Assuming the seven countries still to vote grant approval, Croatia is finally set for entry into the EU. The admission of a new country to the union must be ok’d unanimously by all member countries, creating lots of opportunity for political dealing. Slovenia, for example, wants Croatia to drop a lawsuit demanding that Slovenia make […]
Diversifying Offshore Is About Keeping It Simple Moving some of your money offshore doesn't have to be as complicated as many think. It is still possible, for example, to open a bank account in many jurisdictions without leaving the comfort of your own home. And, as long as you're not trying to evade taxes or [...]
What This Week's Fiscal Cliff Deal Means For Americans Overseas As it stands today, the 11th hour fiscal cliff deal approved earlier this week resulted in US$1 of spending cuts for every US$41 in tax increases, making it possibly the most one-sided victory since the Battle of Little Bighorn. By comparison, when President Ronald Regan [...]
I’ve been living overseas so long that my wife tells me I don’t know what things cost in the “real world” anymore, especially, she assures me, as my current frame of reference is Panama. Certainly, our first 24 hours or so in New York City last week, I thought she must be right. I must […]
Mortgage Madness In Panama Last week, before leaving Panama for Christmas in the United States, I met with a third bank in an effort to secure a mortgage for an apartment purchase in the city. The front line banker was courteous and wanted to be helpful, but, as I've learned over the past couple of [...]
Where I'm Planning To Invest In 2013 As the "fiscal cliff" approaches in the United States and every American with an Internet connection seems to be taking the opportunity to rant and rave and comment online about what is wrong in the United States and how to fix it (in his or her often not-so-humble [...]
Hey, Mister…Wanna’ Buy A Passport? Getting a second passport isn't easy unless you're born with more than one citizenship. My son Jackson was born in Ireland when they were still granting automatic citizenship to anyone born on Irish soil. This changed a few years after Jackson was born, because many "refugees" from Africa were manipulating [...]
An attendee at my Offshore Summit last month 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 month’s event, considered buying real estate in another country. Despite this, he has what, until that point, he has considered a well-diversified investment […]
How To Be Self-Sufficient Without All The Work When I lived in Ireland, our house sat on 6 acres of land. Up a small hill behind the house was an area that had been, in a previous life, a kitchen garden. We restored the garden, after we discovered it, and planted everything from strawberries to [...]
One benefit of the way our children are growing up is their language skills. While I speak decent enough Spanish to get by when I have to and can even now read legal documents well enough to get the gist, my kids are fluent in both French and Spanish (along with English). They can switch […]
