This is Who Will Save The World!


Japan has just shocked the market with…you guessed it, a widening trade deficit. We spilled a fair bit of digital ink explaining why the Japanese Government fiscal situation is a moth in search of a flame.

Our complimentary report which you can download, print and doodle on anytime you please…(really we’ll take no offense, just be sure to leave a copy in the bathroom for the next person to enjoy) explains the facts, and details multiple methods of positioning oneself to take advantage and indeed profit from this.

The bottom line is that Japanese debt is, in our humble opinion, likely to roll over like a fat kid on his jelly doughnut.

And how about Greece? It’s a moth that has found its flame, with more people now unemployed than employed, where social security is running out for many and has already run out for others.

The West is finding out the hard way what a socialist system that has been raided by political thugs really provides….nothing!

The bills are mounting for individual tax payers, yet the political class continue providing asinine solutions. Nothing new here. I detailed what will happen before when discussing Davos – Profiting from the Asinine.

Spain, Portugal, France, the Queens own, and those residing north of the Mexican border are all in a world of trouble both financially, but ultimately socially and politically. The American public may be the most clueless in the 1st world, but I’ll bet that they will learn quick with $10 gas.

The aforementioned countries are notably all democracies, I might add.

Democracies as far as I can see, which is admittedly not too far out of my window to the mountains here in Northern Thailand, are convenient ruses to the public. Everyone “buys” the government, provided they have enough money. In the land of the free and the home of the brave big pharma does it, big ag does it, military contractors do it, unions do it, hell everyone does it!

I’m surprised that they don’t run a lottery system on it, whereby “Joe Sixpack” can buy a ticket with the chance to win a “free bribe”, ah I mean “concession”. I’m thinking of offering the politicians help setting it up. We’ll call it the “Society for Philanthropic Democratic Concessions”, and we’ll sell lottery tickets. Mark and I will seed the lottery company and help take it public. Who wants in?

Maybe that garnered a laugh or two. Maybe it made some of you angry, as it should! Governments have stolen and re-allocated your future earnings, AND your children’s, children’s, children’s earnings. Make no mistake about it.

The West is in for Hell, that’s evident. Mark and I want no part in it.

Our focus, in case you have recently joined this site (where have you been?) is in rapidly-growing, undervalued frontier markets. With that in mind don’t for a minute believe that these places we enjoy hanging out in are without their problems.

Take Mongolia as my first example.

We recently joked about about excrement remediation in Mongolia, but on a more serious note, Ulaanbaatar has some of the worst air pollution we’ve seen anywhere. Residents have a relatively low life expectancy at just over 65, and as long as they keep breathing the thickly polluted air around them this is unlikely to change.

Why is it so polluted?

A couple of major reasons, mainly the use of coal for heating and electricity generation. In general, coal is dirty and cheap, but in Mongolia where it is as abundant as stupidity in world governments, it’s dirt cheap.

When its -50 celcius outside I too will burn dirty coal if I haven’t an alternative. Sure I could burn natural gas, but when my neighbours and every other resident is burning coal, tires, their garbage…which are all almost free compared to the “clean” alternatives, then I am likely to do the same. Bottom line is I can’t afford the better fuel, and I’m still going to breathe the same amount of pollution whether I personally burn it or not. Problem solved…I’ll burn it and suffer the consequences.

Then there’s Laos, where I’ve just returned from. Laos has been overcoming many of its challenges as of late, with burdensome regulations and the dead weight of the state gradually being lifted.

However, many are still living without potable water, functioning electricity, access to medical care and medicine, and an entire host of other “necessities”.

Cambodia, Laos neighbor and another country mentioned herein recently is still in many ways suffering from the effects of Pol Pots regime. Issues such as water supply, power, food production, healthcare…these are serious issues for any population to deal with, but the answers to solving these problems are easy to see if we care to review our dusty old history books.

So what’s our solution? Really it’s to just live our lives as outside the system as possible. Don’t rely on it for the things that matter…food, water, shelter, power.

In urban areas it’s near impossible to be self-reliant. To truly be outside of harms way you need to be in a rural area.

Take Fiji, it’s a country where the inhabitants are luckier than many we’ve met anywhere in the world. Sure, it lacks technology, infrastructure and reliable grid power, but not much else. It is, as far as your humble editors can tell, easily the best place in the world to escape the madness, live a simple, clean, healthy life without ever needing to rely on the outside world for “necessities”. And hey, for us English speakers who are incapable in our old age of learning new things, the language barrier doesn’t exist.

If resiliency is your thing, Fiji should be tops on your list. For those interested we will be holding a Meet Up in early November (dates to be finalized). Attendees of the last Meet Up in Mongolia will have first dibs on the VERY limited spots available. After that it will be opened to a wider audience. If you wish to know more please drop us a note with the subject line “Hell yeah – Fiji” and we’ll put you on a list to get first dibs on any open spots.

Back to the original question – Who will save the world?

Here to save the world!

I’ll tell you who. A bunch of capitalists. I hope they look like her!

We can only hope that we don’t find ourselves embroiled in wars, started by the misguided miscreants in power as they feel their grip slipping away; unfortunately that seems as certain as sun brings daylight.

If war does happen, the good news is that the saviors are always ambitious entrepreneurs. Capitalism is the source of civilizations and human progress. It is capitalism which has brought goods and services previously considered luxury items available only to the rich, to the masses.

From Greece to Mongolia to Laos and Cambodia, there are problems to be solved. Technology will eventually eliminate the burning of coal in Ulaanbaatar, as the population gets richer and starts demanding real solutions. At that point, when/if someone can provide a cheap energy alternative to coal the market will react to take advantage of it.

A friend recently told me that technology always saves the world. Not true. Technology is simply a tool. Everything begins with an idea and that idea bubbles up in an individual or group of individuals who execute their idea…bringing us the technology. Being free to create and prosper under a capitalist system is what makes progress happen.

Even still, there is a resurgent movement today towards socialism, and even communism. I could say I hardly blame people for feeling desperate enough to ask for that kind of hell to be imposed on them…again, but there is NO excuse for anyone in today’s world to long for a system that has brought more death, misery and economic destruction to the planet when the facts are there for all to see.

My suggestion to any socialist-leaning or communist-wanna-be out there is to put down the remote control, buy a plane ticket and go see just how well places like Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia and most of Africa have fared historically under these systems, and then observe the changes. If that doesn’t get your mind right, you’re hopeless.

I’ve had these types say to me before that I should be “giving back”, which is a completely misguided, wasteful and destructive exercise. I am far better placed providing MY hard-earned capital to hard-working, intelligent entrepreneurs who are changing their own lives and the lives of those around them.

Rest assured Capitalists will save the world…if we’re allowed to!

– Chris

“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” – Murray Rothbard

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This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Paul Kirkegaard

    Hell yeah- Fiji

  2. Simon R

    hi Chris
    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the issue you raised about democracy. For my entire life I swallowed the silly story we are taught in school, courtesy of Winston Churchill: “democracy is the worst system, except for all the others.” IE that there is no real functioning alternative, certainly not one that protects human rights.

    I still don’t really know what the alternative is, but democracy is no longer a functioning alternative in any way. I never in my life thought that I would campaign against democracy. And yet… it is so broken.

    There are many examples of situations where politicians know the system is broken, and they might want to fix it, but there are no votes in it (or there are votes in supporting the broken system). This applies to medical care, airport security, energy distribution, and just about anything else you care to look at.

    At the end of the day who’s really to blame – the politician or the suckers that vote for them? It has to be the latter. We have such stupid laws because there are so many stupid people. People who vote for politicians that lie, cheat, steal and tell us that groping grandmothers and confiscating our water bottles at airports will make flights safer.

    I could carry on for hours about the failures of democracy – but the thing is, I still don’t know what the alternative is. For you and I, expatriation is the answer. But for the unwashed masses, what can you propose?

    1. Chris MacIntosh

      You’re right Simon…the system is broken. Democracy, like socialism is a great idea…in theory. The problem lies with the implementation of the theory.

      I don’t know what the best solution is but a few things that I have observed:
      – Large complex systems always fail
      – Smaller cohesive systems are superior
      I believe that breaking up regions and placing power at the lowest level affords the greatest protections to the individual. Cantons in Switzerland for example function far better than the worlds largest democracy….India.
      Why?
      Because power rests at a local level rather than at a national level.

      I liken it to investing. The further one is removed from their investment and environment they are investing in the greater the risk that they screw up. This is because they are not in touch with the factors they need to be in touch with.

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