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February 22, 2012 Santiago, Chile “[T]he more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.” Benito Mussolini Grand Fascist Council Report, 1929 When I was a kid, the morning announcements at my taxpayer-funded public school dragged on for a good 15 or 20 minutes. They
February 14, 2012 Talca, Chile One of the local papers here in Chile ran an interesting story a few days ago about the number of young Spanish immigrants coming to Chile in search of work. Fed up with the ridiculously high unemployment rate in Spain, and tired of being shut out of every
February 13, 2012 London, England [Editor’s note: Professional money manager Tim Price is filling in for Simon today from London. His thoughts below on gold, bonds, and the false pretext of investing in equities is delightfully insightful.] For value investors of a certain age (e.g. mine), discovering that Warren Buffett could be wrong
February 10th, 2012 Santiago, Chile One of the greatest thinkers of all time was Austrian economic Friedrich Hayek, and his work The Road to Serfdom is an absolute must-read. Hayek’s writings are incredibly powerful in these times. In light of the countless recent examples of governments changing the rules whenever/wherever it suits them
February 9th, 2012 Santiago, Chile After more than a decade of year-over-year appreciation, many people are wondering if gold is just another bubble waiting to burst. No commodity or asset class in our historical record has ever shown such long-term growth, and consequently the “B-word” is being tossed around regularly in financial media.
January 30, 2012 Nassau, Bahamas Here’s something unexpected. According to IMF data, the central bank of Kazakhstan recently purchased 3.1 metric tons of gold, increasing its reserves by 4.2%. In an even more stunning development, Mongolia’s central bank purchased 1.2 metric tons, increasing its reserves by a whopping 52%. To be fair, 4.3
[Editor’s Note: Simon’s friend Craig Ballantyne is filling in today to talk about the importance of the internet in generating independent income] In the late 1970’s one of my best friends and his family escaped from Armenia, then under communist rule. In fact, his father bought their way to America via Italy, eventually
I woke up this morning to a flurry of emails– “Did you watch the State of the Union address last night?” I did not. Rather, I was busy sharing a delightful meal at one of my favorite restaurants with some close friends; I didn’t even know that the speech was going on yesterday.
January 23, 2012 Santiago, Chile With over 150 million registered users, the file sharing site MegaUpload.com is one of the most popular on the Internet. At least, it was. The site has now been seized by the US government and its homepage converted to an FBI anti-piracy warning. Its founder, a high tech
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 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
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
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 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
