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January 16th, 2012 Manila, Philippines [Editor’s note: Tim Staermose is filling in for Simon today.] Reaction to my article last week about the strong economic picture, and business opportunities I see all around me here on the ground in The Philippines was overwhelming. Evidently there are some go-getters out there in this community
January 13, 2012 Manila, Philippines [Editor’s note: Tim Staermose is filling in today while Simon is down on the farm in Chile.] Amid all the doom and gloom in the world economy as insolvent western nations slowly suffocate under a mountain of debt, it’s easy to forget that there are places in the
January 11, 2012 Santiago, Chile Last week, the US government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), an agency of the US Treasury Department, published its 2011 annual report. There are a few numbers that are pretty startling. We’ve discussed before that FinCEN is the executive agency tasked with ensuring that every US banker is an
January 10, 2012 Santiago, Chile Nearly 10-years ago to the day, the government of Argentina collapsed. Beset by weighty deficit spending and a completely unrealistic currency peg to the US dollar, Argentina became the poster child for the golden rule of economics: ‘that which is unsustainable will not be sustained.’ It’s reversion to
[Editor’s note: Tim Staermose, Sovereign Man’s Chief Investment Strategist, is filling in for Simon today.] January 9, 2012 Manila, Philippines A few days ago, I read a that famed hedge fund manager John Paulson, who’s best known for personally making over $5 billion from the sub-prime meltdown, lost more than HALF of his
January 6, 2012 Santiago, Chile We recently received a great question from a reader, Chuck, who asked, “Simon, I’m going to HK in 10 days to open a bank account, and I know there are options to do this in several foreign currencies. What foreign currency would you recommend to hold over the
January 4, 2012 Seat 5F, Undisclosed location at 35,000 feet Most of us have grown up steadily ingesting a hearty line of crap that has made its way into the social consciousness. Governments can’t go bankrupt. Government bonds are safe. Banks are safe. Real estate always goes up. The US dollar is king.
Date: January 3, 2012 Coyhaique, Northern Patagonia Yesterday we discussed certain events that, in my view, are nearly mathematical certainties. Things like a restructuring of public pensions and Social Security in Europe and the US. Western governments blocking Internet and mobile networks. War. The US government being forced to issue debt in a foreign
January 2, 2012 Coyhaique, Northern Patagonia New Year’s predictions are always a fun exercise. We can bet each other over the price of gold on December 31, 2012, or who will win the White House this year, or even make wild, black swan predictions. It’s like the Charades of thought experiments… good for
December 23, 2011 Santiago, Chile First off, happy holidays. I hope this email finds you in good health and cheer. Down here in Chile, I intend to spend the weekend (and most of next week) doing absolutely nothing but reading, relaxing, and riding horseback with friends around our new 1,000+ acre farm. I’m
December 22, 2011 Toronto, Canada [Editor’s note: Simon’s close friend Craig Ballantyne, now editor of the Early to Rise publication, is filling in today while Simon storms the new farm in Chile.] If you’re like Simon and I and you spend any time at all reading the daily news headlines, it undoubtedly feels
December 21, 2011 Santiago, Chile Let’s speak plainly. If you are in the United States or Western Europe, chances are incredibly high that your bank is simply not safe. In other words, your money is at risk. Big time. Let’s review some of the chief concerns: 1) A black box of assets Banking
December 20, 2011 Santiago, Chile Here’s a quick crash course in how the intelligence business works these days. Despite the Hollywood mystique of suave, womanizing, pun-dropping men of mystery flitting around the world, it’s much more mundane. In reality, government operatives from a host of three-letter agencies are working to develop large networks
December 19, 2011 Santiago, Chile Ten years ago, Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill coined the term “BRICs” to lump together a group of large, rapidly-growing economies that we all know well: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. True to his thesis at the time, growth and development in these countries has left the rest of
December 16, 2011 Santiago, Chile It’s done. Yesterday afternoon, after years of searching, months of preparation, and weeks of stress, my wonderful partners and I closed on a gorgeous farm in central Chile, about 2 1/2 hours south of Santiago. The land is over 1,000 acres of productive crops, plentiful water, mountainous horse
