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[Editor’s note: Yesterday we accidentally sent the wrong version of Simon’s article about Kazakhstan. We posted the correct version to the website-- and definitely recommend you check it out.]

Late last week, the Federal Reserve gave its strongest signal yet that they would cut interest rates soon.

And in anticipation of yet another endless flood of cheap money, the US stock market soared to an all-time high.

Honestly it’s a bit absurd[...] Click here to continue reading

In the spring of 1937, a young Scottish diplomat named Fitzroy Maclean embarked on a two year journey across the Soviet Union.

It was something that no Westerner had done in more than two decades, and this was well before any modern conveniences, so Maclean had to travel by any means necessary-- including donkey cart.

Years later he published a wonderful book about his experience called Eastern Approaches.

To give you a[...] Click here to continue reading

Here’s our Friday roll up of the most absurd and concerning articles we came across this week.

UK bans advertisement with “harmful gender stereotypes”

UK bureaucrats will now decide if ads and commercials are too offensive.

New regulations ban advertisements with gender stereotypes "that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence."

So a woman cleaning while a man is being lazy-- banned.

Suggesting a poor physique caused other failures--[...] Click here to continue reading

Earlier this week the United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs released its 2019 world population report… and there were a number of very interesting findings:

1) World population continues to grow slightly, but the rate of global population growth is at the lowest level since at least 1950.

 2) Global population growth rates are unevenly distributed. Developed nations (including the US, Japan, Western Europe) suffer from alarming declines in fertility rates,[...] Click here to continue reading

On January 3, 2009, about six months before I launched Sovereign Man more than a decade ago, the Bitcoin blockchain came into existence.

50 bitcoins were mined by the network’s creator in that very first transaction. And within a few days, the first open-source Bitcoin software was released.

Few people noticed. By October of 2009, the value of a single Bitcoin was still just $0.0009 (9/100th of a penny).

[...] Click here to continue reading

In the year 705 AD, a Japanese entrepreneur named Fujiwara Mahito opened a small inn at the foot of the Akaishi mountains in central Honshu.

At the time, few people probably thought the inn would last very long.

Fujiwara didn’t know anything about being an innkeeper... he had been groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps and serve the emperor as a bureaucrat.

And the location he selected for his inn[...] Click here to continue reading

For this Friday’s roll-up of bizarre and disturbing stories from around the world, we found ourselves zeroing-in on some ridiculous data privacy violations.

Soccer app spies on fans

The Spanish soccer (sigh, OK-- football) league, known by fans around the world simply as La Liga, knew that most pubs across Europe showing its matches weren’t paying for the subscription.

La Liga was sick of losing out on royalties from the pirated video streams. So[...] Click here to continue reading

It was only a few days ago that the Japanese government’s Financial Services Agency published its oddly-titled “Annual Report on Ageing Society”.

(Like everything in Japan, English translations often hilariously miss the mark...)

This is a report that the Ministry of Finance puts out every year. And as the name implies, the report discusses the state of Japan’s pension fund, and its future prospects for taking care of its senior citizens.

Bear[...] Click here to continue reading

Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese general of the 6th century BC Zhou Dynasty, famously wrote in the Art of War:

“When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.”

Modern day governments understand this principle very well. And that’s lesson #1 I want to discuss today.
[...] Click here to continue reading

It was precisely 20 seconds past 9:44am on November 14, 2017 that Japan Railways train number 5255 departed from Minami Nagareyama Station on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Hardly anything seems noteworthy about a train leaving a station. It happens countless times each day all over the world.

Except THIS particular train was supposed to depart FORTY seconds past 9:44am. So it left the station 20 seconds early.

In virtually every other country[...] Click here to continue reading