Trends & News

That was fast! Wells Fargo already ran out of money for small businesses

I think one of the funniest movies of the 1980s was Brewster’s Millions.

In the movie, Richard Pryor plays Monty Brewster, a minor league baseball player who finds out that he is in line to inherit a vast $300 million fortune.

In order to inherit the money, though, Brewster must spend $30 million over the next 30 days… and if he fails to do so, he forfeits the entire inheritance.

Part of[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • April 7, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

The global food supply chain wasn’t designed for this

In the early 1980s, doctors and medical researchers around the world were confounded by the growing number of young, otherwise healthy patients who were dying of rare infections that typically only occurred in people with very weak immune systems.

The situation was so alarming that the CDC in the United States set up a special task force in 1982 to study the condition and stop its spread.

By 1983 the medical community had[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • April 6, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Congress proposes 50% tax on guns and ammunition in the US

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity… and on occasion, poetic justice.

Street Gangs enforce lockdowns in Brazil


Last week we highlighted how Brazil’s president claimed Brazilians don’t get sick.

Unfortunately for President Bolsonaro, his driver is now in the hospital, sick, being tested for Covid-19.

But Bolsonaro is[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • April 3, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

There’s a major sovereign debt crisis looming

By the mid 1300s, the Republic of Florence in modern day Italy had experienced one of the greatest economic booms in human history.

In less than a century, Florence had grown from a tiny, irrelevant backwater to become one of Europe’s largest cities and preeminent financial center.

The expansion was truly impressive. Florence’s population had grown 10x. It had become a leading manufacturer in both weapons and textiles.

(Many etymologists believe the[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • April 2, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

I screwed up

First thing’s first-- I screwed up.

Yesterday I wrote to you about the US government’s initiative to loan money to small businesses, and I was wrong about an important detail.

I said the maximum amount of the loan was equal to 2.5x a company’s annual payroll expense. That’s incorrect.

The correct maximum loan amount is 2.5x a company’s average MONTHLY payroll expense over the past 12 months.

[The total amount that[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 31, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

The ‘Small’ Business Administration is now bigger than Walmart

[Editor's note: this article was corrected on 30 March 2020; the proper way to calculate your loan is based on your average monthly (not annual) payroll multiplied by 2.5]

As you’ve probably already heard, the US government unleashed a giant tsunami of money on Friday, passing a $2 trillion stimulus bill to help boost the economy during the Covid pandemic.

Let’s put that number in context:

$2 trillion is more than it[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 30, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Marvel introduces superheros “Snowflake” and “Safespace”

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity… and on occasion, poetic justice.

Alcohol to go: Why wasn’t this always a thing?


You realize how absurdly micromanaged the economy is when the government starts lifting pointless restrictions.

For example, New York and Washington DC will now allow people to order takeout[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 27, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

FDIC asks Americans to keep their money in the banks

Yesterday the Chair of the FDIC released an astonishing video asking Americans to keep their money in the bank.

Accompanied by soft piano music playing in the background, the official said:

“Your money is safe at the banks. The last thing you should be doing is pulling your money out of the banks thinking it’s going to be safer somewhere else.”



Amazing. I was half expecting her to waive her[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 25, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Powerful wisdom from one of the toughest men who ever lived

One day back in the late 1990s when I was a wide-eyed 20-year-old cadet at West Point, we were told that a distinguished visitor was coming to speak, and to be seated in the auditorium by 1pm sharp.

This was pretty routine; one of the great things about attending West Point was the seemingly endless line of world leaders, athletes, scientists, and even celebrities who would address the Corps of Cadets.

During my[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 24, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

If you think it’s too late, think again. There’s still time

[Editor’s note: This letter was written by Tim Staermose,  Sovereign Man’s Chief Investment Strategist and Editor of the 4th Pillar newsletter.]

I’m writing from my remote rural villa in Southern Bali. I made a mad dash to get back here from Hong Kong before the borders effectively shut to visitors, and airlines cancelled virtually all flights.

Nearly a quarter of a million tourists and other temporary visitors have left Bali in February and[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 23, 2020
  • Bali, Indonesia

COVID-19 -might- actually force governments to be more efficient

Well, at least there’s a bit of good news from the Corona Virus. In a few cases, it at least seems to be making government more efficient, and calls into question why so much bureaucracy existed to begin with.

We think there’s a LOT more to come in terms of streamlining government.

Millions of people will lose their jobs, and that includes government workers too. With tax revenue drying up, federal, state, and[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 20, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Banks are going to drown in an ocean of defaults

On November 6, 2000, then US presidential candidate George W. Bush told a crowd of cheering supporters, “they misunderestimated me.”

Now, if English is not your native language, allow me to clear the air: ‘misunderestimate’ is not a word. But then again, George W. Bush was legendary for hilarious slip-ups like this.

There are entire books dedicated to his ‘Bushisms,’ the ridiculous made-up words and incomprehensible sayings that became routine for the 43rd[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 18, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Writing to you from lockdown

As you might have heard, Puerto Rico is now on lockdown. Government offices and private businesses are closed, and no one is allowed to leave their homes except to buy food, attend medical appointments, etc.

This is quickly going to become global policy, at least in the West. If these measures haven’t hit yet where you live, they’re probably coming soon.

So much of what we’ve been writing about for so long is[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 16, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Venezuela wants every woman to have six children…

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity… and on occasion, poetic justice.

Solved: why is Mississippi is so fat? Jail time for diet advice


Mississippi is officially the fattest state in the US.

So Donna Harris thought she would help.

Donna has a bachelor’s degree in nutrition, and a[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 13, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Predictions are hard. But here goes…

We certainly live in extraordinary times.

Even people who have been irrationally dismissive of the Corona pandemic up until this point finally had to wake up and smell reality yesterday. The NBA. Tom Hanks. European travel ban.

Our human brains, while magnificent and inspiring, are also wired in bizarre ways. We’re filled with countless ‘cognitive biases’ which affect our judgment, usually for the worse.

Among them is that human beings often cannot[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 12, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Anyone with courage and clear thinking will do extremely well

The year 1348, in the words of historian A.L. Maycock, was the closest that humanity ever came to going extinct.

That was the year the Black Death descended on the European continent. And many historians today estimate that it killed as much as 60% of Europe’s population.

Italy was hit especially hard by the plague. Port cities like Venice were accustomed to receiving ships from all over the world, and many of them[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 11, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Court demands husband compensate ex-wife for career she never had

[Editor’s note: This letter was written by Joe Jarvis, a Sovereign Man team member based in Puerto Rico.]

Do you ever wonder what your bank account would look like today if you had made different career and life decisions?

Well, a UK judge took the liberty of answering that question for one woman going through a divorce.

The London couple were both studying to become lawyers when they decided to have kids.[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 10, 2020
  • Fajardo, Puerto Rico

No, the world is not coming to an end…

This is going to be a rough day for a lot of folks. But it’s one that I’ve been writing about for quite some time.

I’ve been saying for years that, at some point, there will be a severe financial reckoning. We wouldn’t know how, and most likely, we would have very little advance warning.

As an example, in June 2018 I wrote “whatever causes the next major downturn can be something completely[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 9, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Police are keeping a list of people who tell offensive jokes

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity… and on occasion, poetic justice.

Hillary Clinton’s Email Scandal Just Rose From the Dead


Ignorance of the law is no excuse for you or me.

But somehow when Hillary Clinton broke the law while Secretary of State, it was her intentions that mattered.
[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 6, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Negative interest rates in the US are virtually guaranteed now

On October 19, 1987, the US stock market suffered the worst crash in its more than 200 year history, dropping more than 23% in a matter of hours.

It wasn’t just in the United States, either. More than 20 major stock markets around the world, from London to Hong Kong to Australia, fell by similar amounts.

And economists estimate that stocks worldwide lost roughly $1.7 trillion of value (approximately 10% of global GDP[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • March 4, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

California reinvents the English language yet again

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

Man fined almost $7 million for painting his own property


In 2002, the owner of some dilapidated warehouses in New York City decided to make use of the property.

He hired an artist to decorate the warehouses with graffiti, and curate graffiti art[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 28, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Wells Fargo paid more in criminal penalties than it paid in interest to its depositors

Last week Wells Fargo paid the largest fine yet for one of it’s many scandals-- $3 billion.

This time, the fine was for opening bank accounts under customers’ names without the customers’ knowledge or consent.

Workers at Wells Fargo did this to boost their own sales goals. They forged customers’ signatures, falsified records, and engaged in outright fraud.

This internal identity theft ended up costing customers millions of dollars in unnecessary fees[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 25, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

When the world became unrecognizable in less than a decade


In the year 1520, exactly 500 years ago, a German scholar named Johan Schoner completed a map of the world that was widely considered to be humanity’s most advanced understanding of geography at that time.

To us, Schoner’s map is pretty amusing.



There’s scarcely any American continent. Instead he drew some amorphous blobs to mark Brazil and the ‘West Indies’. And there’s a very narrow body of water where the[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 24, 2020
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

UK suspects all kids using chat app are hackers

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

UK urges parents to report their kids to police for using normal technology


Police in the UK are distributing a flyer to teachers in public schools, to be passed on to parents.

The poster warns parents to check their children’s computers for certain[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 21, 2020
  • Dallas, Texas, USA

The US fertility rate hit another record low

Last month the US government’s National Vital Statistics System released data showing that the birth rate in the Land of the Free has dropped to -yet another- ALL TIME LOW.

It’s the FOURTH year in a row that the fertility rate has reached a record low in the US, meaning that the issue just keeps getting worse.

And it’s one that has enormous, long-term economic consequences.

If people are having fewer babies[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 17, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Available now: pay $2,500 to be told you’re racist

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

You can now pay $2500 to be told you’re racist


Are you a liberal white woman who wants to pay money to be told that, deep down, you’re subconsciously racist?

If so, you’re in luck!

A new group called “Race to Dinner”[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 14, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Claim your “Freedom Dividend” in Puerto Rico (no voting required)

Tuesday night after the New Hampshire primary, US Presidential candidate Andrew Yang dropped out of the race due to his poor showing.

If you’re not familiar, Andrew Yang famously proposed a Universal Basic Income for all US adults: everyone would have received a “Freedom Dividend” of $1,000 a month under his plan, funded through a national sales tax.

This means that everyone would be paying more tax, but then that tax money would[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 13, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

It turns out the Bolsheviks love the top 1%

One of the really interesting things about where I live here in Puerto Rico is that my house is located within the grounds of a resort… so I bump into a fair number of tourists when I’m at the gym or walking on the beach.

People engage me in conversation a lot-- they can’t imagine actually living in such a paradise, and they’re full of questions about what it’s like.

I always enjoy[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 12, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

The average US couple could be facing a new tax of $180,360

Today the federal government will release a nearly $5 TRILLION annual budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2021 (which begins on October 1st of this year).

Needless to say, that’s more money than any government has ever spent in the history of the world.

And there are a few things in particular that are worth highlighting:

First-- this budget proposal would create yet another trillion dollar annual deficit. And that’s simply astonishing.

[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 10, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Government funded feminists suggest banning heterosexual relationships

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

Feminist group thinks heterosexual relationships are “violent” and should be banned


The “Federation des Femmes du Quebec” is a Canadian feminist group that receives $120,000 of taxpayer funding each year.

And the Federation’s President recently took to Twitter to declare:

“Heterosexual couple[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 7, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Here’s something that makes absolutely no sense

If you feel like you’ve been watching a meteor streaking across the sky over the past several weeks, it turns out it was just Tesla stock soaring to astronomical heights.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Tesla’s stock price was up 4x in the last four months, more than double since the beginning of January, and nearly 50% since February 1st.

(The stock is now down about 20% from that peak.)

It was an[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 6, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Apparently all white males are just mindless automatons

Recently the prominent investment bank Goldman Sachs announced that they would no longer work with companies whose Boards of Directors consisted exclusively of white males.

Specifically the bank will immediately require prospective clients to have at least one female or one non-white individual, on the Board of Directors. And by 2021, a company would need at least two ‘diverse’ directors, otherwise Goldman Sachs will refuse to underwrite that company’s Initial Public Offering.

(Obviously[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • February 5, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Child molester released from prison because ‘he’ now identifies as a ‘she’

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

Pedophile released from prison due to sex change


Joseph Matthew Smith molested 15 children, and his victims were as young as one year old. It’s gruesome.

Smith was first convicted of sex crimes against children in 2012, and again in 2014.

When[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 31, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Fed official: “If there’s a recession, don’t worry”

Earlier this week I sent one of my team members to a banking conference here in Puerto Rico hosted by the Federal Reserve.

It might strike you as strange that the Fed would be holding an event in Puerto Rico, but it’s not that unusual.

Puerto Rico is a US territory and hence part of the US banking system. So just like the rest of the United States, banks in Puerto Rico (including[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 29, 2020
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Naughty librarians to face 1 year in prison

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, your finances, and your prosperity.

Which specific body parts can women expose before being sex offenders?


After installing fiberglass insulation, Tilli Buchanan and her husband stripped off their shirts in the garage for safety reasons.

They didn't want to track any of the debris into the house. While[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 24, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico