Last week, I managed to trigger a U.S. Treasury Department OFAC “complete freeze” of my brokerage account. The push of one button blocked me from any action in all four accounts I hold at Fidelity. OFAC is the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Its mission is to prevent funds from flowing to any entity […]

7-18-18 MEXICO CITY, MEXICO: When we left Mexico’s capital a week or so ago, bound for the United States, the rainy season was just peeking over the mountains. Now we return to find it firmly settled in. Each afternoon, from now until sometime in October, the clouds will gather over the parks and cafes and […]

7/17/2018 Are we about to repeat the battle of Jumonville Glen? In 1754, a British militia company under the command of a lieutenant colonel arrived at Jumonville Glen, about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. There the British force of 47 men encountered a French force estimated at 35. The lieutenant colonel was inexperienced. Finding himself […]

In recent times, we’ve witnessed great turmoil in the Middle East. Countries such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, etc. would seem, on the surface, to be relatively valueless deserts yet, for a hundred years, other countries have squabbled over them. And, of course, we know that the reason is oil – a highly profitable commodity that’s […]

An Interview with Doug Casey and Joel Bowman Joel Bowman: When we left off last, I think you and I were talking about burning one’s passport, which seems like a natural enough subject for a couple of anti-statists to address. While we’re on the topic, I can’t help but notice that the number of U.S. […]

At first blush, Wall Street Journal technology writer Andy Kessler makes a compelling case for why bitcoin’s 2017 meteoric 1,368% rise was not “real.” In an article published on Sunday, July 1, Kessler cites a University of Texas study that argues manipulation was behind half of bitcoin’s 2017 move upwards. The study pins the blame […]

Big Middle East wars are often catastrophic for global oil supplies. This makes sense. The Middle East accounts for more than 40% of global oil exports. So, a big conflict in the Middle East often triggers a big spike in the price of oil. Take the 1973 “oil shock,” for example. Oil prices suddenly spiked… […]

Signs of the Times from the Lone Star State Houston, Texas: “Suffered an injury while on the job?” “We buy ugly homes!” “Who’s the father? 1-800-DNA-TYPE” The billboards flew by our open window as we drove in from George Bush Intercontinental airport. Signs of the times, dear reader. Your editor arrived in H-town, as the […]

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has been written about many times over the last two millennia, most notably in Edward Gibbon’s six-volume set of books of the same name. However, one significant aspect to the decline began in the fourth century that has received little attention from those who have written on […]

Drug wars… would-be “illegals”… “rapists and murderers…” Sheesh! Who in their right mind would want to live south of the Rio Grande, down ol’ Mexico way? You read the papers. You watch the news. All you see is violence and vengeance, corruption and chaos, poverty and pollution. And yet…not twenty feet from where we sit…

It’s Bread & Circus season here in Mexico. That means World Cup football (soccer) and presidential elections … just the things to distract the general population from all that really matters in this life.

We’re witnessing a loss of freedom in slo-mo… and the end product is always the same.

“Anything that can be militarized, will be militarized in today’s world.”

When two federal agents showed up to harass suspected arms trafficker Phil Zimmerman, Phil was out of his element. He wasn’t your usual gun runner. He wasn’t linked to any cartels, spies, or other shady characters. But he had written a bit of computer code that the US government considered a weapon. In the early […]

There is a freedom cycle, and it has to play itself out.

If you can afford it, you want to have comfortable digs in several places around the world.

“No president, no matter how good his intentions, can stop it.”

“Most of us tend not to regard taxation as theft, yet, that’s exactly what it is.”

“Traveling to Cuba is actually not against the law.”

“Bitcoin has many of the same attributes that makes gold a crisis currency.”