Category: Trends & News

SEARCH

Message from Planet Japan: The good times never last forever

After having traveled to more than 120 countries in my life, the only person I know who’s been to more places than I have is Jim Rogers. Jim is a legend– a phenomenal investor, author, and all-around great guy. (His book Adventure Capitalist is a must-read, chronicling his multi-year driving voyage across the

Read More

The time when Kiefer Sutherland beat me to the punch

Back in 2013 I had an idea for a movie. The basic premise was that some unknown domestic terrorist group executes an attack on the United States government by blowing up the Capitol during the President’s State of the Union Address. It’s a little silly, but I even wrote a small treatment for

Read More

Social Security proposes “immediate and permanent reduction” in benefits

On a deep, dark evening last June in the spectacularly celestial deserts of northern Chile, scientists made a phenomenal discovery. It was a supernova… one that they named ASASSN-15lh. This wasn’t just any supernova. It was the BIGGEST and BRIGHTEST supernova ever recorded. Supernovas are exploding stars whose ejected mass and energy can

Read More

It doesn’t matter that we “owe it to ourselves”

[Editor’s Note: As we’re coming up on the end of the year, we thought it would be appropriate to republish some of our most popular articles. Today’s was originally published on March 14, 2017] Thousands of years ago, as far back as 3000 BC, the ancient Egyptians had developed a highly advanced system

Read More

Yes, governments CAN go bankrupt. And no, it’s NOT impossible…

[Editor’s Note: As we’re coming up on the end of the year, we thought it would be appropriate to republish some of our most popular articles. Today’s was originally published on March 13, 2017] In the year 1517, one of the most important innovations in financial history was invented in Amsterdam: the government

Read More

A great story from when America was still the Land of Opportunity

[Editor’s Note: As we’re coming up on the end of the year, we thought it would be appropriate to republish some of our most popular articles. Today’s was originally published on January 2, 2017] Last week during a long overdue vacation, a close friend of mine recommended reading the autobiography of Rich DeVos

Read More

Saxo Bank predicts Bitcoin collapse to $1,000 in 2018

It’s that time of year again– the time when everyone seems to be channeling his or her inner Nostradamus, peering into the crystal ball, and making predictions about what we’re going to see next year. There’s a great quote that’s often mis-attributed to Mark Twain: “Predictions are hard, especially about the future.” (The

Read More

A young foreigner’s first impressions of America

Last weekend while I was in Denver, I had the opportunity to speak with a young man from the Netherlands who was attending our charity event. It was his first trip to the United States, and I’m always interested to hear people’s first impressions. He told me he was really overwhelmed with the

Read More

The government is coming for your Bitcoin

The same day Bitcoin cracked its all-time high above $11,000, the government dealt its first blow to the crypto world… On Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the popular Bitcoin exchange, Coinbase, to provide the IRS with information on over 14,000 account holders. The taxman noticed that only 800-900 people reported

Read More

Is it Tuesday? Time for another banking scandal

Another day, another major banking scandal. It’s getting to the point where you can practically set your watch to these things. The latest involves our old friend Wells Fargo. The Wall Street Journal reported last night that Wells has been screwing its customers on foreign currency exchange rates. According to the Journal, Wells

Read More

Welcome to the Sue-nited States of America

On the morning of February 27, 1992, 79-year old Stella Liebeck and her grandson Chris pulled up to a McDonald’s drive-through in Albuquerque, New Mexico and ordered a $0.49 cup of coffee. Chris pulled the car over and parked momentarily so that his grandmother could add cream and sugar. While doing so, she

Read More

The Ponzi scheme that’s more than 100x the size of Bernie Madoff

By January 1920, much of Europe was in total chaos following the end of the first World War. Unemployment soared and steep inflation was setting in across Spain, Italy, Germany, etc. But an Italian-American businessman who was living in Boston noticed a unique opportunity amid all of that devastation. He realized that he

Read More

Class Warfare: people are out for blood

Roughly two thousand years ago, the government of ancient Rome was facing a serious problem. The tributium capitus, or poll tax, they had imposed across their provinces was becoming unpopular. And there was a growing minority of Roman subjects who felt they were being forced to pay an overly burdensome and disproportionately high

Read More

Thousands of Americans renounced their citizenship. Again

Every quarter the United States government publishes a list of individuals who have chosen to renounce their US citizenship. The latest list came out yesterday, and 1,376 people are on it. That might sound like a small number, but the total for 2017 is projected to be more than 20% higher than 2016…

Read More