Trends & News

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

“Now we see the violence inherent in the system”

Apparently Bill Gates has sat on his ass and contributed nothing to Microsoft’s success over the past 44 years… at least, according to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

At an event commemorating Martin Luther King on Monday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told the audience that wealthy people “sat on a couch” while “undocumented workers” earning “slave wages” created all the wealth and value.

“No one ever makes a billion dollars,” she said. “You take a billion dollars.”[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 22, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Woman arrested in India for concealing 1.2kg of gold in her rectum

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.

Feds steal $80,000 life savings from a confused elderly man


79 year old Terry Rolin kept his entire life savings in cash at his home in Pittsburgh. Inside a tupperware food container, he had saved $82,373 over his life working as a railroad engineer.
[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 17, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Uncle Sam just used its financial nuclear weapon again

In August of 1945, the United States became the only country to drop nuclear bombs on an enemy.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely destroyed in the blink of an eye. And the Japanese had no choice but to surrender to the Allies, finally ending World War II.

Ever since, world superpowers have been rapidly advancing weapons technology, constantly raising the bar for destructive power.

It won’t surprise you to find out that[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 15, 2020
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Do you have a backup generator?

The news headlines read, “Deadly 6.4 Magnitude Earthquake Plunges Puerto Rico into Darkness”; and “Powerful Puerto Rico Earthquake Knocks Out Entire Island’s Power.”

It was enough to prompt my mother to call, four times, to make sure I was OK.

There’s been a string of fairly strong earthquakes lately in Puerto Rico... which is incredibly unusual for this part of the world. It’s been more than a century since the island was rocked[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 13, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Tech giant doesn’t want anyone to be offended… ever

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.

Town charges woman $60,000 as a fee to renovate her own home


For 40 years Linda and Gary Cameron always dreamed of renovating their small home to accomodate more family and friends.

Sadly, this dream could only be realized when Gary passed away,[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 10, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Own a home? You’re responsible for California’s wild-fires

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.

Professor Blames Private Property for California Wildfires


A public takeover of utility companies is not enough, according to Kian Goh, Professor of Urban Development at UCLA.

In order to combat California wildfires, we need to abandon “aspirations of home ownership, and belief in[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • January 3, 2020
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

There’s a major banking crisis unfolding in China

[Editor’s note: This letter was written by Tim Staermose, Sovereign Man’s Chief Investment Strategist]

The Chinese government isn’t exactly famous for its honesty and transparency.

So when the Chinese regulators are starting to openly report trouble in their banking system, it’s time to take notice.

According to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)’s “2019 China Financial Stability Report,” 586 out of 4,379 Chinese lenders were officially deemed to be “high risk”.

[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • December 27, 2019
  • Bali, Indonesia

It only costs about 20 grand to get away with murder

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.

Kentucky Governor Pardons Murderer after family’s fundraiser


Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin lost reelection in November.

But the governor still had some campaign debt to retire. And it’s not easy to convince people to donate to a campaign that already lost.

Still, one[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • December 20, 2019
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

It depends on the meaning of the word ‘is’…

By February 1868, President Andrew Johnson had been at odds with Congress for years.

Johnson had been Vice President for barely a month when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1864, and his battles with Congress started from practically Day 1.

Johnson shared Lincoln’s view that the Confederacy should be swiftly and gently reintegrated back into the Union after the Civil War; neither wanted to penalize the South.

But at the time, Congress[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • December 19, 2019
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

He helped expand the surveillance state. Now he’s its victim.

[Editor’s note: This article was written by Sovereign Man staff member Joe Jarvis, who recently moved to Puerto Rico. Joe is also editor at the DailyBell.com]

Frankly, I couldn’t care less about the whole impeachment thing.

I’m a resident of Puerto Rico, so I couldn’t vote in the Presidential election if I wanted to. Which I don’t. I haven’t voted in years because I have a hard time believing that my vote really[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Joe Jarvis
  • December 18, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Francisco spends almost $30 per flush for public toilets

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.

British school controls where children eat and shop after school


Imagine a man in a high visibility jacket comes into your take-out restaurant, and starts berating your customers, telling them to leave, and threatening them if they don’t.

That is what business owners[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • December 13, 2019
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Comedian fined $35k for offensive joke

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.

Canadian Comedian fined $35,000 for joke


A Canadian comedian must pay $35,000 to a disabled man he made fun of in some of his acts.

A Quebec appeals court upheld the decision by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal. It said Mike Ward exceeded[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • December 6, 2019
  • Gros Islet, Saint Lucia

Gold has outperformed the stock market over the last year

For more than a year, I’ve been strongly encouraging readers to consider buying gold.

In fact, almost exactly one year ago to the day, I wrote that gold was cheap relative to just about every other asset class in the world.

Since then, gold has been one of the best performing investments in the world.

Over the last 12 months, the price of gold is up 21.1%, handily outperforming everything from the[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • December 4, 2019
  • En route to Saint Lucia

British government to decide how children can decorate their bedrooms

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.

Crackdown on homeschooling coming across Great Britain


A few weeks ago we talked about how the Labour Party in Great Britain wants to eliminate private schools.

Now, in addition to that, regional governments across Great Britain are launching an assault against homeschooling.

[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 29, 2019
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Why Elizabeth Warren wants you to be poor

Late last week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gave away nearly $100 million to more than a dozen charities across the United States.

It would take the average person more than 1,000 centuries to accumulate that much money. Yet Bezos gave it away in a single day.

And it’s not like that was the first time he’d ever given to charity. Bezos has already donated billions of dollars to other philanthropic endeavors.

You’d[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 26, 2019
  • Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

Newspaper will stop reporting any news “traumatic” to snowflakes

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.

College newspaper will no longer report “triggering” news


Northwestern is one of the finest universities in the world and is particularly renowned for its journalism school.

The Daily Northwestern student paper, staffed by these aspiring journalists, recently apologized for covering a “traumatic” event[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 22, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Who knew 2 cents could go so far?

About a week and a half ago I had a terrible sinus infection… I’m talking -really- bad. My sneezes were so ferocious that I half-expected the US Geological Survey to register them on the Richter Scale.

In the midst of all that misery, I became acutely interested in the health care plans of leading US Presidential contenders… and stayed up late at night when I couldn’t sleep combing through their solutions.

Most of[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 21, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

The five scary new rules of upside-down capitalism

Roughly 23,000 years ago in modern-day Israel, a small tribe of ex-cave dwellers built a tiny village near the Sea of Galilee that may have been one of the earliest agrarian societies in human history.

Archaeologists discovered the site more than thirty years ago.

And they found tens of thousands of well-preserved seeds and agricultural tools, suggesting that the people who lived there planted a great deal of food in the fertile lands[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 20, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Retired man’s home seized over $8.41 in unpaid property taxes

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.

County government seizes home over $8.41 in unpaid tax


When an 83-year old retiree paid his property taxes late, he miscalculated the interest owed to the county government.

All told, he was $8.41 short. Yes you read that correctly, i.e. less than nine[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 15, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Just in case the Fed ignites the atmosphere…

In early 1940s as World War II raged in Europe and the Pacific, the most powerful person in the world was NOT Adolf Hitler. Nor Franklin Roosevelt. Nor Winston Churchill. Nor Josef Stalin.

Not even close.

The most powerful person in the world was a Nobel Prize winning physicist named Arthur Compton.

Compton had been tasked by the US government to lead a group of scientists in developing a plutonium-based nuclear weapon--[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 14, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

You have 49 days left to come to Puerto Rico

Over the past two decades, one of my hobbies has been chronicling my family history.

It started back in the early 2000s right around my first military deployment. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it home, so I had a strong desire to know more about my ancestors.

I was fascinated by what I found-- not just names and dates, but the stories of their lives. And the more I[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 12, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

UK Cancer charity: Biological females are now ‘people with a cervix’

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.

Apparently it’s not just women who can have babies...


It all started when a British cancer charity decided to drop the word “women” from their pap smear ad campaign.

It seems that suggesting “women” should get pap smears to test for cervical cancer[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 8, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

When they can take your children away… how free are you?

George Reby was driving from New Jersey to Tennessee to pick up a car he had purchased on eBay when he was stopped for speeding.

Like many Americans, George felt he had nothing to hide from the police. So when the officer asked him if he was carrying any large amounts of cash, he admitted he had $22,000 on him because he was buying a car.

George was able to show the officer[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 5, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Confused about your gender? You can commit crimes without punishment in Australia

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.

Appeals court overturns child pornography conviction because criminal is transgender


Right up front-- to be absolutely clear, we have absolutely no issues whatsoever about the personal decisions that people make in their lives.

We couldn’t care less if someone chooses to identify as[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • November 1, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

How you can save tens of thousands of dollars in taxes by moving abroad

Milton Friedman, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, once said that “nothing is more permanent than a temporary government program.”

The same can be said about temporary taxes.

Take 1861 for example, when the first-ever federal taxes were levied on American citizens to help pay for the Civil War.

At first these taxes were levied only on residents living in America. But the people in power argued that[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 31, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Tanzania: Come for the nature, stay for the stock market

[Editor’s Note: Today’s Note from the Field comes from Sovereign Man Team Member Joe Jarvis who recently climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.]

For some people it starts with loss of appetite. Others get a headache and nausea.

Pole, pole is the motto, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro-- slowly, slowly. At an altitude of 5,895 meters (19,340 feet), you can definitely feel the lack of oxygen on Africa’s highest mountain.

And while the tourists huff[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Sovereign Man
  • October 29, 2019
  • Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Hey Air Force, the 1960s called: they want their floppy disks back

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.

Air Force Missile Command finally retires 1960s era Floppy Disks


I suspect our younger readers might not know what a floppy disk is, let alone have ever seen one.

Whereas today we have USB drives etc. to copy and store files, the standard[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 25, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

WeWork: one moron ruining it for everyone else

In 2010, New York-based entrepreneur Adam Neumann had an idea: to lease office space to companies all over the world on a short-term basis.

Usually when a company leases office space, it has to sign a long-term contract; but Neumann wanted to lease space to businesses for terms as short as one month.

It wasn’t an original idea. Companies like Regus have been doing that for decades. But Neumann had two key twists:
[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 23, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Now even Sex Robots have rights

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.

Singapore officially bans ‘fake’ news


Singapore is great for a lot of things-- banking, business, trade, etc. But it ranks rather poorly for civil liberties.

Case in point: a new law intended to stop fake news came into effect in Singapore this month;[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 18, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

It’s “violence” to mispronounce someone’s name

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? You might want to grab a drink for this one... or take a moment to listen to some soothing meditation music.

Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, finances, and possibly your blood pressure.

It’s “violence” to mispronounce someone’s name


Let me ask you a question-- how do you pronounce the name “Shea” ?

[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 11, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Why you shouldn’t be able to drive to your bank

What is your favorite coffee shop or restaurant? Which doctor’s office and dentist do you prefer to go to?

I bet these are all within, say, 15 minutes of your home. That makes sense--who wants to drive three hours to get coffee, or take a plane to their dentist?

But what about your bank?

If you live in the USA or Europe, chances are, the banks in your neighborhood probably aren’t that[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 10, 2019
  • San Juan, Puerto Rico

Gold’s long-term gains have even outperformed Warren Buffett…

Warren Buffett, despite his extraordinary investment success, has a rather famous and long-standing love/hate relationship with precious metals.

Maybe it started with his dad-- Congressman Howard Buffett of Nebraska-- who, as a staunch advocate for the gold standard, argued to his colleagues on Capitol Hill that “paper money systems have always wound up with collapse and economic chaos.”




Warren himself acquired a record-setting 128 million ounces of silver back in[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 7, 2019
  • Santiago, Chile

You can now be fined $250,000 in New York City for saying this phrase

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 and finances.

New York City starts banning words


You can now be fined $250,000 in New York City for using the term “Illegal alien” in a negative way according to new guidance from the City’s Commission on Human Rights.

This applies to landlords, employers, and in public accommodations.
[...] Click here to continue reading
  • Simon Black
  • October 4, 2019
  • Sovereign Valley Farm, Chile