Category: simonblack

As a world traveler and investor, I always try to find markets where there’s a huge difference between the ACTUAL risk and the PERCEIVED risk.
And this risk assessment applies not only to investing, but also to entire countries.

Mexico is a great example.

Sure, Mexico has some serious problems. Crime. Gangs. Drugs. Corruption. Tensions with the US over illegal immigration and American jobs.

But did you know that more Americans applied for residency in Mexico than vice versa over the past few years?

Do these Americans know something others don’t?

Maybe they know a foreign residency opens opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t have. A foreign residency gives you more options for work, business, investments, travel and living. It’s one part of a Plan B… in a location where you like spending time.

And residency in Mexico could be a solution for you.

Mexico’s story is more complex than what’s presented in the news. The country offers a lot more than its northern states where the drug war rages… and where the US media focuses all its attention.

The situation in the Yucatan peninsula – my favorite place to visit in Mexico – is different. The state of Yucatan has the same violent crime rate per capita as peaceful Wyoming.

If you feel safe living in Wyoming’s capital of Cheyenne, you should be comfortable living in Merida, a charming colonial city and capital of the Yucatan state.

And the neighboring state of Quintana Roo (the home of Cancun) is nearly as safe. The violent crime rate per capita here is comparable to Alaska.

So, with safety largely a non-issue in this part of Mexico, the Yucatan’s rich culture and great weather offers Americans another benefit: Inexpensive living. Today you can cut your cost of living at least by half after moving from the US to Mexico… and much more if you’re abandoning high-cost, high-tax New York or California.

And in the past two years, this inexpensive Mexican lifestyle reached a new level.

Since 2014, the Mexican peso depreciated ~50% versus the US dollar, making those spending US dollars there much richer.

During my recent trip to the Yucatan peninsula, I paid $7.50 for a delicious brunch in trendy Tulum. And I spent less than $10 in the best restaurants of Merida. A room at the Merida Hyatt only cost about $85 a night.

Car rental prices are almost a joke. I paid $50 for a four-day rental for a mid-sized car, insurance included. I imagine the car’s value depreciated more than that during my relentless driving spree.

And Mexico always has a strong US-feel. You see full-size SUVs and pickups everywhere. They have Walmart and Home Depot, where you can buy the exact same stuff as in the States.

For Americans, there’s more than Mexico’s combination of familiarity, inexpensive living, and proximity.

Gaining Mexican residency is also easy. It especially makes sense if you are already retired.

In most countries, the process of obtaining residencies (and eventual citizenships) looks like this:

1) Temporary residency
2) Permanent residency
3) Citizenship

But Mexico is one of the few places in the world where you can skip the first step entirely and go straight to the second (permanent residency) if you are officially retired and can demonstrate your creditworthiness.

The key is to prove you are retired. You can do it with a letter from US Social Security office, retirement letter from your job, etc.

And the most amazing part? You complete ~95% of the process in a Mexican consulate near your home. You won’t even have to set foot in Mexico until you know you are approved.

(Not retired yet? You will be fine too – there is a more conventional way to obtain temporary residency that’s available to just about anyone.)
And Mexican permanent residency is a great asset.

As a permanent resident, you can come and go without any restrictions. You don’t need to apply for additional permissions to invest and work in Mexico.

Also, your permanent residency card does not expire, and there is no need to renew it. Once you have it, it’s yours to keep.

Your permanent residency is indeed permanent, unlike in many other places (Chile, Panama…), where the government expects you to visit the country occasionally to maintain it.

And yes, this short-cut permanent residency can lead to Mexican citizenship.

Today, Mexico is a tremendous residency opportunity that should be on your radar.

Due to the pesos’ depreciation, prices in Mexico remain very low today. But I don’t expect it to last – the peso already gained back more than 10% versus the dollar in the last few months.

Don’t let your dreams of an ultra-cheap residency disappear.

It’s best to act now.

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Another day, another major banking scandal. It’s getting to the point where you can practically set your watch to these things.

The latest once again involves our old friend Wells Fargo. The Wall Street Journal reported last night that Wells has been screwing its customers on foreign currency exchange rates.

According to the Journal, Wells Fargo conducted an internal review of its fee arrangements and found that they had massively overcharged 88% of the sampled customers.

For example, the bank might have signed a contract with a customer to charge 0.15% on foreign currency transactions, but instead charged as much as 4%… about 26x higher than agreed.

It’s absurd to begin with that a bank would charge even a small percentage-based commission on foreign currency transactions (much less 4%), especially given that most of the transactions were to exchange euros and US dollars.

Sure, commissions are common in many industries.

When you list your house for sale, for example, your real estate agent receives a commission when s/he finds a buyer and closes the deal.

Real estate commissions often range between 2% to 6%. But agents earn this money because houses are big, illiquid assets, and it often takes a lot of time and work to close a sale.

But Wells Fargo has been charging huge commissions on buying and selling MONEY.

The foreign exchange (FOREX) market trades around $5.3 trillion each day (compare that to about $200 billion for US equities). That makes the US dollar / Euro trade literally one of THE most popular financial transactions in the world.

Billions upon billions of dollars and euros are exchanged every single business day of the week, around the clock, through electronic trading platforms.

It’s not like some currency trader at Wells Fargo ever had to lift a finger trying to find a buyer for his customer’s euros.

Anyone who has ever traded FOREX knows that it takes a fraction of a second to buy/sell major currencies.

There’s zero work involved on Wells Fargo’s end. Yet they charge a steep commission as if they have to put in all sorts of time and effort to buy and sell currency. It’s ridiculous.

But even worse, the bank formally agreed with its customers to charge a set fee. And then they totally violated those promises simply because it suited their interests.

How utterly, completely pathetic.

Bear in mind, this is the same bank that was caught creating fake accounts and charging fees to unsuspecting consumers without their consent, also because it suited their interests…

… and that this is an industry that has a track record of constantly violating their customers’ trust.

These banks have been caught red-handed illegally colluding to fix interest rates and exchange rates.

They have manipulated asset prices and knowingly sold their customers toxic assets.

They have invested their customers’ hard-earned savings in astonishingly stupid, no-money down loans to borrowers who had no hope of repaying the debt.

They use every accounting trick in the book to misstate their true financial condition, including the utter farce of carrying Volker Rule assets on their books at 100 cents on the dollar… or mysteriously reclassifying their bond portfolios in a way to hide losses.

They reward themselves the most magnificent bonuses when times are good.

And when the house of cards begins to fall, they go to the public with hat in hand, claiming that they’re too big and important to lose any money.

Despite taking the public’s bailout money, these banks treat their customers with such contempt and suspicion. They make you feel like you’re committing a crime when you request a cash withdrawal of your own money.

It’s truly remarkable that this industry has any credibility left.

The good news is that it won’t last.

Banks no longer have a monopoly on finance. Technology already makes it possible to conduct just about any transaction you need outside the banking system.

You can deposit and withdraw funds, borrow money, exchange currency, invest your savings, pay bills, send funds transfers, make online payments, etc. with cryptocurrencies, Peer-to-Peer platforms, and various blockchains.

And these technologies are often better, faster, and cheaper than the traditional banking system.

History tells us that technology almost invariably puts entrenched industries out of business.

E-commerce is obliterating traditional retail. Digital media is destroying print media.

And it’s only a matter of time before cryptofinance displaces the banking system.

Whether or not you think Bitcoin is a bubble at $10,000, it’s still worth understanding the enormous potential (and opportunities) of what these technologies can provide.

Because the alternative of dealing with Wells Fargo isn’t that attractive.

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After spending the last few days in the Philippines scouting new factory locations for one of my businesses, I flew back to Singapore this morning to conclude negotiations with a large, publicly-listed conglomerate that’s made an offer to buy one of our assets.

It’s been a hectic trip so far. But while in town, I had a chance to see my friend Gregor again– the entrepreneur I interviewed in last week’s podcast discussion about precious metals vs. cryptocurrency.

In the podcast, Gregor and I talked about Bitcoin security– specifically the fact that very few people properly (I.e. securely) store their cryptocurrency.

And the more valuable these cryptocurrencies become, the higher the likelihood of theft.

For example, hackers are now frequently engaging in sophisticated phishing attacks, in which a user will receive an email with a subject line like, “You’ve just received 0.02841 BTC”.

Naturally, most people open the email.

The email goes on to state that the user has received a Bitcoin payment, and to please log in to his/her online Wallet to verify the transaction.

Once again, most people click on the link and attempt to log in to their wallet accounts.

The page they click on looks almost exactly their online Wallet provider’s website. But in reality it’s a fake.

So whenever an unsuspecting victim enters his/her username and password on the dummy website, they’re basically just giving that information to the hackers.

Tricks like these end up scamming people every single day.

Then there’s the risk of the online wallet websites themselves being hacked.

Or, if you hold most of your crypto on your computer or mobile phone, your own device could easily be hacked.

If you’re old enough to remember all the online scams from the early days of the modern Internet 15-20 years ago, that’s basically what’s happening in cryptocurrency today.

Gregor and his team have designed a new security standard to fight against these threats; specifically it’s a way to store Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offline, and he alluded to this in our podcast last week.

We received so many inquires about this from our readers, I thought it would be useful to send you a link to what he’s doing so that you can see for yourself.

You can download the explanatory paper here.

At a minimum, the paper is an excellent overview of the weaknesses and security risks inherent in common Bitcoin storage methods, so it’s a nice, quality, free education.

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251 million years ago, the Great Permian Extinction wiped out around 96% of Earth’s species.

Scientists call it “the great dying.” And they believe it occurred because of an eruption in Siberia that released more than 200 billion gallons of molten lava.

The lava released large amounts of Sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing the Earth to warm by about 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Acid rain followed.

Almost nothing survived. Rolf Schmidt, a paleontologist at the Melbourne Museum said the event “set life back 300 million years.”

And that was only one of five mass extinctions that have happened throughout our planet’s history.

The best known is the end of the Cretaceous period some 66 million years ago… that’s when the dinosaurs died off.

But Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla, thinks another mass extinction is coming. And he’s dedicated himself to saving us.

Musk recently granted Rolling Stone an exclusive interview where he discussed his troubled childhood, his fear of never finding someone to love him… and Earth’s imminent doom.

You’ve got to hand it to the guy– even if you think he’s totally crazy, at least the solutions he’s coming up with are still worthwhile.

Tesla, his electric car company, and Solar City, his solar energy company, both reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and make the air cleaner to breathe.

He’s also developing the Hyperloop, a mass transportation system that shoots pods through a tube at 800 miles per hour, thus reducing traffic and travel time.

Then there’s his honeycomb of underground tunnels – outfitted with electric skates – to relieve traffic congestion.

Musk’s biggest concern, though, is technology. From the Rolling Stone interview:

Climate change is the biggest threat that humanity faces this century, except for AI [artificial intelligence]. I keep telling people this. I hate to be Cassandra here, but it’s all fun and games until somebody here loses a fucking eye.

Musk fears artificial intelligence could enslave all of humanity. Perhaps he fears a Matrix or Terminator style future.

And that’s one of the reasons behind his company SpaceX– a private space travel company: when the stuff really hits the fan, you can hop on a rocket and leave Earth.

As Musk tells Rolling Stone:

And if we were a multiplanetary species, that would reduce the possibility of some single event, man-made or natural, taking out civilization as we know it, as it did the dinosaurs. . .

Unless you’re a cockroach or a mushroom – or a sponge – you’re fucked. It’s insurance of life as we know it, and it makes the future far more inspiring if we are out there among the stars and you could move to another planet if you wanted to.

I’m not going to even bother assessing whether or not Elon Musk’s concerns are valid.

The larger point is that Musk sees a gigantic risk– one that is supported by at least some data.

But instead of panicking about it, or worse– ignoring it, Musk is taking very measured, rational steps to do something about it.

If his doomsday planetary extinction scenario were to occur, either through climate change or Skynet becoming self-aware, Musk wants to ensure we have other options on other planets.

In his own words, it’s the ultimate “insurance.”

But even if his Armageddon never comes, we’re probably not worse off for having cleaner air, more energy efficient vehicles, less traffic, and the ability to zip around outer space.

That’s the hallmark of a great Plan B. It makes sense no matter what happens or doesn’t happen next.

And this thinking can be applied to just about any risk we see.

I’ve long written about the extreme challenges of national pension programs like Social Security.

It’s not even my own analysis: Social Security’s own Board of Trustees has concluded that the program is rapidly running out of money.

Like Musk, I want some insurance.

This includes setting up more robust retirement structures like a solo 401(k) or self-directed SEP IRA, and parking my retirement savings in stronger, better, safer assets that are out of the mainstream.

If Social Security runs out of money, as they predict, these other retirement structures will be enormously valuable.

But even if Social Security is somehow miraculously saved, I won’t be worse off having a huge pool of extra retirement savings stashed away.

There’s no downside.

Similarly, there’s no downside to having a second citizenship, that allows you to travel, live, work, and invest in multiple countries.

There’s no downside in spreading your assets across several jurisdictions to enhance your asset protection and legally reduce your tax bill.

There’s no downside in owning some non-reportable assets like cash and gold so that you always have emergency savings outside the system.

These are all fantastic, simple, sensible steps you can take to distance yourself from potential big risks down the road.

And this Plan B is a heck of a lot easier to implement than building a rocket ship.

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In today’s podcast, Silver Bullion’s Gregor Gregersen and I discuss why the gold versus Bitcoin debate is misguided. It’s not an either-or proposition.

Instead, with systemic risks in the financial system, the case for holding both precious metals and cryptocurrency makes sense.

And Silver Bullion offers solutions for both asset classes.

[Full disclosure: I’m a director of Silver Bullion.]

Gregor’s a software engineer with experience in finance. He recently published a 35-page white paper on an exciting way to hold encrypted, secure Bitcoin in cold storage for decades. And with software Gregor developed himself, you can now store gold at their facility, borrow money with your gold as collateral and buy Bitcoin.

You also don’t want to miss Gregor’s opinion on why cryptocurrency and gold will survive the next financial crisis.

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On October 3, 1913, US President Woodrow Wilson signed the Underwood-Simmons Act into law, creating what would become the first modern US income tax.

The legislation (at least, the income tax portion) was only 16 pages and imposed a base tax rate of just 1%.

The highest tax rate was set at 7%– and it only applied to individuals earning more than $500,000 per year, which is about $12.6 million today according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And individuals earning less than $3,000 (about $75,000 today) were exempt from paying tax.

Tax rates moved up and down over the years– the government raised rates to fund World War I, then lowered them in peacetime.

In fact, taxes were cut at least four separate times during the 1920s alone, reaching a low in 1929 of just 0.375% for the bottom tax bracket.

Back then, making major changes to tax law was pretty simple. Today, thanks to heavily vested interests on all sides, it takes a miracle to make any serious modifications to the tax code.

That’s why there hasn’t been any significant tax reform in the Land of the Free since Crocodile Dundee was the #1 movie in America (that’s 1986, by the way).

There are now two versions of legislation that will make major changes to the US tax code– one in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives.

I spent most of the nearly 30 hours of travel time during flights over the past week from Santiago to Sydney, Sydney to Bangkok, and Bangkok to Singapore, reading the proposals’ 400+ pages.

The media is touting these bills as a ‘major overhaul’ and ‘comprehensive reform,’ and financial markets have been treating this legislation as if the second coming of capitalism is walking across the water.

It’s not.

Sure, there are a few significant changes.

They’re scrapping the idiotic Alternative Minimum Tax, which ensnares more and more people each year.

Tax rates on certain business profits are going down substantially.

And they’re making tax reporting a lot simpler, saving countless hours of senseless paperwork.

Undoubtedly there are plenty of positive changes in this proposed tax code.

There are also plenty of negative changes.

Some people will benefit. Others will see their tax bills grow.

But for the most part the tax code will stay the same– they’re essentially just rearranging the pieces on the board rather than coming up with an entirely different game.

The existing tax code is built on a legal framework that goes back to the 1950s… a time when manufacturing and agriculture were economic mainstays.

Businesses rarely outsourced their production back then or even thought about selling their products overseas.

Entrepreneurship was uncommon. Employees often remained with the same company for decades. And few women were in the labor force.

Today it’s completely different. The digital economy has displaced manufacturing; business is now dominated by ideas, not factories.

And it’s easier than ever before in human history to start a business, sell products and services worldwide, and even hire employees who live on the other side of the planet.

It seems ludicrous to govern the digital, global businesses of the 21st century with such an antiquated, industrial-era tax code.

True reform would have started by throwing all of it in the garbage, right where it belongs.

You wouldn’t even have to reinvent the wheel; there are plenty of great examples in the world of tax systems that work extremely well– like right here in Singapore.

Singapore’s government is awash with cash.

They almost always run a small budget surplus, yet they’re able to provide ample public services, world class health care, high quality education, strong national defense, pristine infrastructure, and a substantial reserve fund.

But at the same time they encourage people to become wealthy, ensuring that they keep the vast majority of what they earn.

Tax rates in Singapore are quite low and incredibly competitive. Whereas the US corporate tax rate may drop to as low as 20%, in Singapore a company pays no more than 17%, and typically less than 10%.

Right now I’m in the process of negotiating the sale of an asset we purchased here a couple of years ago which will likely produce several million dollars in net realized gains once the deal is closed.

But we won’t pay a dime of tax here on any of it… because Singapore does not tax capital gains.

It’s a model that works: Singaporeans have one of the highest standards of living in the world… plus there are more millionaires per capita here than in any other country.

And this country is just one example. There are plenty more.

Point is, while it’s nice that they’re trying, it’s going to be very difficult for the US government to achieve anything meaningful or truly revolutionary when they’re essentially just making some changes to the pitifully outdated, existing tax code.

But the good news is that, even though the euphoria and expectations about this new proposal are totally overblown, there are still plenty of gems from the current tax code that aren’t going anywhere.

For example– if you’re a self-employed professional and you’re worried that the new tax code will probably increase your tax bill, you still have some excellent options.

There’s nothing in the proposed law that changes, for example, the substantial tax benefits you can realize from establishing a solo 401(k) or SEP IRA plan.

Nor did I see anything changing the enormous benefits from setting up a captive insurance company (in which you effectively insure yourself against certain risks, shielding up to $2 million per year from taxation).

Those are still fully intact.

So is the US federal tax exemption for certain legal residents of US territories. Which means that you can still qualify for Puerto Rico’s ultra-generous 0%/4% tax incentive programs.

There are dozens of other great tax strategies from the old tax code which will remain.

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In early March 1938 in a dusty corner of the Arabian desert, Max Steineke finally had the breakthrough he was hoping for.

Steineke was the chief geologist for the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), a venture owned by what we know today as Chevron.

And he hadn’t had a lot of success despite years of effort.

Steinke was convinced that massive oil reserves were beneath the sands. He just couldn’t find any.

His prized oil well, what was called Dammam #7, had been riddled with mishaps, accidents, and delays, and it was costing the company a LOT of money.

Steinke was about to be shut down when, finally, on March 4, the well started gushing. And Saudi Arabia was never the same.

Today oil constitutes more than half of Saudi Arabia’s GDP and more than 90% of government revenue… and it is the reason why Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s richest nations as measured by per-capita GDP.

But all that success also comes with risk: what happens when the wells run dry? Or when the oil price falls?

That’s what they’re dealing with now.

Saudi Arabia has been in and out of recession over the past few years due to the steep decline in oil prices. And the government is desperate to raise revenue.

Last year the Saudi government announced “Vision 2030,” a long-term plan to diversify its economy and reduce dependence on oil revenue.

The plan includes developments like a new beach resort on the Red Sea where women will be allowed to wear bikinis. This is pretty forward thinking, folks.

The government also announced that it will sell a portion of the national oil company, Saudi Aramco, through an IPO on a major stock exchange– a move they believe will generate $100 billion for the government.

But none of these options fixes the short-term problem. Saudi Arabia needs cash. Now.

So over the past few weeks they’ve found their source: theft.

Under the guise of a ‘corruption crackdown’, the government of Saudi Arabia has arrested hundreds of its wealthiest, most prominent citizens, and frozen more than 1700 bank accounts.

The government claims that these men illegally acquired their wealth through graft and corruption.

Now, to be fair, it’s true that there’s an enormous amount of corruption in Saudi Arabia.

I lived in Riyadh years ago when I was a young intelligence officer, and the corruption was obvious from Day 1.

For example, I remember mid-level Saudi army officers explaining how they would accept bribes and kickbacks to award small contracts to local suppliers.

These were military commanders who were essentially stealing from their own units.

For us it was unthinkable. But for them it was normal. They discussed it openly with each other, as if they were trading tips on how to steal even more.

Saudi billionaire Prince al Waleed (one of the people who has been arrested) also used to speak quite candidly about how he made his initial fortune through bribes and kickbacks.

So it’s clear that a lot of people in Saudi Arabia have made money in illicit ways.

It does strike me as a farce, though, to see extremely corrupt bureaucrats and politicians arresting corrupt businessmen… and then confining them to the very swanky Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh.

The timing is also suspect– the Saudi government needs the money and cannot afford to wait for their long-term plans to generate income.

They’ve already started borrowing pretty heavily, issuing close to $40 billion of debt in a single year– that’s a big chunk for a country with a $650 billion GDP.

But they know they can’t keep borrowing forever… hence the ‘anti-corruption purge.’

They’re now telling their captives that they’ll be free to go if they ‘voluntarily donate’ 70% of their wealth to the government.

Estimates vary for the amount of money the government will bring in through this theft; the lowest amount I’ve seen is $100 billion (again, an enormous sum in Saudi Arabia).

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Saudi government is targeting as much as $800 billion… an amount that’s larger than the entire Saudi economy.

To put that number in context, it would be like the US government seizing $22+ trillion of Americans’ wealth– more than the value of every company listed on the New York Stock Exchange combined.

All of this, naturally, is taking place without any trial or due process. They’re just seizing and freezing assets.

If you’re thinking, “Thank goodness I live in a free country where that would never happen,” think again.

This is really no different than Civil Asset Forfeiture in the Land of the Free, the legal framework where countless federal, state, and local agencies have the authority to seize and freeze every asset you own without even so much as charging you with a crime.

(They can even take your kids away!)

I think there’s a pretty big lesson here: desperate governments almost invariably resort to stealing from their own citizens.

And that’s why one step in a Plan B is to have some non-reportable assets.

The government knows about every local bank account you’ve opened. They know what’s in your domestic brokerage account. Or what real estate you own.

And they can seize it all in a heartbeat.

So it’s a good idea to have a few assets that they don’t know about… assets that you’re not legally required to tell them about– like an offshore bank account.

This includes things like physical cash, precious metals, and yes, cryptocurrency.

You won’t be worse off for having some non-reportable assets– especially cash.

Think about it– it won’t make a difference if there’s $20,000 in your bank account or in your safe. It’s not like the banks pay interest anyhow.

But if the worst happens, this emergency savings could be a life-saver.

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In today’s podcast, I tackle the subject of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

Regular readers know I’m skeptical of cryptocurrencies. And I think many ICOs are outright frauds.

We’ve seen celebrities like Paris Hilton, Jamie Fox and Floyd Mayweather all endorse ICOs. A friend of mine who’s raising money in an ICO even told me these things are a bubble.

Still, we see more and more companies raising capital from a rabid public.

But regulators are already sniffing around. And there are two things that could cause this bubble to crash… quickly.

You can listen here.

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This was the one of the easiest offshore bank account experiences I’ve ever had.

It only took me 20 minutes to open this offshore bank account in Georgia. Read on to learn how and at which bank you can easily begin offshore banking in Georgia.

In 1991, the country of Georgia gained its independence from the Soviet Union.

But, despite the communist regime’s fall, deep-state apparatchiks (ex-members of the Soviet Communist Party) still ruled the country.

And throughout the early 1990s as politicians battled for power in the newly independent nation, Georgia’s economy came to a standstill. Its GDP decreased each year from 1990 to 1994. The post-Soviet era devastated its people’s hope for a better future.

Any person who could flee the country did so. Census records from 2002 showed a 20% drop in population from 1989… partly due to a declining birth rate; the rest is because of emigration.

Georgia desperately needed an energetic leader with an anti-corruption, pro-market vision to turn the country around.

Fortunately for Georgia, that person appeared several years later.

Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in 2004. As Georgia’s President, he cut red tape, abolished import and export tariffs, fired half of the police force, invested in infrastructure and revamped the entire government.

With a little time, Saakashvili’s efforts paid off. Georgia’s staggering transformation was remarkable.

Today, Georgia is one of the safest and least corrupt countries in the world. It tops many “Ease of doing business” ratings, and Georgians are proud of it.

Such a business climate means the country is attracting foreign capital. In fact, one of our promising Sovereign Man: Private Investor (our private deal service) portfolio companies is based in Georgia.

The country is also an increasingly popular tourist destination.

Georgia’s scenery is fantastic, and the local food and hospitality are unmatched. The number of tourist arrivals has doubled from just four years ago.

Georgia has quickly become one of my favorite places to visit.

And Georgia, smartly, is making it even more welcoming…

They’ve scrapped many types of visas. Nationals of these 90 countries can now visit Georgia visa-free.

But that’s not all. Instead of a standard 90-day entry like most other countries, Georgia allows you to stay for a whole year. And it’s not only for sightseeing and wine drinking. In this one year, you can study, work or invest as you please.

No other country in the world made so much progress eradicating corruption and removing red-tape in such a short time.

The absence of red-tape also applies to opening personal bank accounts there.

Sure, in most other countries opening a bank account for residents is a breeze. It is after a bank discovers you are not a resident when your problems
typically start.

Not in Georgia.

Although, there aren’t any well-known international banks in Tbilisi, our experience shows TBC to be the best bank in Georgia for foreigners. It’s also the largest bank by revenue.

Our Sovereign Man: Confidential subscribers know TBC bank well. We cover it in every edition of our Worldwide Banking Review where we analyze the financials and present the best banking options anywhere in the world. (In the upcoming 2017 edition we cover more than 35 banks from 24 countries.)

My team recently analyzed the financials of TBC. And it’s in great shape.

But the most refreshing part was the process of opening an account. I just needed to show up with my passport. That’s it. No filling out pages of anti-money-laundering know your customer (KYC) forms, no need for proof of address… nothing.

It can’t get any easier. This is a breath of fresh air after having to deal with so much bureaucracy around the world.

Opening a bank account in Hong Kong and Singapore was just as easy a few years ago. Now they are awash with cash, strangled by anti-money-laundering laws and have become very picky. Going through their approval process can be a nightmare, even after you cough up tens of thousands of dollars for an initial deposit.

They just asked me for the minimum initial deposit of 11 Georgian lari (less than $5 US). That’s to fund the annual account maintenance of 11 lari per year.

The next day, I stopped at the same TBC branch to pick up my Mastercard. But even this was not necessary. If I had chosen a generic Visa or Mastercard without my name on it, I could’ve walked out the door with my bank card after the first appointment.

Yes, getting an anonymous card is an option in any Georgian bank. You can use it anywhere in Georgia, but using it for international transactions will likely be difficult.

If you’re thinking about your next vacation, I recommend pairing travel with a Plan B banking destination. In Georgia, you simply stop by any TBC bank branch in Tbilisi and open a foreign bank account. It takes less than 20 minutes.

Bottom-line: Opening a bank account in Georgia with TBC bank is a good – and easy – addition to any Plan B. You’ll have money in a well-capitalized bank, within a country brimming with more investment opportunities by the day.

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Every year the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse publishes a detailed report about Global Wealth.

And while drawing conclusions about ‘wealth’ (i.e. ‘net worth’) for the world’s 7.6 billion people is far from an exact science, the report routinely offers some interesting insights and trends.

This year’s report was just released this morning.

As an interesting finding, researchers noted that at the early part of this millennium, between 2000 and 2008, the wealth of the POOREST 50% of people in the world actually climbed at a HIGHER rate than everyone else.

And over that same period, the share of global wealth owned by the top 1% actually declined.

Then the financial crisis broke out in 2008. And in the subsequent recovery from 2009 through today, wealth of the top 1% soared, leaving the bottom 50% in the dust.

Now, don’t get me wrong– there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wealthy people becoming wealthier. It makes sense.

Think about it: Warren Buffett clearly has a greater level of financial sophistication than the Average Joe… so it stands to reason that Warren’s wealth will increase at a faster rate.

The issue (as we discussed in last week’s podcast on Class Warfare), is that the asset booms bubbles around the world that have driven stock prices higher over the last several years have disproportionately benefited people who were already wealthy.

So folks in the bottom 50% certainly have good reason to feel like the system is rigged against them. They feel stuck… with limited prospects for future growth.

I remember reading a recent article in the New York Times telling the tale of two janitors: one, who is currently a contract janitor for today’s most celebrated company– Apple.

The other was a janitor back in the early 1980s for one of that era’s most celebrated companies– Kodak.

The Kodak janitor in the 80s had access to opportunities and education that helped her rise through the ranks; within a decade, she was the company’s Chief Technology Officer.

Today’s Apple janitor sees her only possibility for advancement as becoming a supervisor of other janitors, a job that pays 50 cents per hour more.

Again- this is not a problem of wealth inequality. It’s a problem of mobility: people at the bottom don’t see any way of getting out.

From a generational basis, the issue is intensified for Millennials.

The Credit Suisse report has an entire chapter devoted to “the unlucky Millennials” who have been hit by rising debt and poorer job prospects.

And it’s true. Recent reports from the Treasury Department show that the US government owns nearly $1.5 trillion in student loans.

That’s pretty sad when you think about it: the US government’s #1 financial asset is debt owed by tens of millions of its young people for university education that didn’t even necessarily qualify them for a real career.

Millennials are the most educated generation in history. Yet there are record numbers of them working off student debts as waiters and bartenders, and supplementing their income on the side with ‘gigs’ (like being an Uber driver).

These are all perfectly good ways to generate some extra cash and pay the rent.

But they’re hardly long-term career prospects which afford opportunities to learn valuable skills and move up.

For Millennials who do have careers, they’re earning less (when adjusted for inflation) than Generation X or Boomers did at their age.

On top of all that, young people will spend their entire working lives paying into a pension system that likely won’t be there for them when it comes time to collect.

The Board of Trustees of Social Security tells us that the program is going to completely run out of money within the next 15 years. Millennials’ retirement horizon is far beyond that.

Overall the report paints a grim picture for the future prospects of young people.

But I have a far more upbeat view.

Young people have an incredible gift that previous generations never had.

Despite the ever-increasing cost of university tuition, access to extremely valuable information is incredibly cheap… in many cases free.

This means that learning important skills to help you build wealth and get ahead is easier and cheaper than ever before.

So is starting a business.

It’s possible to register a company online in minutes. To purchase and build a website in a few hours. To reach a worldwide network of suppliers without leaving your living room. To setup a store with the world’s largest online marketplaces with ease. To reach millions of targeted prospective customers in an instant.

None of this was ever possible before.

And while I know that starting a business is a scary, uncertain prospect for a lot of people, entrepreneurship remains the most consistent way to generate substantial wealth… while at the same time providing a lot of value to the world.

It starts with a simple commitment to your own business education: there are countless, free resources to get started learning those skills.

The system is undoubtedly rigged, and as the report shows, leaving a lot of people behind.

But especially for younger people who have the luxury of time, starting a business is a great way to take control of your future… and at a minimum, obtain valuable skills and experiences that will be highly beneficial in the future.

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