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May 18, 2011 Santiago, Chile Take a moment and conduct a mini thought experiment. Imagine that you’re from the future many hundreds of years from now, researching what life was like in the early 21st century. You pull up an archive of newspaper headlines from the year 2011 and read the following: “US
May 17, 2011 Santiago, Chile There are certain times in life when a man is faced with overwhelming adversity… times when he has no reason to adhere to society’s norms anymore. It is in these instances that the true quality of his character comes shining through. One of these situations is when he’s
May 16, 2011 Santiago, Chile On June 10, 1215 AD, after prolonged rebellion and frustrating negotiation, a group of England’s most influential barons entered London to force the disastrous King John Softsword into accepting a revolutionary charter of individual freedoms. Five days later in the Runnymede meadow of Surrey County, John affixed his
May 13, 2011 Santiago, Chile Have you heard the rumors about the Iraqi dinar? Week in, week out, we receive at least 2-3 questions about this. The ‘word on the street’ is that the Iraqi government is set to “increase” the value of the dinar, essentially re-peg it against the dollar by 2,
May 11, 2011 Santiago, Chile Following in the footsteps of a rather ignominious list of nations like Argentina and Hungary, the government of lreland is set to take its ‘fair share’ of private retirement funds. Drowning in debt and faced with unpopular, unrealistic, ridiculously unpopular austerity measures, the government has announced that it
by Tim Staermose May 10, 2011 Manila, Philippines Reading the local papers in Manila today, with their blaring headlines celebrating the latest boxing conquest of Filipino boxing phenomenon Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, I couldn’t help but be struck by the symbolism. Here’s a guy who grew up dirt-poor, in one of the poorest parts
May 10, 2011 Santiago, Chile I call Chile the new America, and if you’re looking for a place where you can be expected to take care of yourself, where you are responsible for your own successes and failures, and where the government stays out of your business, this is your place. One of
May 9, 2011 Santiago, Chile With great regret, I must report that one of my closest friends was laid to rest yesterday morning in New York City. Yury was aged only 49 years, and his untimely departure from this physical world will undoubtedly leave a void of class and humanity in our society.
May 6, 2011 Punta del Este, Uruguay My time in Uruguay has been all too short, mostly because I was ill for the majority of the trip. If Ben Bernanke were a physician, he surely would have described my bug as ‘transitory,’ though it proved to be anything but… This evening, I’m heading
May 5, 2011 Punta del Este, Uruguay As I travel throughout the world, I pay very close attention to price levels. I don’t believe a word of it when monetary authorities play down inflation concerns or tell me that rising prices are “transitory”. My boots on the ground observations tell me otherwise. It’s
May 4, 2011 Manila, Philippines [Editor’s note: Tim Staermose is filling in for Simon Black today. ] My wife just celebrated her 35th birthday. If you ask me, she doesn’t look a day over 25. She may be quiet and angelic, and not much more than 5 feet tall. But she’s a strong
May 2, 2011 Montevideo, Uruguay Despite being one of the most cerebral societies in the history of the world, the Ancient Greeks condemned one of their greatest philosophers to death for asking too many inconvenient questions and pestering the status quo. Certain things, as it turns out, are sacrosanct and beyond debate. Good
April 29, 2011 Lago Ypacarai, Paraguay Greetings from paradise. We have a lot to cover today, so I want to get right down to it. First, long-time readers know that I don’t really do public speaking gigs or interviews. We get a lot of requests for these but usually turn them down
April 28, 2011 Asuncion, Paraguay Jim Rogers saw the writing on the wall for America several years ago. He uprooted his wife and family from New York and went where the opportunity was– Singapore. Rogers has famously said that the best career advice he can give a young person setting out to make
April 27, 2011 Asuncion, Paraguay Paraguay isn’t exactly ‘on the radar,’ so to speak. Most people who research living overseas usually end up in the hyped up places like Panama, Costa Rica, or even Ecuador. Those places are fine and good, but Paraguay may truly be a hidden gem for many. Like Ecuador,
