Jim Rogers: If You Want Your Family To Be Silly Rich In The Future, Then Leave America And Move To Asia Now
By Vincent Fernando, CFA
As you may know, Jim Rogers moved to Singapore in 2007, though he maintains a residence in the U.S. as well.
While he’s been an obvious Asia bull for quite some time now, a new interview sheds some light on the long-term nature of his thinking…
He’s not just considering the success of his financial investments, he’s competitively positioning his future heirs:
International Business Times:
“In 1807, if you had moved to the U.K., you and your heirs would have been much, much better off for the next 100 years. If in 1907 you had moved to the U.S., you and your heirs would have been much better off for the next 100 years.
Why More U.S. Expatriates Are Turning In Their Passports
By HELENA BACHMANN
Chicago native Ben loves his country and is proud to be an American. Yet the longtime resident of Melbourne has just relinquished his U.S. citizenship. “This is not something I did lightly or happily, but I saw no other choice,” says Ben, a businessman who became an Australian citizen two years ago.
His words resonate with another American expatriate, John, a business owner based near Lausanne, Switzerland, who like Ben asked that his last name be withheld for fear of alienating his family in the U.S. “Giving up my U.S. citizenship is a genuine option,” says the Ohio native, who recently received his Swiss passport and is considering relinquishing his American one. “I am at a breaking point — being American costs me time [and] money, but mostly aggravation.”
For U.S. citizens, cutting ties with their native land is a drastic and irrevocable step. But as Overseas American Week, a lobbying effort by expatriate-advocacy groups, convenes in Washington this week, it’s one that an increasing number of American expats are willing to take. According to government records, 502 expatriates renounced U.S. citizenship or permanent residency in the fourth quarter of 2009 — more than double the number of expatriations in all of 2008. And these figures don’t include the hundreds — some experts say thousands — of applications languishing in various U.S. consulates and embassies around the world, waiting to be processed. While a small number of Americans hand in their passports each year for political reasons, the new surge in permanent expatriations is mainly because of taxes.
Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.2% in Mid-March
By Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist
Published : March 17, 2011
Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was at 10.2% in mid-March — essentially the same as the 10.3% at the end of February but higher than the 10.0% of mid-February and the 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is about the same today as the 10.3% rate Gallup found in mid-March a year ago.
The percentage of part-time workers who want full-time work was 9.7% in mid-March — essentially unchanged from the 9.6% in both February measurements and higher than the 9.1% at the end of January. The percentage of the U.S. workforce that is working part time but wanting full-time work is the same now as was the case a year ago.
Broader Underemployment Was Unchanged in Mid-March
Underemployment, a measure that combines the percentage of part-time workers wanting full-time work with the percentage who are unemployed, was 19.9% in mid-March. Not surprisingly given the lack of change in its components, this is identical to the end-of-February reading, and is virtually the same as the 20.0% of mid-March a year ago.
Asia displaces Europe in billionaire count: Forbes
By Sebastian Smith
The number of billionaires in Asia’s booming new economies has displaced Europe, coming second only to the United States, Forbes has said in its annual rich list.
So powerful is the Asian boom that even Europe’s biggest billionaire factory — Russia — owes much of its wealth to demand from tiger economies looking for raw materials.
“China really set the tone this year,” said Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll. “Asia for the first time has more billionaires than Europe.”
The billionaire surge saw an increase in China from 69 to 115, Hong Kong from 25 to 36, India from 49 to 55 and across the Asia-Pacific as a whole from 234 to 332.
Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment Hitting 10.3% in February
By Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist
Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February — up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.
The percentage of part-time workers who want full-time work worsened considerably in February, increasing to 9.6% of the workforce from 9.1% at the end of January. A larger percentage of the U.S. workforce is working part time and wanting full-time work now than was the case a year ago (9.3%).
Chevron eyes Philippines as its investment growth area in SE Asia
By MYRNA M. VELASCO
American energy giant Chevron Corporation is eyeing the Philippines, along with Indonesia, as growth areas for investments primarily for renewable energy developments.
Chevron Geothermal Philippines Holdings Inc. president and general manager Antonio F. Yee said they are keen on pursuing a proposed greenfield geothermal power project in north Luzon to help the country’s need for capacity addition.
He noted that the policy underpinnings and set of incentives under the Renewable Energy Law became their ace in enticing their principals to take a fresh look at investment opportunities – after years that the company has not really looked at greenfield developments in the country.
Chevron Geothermal’s precursor company, Unocal Corporation, was actually the first venturer in geothermal energy development in the Philippines via the 289-megawatt Tiwi project in Albay. Its next plunge was with the 458.53-MW Makiling-Banahaw geothermal projects in Batangas and Laguna provinces.
Asian Currencies Have Weekly Gain on Economic Growth, Rate-Rise Prospects
By Yumi Teso
Asian currencies had their biggest weekly gain of the year, led by the Philippine peso and Thailand’s baht, as upbeat economic data fanned speculation interest rates will be raised to counter inflation.
The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index climbed after the Philippines and Taiwan announced faster economic growth than economists forecast this week, with the Southeast Asian nation also reporting a higher-than-expected inflation rate. Exports and consumer prices gained more than forecast in South Korea and Indonesia, while overseas sales in Malaysia also exceeded projections, separate data showed. Bank Indonesia unexpectedly raised interest rates today for the first time in two years.
He noted that the policy underpinnings and set of incentives under the Renewable Energy Law became their ace in enticing their principals to take a fresh look at investment opportunities – after years that the company has not really looked at greenfield developments in the country.
“Asian economic growth is very solid and they are in an environment allowing central banks to boost rates to fight inflation,” said Tsutomu Soma, a bond and currency dealer at Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo. “The trend of Asian currency appreciation is still intact.”
Malaysia Remains World’s Third Leading And Asean’s Top Offshoring Destination
By Manik Mehta
Published : February 5, 2011
Malaysia continues to occupy the third leading position, after India and China, in the list of the world’s leading offshoring destinations, according to global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney’s latest Global Services Location Index (GSLI).
Malaysia also remains a force to reckon with amongst Asean member countries which are fiercely competing for a slice of the global offshoring pie.
While Indonesia continues to rank at number five, Thailand has slipped down from the fourth to seventh ranking and the Philippines from the seventh to ninth ranking.
The descent of the Philippines seems to be quite remarkable because it was touting itself as “the world’s ideal offshoring destination” and even perceived at one time to steal the thunder from India.
Best and the brightest are leaving’ the U.S.
By Michelle Conlin
Published: March 19, 2010
James Tsai is the sort of MBA corporate recruiters covet. He went to a good prep school, earned a degree with honors from Middlebury College, and made vice-president in Bank of America’s international wealth management group at the age of 26. Today, Tsai is about to graduate, straight A’s in hand, from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, a top-rated program in America. And he’s hustling to land his first post-MBA job — in China.
Executive Class strivers like Tsai used to have just one post-grad career destination, the U.S. Not anymore. “I am doing everything I think I can to get over there,” he says.
TEvery era has its version of the MBA dream. In the 1980s, it was about conquering Wall Street and choppering off to the Hamptons. The late 1990s saw a stampede to Silicon Valley. In the mid-aughts, the gilded, clubby preserve of private equity beckoned.
Now, the emerging narrative is about steroidal Asia and its promise of growth. At premiere institutions such as the University of Chicago’s Booth School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and Northwestern’s Kellogg, the percentage of MBAs taking jobs in Asia — including U.S. students like Tsai as well as international students — has more than doubled in the past five years, from roughly 5 percent of the graduating class to more than 10 percent.
“There is a sense that the center of gravity is shifting,” says Julie Morton, Booth’s associate dean for career services.
The number of students taking international jobs usually swells in a recession, says Kellogg Assistant Dean Roxanne Hori. But Hori and others believe that the refrain of “Go East, Young Man” is not a short-term response to the U.S. economic downturn but a structural shift toward an internationalized, mobile talent market.
And right now, Asia is where the career velocity and opportunity are.
More American Expatriates Give Up Citizenship
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
Published: April 25, 2010
WASHINGTON — Amid mounting frustration over taxation and banking problems, small but growing numbers of overseas Americans are taking the weighty step of renouncing their citizenship.
“What we have seen is a substantial change in mentality among the overseas community in the past two years,” said Jackie Bugnion, director of American Citizens Abroad, an advocacy group based in Geneva. “Before, no one would dare mention to other Americans that they were even thinking of renouncing their U.S. nationality. Now, it is an openly discussed issue.”
The Federal Register, the government publication that records such decisions, shows that 502 expatriates gave up their U.S. citizenship or permanent residency status in the last quarter of 2009. That is a tiny portion of the 5.2 million Americans estimated by the State Department to be living abroad.
Still, 502 was the largest quarterly figure in years, more than twice the total for all of 2008, and it looms larger, given how agonizing the decision can be. There were 235 renunciations in 2008 and 743 last year. Waiting periods to meet with consular officers to formalize renunciations have grown.
Anecdotally, frustrations over tax and banking questions, not political considerations, appear to be the main drivers of the surge. Expat advocates say that as it becomes more difficult for Americans to live and work abroad, it will become harder for American companies to compete.
A Growing Trend of Leaving America
By some estimates 3 million citizens become expatriates a year, but most not for political reasons.
By Jay Tolson
Published: July 28, 2008
PANAMA CITY, PANAMA—Dressed in workout casual and sipping a soda in one of the apartment-style rooms of Los Cuatro Tulipanes hotel, Matt Landau appears very much at home in Panama. One might even be tempted to call him an old hand were he not, at age 25, so confoundingly young. Part owner of this lovely boutique hotel in Panama City’s historic Casco Viejo, he is also a travel writer (99 Things to Do in Costa Rica), a real estate marketing consultant, and editor of The Panama Report, an online news and opinion monthly. Between fielding occasional calls and text messages, the New Jersey native is explaining what drew him here, by way of Costa Rica, after he graduated from college in 2005. In addition to having great weather, pristine beaches, a rich melting-pot culture, a reliable infrastructure, and a clean-enough legal system, “what Panama is all about,” he says, “is the chance to get into some kind of market first.” Landau cites other attractions: “There is more room for error here,” he says. “You can make mistakes without being put under. That, to me, as an entrepreneur, is the biggest draw.”
Long a business and trade hub, Panama has been booming ever since the United States gave it full control of the Canal Zone in 1999. But as Landau says, it is precisely because so much of Panama’s economy has been focused on canal-related activities that opportunities in other sectors, from real estate to finance to a host of basic services, have gone largely untapped. And among the many foreigners coming to tap them—as well as to enjoy the good life that Panama offers—are a sizable number of Americans.
These Yankees, it turns out, are part of a larger American phenomenon: a wave of native-born citizens who are going abroad in search of new challenges, opportunities, and more congenial ways of life.
Appeal of Overseas Retirement Grows for Many
By Philip Moeller
Published: April 14, 2010
What do Japanese-American retirees know that we don’t? Over the past decade, more and more Social Security payments are being forwarded to people in Japan. And while their nationalities are not disclosed, it’s likely most are of Japanese ancestry. At the end of 2008, the most recent report on foreign recipients of Social Security payments recorded nearly 510,000 monthly payments were being made to persons outside the United States, up nearly a third from about 385,000 overseas recipients nine years earlier.
That’s not a huge surge over that time frame, although it’s clearly larger than overall population gains. And to the extent it’s being fueled by perceived problems in the United States, it will be interesting to track overseas relocations in the next few years. Americans have been hammered by the recession, and we are an unhappy lot these days. Consumer confidence is still really low. And our assessment of the state of the country continues to be very gloomy. Maybe the grass really is greener in some other countries.
That attitude was supported by a recent survey of online visitors to InternationalLiving.com. Admittedly, the site trumpets the virtues of living outside the U.S. So, many of the 500,000 site users it claims are already fans of an expatriate lifestyle. Still, more than 95 percent of 7,500 persons responded “Yes” when the site recently asked readers if they were more open to moving outside the United States than they were 12 months earlier.
Doug Casey: What to Do in ‘The Greater Depression’
Published: February 25, 2009
Bullion and oil appear in the lineup of power players that Doug Casey thinks investors can count on as the world slips deeper and deeper into what he calls the “Greater Depression.” Despite the raging economic storm and Doug’s doubts that Western civilization’s governments will take the actions needed to quell it, though, the Chairman of Casey Research is nowhere close to calling the game. In fact, he sees silver lining in the clouds of crisis—opportunity—and expresses optimism that technological advances, coupled with capital rebuilding once over-consumption runs its course, will prevail eventually. The Gold Report caught up with the peripatetic author, publisher and professional international investor between polo matches in New Zealand, one of several nation-states he calls home from time to time.
The Gold Report: You’ve been discussing what you’re calling “crisis and opportunity,” and in fact have a summit by that same name coming up in Las Vegas next month. Could you give us a high-level overview of what you foresee?
Doug Casey: We’ve definitely entered what I describe as the Greater Depression. It’s not coming; it’s here. It’s going to get much, much worse as far as I’m concerned and unfortunately, it’s going to last a long time. It doesn’t have to last a long time, but the root cause is government intervention in the economy and everything they’re doing now is not just the wrong thing, it’s the opposite of what they should be doing. It’s almost perverse.
The distortions and misallocations of capital and the uneconomic patterns of production and consumption that have been going on for over a generation need to be liquidated and changed, but everything the government’s doing is trying to maintain these patterns. So it’s going to be horrible. In addition, the government is necessarily directing more power toward itself with all of its actions. If I were you, I’d rig for stormy running for a good long time.
The credit crunch has shattered America’s ‘neoliberal dream’
By Heather Stewart
Published: Monday 22 February 2010
With money comes great influence: political, ideological, even sartorial. The doublet and hose of Henry VIII were copied from the lavish dress of rich Florentine and Venetian merchants at the height of the Renaissance; sombre suits spread throughout the world in homage to the Victorian gents who commanded the British empire, and the jeans and T-shirts of today’s teenagers were born in the United States, the 20th-century hegemon.
In their new book, The End of Influence (subtitled What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money), the economists Stephen Cohen and Brad DeLong argue that the supplanting of the US by other rising economic powers will have seismic consequences for a world that has spent the best part of the past century buying up the American dream and all its accessories – from Coca-Cola to schmaltzy Hollywood movies, hamburgers to irritating conversational tics (“like, whatever!”).
“Because America had the money – had it solidly, rightfully, self-assuredly, and durably – for about 100 years, people all over the world wanted to be like Americans: successful, modern, loose-jointed, efficient, democratic, socially mobile, leggy, clean, powerful, and, of course, rich,” they say.
Bank of Mom and Dad Shuts Amid White-Collar Struggle
By Mary Pilon
Published: April 5, 2010
FAIRFIELD, Conn.—When Maurice Johnson was laid off a year ago from his six-figure salary as a managing director at GE Capital, it wasn’t his future he was worried about.
It was his children’s.
The family income of the Johnsons is a fifth of what it used to be. And the children are about to feel the pain. Mr. Johnson’s two oldest are attending his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, at an annual cost of $50,000 apiece. And his youngest daughter, 15 years old, recently began her own college search. Mr. Johnson isn’t sure whether he’ll be able to help her to go to college, or even to get the older kids to graduation.
Mr. Johnson, who watched his own father struggle as an engineer without a college degree, was determined to do better for his own children.
“We saved like crazy from the minute they were born,” he says. “Then, it all fell to pieces.”
‘Death of American Capitalism:’ The 10 Final Scenes
By Paul B. Farrell
Published: Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Good news, Americans are “downbeat about today. Upbeat about tomorrow,” says the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll. “Americans feel battered by hard times, record home foreclosures, stubbornly high unemployment rates and war.”
And yes, we are “fed up with Washington and convinced more than 3 to 1 that the nation is heading in the wrong direction,” yet there’s “confidence that there will be better times ahead, that the classic American dream endures and hasn’t been extinguished. It’s not even at its low ebb.” Why? Because we’re in denial!
Do Main Street’s 95 million investors know something Warren Buffett’s long-time partner, Charlie Munger, doesn’t know? Munger is warning us “It’s Over” for America. Yes, “o-v-e-r,” America’s in decline, at the end-of-days, coming to “financial ruin,” says Munger.
Optimism has always been the enduring spirit that made us a great nation, brought us back from overwhelming challenges and impossible odds — WW II, the Civil War, the 1776 Revolution. Yes, that spirit still burns in our soul, says the poll.
American Graduates Finding Jobs in China
By HANNAH SELIGSON
Published: August 10, 2009
BEIJING — Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.
Even those with limited or no knowledge of Chinese are heeding the call. They are lured by China’s surging economy, the lower cost of living and a chance to bypass some of the dues-paying that is common to first jobs in the United States.
“I’ve seen a surge of young people coming to work in China over the last few years,” said Jack Perkowski, founder of Asimco Technologies, one of the largest automotive parts companies in China.
“When I came over to China in 1994, that was the first wave of Americans coming to China,” he said. “These young people are part of this big second wave.”
One of those in the latest wave is Joshua Arjuna Stephens, who graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies. Two years ago, he decided to take a temporary summer position in Shanghai with China Prep, an educational travel company.
“I didn’t know anything about China,” said Mr. Stephens, who worked on market research and program development. “People thought I was nuts to go not speaking the language, but I wanted to do something off the beaten track.”
20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not Going To Recover
The second wave of foreclosures
Do you remember that massive wave of subprime mortgages that defaulted in 2007 and 2008 and caused the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression? Well, the “second wave” of mortgage defaults in on the way and there is simply no way that we are going to be able to avoid it. A huge mountain of mortgages is going to reset starting in 2010, and once those mortgage payments go up there are once again going to be millions of people who simply cannot pay their mortgages. This chart reveals just how bad the second wave of adjustable rate mortgages is likely to be over the next several years.
Tighter lending standards
The Federal Housing Administration has announced plans to increase the amount of up-front cash paid by new borrowers and to require higher down payments from those with the poorest credit. The Federal Housing Administration currently backs about 30 percent of all new home loans and about 20 percent of all new home refinancing loans. Tighter standards are going to mean that less people will qualify for loans. Less qualifiers means that there will be less buyers for homes. Less buyers means that home prices are going to drop even more.
Hard to find jobs
It is getting really hard to find a job in the United States. A total of 6,130,000 U.S. workers had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more in December 2009. That was the most ever since the U.S. government started keeping track of this statistic in 1948. In fact, it is more than double the 2,612,000 U.S. workers who were unemployed for a similar length of time in December 2008. The reality is that once Americans lose their jobs they are increasingly finding it difficult to find new ones. Just check out the chart.
25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe This Economic Recovery Is Real
By MICHAEL SNYDER
Published: May 26, 2010
If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery. In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. But is that really the case?
Of course not. You would have to be delusional to believe that.
What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time. But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse. The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever. At some point the charade is going to come crashing down.
And GDP is not a really good measure of the economic health of a nation. For example, if you would have looked at the growth of GDP in the Weimar republic in the early 1930s, you may have been tempted to think that the German economy was really thriving. German citizens were spending increasingly massive amounts of money. But of course that money was becoming increasingly worthless at the same time as hyperinflation spiraled out of control.
Well, today the purchasing power of our dollar is rapidly eroding as the price of food and other necessities continues to increase. So just because Americans are spending a little bit more money than before really doesn’t mean much of anything. As you will see below, there are a whole bunch of other signs that the U.S. economy is in very, very serious trouble.
News and Media
Americans are becoming aware that the United States, traditionally a land of limitless opportunity, now confronts a sobering future.
Asia’s star is now rising.
- Jim Rogers: If You Want Your Family To Be Silly Rich In The Future, Then Leave America And Move To Asia Now
- Why More U.S. Expatriates Are Turning In Their Passports
- Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.2% in Mid-March
- Asia displaces Europe in billionaire count: Forbes
- Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment Hitting 10.3% in February
- Chevron eyes Philippines as its investment growth area in SE Asia
- Asian Currencies Have Weekly Gain on Economic Growth, Rate-Rise Prospects
- Malaysia Remains World’s Third Leading And Asean’s Top Offshoring Destination
- Jim Rogers, Americans should move to Asia
- Best and the brightest are leaving the U.S.
- New York Times – More American Expatriates Give Up Citizenship
- A Growing Trend of Leaving America
- Appeal of Overseas Retirement Grows for Many
- Doug Casey: What to Do in ‘The Greater Depression’
- The credit crunch has shattered America’s ‘neoliberal dream’
- Bank of Mom and Dad Shuts Amid White-Collar Struggle
- ‘Death of American Capitalism:’ The 10 Final Scenes
- New York Times – recent college grads are moving to China where the jobs are.
- 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not Going To Recover
- 25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe This Economic Recovery Is Real
