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September 19, 2014 Santiago, Chile It was known as Directive 10-289, and it was the government’s last-ditch, desperate effort to control the collapsing economy. The President, along with some of his senior advisors at the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources, all widely agreed that the only way out of the crisis
September 16, 2014 Santiago, Chile The polls in Scotland will close this week on one of the more important elections in recent history… perhaps one of the only elections that actually matters. Rather than a typical vote to see who the captain of the Titanic will be, Scots are deciding whether they want
September 6, 2014 Santiago, Chile In 1974 Richard Nixon struck a deal with Saudi Arabia that might go down as the biggest scam in US history. In exchange for weapons and protection, the Saudis would sell their oil for US dollars, then reinvest those dollars back in the United States. This was a
September 1, 2014 Dallas, Texas Imagine this scene: “Everyone in the country was in shock. People’s net worth had devalued more than 53% overnight.” “The value in savings accounts dropped in half and neither merchants nor consumers knew how to react because they had never been through something like it before…” This is
July 6, 2010 Berlin, Germany Last Friday, I read about how the US workforce shrank by over 650,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. Private sector hiring was also less than expected, suggesting that joblessness in the US will remain sluggish. Always ready to spin a bad story, US politicians immediately
June 29, 2010 Oxford, England My apologies for not writing to you yesterday… I was angry (a rare occurrence for me), and I hate writing to my friends when I’m angry. You see, the G8/G20 summits took place over the weekend in Toronto, and everything about these events simply boils my blood. To
June 18, 2010 Madrid, Spain Long haul flights from South America generally tend to leave in the evening, usually between 7pm and 1am. The airlines do this so that you arrive first thing in the morning and can catch any connecting flight you may need… which is nice for travelers. The flight schedule
June 7, 2010 Panama City, Panama My weekend in New York City with fellow Atlas 400 members was really spectacular and first class all the way. There were about 50 of us in total, all with varied and interesting backgrounds from all over the world– a renowned heart surgeon, a music business mogul,
May 27, 2010 Chicago, IL, USA Uruguay is one of the countries that generally receives a lot of praise and positive commentary in the expatriate blogosphere. It’s often referred to as the “Switzerland of South America,” or compared directly to Paris… probably by people who have been to neither Switzerland nor Paris. The
May 19, 2010 Quad Cities, IA, USA I wanted to send you a short note today from America’s heartland to tell you what I’m doing with my investment capital, and why. I’m closing out almost all of my speculative positions and going to sit on the sidelines for a bit because I’m concerned
I generally don’t spend very much time in the US. I think there are more desirable places out there… and to me, the US is just like any other country in decline like Italy or Spain– I really enjoy it as a tourist, I just don’t care enough for the politics or media
May 13, 2010 Undisclosed Location Ask yourself an important question: how will you know when the proverbial fat lady is about to sing? In our regular conversations, we talk a lot about the importance of being prepared… history is full of examples of pigs that got slaughtered for not being prepared, for not
May 6, 2010 Undisclosed Location Most people don’t realize how many countries out there are dollarized. In some countries, like El Salvador, Panama, Palau, Ecuador, etc. the US dollar officially circulates in the economy. In others, like Cambodia and Zimbabwe, the US dollar is the de facto currency, which means that they officially
May 5, 2010 Undisclosed location The last few days have been great for the shorts. I’m one of them. Global markets have been in an absolute panic over what’s happening in Europe, and many major indices have erased their 2010 gains. Clearly, the most concerning issue of the day is the ongoing trouble
April 9, 2010 Panama City, Panama My time is winding up here in Panama and I’m trying to sort out my travel for the next few weeks. I need to be in the US for two conferences by April 26th, so that gives me about 2-weeks to kill. I’m thinking about heading to
