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Three Key Lessons From Recent Travels Around The World
Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,
Greetings from New York. Or, New York’s JFK airport, rather.
Having just been fondled by a government agent (who commented rather saucily that I’m ‘in top form’ as he molested me), I’m now comfortably settled in the lounge awaiting my flight to Chile whilst reflecting on my travels over the past two months.
I’ve recently had the pleasure of putting boots on the ground across the Asia-Pacific region– Australia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Philippines, etc. before passing through the United States.
In Dallas, Peter Schiff and I hosted 200+ subscribers of Sovereign Man: Confidential, and then I finally made my way to New York City for the annual meeting of the Atlas 400 club, of which I am happily a member.
The club is an impressive group. Members are typically self-made, successful people who bring unique insights from their fields. And I always walk away from these meetings with a load of actionable intelligence.
One member, for example, is a sharp, contrarian hedge fund manager. He gave a brief presentation on why Greek stocks are a tremendous bargain right now, despite almost every other world market being overpriced near their all-time highs.
(Greece is still down 85% from it’s all-time nominal high from 1999, and 80% from its 2007 euro-era peak. And as he explained, the companies still standing are actually stronger than they’ve ever been, yet trading at steep discounts to book value.)
Another friend of mine who is a real estate mogul said that much of the price rise we’re seeing in US housing is due to a wave of hedge funds that are buying vacant properties.
He said he expects most of these hedge funds will liquidate within 18-24 months, flooding the market with homes and driving prices back down.
When it came my turn to make some remarks, I told the group three things I’ve learned in my recent travels:
1) Inflation is rampant in the developing world
Having just returned from places like Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Cambodia (which is de facto dollarized), it’s clear that prices are rising thanks to US money printing.
In Bangladesh, for example, locals told me that the prices of some of their staple vegetables had increased 30% in just two months! And given that people in developing countries typically allocate up to 50% of their household income to food, such prices increases are a really big deal.
From my view, this puts a lot of pressure on those governments to disconenct their economies from dollar-based monetary inflation… which means that one day soon this sort of inflation will come back to the US.
2) The US banking system is in really bad shape
Looking strictly at liquidity, most US banks hold less than 3.5% of their customer deposits in cash equivalents. While in places like Singapore, it’s often north of 35%.
Simply put, banks in Singapore are TEN TIMES more liquid than US banks. And to boot, Singapore has never had a banking failure. Ever. Given the two options, it makes a lot of sense to hold some savings in a Singapore bank account rather than 100% in the US.
3) The Hong Kong dollar is a reasonable alternative to the US dollar
At the moment, the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar at a rate of 7.80 +/- a tight band.
This means that, if the world enters another massive spiral of deleveraging and disintermediation, the Hong Kong dollar will surge alongside the US dollar. So you have very little currency risk.
If, on the other hand, the US dollar plummets, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority will simply divorce itself from the US and revalue the peg. Or eliminate it altogether. So anyone holding Hong Kong dollars will see the value of their savings rise substantially in US dollar terms.
This is an easy, low-risk way to hedge both currency and inflation risk. And combining #2 and #3 together, it’s possible to hold Hong Kong dollars in a Singapore bank account.
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Did you travel by war-elephant this time, Simon, or just a rickshaw pulled by Parthian mercenaries, accompanied by a fife and drum corps?
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Is that a forward looking comment for when you are drug off to a fema camp? Zero Hedge search for mkkby....this person has been deleted.
Reserved for future deletion.
I'm a good looking guy. I'm sure I can get by as a local fema-camp manwhore.
What would I have to do to avoid execution? I'll work hard... but...but.. I can just imagine those well-fed porker guards keeping me around because I am "useful" to them.
Ah, what one will do to survive.
No, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
All you hatas keep hatin' but Simon don't rest his head at no HoJo. Simon Black- International Man of Kickin' Ass.
Simon Black...world traveller, adventurer, a man of "actionable intelligence"...and a total dickwad
I sense hostility ...
you haven't been here very long. Go back and read his collected works of pretensious shit and you'll better understand.
"you haven't been here very long. Go back and read his collected works of pretensious and rediculous shit and you'll better understand."
FIFY
Also, following Simon's advice is akin to playing Russian Roulette with a semi automatic pistol.......only much more tedious and painful.
Simon Black is a bit laughable sometimes (deposit interest rates in Mongolia etc) but he does have some truthiness
One is Simon's theme that people really need to get the f*ck out of the USA, it is too fascist hopeless there*
And today Simon raises a theme that has been recently neglected on ZH - the food-price inflation in the developing world, that is the most criminal and murderous consequence of Western financial policies and Western financial speculators
Simon is quite right, in lots of poor countries, food is becoming as expensive as it is in rich Europe. As Simon writes, quite in agreement with gold guru Dr Jim Willie and others, there will be:
« a lot of pressure on those governments to disconenct their economies from dollar-based monetary inflation… which means that one day soon this sort of inflation will come back to the US. »
The food-price inflation in poor countries, is a terrible crime against humanity, as we seem to have a clue as to how Western countries are causing it. The new WTO head from Brazil, Roberto Azevedo, may make a big difference on this after he takes office in September.
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*For all our problems in Continental Europe, our great virtue is that we are not police states, there is almost no one in jail here, and there is little fear of courts, prosecutors and lawyers ... there are rough police in places but the courts are very reluctant to jail anyone, overall ...
And in north-west Continental Europe (unlike Southern Europe under the boot of the troika), there is essentially zero poverty among legal residents, everyone has health care and a minimal decent life ... still paradise on earth, relatively speaking, despite EU nonsense
This is Simple 'Simon Nom de Guerre's main problem. He says spending any time trying to improve the country you live in is a waste of time. He literally said it was the worst investment one could make.
Lets just say thats a little defeatist for my liking. Tells you what kind of solutions you will get from him, though.
he does call himself SOVEREIGN MAN so he is staying in character to not give a shit about any place but his majestic physique
maybe he is the dos equis guy.....
Stay thirsty my friend!
never did understand that - why the f*ck would I want to stay thirsty. Of course it might be the better choice between that and DosXX.
that's why they give you free crackers at bars...
Agreed!! I could give a shit who Simon Black is. He sounds like Jim Roger's parrot. I'm just saying.
Sounds more to me like that incessantly self-centered crap from Jim ONeil.
Yay more dickwad
That kind of gratuitous comment is getting quite common even here on ZH. It shows that many are still trapped in the "hate-the-rich", "99%-vs.-1%", "profitting corporations are evil/I love government" mindset.
Get over it.
Who the fuck are you, his man-servant?
Fluffing is a hands-on job ... but somebody's gotta do it.
Going to disagree with you Kred. (not with your avatar). It has nothing to do with his money. I'm sure Jim Rogers has many times more and doesn't get much harassment here at ZeroHedge. What does Simon in, is his know-it-all attitude.
I've yet to meet a West Point grad who lacked self-esteem. It's part of the pre-screening and training. Same with MD training: After boot-camp's tear-down, they built you them up into 'demi-gods'. Some people's fixation smack of obsession or of attack-the-messenger trolling, I swear.
Suggestion: If you don't like his style, then don't fucking read his articles. It's not like you can still bitch & moan that you couldn't tell from the cover.
Request: Please keep your comments at an adult level, and stop diluting & polluting with useless remarks. We can disagree w/o being disagreeable, I hope.
Lighten up, Francis.
Amen to that. I'll bet most of the guest posters have more assets than Simon. A lot of them I really like.
No, it shows that Black is so extremely full of himself and so out of touch with reality it´s just silly.
I just hope he pays the Tylers well, because ZH is not gaining anything else by posting his travel diary.
Fuck off, fruitball. We'll get 'over it' when our thirst for justice has been slaked.
>> Singapore has never had a banking failure.
Right, they just got conquered and looted by the Japanese Empire. Idiot
"Never before" implies "due now".
Thats great, I am going to be rich in USD terms!
WHEEE!!!!
I thought Simon Black's three lessons were 1) always refuel your flying saucer BEFORE time travel 2) never take your CIA assets to parties with alcohol, they might become **liabilities**, and 3) when your Inca worshippers lay disemboweled alpacas at your feet in homage, never show disgust, it's TOTALLY offensive.
We have kinfolk who just returned from a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea. They are kissing the ground.
were they on a Carnival?
One third of Carnival cruise patrons once embarked are never seen again. I don't like those odds.
No, it's true! Notice, when leaving port, black smoke from the 'stacks, then blue from day two on like atop a Burger King at lunchtime rush. They'd go for more than 1/3, but don't want folks to get suspicious.
Hint: don't take a cabin toward rear of ship, turn in early, and *never* accept a bridge tour...
And if you meet Tammi from Hoboken, you're in luck man....
Do you think the TSA agent found it amusing when simon fondled himself while yelling "get your damn hands off me!"
Travel
Sack
Adjuster
"Another friend of mine who is a real estate mogul said that much of the price rise we’re seeing in US housing is due to a wave of hedge funds that are buying vacant properties."
I see Simon has been reading Zerohedge
That could be because they experienced no fires, stopped up toilets or viral infections.
Did you ever get the impression that Simon Black's favorite speaker is Simon Black?
Are you insinuating that Simon is a tulip.er, narcissusm er ,whatever.
Simon was going to be one of the Three Tenors but every time during warmup he would get stuck singing the scales on Mi.
Do-Re-Mi-Mi-Mi-Mi..........................
Thus the greatest opera singer ever had to find a new line of work.
I know this because of "actionable intelligence."
pods
ROFL
I regret that I only have one up arrow to give...
"most people say where they've been. few say what they're doing." i feel acted upon here myself...and quite frankly i find the acting to be poor. but hey...while we're on the subject of Exorbitant Privilege why don't "disabledvet learn ya'll something": http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/ew/academic/intecon/Degrauwe/PDG-papers/Rece... that's part of Barry Eichengrein's book...get out this summer...while that hottie "of the bunch" is checking you out why don't you..."get caught reading." this is actually ACTIONABLE in the sense you're going to LEARN about "how they get away with it" and why..."Sovereign Man" see's "them's" and "they're's" and "thus's" everywhere and always.
Can you imagine if Simon Black and Reggie Middleton had a baby?
Named Half Black?
But seriously, don't drag Reggie into this.
I have a friend who has been traveling around the world. She is very price sensitive and has not once complained about rising prices although she hasn't visited the planets Urino, Pagoni, or Zyphlata like Simon has but she has surely gotten around.
Wrong. India's core inflation is off the charts.
All the essentials, food especially, even bottled water (most hmoes, me included, get our drinking water delivered), milk..... up up and away.
The inflation exportation will work well till it won't. Right now, it is.
ori
most homos?
oh, you meant homes.
Sorry.
ORI, do Indians save money in USD?
I know they love gold...
Because the obvious answer is to send India's USD back where they came from.
We need that USD to buy oil.
In 2000 I took some R&R in Amsterdam. A 20 minute romp in the red-light district was 100 gelders ($20). Now with the euro, the same romp is 50 euro or $65. That is the only reason I root for an end to the eurozone.
Was that with those badgers in the windows right behind the Bourse ?
You was robbed.
Being in "Top form" from an American perspective could be 20% body fat...
To get to a 20% mean body fat percentage, the US population would literally need to shed billions of pounds of fat. Wonder if there is a way to pledge that freed up fat as repo to buy SPY?
Could be making Soap, or that other by product glycerine. Welcome to Fight Club
Welcome to FEMA Camp ... don't mind the smelly smokestack.
4) People are sick of me and I'm the butt of their jokes.
Exactly. Just another con man.
One key lesson
~~~
^
^
^^^^^
^^^^^
Looks like Pomo thursday still has that magnetic pull.
1) We all know fiat is useless, and that by it's nature, guarantees inflation
2) Banks are Banks no matter where they are domiciled. A bankster is a bankster even in Asia
3) Fiat is fiat no matter where it resides
This reminds me of that Real Estate guy on his yacht, surrounded by several scantily clad beauties, selling people his get rich quick guide to investing in Real estate just before the market collapsed.
Makes me laugh at the hubris and gullibility.
Tom Vu?
Atlas 400 - Club of Joos.
Porter Stansberry
Why I started my own private club
I was lonely and the rappers didn't like me.
http://secure.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1002ATLAS400.aspGood link, wrong assumption about its composition.
It's not for everyone, true. So what!? If you were a wealthy and self-made person, would you create your own club with the guys you left behind or with similar success? And I'm not even a Stansberry fan. Gimme a break.
I was in Hong Kong and Macau last month and Singapore last November. A major take-away from those trips, among many impressions, was the presence of a vibrant, large MIDDLE CLASS and generally prosperous and good-humored population. I don't know how else to describe it. I live in S.F. which is a fairly developed and diverse city; but jeez get 20 miles out and all the way across and you have a dumdum wasteland of derelict strip malls and neo-Tijuanas and Detroit-lites springing up.
I can't speak for Europe or the U.K. The U.S. I can speak for; the U.S. sold itself out around 1995 when we opened the gates for our manufacturing to move across the Pacific. Now the chickens are coming home to roost in a big way.
The long tired faces of the commuters dragging ass back & forth, unable to gain, slipping down the slope. Because they didn't save anything and cannot catch up on their debt. What we have now is military tech and a lot of strategic footprints. Otherwise the nation appears to have shot its wad for the duration.
There is one very important 'asset' the U.S. has - clean soil, air and water - at least comparatively. Also a judiciary that is not completely sold out; and a sound constitutional basis; again speaking relatively. We are not fascist China. Many more Chinese want to come here than U.S. citizens wanting to move to Xian or Beijing. I remember those guys crowing about becoming expats in China - you can't brush your teeth with the water, anywhere! How's that working out for yah?
Comparatively speaking to "old US" versus the "new normal US" I would have to disagree with you characterization of a judiciary that hasn't completly sold out to either side of political ideology and the "sound constitutional basis" comment is laughable since 2001. We may not be facist China but we are undergoing our own brand of fascism that is on the proveribial slippery slope speeding like snowball thats headed for hell.
According to EPA and administration along with Al Gore groupies our soil, air and water is absolutely on the brink of unusable and carbon taxes are a must.
Decrying constitutional sellout but demanding carbon taxes???
I live in S.F. which is a fairly developed and diverse city; but jeez get 20 miles out and all the way across and you have a dumdum wasteland of derelict strip malls and neo-Tijuanas and Detroit-lites springing up.
I agree. Marin County is really the pits.
Good comment Hongcha, great to see some new input with common sense "relative" approach.
Welcome aboard, don;t let the negative trolls get to ya!
In a sense those three places are like the Hamptons, Pebble Beach, and Beverly Hills. They are places driven by massive wealth that is trying to get into a tiny colony of supposed prestige. All are targets for capital flight from the cream of the cream of China's 1.3 billion souls. It's the Earthly "camel through the eye of a needle'. One curious thing is that none of your three places is democratic. Hong Kong and Macau are Special Administrative Regions run largely by Beijing-picked cronies and tycoons, while Singapore is a monarchy in all but name. The King there, or perhaps Machiavelli's Prince is more accurate, might be considered a somewhat benign absolute ruler, but one would be wise never to cross him or his family. A little research into close family members, some by marriage, will bring up such matches (no doubt purely libelous) as "money laundering for tin pot dictators and druglords" to "arms running".
Singapore does have a bit of a tech hub reputation, but slowly that is being usurped by vertical integration in China, and (perhaps) it will be more quickly usurped by Abenomics. Macau is like a giant Indian Reservation; it's prosperity, if one can call it that, comes from a vice or two or three. They previously served as the banking hub for Kim Jong-il as well as the test ground for the Super 100s US counterfeit notes the DPRK produces. Dig around in the landfill that is the foundation for all the new casinos and one will find a lot of calcium not deposited by sea creatures. Hong Kong has two things going for it---trade flow and real estate---and one is infinitely more important than the other. I lived there for several years, and though my circle of acquaintances might not have been representative, I never met anyone whose wealth did not stem from real estate speculation. The equivalent of your "20 miles outside of SF" is a ferry ride across the harbor to Kowloon, where you can see the "Cage Men". Chungking Mansions is early 20th Century Ellis Island, complete with the TB. For those who get seasick, even though the harbor is slowly becoming little more than a creek and the ferry merely a pontoon bridge, go to North Point, the most densely populated place on the face of the Earth.
Glitz and pink Rolls Royces can blind one to the dark underbelly of a massive Qini-coefficient.
Simon Black is the same guy that thinks Chile is the answer. Chile is the US, or is trying as hard as it can anyway, and forget it if you're a single guy because the women are repulsive. My girlfriend thought the same of the guys down there. It's hardly a Galt's Gulch, instead it feels more like living in you van at a Wal Mart parking lot every day.
Would Simon Black or anyone here be able to elaborate on any particular Singapore banks he/they recommend, and a short explanation why?
I'm not a fan of Singapore -- too damn hot and to damn far for my linking. The trips I had to make, damn near killed me. I recall the banking suggestions being available to his subscribers. You should be able to afford it, Van. :-)
Avoid banks with franchise ties to the USSA (and IRS), the EUSSR and the UK penal colony, and anyone who uses the word DERIVATIVE.
NPLs are an issue (but they are anywhere right now, or soon will be), check how the bank handled Tom Yum Goong disease, and if they weren't around or didn't have to successfully navigate it, then buyer beware.
There shouldn't be too many Banks left to do serious due diligence on after that...
And regardless, you need diversity amongst banks and jurisdictions.
Big take away regarding Asia: millions of people are entering the Middle Classes, bicycles and motorcycles are being traded in for autos. Big improvements in places like Cambodia, and Vietnam, Excellent infrastructure in Thailand. getting more difficult for Westerners to get long term visas in Thailand.
So what happens when all my shit get taken by the government of Chile like in the 70's??? Does Simon Black have aome plan for that?
Bennie, you kind of help me make my point. Of course Marin is good to go but git on a little further North, East or South and you get my meaning; particularly East. The country has debased itself. The West Coast is fortunate in its proximity to where all the money went, or else would be just as fucked. And I mean, fucked. I am talking about a land mass that is a ghost of its former self. I grew up here. Marin is a little island. My hatred of the people who sold this country out runs pretty deep I'll admit.
Old Republic, yes. Employment is high and you don't have a large % of the population set aside as underserved or special, needy of the dwindling middle class to help them survive. none of these countries attempted forced integration, which the USA is still doing, tirelessly.
Why the fuck would anyone in their right mind want to be a "world traveler" these days?
Jeez Knuckles.... Because those little bags of peanuts kick ass! SB swallows them whole so he can poop one out when the nice TSA man pulls is, aah, trunk.....
1. It's fun to travel.
2. You're going to die someday regardless of what you do.
I do my traveling via google maps and the street view nowadays - I like it and do not incur the wrath of the locals towards a touristo who obviously has more money than they....
"it’s possible to hold Hong Kong dollars in a Singapore bank account"
Its also possible that you could go to prison on money laudering charges.
Say what!? You DO know that all global banks offer clients bank accounts in various currency denominations? This is not news or anythin unusual. And had nothing to do with 'laundering' in itself.
Well, that is utter rubbish for starters.
Where was this "expert" during the will-they/ won't-they break the peg debate during the 80's, during the 90's and during the GFC?
He needs to spend more time speaking to actual bankers rather than other overpriced spruikers.
Prices of food went up 100% in costa rica in the last year or so.
Tylers, please stop posting Simon Black. I for one am not a fan.