they come to you, all for about $30. And yes, they speak perfect English.

Second, if you’re a believer in medication, you can buy pretty much buy whatever you want over-the-counter– from antibiotics to codeine to Viagra. And everything costs a small fraction of what you would expect. You almost feel guilty, like you’re ripping off the pharmacy.

I paid 80 baht, roughly $2.50, for a 5-day batch of antibiotics, ibuprofen, and throat lozenges.

Third, if you so choose (and I do), you can have a team of nurses attending to your every need while you’re getting better. I’ve got a couple of ladies whose sole mission in life is to take care of whatever I need– changing the sheets, making a bowl of soup or tea, giving me a massage, or just sitting next to the bed with a wet washcloth over my forehead.

It’s funny what kind of misperceptions people have about medical care overseas. I’m frequently asked “What happens if you get sick overseas? Aren’t you concerned about the quality of medical care?”

Trust me, if/when I get sick, especially in an emergency, I truly hope that I’m in a place like Thailand or Panama instead of wasting away in waiting room back in the US, or paying through the nose for medicine.

Anyhow, I’m going to cut this short today for obvious reasons… depending on how I feel tomorrow I may or may not post something, so don’t be surprised in case you don’t hear from me.

Greetings from Malaysia, where I’m spending an extended weekend before heading briefly to Singapore on business.  I’ll tell you more about the country next week… but if you’re interested in Asia, it should definitely be on your radar.

Before turning to this week’s questions, I wanted to give you a quick update on the job posting from a few weeks ago.  Ordinarily, Matt and I would have made a decision by now, but the applications keep rolling in… I lost count after a few hundred.

To expedite our decision, we’re going close the posting at 11:59pm EST, Monday night March 8. No other applicants will be considered after that time.

Please remember, since there have been so many applications, my staff and I will not be able to respond in order to confirm receipt. Rest assured, if you sent us an email, we received it.

On to this week’s questions:

Tom writes, rather emphatically “Simon, I left the US over a year ago. I now need a 2nd passport as I am almost out of pages on my current one. Problem is, I can’t go to the embassy due to some legal problems back home, and I don’t have $50k to spend on a new passport. What can you recommend?”

Tom has an interesting and unfortunately all-too-common case. I don’t know what he’s done or if he’s guilty of any wrongdoing, but a last-minute second passport is no panacea for criminal troubles.

(to be clear, I don’t equate ‘law’ with morality, but this is a different subject altogether)

Why? Because even if you’re completely innocent of some trumped-up charge, any new country that would consider accepting you for citizenship would first do a background check, and if you’re in hot water, they probably won’t take you.

Conversely, if you actually have done something immoral, you should probably just face the music. After all, the cosmic forces of the universe have a way of working these things out.

Regardless, I think this underscores the importance of taking action. If you have the means, going through a second citizenship process NOW, before it becomes a critical need, is a smart thing to do.

I discussed a few cost effective second passport options last week, and I will continue to do so in future letters.

Speaking of second passports, I made a mistake when I mentioned something about Polish citizenship last week– my thanks to “anonymous” for sending along this correction:

“Simon, you said that a Polish citizen could establish permanent residence in another European country like France or Italy and  become eligible for citizenship there after 7-10 years.  The EU rule is that local citizenship can be applied for after 4 yrs residence, though it’s much faster with marriage.”

She is absolutely correct, my apologies for the oversight.

Stephanie in New York writes, “Simon, thanks for the great information on opening a foreign bank account this week. As a US citizen I understand that I need to file a form to the Treasury Department each year– what are the details on that?”

First- standard disclaimer: check with your tax advisor for any updates. But the current rule is that US taxpayers must report foreign bank and financial accounts on form TDF 90-22.1 each year by June 30.

According to the IRS, A “financial account” includes any bank, securities, securities derivatives or other financial instruments accounts, including any savings, demand, checking, deposit, or any other account maintained with a financial institution.

As of now, you do not have to file the form if the aggregate value of all of your foreign accounts was less than $10,000 for an entire calendar year. If the aggregate value of foreign accounts exceeded $10,000 at any time during the year, you are obliged to file the form by the following June 30th.

James asks- “Simon- you’ve been in Thailand for a month but you haven’t said anything about the nightlife or social scene!”

That’s because you can read about Thai nightlife anywhere. I figured you’d be more interested in the hydroponics plantations where I buy organic vegetables than a review of the Go-Go bars…

… but to put it briefly, you can find whatever you want in Thailand. Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll are as pervasive as Buddhist monks and the works of Shakespeare. If there’s interest, I’ll write a dedicated post about this, just let me know.

Lastly, Pat asks: “OK Simon- I owe $136k on a house that I bought 4 years ago; it’s now “worth” about $70k, tops.  I make plenty of money, but the payment is slowing me down.  Would it be immoral to jump ship and go rent somewhere else?”

Personally, I have an immensely open mind to not judge people for the way that they live. I only broadly repudiate things based on very few moral absolutes– for example, genocide and pedophilia are clearly ‘wrong’ in my book.

Walking away from your mortgage does not make my list.

If you do decide to walk away (and I’m not encouraging you either way), just bear in mind the single universal law of causality… there will be consequences from your actions, and you must be prepared to accept them.

That’s all for this week; enjoy your weekend, and we’ll talk again on Monday.