I Make No Guarantees (And Neither Should Anyone Else) If re-elected, President Sarkozy of France is promising a new global tax on French corporations. He's also alluded to changing the country's approach to personal income tax, so that French citizens would be taxed on their global income, as U.S. citizens are. If you're shopping for [...]
Incremental Degradation Civil rights took another hit in the United States last week, as the incremental degradation of the average American's right to privacy marches on. Last week, Obama signed new guidelines allowing the "intelligence" community to retain electronic data believed potentially useful in the "War on Terrorism" for five full years (up from the [...]
Pinochet's Legacy Last week's trip was my first to Chile and, therefore, my first visit to Santiago. Santiago is a large, modern city where things generally work. New highways have been built and more new highways continue to be built to combat the traffic. The city boasts a clean, well-functioning subway system. And an economy [...]
Prediction: Buy Argentina In 2013 A colleague here in Mendoza, Argentina, where I've spent the weekend, has been talking about this country's last financial crisis, in 2001, which started with the unpegging of the Argentine peso to the U.S. dollar. "Those who didn't have some money outside the country were devastated," he explained. "But Argentines [...]
Reciprocity...And Other Reasons To Carry A Second Passport Panama is truly a convenient place to live if you want to travel around Latin America. Our flight on Tuesday from Panama City to Santiago, Chile, wasn't short (at seven hours), but it was painless. On-time departure from Tocumen International...good service from Copa in the air...on-time arrival [...]
Why Did Ireland Implode? (And What Can We Learn From That Debacle?) A top news story this morning is about a woman in Michigan who won US$1 million in the lottery. She took the lump-sum payout option and, after taxes, came away with US$500,000. The story isn't about her winning the lottery, but about the [...]
Can You Trust Me?...And Other Reader Comments Monday's e-letter hit a nerve with reader L.S. in the United States:"Dear Mr. Simon, "With all due respect, you have not a clue as to the IQD and its stated re-valuation. Your lack of knowledge and understanding of the IQD since 1992 to date and its current status brings [...]
Iraqi Currency Plays...And Other Scams "I'm moving to Panama (or some other country) as soon as my Iraqi dinars revalue."I've heard this comment maybe a half-dozen times over the last year or so. Someone (I don't know who) came up with a great, plausible scenario to get people to "invest" in the Iraqi currency. Telling [...]
Europe Is Collapsing! Should You Care? At lunch yesterday, a friend here in Panama City asked what I was going to do with my apartment in Paris now that "Europe has collapsed." I wasn't sure how to respond for a couple of reasons. First, I hadn't realized that Europe had collapsed...that all of Europe, every [...]
As if you needed further reason to diversify out of the U.S. dollar, it's worth noting that many U.S. states are talking about doing the same thing. A recent article from CNN Money states that 13 U.S. states are contemplating issuing their own currencies. This isn't a new concept. Before the U.S. Civil War, state-chartered [...]
Offshore Living Letter is a publication of Live and Invest Overseas. Our goal is to provide timely, actionable information on all things offshore, including: how to go offshore, diversifying your portfolio, wealth creation, protecting your assets, and much more.
