BRICS+: Gaining a Plan B residency in this growing trade bloc

The decline of the US dollar is a gradual process… Yet the expansion of the BRICS trade bloc is another clear sign that the dollar will continue losing ground. Today, we look at some exciting opportunities for residency and/or citizenship in this growing bloc.

Let’s get into the details below…

BRICS+ vs the USA: What the growth of this trade bloc means…

Recently there’s been a LOT of shrill commentary about the imminent “collapse” of the dollar, along with a lot of very bleak prognostications about China – and now BRICS – vs. the Land of the Free.

We find this kind of talk alarmist, frankly.

Yes, the US dollar is losing market share as the world’s reserve currency.

And if you’re looking for data points that the US is in decline – dysfunctional leadership, out-of-control sovereign debt, a decline in the rule of law, disastrous external conflicts, and growing social unrest at home – they’re all there.

Plus, it’s highly probable that this decline is only going to accelerate over time…

But, as Simon Black has frequently argued, we should see this development for what it is: simply another one of MANY steps towards replacing the dollar as the global reserve currency.

A quick backgrounder on BRICS, and why its growth is on people’s minds…

Founded in 2009, the BRIC trade bloc – comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and subsequently, South Africa (thus the current BRICS naming convention), recently announced that they’re growing.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia are all joining the bloc, now casually being referred to as “BRICS+”, starting on January 1 of 2024.

(Talk about a stellar new member line-up.)

To many people, the bloc’s growth represents the ascent of a new, emerging “multipolar” world order. And its existing member states (and China, in particular) are already working on ways to get out of using the US dollar for trade payments among themselves.

But as Simon has previously written, this motley crew (and especially China) each faces their own cocktail of serious economic and reputational problems. Consequently, this bloc is not exactly poised for world domination… Nor will they be, any time soon.

Nonetheless, the BRICS+ bloc will likely continue to grow in membership and influence. So for most rational folks, then, the real question is:

What is to be done to set oneself up for success at a time where an old world order is in decline, and a new one is gradually emerging..?

And our answer, as always, is: It pays to have multiple options for where you, your assets and your savings can live.

And here’s what those options could look like…

The BRICS+ nations offers ample options for easy residency and citizenship

If you’re looking for decent residency options across the BRICS+ countries, you’ll be spoiled for choice.

And the good news – none of the BRICS+ countries are EU members. That means that there’s no supranational government in Brussels to give them grief about whom they award residency and/or citizenship to or not.

(The EU actively tries to restrict investment-based residency and citizenship programs in the EU, as well as in countries that enjoy visa-free access to the Schengen Area.)

Plus, several BRICS+ countries also offer Residency and Citizenship By Investment programs.

Just have a look at the below selection of options:

Longtime Sovereign Man readers will no doubt already have Brazil on their radar (both for easy residency and birth tourism purposes, but more on that in a moment).

And Argentina, despite its multitude of challenges, is home to one of the fastest, easiest naturalization options in the world: you can apply for Argentine citizenship after just two years of residency.

In addition, the United Arab Emirates offers a wealth of easy residency options, however these won’t lead to any long-term or permanent residency status.

So if you’re willing to go live abroad for around three to four years to get a decent second passport – definitely consider Argentina.

But if you’re looking for a relatively affordable back-pocket / pure Plan B residency with major lifestyle appeal, few members of the expanded BRICS block – if any – can compete with Brazil.

Locking down your Brazilian Plan B – by property OR business investment

If you’re looking for a flexible, relatively affordable “Golden Visa” type option, then both Brazil’s company and property investment tracks could be really appealing.

Let’s have a look at the respective program requirements below:

Applying for Brazilian Permanent Residency and Citizenship

Here’s what you can expect from the residency, renewals and naturalization process at the:

  • Temporary Residency stage: Real estate investors start with temporary residency, issued for four years. But you still need to keep this residency active – you do it by spending at least 14 days within every two years in Brazil — or on average, one week annually.And good news for company investors – you can skip the temporary residency stage and move straight to permanent residency.
  • Permanent Residency (PR) stage: Again, company capitalization investors start with PR right away. And real estate investors earn this right after just four years.Brazilian PR is a great asset as it is valid indefinitely; you will just need to renew the ID card every ten years.

    And while there is no official minimum stay requirement to keep your PR active, visiting Brazil annually for a couple of weeks is recommended. This will help convince Brazilian authorities you are still “interested” in the country.

    Plus officially, investors need to continue holding their qualifying investment (although authorities seldom check unless you apply for naturalization).

  • Naturalization stage: All residents can apply for Brazilian citizenship after four years of permanent residency – after a total of four years (company capitalization option), and eight years (RE investors).To apply, investors must again show they still hold their investment.

    There are no official presence requirements to naturalize (outside of the requirement to keep your permanent residency active), but to increase your chances, strive to spend in Brazil at least six months annually during the permanent residency stage.

As investment thresholds, stay requirements and timelines to PR and citizenship go, we consider both of these options to be a slam dunk.

But ultimately we prefer the company formation option, as it:

  • Leads straight to PR, AND;
  • Still allows you to invest BRL 600,000 in real estate anywhere in the country, if you wish to do so (which is even cheaper than the lowest RE option, which is priced at BRL 700,000).

Alternatively, you invest in other assets, or simply opt to keep the funds in your company’s bank account. And the Brazilian passport, scoring a respectable B-grade in the Sovereign Man Passport Index, is a prize well worth waiting a couple of years for…

The bottomline…

For Americans thinking longer term and diversifying where they can live (and where they own property), putting down some roots in one of the BRICS member countries could be worth considering as a geopolitical hedge.

And if you’d like to gain a flexible second residency with a clear path to PR and citizenship in a friendly, exciting and beautiful BRICS country… then Brazil’s Business Investor Visa program, in particular, might be just the thing you need (especially if you want to obtain permanent residency right from the start).

We’ll be exploring some more of your BRICS+ residency options in future installments, so stay tuned…

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“He ain’t never done nothin’ but get shot in Dallas. . .”

When the first shot rang out at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, most bystanders didn’t even realize that it was the sound of gunfire.

But Texas Governor John Connally was an avid hunter. He recognized the sound, sensed danger, and turned behind him to check if President Kennedy was OK.

Moments later, the second shot was fired, striking Connolly in his back. And as he looked down and saw his blood-soaked shirt, he shouted, “My God, they’re going to kill us all.”

President Kennedy, of course, did not survive. But Connally eventually made a full recovery. And, having achieved near mythical status in the State of Texas, he was re-elected twice more as governor.

Then, in 1971, President Richard Nixon asked Connally to be Treasury Secretary. Connally accepted the post despite having almost zero experience in finance or economics. And when questioned later by reporters about his obvious lack of credentials, he famously quipped, “I can add.”

(Connally later declared personal bankruptcy.)

The US economy was in bad shape at the time; Nixon’s predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, had spent aggressively on the Vietnam War while simultaneously spending billions of dollars– a prodigious sum in the 1960s– on education, anti-poverty, and welfare programs.

And inflation rose to around 6% thanks in large part to this excessive government spending.

Developed countries around the world began to rapidly lose confidence in the US dollar and the American government’s ability to manage its finances. And the Treasury Department started receiving demands from foreign governments who wanted to redeem their US dollars for gold.

Nixon was in a bind about how to fix the economic mess. And it was Connally– full of Texas swagger (and little else)– who convinced the President to formally end the dollar’s convertibility into gold.

Nixon made the announcement on Sunday night, August 15, 1971, unilaterally ending the “Bretton Woods” international monetary system that had been in place since 1944.

The announcement became known as the “Nixon Shock”. And “shock” is probably the right word. Foreign governments were in a panic; their entire financial system had been snatched away, overnight, without any warning. And politicians don’t tend to handle uncertainty very well.

This is where Connally stepped in yet again to smash foreign governments in the face with their new reality. “The dollar is our currency,” he told his fellow finance ministers in late 1971, “but it’s your problem.”

Connally was essentially pointing out that the rest of the world didn’t have an alternative to the US dollar. Nearly every nation on earth conducted international trade in US dollars. And because they had no other alternative, the US government could do whatever it wanted… including rack up huge deficits and painful inflation.

And that’s what happened. With no reason to restrain itself or have any financial modesty whatsoever, US government spending soared. Deficits piled up year after year, leading to a particularly nasty episode of stagflation in the 1970s.

Connally was a major architect of this mess, leading one of his critics to later say, “He ain’t never done nothin’ but get shot in Dallas. . .”

In fairness to Connally, that judgment isn’t entirely true. One of his lasting legacies was scaring the world into setting up an alternative to the US dollar.

Europeans in particular were freaked out by the Nixon Shock… so much, in fact, that western European nations eventually banded together to form their own currency as an alternative to the US dollar; today the euro has about a 20% share of global financial reserves.

But with a 60% market share, the US dollar is still dominant. For now.

More than fifty years after the Nixon Shock, the US government still has no financial restraint. Annual deficits easily top $2 trillion, nearly 10% of GDP. America’s fiscal situation is so bad that, within the next decade, 100% of tax revenue may be consumed just to pay for mandatory entitlements (like Social Security) and interest on the debt.

If that weren’t bad enough, the Treasury Department has also made a habit of weaponizing the US dollar, i.e. threatening individuals, businesses, and foreign governments to bend it its will or else be cut off from the global financial system.

It’s no wonder that there’s been so much in the news lately about alternatives to the US dollar. Late last year, for example, Saudi Arabian officials said that they were “open” to selling oil in a currency other than US dollars (i.e. Chinese yuan).

And just a few weeks ago, members of the “BRICS” alliance expanded their membership in an effort to directly challenge the dollar’s dominance.

Now, I’ve been writing about the eventual decline of the US dollar for several years. More than a decade ago, for example, I argued that the market would seek an alternative to the US dollar “gradually, rather than suddenly”.

That was considered a highly controversial assertion back then. Today, the dollar’s decline is a mainstream view.

But even though I held this view way before it became popular, I have to be contrarian now and say the burgeoning “BRICS” agreement is NOT the end of the dollar.

The BRICS members include Argentina– a country that is perennially in a state of default and hyperinflation; Ethiopia, which has a GDP per capita of just $925; and South Africa, a borderline failed state.

China is obviously the anchor of the BRICS alliance. But at the same time, no one really trusts the Chinese government. And America, for all of its problems, is still viewed as a more reliable steward of the global reserve currency than the CCP… whose threats against Taiwan are not inspiring confidence.

What is clear is that the international financial order is going to change. The United States can no longer impose the “Connally Doctrine,” i.e. the dollar is our currency but your problem.

This is hardly controversial anymore. The US cannot have a gargantuan debt, uncontrolled spending, incompetent leaders, and a weakened military, and yet still expect to be the world’s dominant reserve currency.

I think a far more likely scenario is that there will be an event… probably some time between 2028 and 2035, that triggers a formal agreement to reset the global monetary system.

It could be Social Security running out of money (currently projected in 2033), which requires Treasury to borrow $10+ trillion to bail it out. Or perhaps another debt ceiling showdown that results in a default on the national debt. Or it could be another major banking crisis. Or even a major global war.

Whatever the cause, I suspect this event will compel leading nations to call a formal conference, similar to the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 that established the first modern financial order.

The US will be much weaker at that point. But it will still have a seat at the negotiating table.

Today, BRICS is a very loose affiliation of countries who don’t trust each other. This isn’t going to replace the dollar.

My view is that whatever agreement ultimately knocks King Dollar from its throne will have the US Treasury Secretary’s signature on it.

But regardless of how it plays out– and what ultimately triggers it– the dollar’s decline remains an extremely likely outcome.

Technically the dollar’s problems are still fixable. The national debt is fixable. All problems are fixable.

However America’s pitiful leadership seems to lack both the ability and desire to enact real solutions. And as long as this trend holds, it makes sense to plan on the dollar’s eventual decline as the world’s primary reserve currency.

And this means real assets… and in particular exposure to gold.

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Future Headline: Fed’s New CDBC Hacked Just Six Days After Its Launch

In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

September 1, 2029: Fed’s New CDBC “FedCoin” Hacked After Just Six Days

Neither the Treasury Department nor Federal Reserve have commented on the issues with the brand-new FedCoin system since it went offline over 36 hours ago.

But what we have been able to gather so far is that the problems started six days after the launch of the highly touted digital currency meant to replace the US dollar.

Rumors on the dark web began to swirl that a hacker group calling itself Reserve Raiders had infiltrated the FedCoin servers, and transferred itself $10 billion.

One alleged member commented, “FedCoin’s security was equivalent to one of those spring locks you can open by sliding a credit card between the door. It has eight-months-from-retirement written all over it.”

Another added, “We could have taken any amount we wanted— just kept adding zeros. We stopped at $10 billion because we honestly just felt bad. And of course if we conjured too much money out of thin air to steal, it would just hyper-inflate and be worthless to us.”

Only a few hours later, the entire FedCoin infrastructure stopped functioning.

That includes checking and savings accounts, as well as FedCoin’s online bond marketplace. The status of the already purchased bonds is unclear, but off-market indicators suggest people are lining up to panic-sell them as soon as the system comes back online.

Personal wallets, which the Fed airdropped $20 worth of FedCoin into for each user who downloaded the wallet before the launch on August 25, are also offline.

“I figured I’d just use the $20 to buy a pack of gum,” one user told us outside of a 7/11, “I was able to open the app, but the transfer never went through. I just kept getting a timeout error message.”

Early institutional adopter JP Morgan swapped over $200 billion worth of deposits in traditional USD for the same amount in FedCoin. Now bank customers are wondering how secure the new digital currency is.

JP Morgan has told customers that the Fed has privately assured them that all deposits are safe. “And anyway,” the bank’s CEO commented, “if the money was somehow lost, the government would simply print more to bail us out. We’ve been prime supporters of their FedCoin project, they wouldn’t leave us hanging.”

Some experts have speculated that because of the traceability of FedCoin, the hackers would be unable to spend it.

However, others argue that it would not be difficult to use a “tumbler” to swap out the stolen funds for legally acquired FedCoin. This, however, would require a large and complex operation of laundering— unless, of course, privately held funds are as easily hacked as the Federal Reserve’s system.

That is why many speculate that the entire FedCoin system went offline— in a desperate attempt by the government to freeze the funds before any further damage could be done.

But again, we won’t have definite answers to any of these questions until the Treasury and Fed decide to finally issue a statement.

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America desperately needs “Captain No”

I’ll never forget the first time I met “Captain No”.

I was a young, 17-year old new cadet at West Point about to take my first Physical Fitness test– a semiannual requirement in the military that involved a bunch of push-ups, sit-ups, and running.

The physical fitness test was proctored… meaning that a veteran Army officer would literally stand there and watch me do push-ups. And if I didn’t do them properly, i.e. go all the way up, all the way down, the repetition wouldn’t count.

By sheer misfortune, the Army officer proctoring my first exam was a stern, mean-looking captain. He was built like a featherweight boxer but had enough pent-up anger to punch like Mike Tyson. I suppose I would too if I had to watch teenagers do push-ups for a living.

Little did I know that this Army officer was legendary at West Point for his fanatical, absolutist approach to physical fitness tests. And the cadets had given him a special nickname: Captain No. I soon found out why.

When it was my turn, I walked over to the exercise area and greeted him. He brusquely told me to get into position, and then he blew the whistle. My two minutes of push-ups had started.

The first 10 or 15 repetitions were a breeze, and I remember thinking, “this guy is no big deal”. Then came the first “No!” from the captain. Apparently I hadn’t gone down all the way. Or all the way up. Who knows.

But I didn’t let it faze me and went down for another push-up. “No,” he announced again, with similar disregard as a police officer who has demanded to see your license and registration.

I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong– push-ups aren’t exactly a complicated maneuver. But the more I cranked out, the more he kept rejecting them. “No. No. No. No,” he went on, like a monotonous broken record.

I barely passed my exam that day. And, fortunately for me, I never ran into Captain No ever again during my time at the academy. But he became one of those people that, you only have a brief encounter with, but remember for the rest of your life.

Sometimes I randomly think about him and wonder what he’s doing.

And, to be honest, lately I’ve been wishing that he would suddenly turn up and announce his candidacy for President. Because I believe that America desperately needs Captain No.

I watched last week’s Presidential debates– mostly out of curiosity.

And, while I came to the conclusion that there are a handful of candidates who understand the problems, it’s also obvious that hardly anyone (including the moderators, or the public in general) actually understands the limits of Presidential authority.

This is pretty common. Every four years, candidates invariably make promises to voters about what they’re going to do. Most of the time they stick to high-sounding platitudes like “invest in jobs” or “get the economy going” or “stand up to China”.

Of course, these slogan mean absolutely nothing because they’re accompanied by no detail whatsoever.

Occasionally, however, political candidates make specific promises… like banning assault weapons, banning abortion, raising taxes, cutting taxes, etc. Sometimes candidates will even promise to do these things “on Day 1 of office”.

The reality is that most of these promises go far beyond the legal authority of the President. With VERY limited exception, the President cannot change tax rates, ban anything, or even so much as spend much money without Congressional approval.

The one key power he has– especially when it comes to the economy– is to veto Congressional spending bills. And that’s why “Captain No” is so desperately needed.

Excessive federal spending is quickly becoming the most critical issue affecting the US economy. There’s has simply been too much of it for far too long.

Nearly four years ago, just after the close of Fiscal Year 2019, I wrote a concerned letter about the state of government finances.

FY19, I wrote, was “literally, the BEST year EVER measured by short-term US financial performance.”

In 2019, the stock market had reached an all-time high. Real estate had reached record highs. Corporate profits were at record highs. Unemployment was near an all-time low.

Things couldn’t get better for the US economy. And as a result, federal tax revenue also reached an all-time high; the US government was swimming in cash like Scrooge McDuck.

Not to mention, there were no major emergencies in 2019. No recession. No war. Everything was perfect.

Yet even with all that perfection, the federal government STILL managed to increase the national debt by more than $1 trillion that fiscal year.

And I wrote on October 1, 2019,

What’s going to happen when the economic sun isn’t shining so brightly?

It would be foolish to expect every year to look like Fiscal Year 2019. Honestly, the combination of so much good news and so little bad news in FY19 was pretty rare.

There absolutely WILL be problems in the future. Recessions, panics, downturns, bear markets, natural disasters, trade wars, military conflicts, debt crises, pension crises, etc.

Well, we found out the following year. Disaster struck. And by the close of FY20 (on October 1, 2020), just one year after I wrote those words, the national debt had increased from $22.6 trillion.. to $27 trillion. In a single year.

Today the national debt is almost $33 trillion, up $2 trillion from the start of the current fiscal year that started last October. And yet, like in 2019, this year there was no national emergency. No pandemic. No existential crisis where they had to spend “whatever it takes”.

And yet, even under fairly normalized conditions, the people in charge have still managed to overspend by $2 trillion this fiscal year.

This level of reckless spending is cancerous for the US economy.

For starters, reckless federal spending is a major driver of inflation, which hurts just about everyone.

Reckless government spending also means that there’s less private capital available to invest in the economy… something known as the “Crowding Out Effect”.

In other words, whenever the government spends too much, it means they have to borrow more money. This is why the national debt increases.

But the amount of savings in the economy is not infinite… especially now that the Federal Reserve is reducing the money supply.

So as the government borrows more money, there will be less money left over to invest in businesses. This hurts US productivity… which actually makes the problem worse.

Lower productivity means the economy will grow more slowly (or not at all). And slower growth means lower tax revenue… which means the government will have to borrow even more money.

You can see how nasty the cycle can become.

It’s also worth noting that continued deficits also risk the US dollar’s status as the dominant global reserve currency… which would be yet another catastrophe.

The Land of the Free is quickly reaching a bifurcation point where excessive spending and outrageous deficits could create a terrible economic spiral that is very difficult to escape.

If the US wants to avoid complete disaster, the deficits have to stop, and the government has to learn to live within its means.

This takes me back to the President’s authority.

The only real power the next President will have is to veto any budget or legislation that exceeds tax revenue.

And this is why America needs “Captain No”.

I would have loved to see the guy on stage at the debate last Wednesday and say, “I will literally reject every Congressional action that increases the national debt by a single penny. And if you think I’m bluffing, just try me. I’m Captain No, dammit.”

What’s the worst that could happen if excessive Congressional budgets are vetoed? Another government shutdown? Hallelujah.

Do you remember the last shutdown a few years ago? I doubt any of us woke up in a cold sweat fretting that the Department of Commerce was closed.

The ‘essential’ workers (like the military) still came to work… leading me to wonder why the government even has ‘non-essential’ workers to begin with.

This situation is fixable. There is still a VERY LIMITED window for the US government to get spending under control, re-establish the primacy of the dollar, and increase economic productivity.

It might take “Captain No” to get it done. But in case the guy doesn’t show up, it certainly makes sense to put together your Plan B… before you need it to become your Plan A.

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A closer look at Brazil’s Digital Nomad Visa Program in 2023

Looking to explore Brazil whilst working on your laptop? The country’s Digital Nomad Visa program offers digital nomads an easy way to obtain residency there for 12 months – and as a plus, it is renewable.

Let’s get into the details below…

During the past couple of years, digital nomads have emerged as a very sought-after group, especially in tourism reliant countries impacted by Covid.

By some estimates, over 35 million digital nomads currently wander the world.

Most of them earn their income abroad, and hence do not take jobs from locals. On the contrary, they support the local economy by spending a lot of money earned abroad on local rent, food and entertainment.

No wonder that more and more governments are trying to attract these world wanderers to their shores.

Brazil, too, jumped on the bandwagon, launching a Digital Nomad Visa in January of 2022.
Resolution No.45, released in September 2021, made provision for digital nomads to apply for a residency, which can be renewed annually, and outlines the program’s main requirements.

Note: That the above-mentioned Resolution No.45 does not explicitly state how many times this residency can be renewed. And considering that the program is brand new, there is no precedent in this regard. But our immigration contacts on the ground believe that applicants should be able to renew it multiple times.

The Brazilian Digital Nomad Visa at a glance

Brazil is a fabulous destination with a diverse range of landscapes, a rich cultural history, as well as some of the most famous carnivals and festivals in the world. And the country’s remote nomad visa makes it easy to gain access to the Brazilian experience for extended periods of time.

Apart from offering a relatively low income requirement, the program also allows you to apply on the basis of savings – which is not that common among Digital Nomad Visas and residency programs in general:

Residency duration Financial requirements Can it lead to permanent residency and citizenship?
Initial: 1 year. 

Renewals: 1 year at a time*

Income: $1,500 a month, OR

Savings: $18,000 bank balance

Currently, no such provisions exist.

* The Brazilian Digital Nomad Visa allows applicants to stay in the country for one year, and it can be renewed at least once. The law does not specify how many times this residency can be renewed.

In order to be able to renew your residency, it is advisable to spend at least six months in the country within your visa validity period (although this requirement, too, is not explicitly stated in the law either).

To apply for the Brazilian Digital Nomad Visa, you will not be able to use a single streamlined online application platform (as would be the case with most other countries offering such visas).

The famed Brazilian bureaucracy shines again in this regard.

In addition to filling an online application form, you will still need to go “offline” by visiting your nearest Brazilian consulate and presenting a substantial set of documents (more on that below).

It’s also possible to go through the process from inside Brazil, however our service provider on the ground generally advises against going this route.

Now, let’s look at the program’s financial requirements. To qualify, you will have to prove sufficient income or savings.

You’ll need to show:

  • At least $1,500 in monthly income, OR;
    At least $18,000 bank account balance.

These amounts are definitely on the lower side when compared to many competing programs.

For comparison, Barbados requires $50,000 in annual income, and Croatia around $31,000. So, Brazil is quite affordable, especially for “junior” nomads.

You can prove your required monthly income by presenting an applicable employment or service contract, business registration papers if you are self-employed, bank slips with necessary incoming amounts, etc.

So, if you don’t already have a remote job with a contract to present, you could potentially form a company — anywhere outside of Brazil — and set your own salary at the required $1,500 a month (although it’s always a good idea to show proof of an amount that’s higher than the minimum required).

Importantly, your employer, or your own company, must be located outside of Brazil. Brazilian employers or entities will not work.

But again, you won’t need this if you have some savings. Showing $18,000 in a bank account (in your home country) will qualify you as well. There is no need to transfer this money to Brazil either.

And again, the higher your savings amount is, the better.

Note: If you apply through a Brazilian embassy/consulate outside of Brazil, then you won’t need to apostille your documents. However, be sure to confirm the most current list of requirements with your Brazilian consulate and/or service provider.

Will I be able to obtain Brazilian Permanent Residency?

The Brazilian Digital Nomad Visa Will NOT Lead to Brazilian Citizenship. It’s imperative to mention that while it should be possible to renew your Digital Nomad Visa multiple times, it will never lead to any permanent status in Brazil ( e.g. permanent residency or citizenship.)

But Brazil is not unique here: most other countries offering Digital Nomad Visas do not allow you to apply for permanent residency or subsequent naturalization, either.

If you desire to put roots in a country, you will need to consider a different type of residency, such as the pensioner residency program, or Brazil’s investor visa.

The bottomline…

Brazil is an extraordinary country. Given how vast it is geographically, combined with how culturally diverse it is, you could spend years exploring its various parts…

From a distinctly European flavor in the south of the country, to a very Caribbean-like atmosphere in the north, and more indigenous traits in the Amazon region, the country truly has something for everyone.

And their local version of the Digital Nomad Visa is definitely more accessible than many of the competing programs worldwide.

 

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Future Headline: Ex-Mayor “Harvey” the Ham Sandwich Indicted on RICO Charges

In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

August 25, 2029: Ex-Mayor “Harvey” the Ham Sandwich Indicted on RICO Charges

Divide, Colorado is a picturesque town high in the Rocky Mountains on the north slope of Pike’s Peak, population 143.

For years locals have made a habit of electing dogs and cats as mayor.

It was a big upset in 2014, for example, when a search & rescue bloodhound named Pa Kettle beat Herbie the donkey, Gracie the mustang, and Blackberry the hedgehog, to become mayor that year.

Before that, Walter the Cat had been Mayor of the town.

But citizens went a different direction in the mid-2020s, forgoing their usual animal choices and instead electing inanimate objects. First it was the mayor of ‘Harvey Hamm’ in 2026, a ham sandwich that had been prepared by a local eatery. Then in last year’s 2028 election, voters chose a local fir tree located in the town square.

But unlike past elections, 2028’s was quite contentious.

Over 200 votes were cast in the town of 143. Local election officials said there were a number of mail-in ballots from out-of-town residents. But, suspecting some irregularities, many Harvey Hamm supporters challenged the election results.

This challenge escalated into a back-and-forth with the local press slamming Harvey Hamm supporters as “conspiracy theorists” and a “threat to democracy”.

In the end, the fir tree was sworn in as Mayor. But Teller County’s prosecutor wasn’t willing to let the matter go.

After an eight month investigation at taxpayer expense, prosecutors have filed RICO charges (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) against three local Harvey Hamm supporters, as well as the former Mayor Harvey Hamm itself.

The famous words of Federal Judge Sol Wachtler have become prophetic: a district attorney has finally persuaded a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.

All defendants are required to turn themselves in to the local jail for booking and processing— although it is unclear whether or not the ham sandwich will be able to comply.

This is just the latest wave of prosecutions that started in 2023 with former President Trump.

Local prosecutors across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Florida retaliated by filing charges against former President Obama in 2024, former President Biden in 2025, former Speaker Pelosi in 2026, and former California Governor Newsom in 2027.

That only spurred the Democrats to themselves retaliate. They filed charges against former President George W. Bush in 2024, former Governor DeSantis in 2026, and even posthumously indicted the remains of Ronald Reagan last year in 2028.

And of course there have been hundreds of other members of Congress, plus state and local politicians, who have been prosecuted and convicted, from local dog catchers and county clerks to state representatives and US Senators.

For example, a Republican roadkill warden from Pennsylvania was indicted for a “conspiracy” in which several dead animals were hit in front of a Democrat politician’s home in a short time-span.

The head of Parks and Recreation in a small Louisiana town was indicted of hate crimes after she accidentally gave a gay couple wrong directions.

And a Democrat town councilor was indicted by a Republican district attorney in Idaho after she incorrectly folded an American flag.

While not all are convicted, there is at least a very high likelihood of politicians being charged with a crime after they leave office by a local district attorney from the opposing party.

As a result, California Congressmen Darrell Issa and Adam Schiff teamed up to introduce legislation to form special federal and state prison wards specifically for political convicts.

The legislation was passed unanimously last year. And that turned out to be a smart move for Issa and Schiff, both of whom have now left Congress and been convicted of wire fraud. They are each serving time in the new political wing of California’s infamous San Quentin state prison.

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If you think gold is worth owning, wait until you see uranium

Gold has its merits. It has been valuable for thousands of years, and has some industrial applications as well.

But holding a kilo of gold in your hand, all you can really do is admire it, and appreciate that it is a great store of wealth.

Holding a kilo of uranium, you have in your hand a resource that has enough energy to supply a day’s power to 30,000 people.

That’s not just impressive; it’s transformative in a world being run by absolute buffoons.

Politicians, in their infinite wisdom, continue to plunge the US into deeper debt, racking up trillions in deficits year after year.

And when global credit rating agencies like Fitch sound the alarm on their fiscal irresponsibility, these politicians don’t just turn a deaf ear; they outright reject and ridicule the warnings. They gaslight the public and say: No! There is absolutely nothing wrong with borrowing trillions and trillions and racking up debt worth 120% of GDP. Fitch is the crazy one, not us!

Then they dump all this borrowed money into things like the “Inflation Reduction Act.” Shockingly, turns out that had nothing to do with inflation. It was a thinly veiled attempt to appease climate fanatics.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for clean air and a pristine environment. But I also believe in making informed decisions. The hard truth is that wind and solar energy are not efficient nor cost-effective.

But fanaticism blinds people to facts and data.

We witnessed this during the pandemic, with decision-makers adopting a “whatever it takes” approach, sidelining critical data in favor of emotional reactions. And emotional decisions are usually bad decisions.

The climate fanatics dream of a world powered solely by wind and solar.

But that’s delusional.

Just consider that the largest solar field in the world requires nearly FOUR HUNDRED square kilometers, and produces about 11,400 GWh of electricity per year.

The Kori nuclear plant in South Korea, on the other hand, has a footprint of just a few dozen acres, yet it produces 4x as much electricity.

Converting the world to solar would require hundreds of thousands of square kilometers full of solar panels and wind farms. Just imagine how expensive that land would be. Or how much cobalt, silicon, lithium, etc. would need to be mined and produced.

To transition fully to wind and solar, the world would need billions and billions of pounds of extra materials that are simply not available.

Or you could use one little rock of uranium to provide the daily energy needs of 30,000 people.

Sure, the up-front capital costs are much higher for nuclear. But over the life cycle of a modern plant, the average cost per kWh of electricity is comparable (or less) than solar.

And finally, after being abandoned and ignored for years, policymakers are starting to turn back to nuclear. This isn’t just wishful thinking. It’s happening… if not in the US, then around the world.

There are around 415 reactors currently supplying nuclear energy to the world. There are 59 new ones under construction, and 111 in early stage development. Another 300+ have been proposed. The vast majority are in Russia, India, and China.

(The US has just one under construction. Germany removed all theirs and now has 0. Sweden has 0. France has 1. The “developed” countries are way, way behind.)

Yet even with just 415 active nuclear plants, uranium is already in short supply.

In 2021, for example, nuclear plants used 73,698 metric tons of uranium to produce electricity. Yet total uranium mine output that year was just 56,377 metric tons.

In other words, mines aren’t producing enough uranium… and they haven’t been for most of the last decade. Nuclear plants have had to draw down on their previous stockpiles.

(My colleague Adam Rozencwajg of Goehring & Rozencwajg recently published some great research on the topic, showing uranium stockpiles to be at their lowest levels in nearly 20 years.)

Think about it— if uranium is already in short supply today, just imagine how undersupplied the market will be in the future when these new reactors come online.

Most likley this would result in a major price surge in uranium.

We’ve talked recently about how gold could double, triple, or even more in price over the coming years.

Uranium essentially has similar upside as gold, but with the additional benefit of being a transformative fuel that can provide a cheap and abundant source of energy.

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Future Headline: AOC Wins Epic Presidential Primary Cage Match

In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

August 18, 2028: AOC Wins Epic Presidential Primary Cage Match

Last night’s battle royale cage match among the Presidential primary candidates from the Democratic party was real bruiser.

But celebrity guest judge Tony Fauci officially declared Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the winner at the end of the match.

While President Biden remains comatose after falling up the steps of Air Force One back in January, his AI virtual presence was in attendance at the match, and he appeared to look on with approval as AOC conquered the field to clinch the Democrat nomination for President.

It’s hard to imagine it’s already been five years since Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg entered the ring for an epic cage match, thus setting a new standard for resolving disputes.

Silicon Valley, of course, tends to be a major trend setter. After the Musk-Zuckerberg spectacle, business titans across multiple industries soon began settling everything from legal disputes to hostile takeovers through the mechanism of charity cage matches.

Who can forget the December 2023 cage match between Disney CEO Bob Iger and SAG-AFTRA Boss Fran Drescher, which finally settled the Hollywood strike after Drescher used the ‘camel clutch’ to force Iger to tap out.

Then there was February 2024’s rumble between Volodymyr Zhelensky and Vladimir Putin which finally ended the war in Ukraine, and turned Crimea and the Donbass into international free zones administered by China.

By 2026, the cage match movement started gaining traction in politics, with younger voters in particular enthusiastic about politicians trading blows. Cage matches also served as a natural deterrent for octogenarian politicians to continue seeking office, resulting in a wave of resignations among the Senate’s most senior members.

And earlier this year, both the Republican and Democrat National Committees opted to allow battle royale cage matches as an official alternative to primary voting. And in order to qualify to fight, a candidate must be polling with at least 5%, and must have received donations from at least 40,000 individuals across the country.

Last night’s cage match primary for the Democrats in Madison Square Garden was definitely one for the record books.

Stacy Abrams finally had a real shot at winning an election. Disgraced former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo eyed a big comeback. Even Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg entered the ring.

But the two favorites, of course, were former California Governor Gavin Newsom, and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Newsom previously seemed to be a critic of the Battle Royale format when he was caught in a “hot mic” moment several months ago describing a cage match as “stupid”. But when pressed by reporters if he meant than men have a biological advantage over women, he replied:

“No, no, absolutely not, there is no physical advantage whatsoever. I just think it’s unfair that as a cis-male of privilege that I have had the opportunity to achieve peak physical performance, while more oppressed groups do not always have that opportunity.”

Yet AOC, who has been training with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, entered the ring looking pretty buff.

And as the bell rang, while many candidates seemed ill-prepared, AOC lunged straight for Newsom.

“She fights dirty,” said Newsom in a post fight conference, still nursing his swollen left eye from what might have been an illegal eye gouge during the first minute of the fight.

However celebrity referee Tony Fauci weighed in, saying, “The science is clear that an oppressed group is not capable of ‘illegal’ moves when fighting someone from an oppressor class. And for anyone to suggest otherwise is, frankly, spreading disinformation.”

AOC then turned her sights on Pete Buttigieg, who was shriveled in the corner as Cuomo and Abrams traded blows in the center of the ring.

AOC landed a devastating spinning back kick to Buttigieg’s face, knocking him out cold. The crowd roared with delight as his face slammed into cage.

Meanwhile, Stacy Abrams landed a vicious blow to Cuomo’s right knee, dropping the former governor to the canvas. But when Abrams went in to finish him off, Cuomo countered with a rear naked choke hold, rendering her unconscious in seconds.

Cuomo managed to get back up to face AOC— his only remaining opponent— but he seemed barely able to stand with his shattered knee. The crowd, meanwhile, chanted for AOC to “sweep the leg! Sweep the leg!”

Instead, AOC climbed up the cage, screamed “There can be only one!” and dropped the Rock’s signature ‘People’s Elbow’ onto former governor Cuomo. It was at that point that Dr. Fauci stopped the fight and declared AOC the winner.

The people have their champion, and the Democrat nominee for President.

After the match, AOC told the camera, “I’m just glad all the little girls across America can look up and see a woman literally fighting the oppressors in our society, and finally winning.”

The GOP primary cage fight will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada next week.

It will be quite the fight between former Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, former Vice President Mike Pence, failed Senate candidate Herschel Walker.

With sports betting now legal, the odds are split in favor of Youngkin, who has massive reach with his six-foot-six-inch stature, and ‘bulldog fighter’ Marjorie Taylor Green.

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The case for owning physical gold (or silver)… And how to keep it safe

On December 18, 1912, a grizzled 75-year old J.P. Morgan was summoned to Washington DC and forced to appear before the Bank and Currency Committee of the US House of Representatives.

The early 1900s was an era of rising socialism in the United States (similar to today); and there was plenty of mainstream media back then– including famed writer Upton Sinclair– who were card-carrying socialists.

These people hated banks, they hated bankers, and they hated J.P. Morgan the most. And eventually the media created so much controversy around Morgan that the House Committee was forced to investigate.

Morgan’s appearance was nothing short of legendary. For three hours straight, the 75-year old sparred with his ‘cross-examiner’, an attorney / “activist” named Samuel Untermeyer.

Untermeyer’s questions showed a distinct lack of understanding how money, banking, and finance really work. But J.P. Morgan took him to school that day.

At one point Untermeyer asked about money, suggesting that money is the same thing as “credit”, i.e. belief in paper currency and the banking system.

Absolutely not, said Morgan, correcting his accuser. “Money is gold, and nothing else.”

J.P. Morgan was right; gold has been money for most of the 5,000 years of recorded human history, in large part due to its geological scarcity, its long-term durability, and its metallurgical divisibility.

At Sovereign Man we are not “gold bugs” with fanatical views about any asset class, least of all a hunk of metal.

But we do see gold through a rational, fact-based lens as an essential part of any robust Plan B.

Long-term financial data demonstrate that gold is an excellent hedge against inflation. It’s a fantastic diversification asset. It’s a great insurance policy against systemic risks and Black Swan events.

(We saw the latter most recently in 2020 when gold prices went through the roof in the early days of the pandemic.)

As our founder Simon Black frequently writes, the real value of gold is as an anti-currency – a rejection of the paper money system in favor of something more tangible that cannot just be conjured out of thin air (unlike, say, more billions of dollars.)

Central banks can (and do) create trillions of dollars with the click of a button. But no central banker in the world can conjure a single ounce of gold out of thin air.

In theory, any scarce asset would be a great anti-currency. Land, for example, is also scarce. As Will Rogers famously quipped, “they ain’t making any more of the stuff” (unless you’re in Dubai).

But land is inferior to gold as an anti-currency because it’s so difficult to divide. It’s not transportable. It’s tied to a single jurisdiction.

Gold, on the other hand, can be moved from one side of the globe to another. So it is not only an anti-currency, it’s also non-jurisdictional. This means that gold isn’t controlled by any government, and that it has universal value around the world.

Now, we’ve written extensively about why we think a $5,000+ gold price is frankly a conservative forecast over the next several years.

US deficits are horrifying, and the national debt grows worse every year. America is potentially just five years away from a serious breakdown of its government finances– an event that would cause gold prices to go sky high.

And this just scratches the surface of reasons to own gold.

We’ve argued before that owning gold through ETFs carries a great deal of hidden risk, and that a much safer option is to accumulate physical bars and coins. Canadian Maple Leaf coins, for example, are very high purity and widely accepted around the world.

But we would caution you against storing all of your gold at home… especially with crime rates on the rise in Europe and the Land of the Free.

Think about it: in this day and age, if you store your gold in a safe at home, and thieves break into your house, what’s the first thing they’ll want to take? Your safe.

You could try clever misdirection, i.e. store gold in an old coffee can or bin of dirty diapers. Or even bury your safe in the backyard somewhere.

But we’ve long felt that a professional, secure storage facility is a better way to go.

Definitely do NOT use a bank safety deposit box. Sure, banks are safe… but they’re also de facto employees of the government. And as Canada’s infamous Freedom Convoy showed recently, the government (and the banks themselves) can cancel you out of the financial system if they don’t like your ideology.

Fortunately there are plenty of non-bank secure storage facilities to choose from. But it’s important to remember that jurisdiction matters.

In the US, for example, there are extensive civil asset forfeiture laws on the books which allow government agents to seize your gold without a warrant or any due process.

This happened not long ago in southern California; a secure storage facility rented out safety deposit boxes to customers… and, quite predictably, a few customers stored drugs and other contraband there.

Federal agents eventually swooped in and seized EVERYTHING at the facility… including the content from the safety deposit boxes of all the customers who weren’t doing anything illegal.

This is what Civil Asset Forfeiture is; you can be deprived of your property even if you’ve done nothing wrong. If your property is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, it can be taken from you. And then it’s up to you to spend the time, money, and energy trying to get it back.

This is why we’ve long advocated for storing gold overseas in places where civil asset forfeiture is a much lower risk. Plus, storing your bullion overseas can also serve as effective asset protection.

How to store your bullion safely (and why storing a portion offshore makes sense)

Places like Singapore, Switzerland, and Austria have long enjoyed reputations as trusted gold storage destinations. In fact, we have a longstanding relationship with Silver Bullion, a dedicated precious metals storage facility based in Singapore. Plus, our premium members enjoy exclusive discounts when they use the company’s services.

But let’s be honest – it’s 2023. And there are many folks who would like to own gold as an inflation hedge… but don’t want to deal with the risks and hassles of storing it, let alone transporting it.

This is now possible thanks to Blockchain technology. And there is a growing number of gold-backed crypto assets in the market.

This form of “digital gold” removes major issues like transport inconveniences, illiquidity, transferability, and volatility related to dealing with physical gold. And provided you take the appropriate security measures, it can mitigate the risk of theft, too.

But this is a more complex subject than we can deal with today, hence we’ll return to it in a future installment…

Finally, we want to remind our readers that we don’t really view gold as an ‘investment’. In our opinion, the purpose of owning gold isn’t to one day sell it for more paper currency. The idea is to have a hedge against the declining value of paper currency.

That said, our research indicates that there is substantial upside for gold in the future… again, we think that $5,000 per ounce is fairly conservative over the next several years.

But if you’re interested in capturing the maximum upside from gold’s potential meteoric rise in the future, a better way to do that is through exposure to gold mining companies and other gold-related businesses, rather than physical gold itself.

Yours in Freedom,
Team Sovereign Man

PS: If you’d like to learn how to identify the companies that could be huge winners in the coming bull market, then The 4th Pillarour premium investment research letter focused on real assets – is essential reading.

Inside The 4th Pillar (4P), you’ll discover…

  • Highly profitable, dividend paying gold sector companies with pristine balance sheets…
  • Free cash flow machines that are trading at ludicrously low valuations (and we’re not just talking about actual mines here)
  • Productive technology providers to the mining and industrial sectors…
  • As well as “uncorrelated” low-downside, high-upside opportunities – think vertically integrated businesses in complementary industries to the mining sector.

Recent winners featured in the 4P research portfolio have included agricultural companies, a gold miner, as well as companies servicing the mining industry. But the bargain-basement pricing we’re seeing right now is not going to last long.

So to find out more about The 4th Pillar, click here now.

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Why we think gold companies can go 10X in the coming boom…

With a current annual budget deficit of $1.6 TRILLION – set to hit $2 trillion by the time the fiscal year ends in September – the US Federal Government is putting drunken sailors everywhere to shame.

At the end of the 2019 fiscal year (just before Covid-1984 hit), the US national debt was $22.7 trillion. Today, it’s nearly 50% greater: $32.7 trillion. And it keeps growing each year.

Just yesterday, our founder, Simon Black, explained that most of the US national debt was accumulated over the past ~15 years, when interest rates were super low. The Treasury Department got accustomed to being able to borrow for less than 1%.

In fact, as late as August 2021, the average interest rate that the US government was paying on its national debt was just 1.45%.

But now interest rates are MUCH higher. The government is now paying an average interest rate of 2.8%, almost twice as high as just two years ago.

The national debt is so high, though, that even 2.8% is too expensive for the US government.

This fiscal year (which ends on September 30, 2023), the Treasury expects to spend a whopping $864 billion just paying interest on the national debt. Again, that’s with an average rate of just 2.8%.

The real problem for the federal government is that roughly 75% of the debt will mature over the next five years. And as their current debt comes due, they’ll pay it back by issuing NEW debt at a HIGHER interest rate.

This means that the government’s average interest rate that it pays on the national debt could rise to 5% over the next five years. Including all the new debt they project to accumulate over that period of time, this means that the government would have to spend $2 TRILLION of taxpayer money, each year, just to pay interest.

And frankly, paying an average 5% interest on the national debt is still pretty low given US financial history.
The average rate was 5% as recently as 2007. In 2001 it was nearly 7%. And throughout much of the 1980s, rates were in the double digits.

So forecasting a 5% average interest rate on the national debt within five years is totally reasonable.
Remember too that, in addition to paying interest, “mandatory” spending on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare will hit $3 trillion in a few years.

This means that Social Security, Medicare, and Interest on National Debt could soon exceed 100% of the US government’s tax revenue.

This looming fiscal crisis will fast become a mainstream issue. And politicians will predictably react by raising your taxes sky high to pay for their incompetence.

Personally, we anticipate the Federal Reserve to try to bail out the government… by slashing interest rates back to 0% and printing trillions of dollars to buy US Treasury bonds.

The consequence, of course, will likely be more inflation.

Why buying gold – and gaining portfolio exposure to it – makes a lot of sense in 2023

As longtime readers of Sovereign Man will know, all of the above is exceptionally bullish for gold.
Now, gold can be a lot of things. It can be a great asset protection tool. It can be a great speculation. It can be a great way to pass on wealth to your kids.

But gold also has a 5,000 year track record as a reliable hedge against inflation and a range of systemic risks.
Most people suffer to some degree from normalcy bias; this is the belief that tomorrow will be very similar to today. Yet the past few years have shown that the world can become radically different… overnight.

And it is precisely during these kinds of Black Swan events and sudden system shocks that physical gold can be an invaluable asset. This is one of the reasons why gold predictably went through the roof during the pandemic.
Yet now that the dust has settled on the pandemic, few people are thinking about buying gold.

In fact, gold prices have remained pretty flat since 2022. An even better example is that many gold-related businesses (including mining companies) are currently trading at ludicrously cheap levels.

But when you consider the obvious risk of a major financial crisis in the US over the next five years, you don’t need to be a gold bug to appreciate gold’s significant potential upside

It should also be noted that central banks were extremely active buyers of the metal in 2022, buying at a speed not seen since 1967. (Central banks’ purchasing behaviors are a key driver of gold price increases.)

Karl Bagga, the editor of our investment newsletter The 4th Pillar, (which is focused on real assets) believes that we are in the early stages of a significant bull market for gold.

Simon agrees. In fact, he’s argued a few times why gold could trade at $5,000+in the coming years, up from around $1,900 per ounce today.

How YOU can cash in on the coming “gold rush”…

Many investors who consider investing in gold automatically buy into an ETF (exchange-traded fund). Simon has written before that these gold ETFs carry substantial hidden risk which most investors won’t notice… unless they do what Simon does, and actually read all the legal disclosures.

That’s why, at Sovereign Man, we far prefer owning physical gold over ETFs. But more on that another time.
Rising gold prices also present tremendous upside for mining companies and related businesses, including:

  • Mining royalty companies
  • Mining financial services providers
  • Gold millers and refiners
  • Mining services companies
  • As well as technology and service providers for mining and complementary sectors…

These are the exact kinds of companies that regularly feature in the page of The 4th Pillar (4P), our real asset focused investment letter.

For example:

One of the recently featured companies from Karl’s research in The 4th Pillar is a gold-related business that specializes in drilling, site work, and processing. It’s a “picks and shovels” business rather than a mine itself. So the company makes money from a gold mining boom, but without the same downside risk.

The business has been performing exceptionally well, has very little debt, and is generating record revenue with very strong profitability. And yet, with a price-to-earnings ratio (PE) of just 4.5, the stock is incredibly cheap right now.
Another example from Karl’s research is a gold ore processor; this is a company that purchases raw gold (i.e. rock ore) from small miners, processes it in bulk, then sells the processed gold to a large refiner.

Being an ore processor will position them for enormous gains in the coming gold boom; their business – already very profitable – will likely grow even more dramatically over the next few years, resulting in a big win for investors.
In the meantime, the company is already paying its investors a healthy dividend. Plus, they have zero debt and tons of cash on the balance sheet. Yet it also currently trades at a laughable 5.5x valuation.

The bottom line

Gold miners and gold production companies offer excellent opportunities to make serious profits from the coming boom in gold prices. And that opportunity exists right now because, for whatever reason, investors are largely ignoring the entire sector.

That’s probably not going to last.

Good investing,
Sovereign Man Editorial Team

PS: If you’d like to learn how you can beat inflation and safeguard your future spending power, be sure to check out The 4th Pillar — our premium investment research letter focused on real assets, productive technologies and more.

To find out more, click here.

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