SEARCH
July 13, 2015 Yangon, Burma Have you ever walked into a restaurant and seen a table full of people staring at their phones instead of talking to the real live human beings across from them? That used to never happen in Yangon… simply because no one had mobile phones. It was actually pretty
July 10, 2015 Hong Kong Spontaneous combustion. Alien invasion. Zombie apocalypse. What do these have in common? Their likelihood is next to impossible. So why worry? This is how people tend to think about the financial system. Mentioning even the possibility, for example, that the US could default on its debt is met
July 9, 2015 Hong Kong It’s eerily befitting that at this very second, all of South China is frantically anticipating a major storm bearing down on the region. In this part of the world they call them typhoons, which comes from the Chinese ‘tai fung’, meaning ‘strong wind’. And strong they are. Here
July 9, 2015 Hong Kong Standing before the European Parliament yesterday, it took Nigel Farage just four minutes to completely destroy every argument supporting the Eurozone. A few years back when he spoke at one of our Sovereign Man events in Santiago, he anticipated everything that we’re seeing right now. Today it’s not
July 8, 2015 Manila, Philippines Thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece, it was a commonly held belief that the gods walked the earth among us humans. And that perhaps even Zeus himself might show up at your doorstep disguised as a vagabond. From this sprang the legendary sense of Greek hospitality, known
July 6, 2015 Bangkok, Thailand While all eyes were on Greece this weekend, one of the largest banks in Lithuania quietly posted an awkward announcement to its customers. Interest rates are now negative. So negative, in fact, that the bank actually has to pay interest to some of its borrowers. And the bank
July 2, 2015 Singapore When I was a kid, my friends and I used to cruise around on our Huffy bikes for hours at a time. Often we’d end up on the other side of town in unfamiliar places. No helmets. No knee pads. No reflector vests. No parents. Had I grown up
July 1, 2015 Singapore Yesterday over coffee, a friend of mine leaked the news that JP Morgan’s private banking division here in Singapore is going to start charging negative interest rates. I almost fell out of my chair. He’s a successful hedge fund manager and one of their best customers. So when he
June 30, 2015 Piraeus, Greece [Editor’s note: This letter was written by a Greek-American friend of Simon’s who is currently living near Athens.] Since my arrival into the country late May, the topic of most discussions I overhear everywhere are naturally about the debt negotiations. I’d call opinions in support or against the
June 29, 2015 Singapore It is somewhat amusing that the word ‘crisis’ originates from Ancient Greece. It’s actually a medical term; Hippocrates wrote extensively about ‘crisis’ being the key turning point in disease progression– the time at which it either overcomes the patient, or it subsides. And though the word ‘crisis’ is thrown
June 25, 2015 Bali, Indonesia In late June 1997, eighteen years ago, this part of the world felt pretty normal. People had jobs. Inflation was fairly low. The economy was growing. Confidence was high. Life was great. For years, most of the economies across Asia had seen meteoric, credit-fueled growth. Capital was pouring
June 23, 2015 Seminyak, Bali If it just so happens that Caitlyn Jenner has an offshore bank account, it would be like lightning striking twice in the same place. I say this in light of two recent reports that have shown how exceptionally rare these two phenomena are. Per a recent Economist article
June 22, 2015 Seminyak, Bali In May 1940, a visibly concerned Winston Churchill traveled to Paris to survey the city’s defenses. Nazi forces had already blasted past French units and were rolling easily through the Somme Valley towards Paris. There wasn’t much time. And Churchill bluntly asked the commanders in his notoriously pitiful
June 19, 2015 Kathmandu, Nepal I’ve never been a big fan of celebrating my birthday. I just don’t see the point of commemorating the day I popped out of the birth canal. To give credit where credit is due, mothers do all the heavy lifting, and they’re the ones who should be celebrated.
June 18, 2015 Kathmandu, Nepal I’ll never forget the Oath of Office I took when I was commissioned as an Army Intelligence Officer all those years ago. The most important part is where you swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic.” That was
