Welcome to Offshore Living Letter, Your #1 Resource for Offshore Diversification

Author: Lief Simon

26 Mar
Data-Mining In Counter-Terrorism Analysis

Data-Mining In Counter-Terrorism Analysis

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 [...]
22 Mar
Expat Life In Santiago, Chile

Expat Life In Santiago, Chile

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 [...]
19 Mar
Property Investing In Argentina

Property Investing In Argentina

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 [...]
15 Mar
second citizenship and passport

The Benefits Of Holding A Second Passport

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 [...]
08 Mar
Michigan Lottery Winner Accepting Food Stamps

Michigan Lottery Winner Accepting Food Stamps

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 [...]
23 Feb
Investing In The Iraqi Dinar

Investing In The Iraqi Dinar

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 [...]
20 Feb
A man with a bag in a ferry station

Avoiding Scams Overseas

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 [...]
16 Feb
Economic Collapse In Europe

Economic Collapse In Europe

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 [...]
30 Jan
Global Investing For Diversification Of Assets And Currencies

Global Investing For Diversification Of Assets And Currencies

So You Think You're Diversified? A friend who attended my wife's Live and Invest in Colombia Conference last week told me that, while he has traveled all over the globe and has friends in many different cities around the world, he had never, until last week, considered buying real estate in another country. Despite this, he has [...]