 Okay everybody, welcome to today's show. I have Doug Casey here. He is live from Uruguay, a country many people forget, but you shouldn't in South America. He is a well-known author. He is a, I would say a revolutionary thinker, an economist bestselling. He wrote a book that sold over, I think a half a million copies in the 1980s talking about his worldview. Some people say this would be a financial libertarian, but he calls himself an anarcho-capitalist. Anarchy meets capitalism. And so we're gonna be covering on today's show the case for being outside the US, Africa we'll talk about. We'll talk about Argentina maybe being the best place in the world when you consider cost of living and living in a nice place, Thailand. We're talking about should all drugs be legalized to get rid of the profit incentive. We'll be talking about Scandinavia. We'll be talking about also something interesting, which is, what do you buy when you start to make money? Do you buy gold? Do you buy Bitcoin? Do you buy Monero? Where do you store it? All these are coming on the show and more. Doug, thanks for being here. It was your time. Absolutely. Okay. How are you, Doug? Can you hear me okay? I'm speaking to you from Uruguay, close to Punta de la State on a farm, but I can hear you perfectly. Well, that's great. I've been to a month of Adeo and all around Uruguay. At one point I lived with the Amish for two and a half years after Joel Salaton who introduced us. I was Joel Salaton's one of his first apprentice. So yeah, I lived with Joel Salaton and then when I went to the Amish, they wanted to look at farmland in South America. So I went down all over Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and we went into Uruguay. A lot of sheep and cattle there. Yes, it's farm country. Where I am is close to the beach resort of Punta de la State, which is very jet-setty. Yes. But I would have looked at Paraguay too while you were down here. There's lots of, you know, have you been there? We went there. That's kind of like the wild west of that area. It's a little more. Yeah, I kind of like Paraguay. But so what did you decide? Are you going to make the jump or not? Well, this was a long time ago. I went to Joel Salaton when I was a teenager and then I went with the Amish and we spent about three, four months. We covered 5,000 miles across South America and they finally decided to stay in Virginia. That was the final decision at that time. Do you know who Alan Nation is? No. So that was kind of Joel Salaton's mentor. He was the editor of a magazine and he told me before he was kind of Joel's farm mentor. Now Joel, he died and Joel took over his magazine but when I went with Joel, when I went with the Amish Alan said, before you go, I travel 100,000 miles a year looking at farmland. He said the best farmland for the money is in the United States. So that might be a good segue for our conversation. I want to introduce everybody to our guest today. Doug Casey, you may have heard of him. You may have seen him online. He's a, we could say financial libertarian. I'll let you correct me if that's not the right way to say it, but you're- That would be correct, but I would say I'd define myself as an anarcho-capitalist, better known and caps in today's world. Believe it or not, my mom is one. She just went down to anarcho, I think it's called anarcho pulco in Mexico this February. So my mom's super into that world. She's introduced me to it. And so I've seen your stuff online. And you know, I know by background, you wrote one of the bestselling books going back in the 1980s on the coming financial crises in the world. So I'm very thankful. You took the time to come on the call and I got some interesting things I want to get your opinion on. Okay. Yes, an anarcho pulco is run by an old friend of mine named Jeff Berwick. Yeah, the newsletter calls the dollar vigilante. So yeah, by all means. Yeah, I think one of the first questions I had for somebody who's listening, and you know, I have a lot of unconventional followers. They're entrepreneurs. I have a big following in the United States, but also globally, a lot of people are shocked when they hear that Americans want to leave because America has been very good at marketing itself as the place to be. And so many entrepreneurs from now in the world ask me, Ty, how do I get, you know, get into the US, get a foot in in Los Angeles and New York? And I tell them, well, a lot of entrepreneurs are headed the other direction. What do you think are the three kind of highly specific reasons that somebody listening might want to rethink their view of the supremacy of the United States as a place to make money, but also to live and raise a family and for the coming future, whatever might that be. What's kind of three pointed things that you think are a good case for someone like you living outside the United States or digital nomads that maybe you don't want to be that the US isn't as much more of a crisis than people think. Right, well, I've been to 160 countries. Wow. I've moved into 10 and I've basically made a living out of investing internationally and talking about the international situation in addition. So why would anybody want to leave the US? Look, the US has turned into just another of the 200 plus countries that cover the world like a skin disease at this point. America is an idea and America is different than the US. The US has actually turned into a global empire internationally and domestically, it's turned into a domestic multicultural empire. And there are a lot of advantages to living in the US. No question. And the cost of living is relatively cheap. It's very convenient. Everything works. But from a personal freedom point of view, the US has been going in the wrong direction for many years. And the process is accelerating at this point. It's actually turning into a police state. So that I find that living in a foreign country, and we can talk about lots of different foreign countries and it depends on what you want. You can actually have a lot more freedom and more financial opportunity outside of the US than in the US. I mean, for younger people, I even suggest they go to Africa, which most people would never countenance or even think of. So where do you want to start? So let's take that. Let's go down that rabbit hole because Africa is certainly an up-and-coming entrepreneurial locale. I mean, I have followers, a lot of econ people and you just see it. And I was actually given a talk the other day and I said, if you're an entrepreneur in the Western world, watch out because you have all these smart people in Africa. They now have access to high-speed internet. And for them, making three grand a month with the cost of living is very motivating and they're becoming good. So I want to hear your perspective. Why might somebody want to base their themselves out of Europe, out of America, instead in Africa? What's the pros and cons you see? Well, I'm not a believer in a level playing field. I like to go places where the odds are tilted in my favor and I have it back to me. I like that, okay. If you go to Africa as an American or a European it'll be unusual because it doesn't get a lot of forters. Not a lot of white guys go to Africa. In fact, the white man is being driven from Africa actively in many countries, South Africa in particular. So that's number one, you're unusual. People want to meet you because you're unusual. Number two, by virtue of having grown up in an advanced society, you can have a lot of connections and a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience that the locals don't have and that's another big plus. Look, I can go to almost any African country at this point, spend a week there and have a good prospect of sitting down with the president of the country, believe it or not, it's not too hard. It's not too hard to meet people. If you're the exotic foreigner, first thing I always do is call up local real estate agents because I'll talk to anybody, especially who might have money and might be willing to buy something and lawyers who will give anybody an interview, you might be a client, especially if you appear to be a rich foreigner. And after you interview these two types, if you get along with them, you get introduced to their buddies, you go to parties, one thing leads to another. I go to art galleries, that's where rich people hang out too. And if you're going to act as an entrepreneur in one of these countries, you wanna run with the top of society, not the bottom. I mean, running with the lower classes anywhere will get you nowhere, whether it's in the United States or in Africa. There's just a lot more in the lower classes in Africa. I go to the polo clubs, I played polo for many years and it's an international fraternity. So you show up at the local polo club and you're already one of the boys with the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, typically. So it's not hard to do. Trouble with Africa, a few things work there. So it's a question of acting as a political entrepreneur in many ways. And my hobby for many years has been going to backward countries and presenting them with a plan to radically transform their societies. But that's just something that I do. It's not something that's suitable for anybody, everybody. So Africa, where would be a country? What would be on the to-go list you recommend and to stay away from? Where in Africa would you suggest someone start who wants to experiment with this? Is it in South Africa? Are we talking Northern, Africa, Egypt? Are we, where are we? And where are we staying away from in your opinion? Right, well, you've got about 55, 56 countries, something like that in Africa. And they're all quite different from each other. So if you're a newbie and you've never been to Africa before, sure. I guess the easiest thing is to get on a plane to Johannesburg and take a look at South Africa. But I'm not sure that that's where you want to go when it comes to looking for opportunities. Because there are already about, there are about four million white people there. They've got significant racial problems. Now I'd go someplace where nobody goes. So if you want to go to Southern Africa and look at Namibia, very interesting place, not dangerous, South Africa is dangerous in the big cities, quite frankly. You've got to be careful where you go. If you speak Portuguese, you might go to Mozambique. Where to go so you don't jump in? You don't want to jump in on the deep end of the pool if you could avoid Ghana, an English speaking country relatively advanced, that might be a good place to start. But the thing is that Americans tend to be very provincial. We make up about 4% of the world's population but we think that the whole world is within the US and it's not. So if you haven't been out of the country before, it's probably a mistake to start with Africa. You've got to take these things on a gradient. I mean, go to Europe, take the Eurail around, see some countries, go to South America. It depends on how old you are too. Look, it's getting harder and harder to do this type of thing but there was a time when if you're a young person, the perfect thing to do would be to get a backpack and hitchhike from whatever country it might be. But you need the experience to start with because if you're gonna be an entrepreneur in a foreign country, you've got to have something to offer the locals, show up there without knowledge and capital and connections. If you like those things, maybe you should stay in the US but after you get those things, yeah, go to a place where you're in unusual commodity. So let me ask you, let's step back for a second because I wanna go and get your opinion on other places like Brazil and India and so on. But what is the reason an American, so let's say an American goes, yeah, Doug, I agree. I'm provincial but who cares? I like where I live. I think it's the greatest, you know, okay, let's, I'm gonna play devil advocate. Somebody says, okay, Doug, you're right. We're a global empire but the world's been populated by empires. For the last, I was just reading about the Cambodian, you know, the empires, these are from the 6, 700s, the Viking empire and the 800s. So what, we're an empire, we're not that bad relative to, you know, the Roman empire or others. What's another more selfish reason you might wanna leave the US? Are we talking, you know, 100 year cycle? My grandma was born in 1918. She lived through two COVID type events. The first one was in 19, she was born in February 19, 1918. World War I was still going. She died, sadly, at 102 in June, sorry, May 2020. So Alan Nation, one of my mentors, I used to say Ty, things work in 100 year cycles, approximate 100 years. So 100 years, not too far away from 100 years ago, it was 1929 massive depression. So do you think there's evidence of a coming depression? Is there evidence of some tyrannical rule where governments are gonna overstep their bounds in the United States beyond where it is now? Is there another, is it just pure opportunities better in America's too competitive? So before we get into Africa and Brazil, what's the strongest reason specifically, in your opinion, to consider diversifying, whether it's 100% out of the US or 50% or 30? Well, it's a mistake to stay in one place. That's a good strategy for a plotted plant to stay in one place, to have roots and not go anywhere. But it's not a good strategy for a human being. So that you don't want to act like a medieval peasant who's afraid to leave his local village because there might be dragons over the next hill. You owe it to yourself to expand your horizons as far as possible. And having seen everything, then you should choose the place that suits you best. It may be the place that you're born where you have friends and experience and the culture, or it may not be. But you want to allow yourself that option. So number one reason is it's just logical that there's more, I always say many great ideas if you're an entrepreneur, Red Bull came from a man who traveled a lot. I forget his last name, Matt of shits or something from Europe. He was traveling Southeast Asia. He read about this drink, Red Bull. He brought it to Europe, became a billionaire. Nike, Phil Knight. I think that's his name, yeah, Phil Knight. He was traveling, saw a shoe company in Japan. Actually there were a couple of guys that were related. One founded Adidas and the other founded Nike. I wasn't turning. But whatever, I was slipping my shoe dog. There's a book about it. He was traveling, saw this Japanese shoe. So just pure, like you said, it's a mistake to stay in one place because your provincial mindset, you're competing against other people in the US who think very US focused. Go get ideas. Starbucks was an idea by the founder who was in Italy and saw these little cafes and he brought them. Okay, so that's a rewards-based reason. That's a positive reason to get out. What's a pain? Do you think the US, with, for example, the inflation we see in the US with the debt, with the printing of money, with the rising conflict, polarization of Republicans versus Democrats. Right now I'm in Scandinavia. I was talking to a Danish friend yesterday and they're like, I can't, we have eight parties here. Sorry, I was a Norwegian friend. They're like, we have eight parties. It's insane that the US has only two. It polarizes too much. So is there a potential coming civil war of sorts? Is there nuclear attack and people need to learn off the land? What do you think's the highest probability negative catastrophe that will happen to people in the US? What's the, nobody knows the future. What do you consider the highest probability, semi or fully catastrophic event that could happen specifically will affect Americans? Well, I'd say number one is the economy and the currency in the US. One of the reasons why the US, look, the reason why the US has been as successful as it has been since its founding is it's been generally speaking the freest of all countries. It's been the country which has most characterized Western civilization as a whole, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom for commerce, low taxes, freedom of trade, those things are all going by the boards at this point. 100 years ago, the government lived on import duties and excise taxes. That was it. But now, we have an income tax that takes, let's say 50% of your income, we have social security taxes, all kinds of layers of taxes, which pay for a gigantic bureaucracy which regulates you, tell you what you must do, what you may not do. So in other words, Americans like to think about themselves as being the land of the free, but we're not. We're highly regulated. Most people are unaware of the fact that the United States is the only major country in the world that if you leave it and you never come back, you're obligated to file a tax return to the US every year. And pay full taxes unless you have an offset credit. There's two countries in the world. I think it's Kenya is the second one. US and like Kenya, some African, but effectively just the US. Yeah, it's Eritrea actually in Africa. Okay. But a lot of countries are moving in that direction. But I guess the point that I'm making is, is that there are a lot of advantages to being a foreigner in a foreign country. And you tend to be below the local government's radar. You're a non-person. You're a possession of another government, which tends to give you a little bit more freedom. But I'm very concerned with the US economy at this point. Inflation, which is caused by, it's not the fault of the butcher or the baker or the gasoline maker. It's a creation of central banks and government spending. It's getting completely out of control. The US as both the government and individuals and corporations very deeply in debt. One of the reasons why the US has done relatively well even since it got off the gold standard in 1971 is because our major export has been dollars. And that's been pretty good because you export dollars at essentially zero cost and the nice Germans send you Mercedes and the Japanese send you Sonys and so forth. That's a pretty good deal. But at this point, there are, we don't really know how many trillions of dollars are floating around outside the US. And especially with this war in the Ukraine where the US government has confiscated Russian government assets, not just the government's assets, but those of individual Russians. A lot of people increasingly are asking themselves, you know what, the dollar is a hot potato. And by owning dollars, all of which have to clear through New York, if I'm on the wrong side of the US government, they could be taken away from me. So people are trying to get away from, look, people are afraid of the US. It's not a question of loving the US anymore. The old days with California girls and rock and roll music and convertible cars. That's all gone. People now see the US as a military power. We have 800 bases in foreign countries around the world. And the locals don't see these American soldiers as friendly G.I. Joe liberating them the way they were in, let's say France in World War II. They see them as an invading, heavily armed and dangerous foreign power. So now everything's changed and I don't think Americans are aware of it. The economy is slipping away right from under us, but I think we're looking at a very deep depression. I call it the greater depression. And what's a depression? It's a period of time when most people's standard of living drops significantly. Well, that's actually been happening slowly for some years, but it could become catastrophic. Start out with a financial collapse, goes into an economic collapse, lots of bankruptcies, personal, corporate, and of course the US government is manifestly bankrupt, totally and absolutely bankrupt. Just the cost of food. That's why I have a farm. I just launched a new program called Amish Homestead where I teach people, I caught the 11 laws of living off the land that I learned from living with the Amish for two and a half years. So I have the 11 laws and people are clueless on that. And so I was just, I'm in Copenhagen right now and I have some family visiting, went to a little place called Gasling Grill. It's a well-known little hamburger joint. And five people was $110 for hamburgers. I mean, that's, it was like 25 bucks a person. Nobody even got french fries for hamburgers. And this rising cost of food, we're not talking inflation on travel, we're talking, I was back in the US, where was I, Utah or somewhere? Whole Foods didn't have eggs for two weeks. They ran out, I mean, that's mine. America is the most bountiful piece of land on earth. You know, I do a lot with agriculture. In terms of you look at the latitude, longitude range of the United States, the glacier soils, the limestone soils, it's just mind blowing that the US would ever run out of eggs. I mean, people don't realize how much, how many eggs you can grow in a short period, in a short, small land space. So let me ask you this, crypto. Do you like crypto as a place for somebody to hold assets outside of any governmental? Now that's questionable. And if you do, is there a specific coin that you like or strategy that you think is the safest for somebody to hold assets outside of, or supposedly outside of the reach of a government? Well, as you're aware, there are about 20,000 or so coins that are out there. I see them mostly as trading sardines, not eating sardines. I was a late comer to crypto. I only got into it in 2017. Why was I late? It's because, okay, these cryptos are basically used as alternate monies, alternates to the dollar, okay? And you've got to ask yourself, well, what makes a good money? And Aristotle defined five of the six characteristics in the fourth century BC has to be durable. Yeah, crypto is durable, has to be divisible. Yeah, it is. Has to be convenient. That's why you can't use letters money. Crypto can be convenient if you have a cell phone. Has to be consistent. One piece has to be like everything else. That's why you can't use artwork as money. And it has to have use value. And I couldn't see the use for just, it seemed artificial, but crypto is very good for transferring wealth because it's not crypto, but Bitcoin and some of the cryptos. Maybe like Monero might make it, but listen, you want to start with gold and then you want to start with silver. And Bitcoin, I think it's going to succeed as an alternate money because it's use value is it allows you to transfer money across borders. And especially in today's world, where governments have foreign exchange controls, including the U.S. incidentally, as you know, if you leave the U.S. or enter it, and most countries in the world, you have to declare if you have more than $10,000. So crypto, Bitcoin in particular, helps you get around that. And I like Bitcoin in particular because the amount of Bitcoin is finite. You know what it is, right? That's not a million. Yeah, and that's not true of any of the others. So, listen, you can speculate in all these type of things, but in today's world, it's important to build assets. You don't want to be penniless in a depression. That's a bad scenario for you. But with gold, let's take precious metals for a second. I like to hear both sides. I've heard both sides. One of the practical questions for gold or silver is where do you store it? Where's the safest place? Are you an advocate of bearing a hole in the backyard, getting a safe? Are you liking these? Some people want to invest in gold funds, or are you a fan of these different global storage places that you can put gold, physical gold, and then you got to get on a flight if you ever need it? What's kind of your preferred, or do you like a diversified approach? Well, first and foremost, gold, which is about, what is it today? A 1950, 1975, something like that. Bronze, it's reasonably priced. It's not at giveaway levels. It's reasonably priced, okay? So I don't see it as particularly good speculation at the moment. I think it's going higher very definitely, but it's not a good speculation. You want gold because it's the only financial asset that's not simultaneously somebody else's liability. Now, your question was, where do we keep it? Well, the answer is, I'm not trying to be cryptic. The safest place you can think of. Now, for some people, that might be a hole in the ground on their farm. But you also want to have your biggest risk today, isn't financial, financial risks are huge, economic risks are huge, your biggest risks are political. So you want to diversify politically. You want some of your gold and other assets outside of your home country, outside of the US. So you can store gold safely and cheaply in the Cayman Islands. There's a company there that allows that to happen. So if you're just Singapore, you can forget about Switzerland if you're an American because Swiss banks don't want American business. In fact, almost nobody wants American business. It's not illegal for Americans to have an offshore brokerage account or an offshore bank account. But try to find a foreign bank or broker that will take your business. It's more trouble than it's because of regulations in the US to have an American client. So we're really like serfs. What was the name of the company in the Cayman Islands or Singapore, do you remember? Yeah, well, in the Cayman Islands, it's called SWP. So if you Google SWP in the Cayman Islands. And that's physical storage of gold. You bring your gold there? No, they'll buy it for you there. You simply wire the money to them and it's stored. It's, and of course- Can you go see it? Can you go get a key and open it or? Yes, yes, you can. They have a vault there. And I'm a big fan of the Cayman Islands. It's a sociologically very stable country or colony, I should say. It's not independent. It's a British self-governing colony. So that would be one. Singapore would be another. Can't give you a recommendation in Singapore. But if you Google these things, they'll pop up. What about in South America you're living in any place you would store there? Well, there are private facilities like here in Uruguay. There's an outfit called Fort Box in Punta del Este. And they have safe deposit boxes that you can rent privately, not part of a bank. So I guess the point that I'm making is if you're going to save, you don't really want to save with dollars because the dollar is losing value at five to 10 to 15% per year. I'm not sure what the numbers are. I don't trust the US government's numbers. Much more than I trust those of the Argentine government. Argentina is just across the room. Yeah, Argentina is not a good place to store anything. Well, maybe land you could own there. I own a lot of land in Argentina, actually. And by a lot, I mean, well, a bunch of stuff, but about 50,000 hectares, which is about 125,000 acres. Do you have it farmed and managed by locals? Well, that's another problem. Sure, the answer is yes. But most of it's just raw land, not very good to farm. Like a partner of mine in that venture has another farm by himself, and he grows cattle on the farm. He's got about 100,000 hectares, 250,000 hectares. How many cows can he put on 100,000 hectares? God, I guess he's bills probably running 300 or 400. He calls them sand-fed cattle. I'm gonna say, that's like that Australian ratio. Horrible stocking ratio. If you have 100,000 acres of 300 cows, that's pretty wild. Not much water there, or good water. Yeah, exactly. Well, here where I am in Uruguay right now. Well, sure. Oh, there you go. They have a lot of sheep in Uruguay. Not on my farms, but... But across the country, it's a massive sheep and cattle, or at least it used to be. The wool markets are weaker now. You know, when I first got into the cattle business and I partially grew up on a farm when I was a kid for a few years, it seemed pretty obvious to me that every year, a mama cow has a new baby cow. Right. And then after a couple of years, the baby cow, you sell off the little boy cows to get cash flow. And then the new mama cow becomes, and she has babies, and it's exponentially compounding. And of course, I found that it really was, there was a lot more to it than that. Yeah. And there's more to it. They're not automatons, so you have to take care of them. So let me ask you this. What about... We've talked a little bit about Africa. We've talked about gold, silver, Bitcoin, the US. What about buying operating businesses or operating your global business from foreign countries? Are there countries you would set up an LLC in besides the US country that you found, or advantageous jurisdictions? I mean, people used to do it in Cayman Islands. People used to do it in the various islands, the Channel Islands off the United Kingdom. What's kind of for operating a business, maybe an online business, any foreign countries that you think are the best for people to consider? Well, look, if you're going to run an online business, you can be anywhere that has a good internet connection. And almost every place in the world at this point has a good internet connection. Yes. The main consideration, and of course, a lot of this is obviated if you're an American because we talked about the fact that Americans have to pay taxes no matter where they are, but not all your listeners are Americans. I mean, you're quite international. But even if you are American, you can operate, you can have, I have American friends that have businesses in Dubai and they have them in Estonia and they have them in Hong Kong, you know, and they diversify that way. Yeah. Well, that's quite correct. And the key there is not to spend more than six months of the year as a general rule in any country because if you spend more than six months of the year in the country, then you become an official resident and you're then within that country's tax net. Yeah. So it's better to have a warm place in the winter and a cool place in the summer you just go between one and you take your computer with you. Sure, that's fair. What are the nicest places to live in the world? I mean, it is basically what it comes down to if you have computer in the knowledge base. Well, in the Orient, I'm a big fan of Thailand. It's a unique country. In South America, I'm still a big fan of Argentina, which is probably, well, it's certainly one of the cheapest, it's probably the cheapest nice country in the world right now. It's so inexpensive, you literally wouldn't believe it. Even better than Thailand, do you think? Yeah, well, they're different, but put it this way. If you can live in Buenos Aires, it's like living in Paris, except the cost of everything from renting a place to having a meal is probably 20% of what it is in France. I'm guessing. That's going back to that Tim Ferriss, four hour work week concept of income arbitrage. So you set up in Thailand, you set up in Argentina, you set up globally and you make money and maybe American dollars with your online business and then you spend money. I mean, Argentina, one of my best friends is from Argentina and he's like, Ty, if you look at trying to have a nice place in Europe or the United States, let's say you're renting, trying to give a nice place in Hollywood, 10 grand a month, he's like in Buenos Aires, you can hardly even find a place that expensive. He's like, I don't even know how you rent to $10,000. You can get a penthouse. I was just in Sao Paulo. You can get an amazing penthouse for $4,000 to $5,000. I mean, the cream of the crop in the Beverly Hills type area. So I love, I think more people should take advantage. Even if you don't think America's gonna end, it's like income arbitrage, income slash spend arbitrage. Well, you're quite correct. And you can actually be paid to live in these various different countries. Give you an example. I lived in Spain, we lived in Spain on the Costa del Sol, bought a really beautiful apartment and a really beautiful developer was a penthouse department very near the ocean. And Spain became popular at that time and it doubled in value. So by the time we left Spain, it was worth twice what we paid for it. We paid to live there in effect. We moved to New Zealand. I went to New Zealand for the polo. And at that time, New Zealand was, well, probably the cheapest nice country in the world. And the real estate we bought there doubled or tripled in price. The currency at the same time doubled in value against the dollar. So we were in effect paid to live in New Zealand. And so this can be done if you choose your country wisely. And right now, if you're looking to pull that off, I'd say Argentina is your best choice. Things are finally gonna change in Argentina, I think. There's a fellow who's running for president of Argentina and he's very radical. He's an Ancap and the people of him, especially the young people, and he might be elected. And if he's elected, I mean, it could turn out that Argentina goes from being a very nice basket case to one of the most prosperous countries in the world. So I would say if somebody wants to diversify internationally right now, a good shot, both for very low cost of living currently and very large upside potential with property is Argentina. That's fascinating. What do you do for a living? Do you make a, is this your living being a... No, no, I'm not. I started about 10 years ago. I mean, I've done many different things, but I'm an entrepreneur 10 years ago. I was one of the first people to really start doing online business education. So I did do that, have a lot of different courses that I sell, kind of like masterclass. You see a company like that. I also buy companies. And so I'm pretty diversified entrepreneur, do a lot. There was a time when I was really focused on social media, grew to about 10 million social, eight to 10 million social media followers. Hundreds of my YouTube channels been viewed, like 2 billion minutes watched of my videos. So, but I've, you know, I've been an entrepreneur. I'm pretty diversified. I've got a book club. I do a lot with, you know, talking about farmland. I talk about what I call the seven pillars of the good life. You know, so we talk about health, wealth, love, happiness, all these things that you need to really live a good life. So yeah, sometimes people have a hard time describing what I do, but I also buy companies, sell companies, start new companies from scratch. I've owned some big companies out there that people know. And so yeah, I'm all over the place. But one of the things, I'm a big fan of global living. I've been doing that, you know, for a long time. And I'm, even now I'm very global and kind of rotate through five or six countries on a back to the US where I have my farms and office in Miami and come, you know, I used to be based in LA, but I became well known just for video blogging my life. Every day I would post what I was doing as an entrepreneur, my lifestyle. This is when I lived in Hollywood in Beverly Hills. And so that's when I really, that's when a lot of people know me, but I was an entrepreneur from a teenager. So I've done the grass fed beef business with Joel Salatin, that was my first business. And I've owned nightclubs and I do restaurants and hotels. And so I'm an explorer, you could say. Which reminds me, so let me ask you, let's do what I call rapid fire opinion session. So just kind of getting your all kind of 20 second answers will just go fast. I want to talk about your opinion on different countries and just kind of get a quick blurb and then we'll just move on kind of rapid fire. So Brazil, what's your thoughts? Good and bad, your 20 second version. You know what they say about Brazil? It's the country of the future and it always will be. Brazil really is one of those countries that eventually is going to break up into two or three or more countries. Certainly the Northeast is going to separate from the Southern part. I like Brazil a lot. So that's, and would you give it a thought, would you give it a thumbs up for a place for people to explore and potentially, you know, set up some of their life in business? Very much. And of course, when we look at South, well, most countries of the world, especially the third world, so-called countries, politics is a big part of it. And they reelected Lula, who was a socialist and basically a kind of an avuncular criminal, if you would, replacing Bolsonaro. So it's going to go through a tough patch, but yeah, I'm a fan of Brazil. All right, while we're in South America, Latin America, what's your thoughts on Puerto Rico? Puerto Rico, my heart's devotion, let it slip back into the ocean. That's what Maria's friend saying in West Side Story, you'll recall. Yeah. Puerto Rico is kind of like two worlds. Since they had these two articles, 20 and 22, you can basically- 60, yeah. Yeah, you can basically live tax-free as an entrepreneur in Puerto Rico. You just have to be there six months of the year. Right. So that's why I'm not in Puerto Rico. It's fine. Yeah, you have to be there a lot, that's the case. What about Mexico? What do you give Mexico? My mom's a huge fan of Mexico. What's your thoughts? Is it a thumb up or sideways or down? Mexico used to be the land of the Frito Bandito, but things have improved and changed in Mexico. And I mean, I was very impressed when I got down there. In fact, in Mexico City, I was there a year ago and I had an accident, very bad accident on my left foot and I had an emergency operation in Mexico City at a hospital in Chappelle. And it was superbly done, reasonable cost. Mexico's a fine place to live. Let's switch to Europe. Let's switch to Europe. Scandinavia, thumbs up, thumbs down, sideways as a place to live or do business for a global nomad. You know, Europe in general is stultified, constipated, regulated, itaxed and heading into more troubles because as the going gets tough in the future, and listen, Scandinavia and all of Europe, frankly, it's gonna suffer massive migration from the global south. If I was a young Nigerian, I would somehow get to Europe. Right. Well, why not? I mean, free food, free cell phone, free money, vastly higher standard of living. Yeah. They're going to, Europe is going to have many, many millions of feet people and boat people invading it from the Middle East and from Africa in the years to come. And if you live in Europe, you're gonna get caught up in the tax system, it's crowded. Look, Europe's a nice place to visit. Personally, I wouldn't wanna live there these days. So let's take outside the EU, Schengen, EU type countries, the Romanias, the Belarus, well, maybe not Belarus, or even the Balkan, you know, the Balkan, Serbia, Croatia or, you know, the Estonia, Lithuania, any of those places or those fall in your opinion, just into the European category. Look, I don't know how this stupid war in the Ukraine is gonna work out. And when we're talking about Eastern Europe, that is a consideration. What is NATO going to do relative to Russia and all those countries that are on the front line as it were? I was in the Ukraine like, I don't know, six years ago and met a fellow there, an American, entrepreneurial, who was buying, you know, rundown but nice townhouses in Kiev and fixing them up in the American manner and renting them for, you know, a very good buck and then selling them to diplomatic types for a big buck. I think he had a great business and he was raising money so he could buy several townhouses at once and expand the business. And I almost went into that with him. That would have been a big mistake, rundown. Yeah, I've always told people. A lot of global people, I know some of them and they were big on Ukraine. And I always told them, I said, you gotta factor in externalities like Putin invading, you know, and people forget war has been a big creator of wealth, but also a robber of wealth. And in the case of the Ukraine, it was unfortunately probably inevitable that something like this happened. It's been happening, it happened in the 1940s too, you know? It's happened, you know, Ukraine, that translates, that word translates into borderland. Yes. And it's been a place where, you know, armies like Conan the Barbarian type things have been running back and forth across it for a thousand years. Yeah. Is that gonna change anytime soon? It doesn't seem that way. Yeah, Poland had that problem. Romania has always been, Turkey has been on that kind of frontier between the East and West. Let's switch for a second here on this kind of rapid fire. Australia, what's your thoughts? Well, during the recent COVID hysteria, they were severely locked down. Yeah. They were one of the worst countries, one problem. Second problem is Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Canada, and the US are what they call the Five Eyes countries all under the thumb of the US. Used to be, you know, it used to be a real land of opportunity, but I don't think so anymore. All right, so we'll give it a thumbs, maybe a thumbs down in this context, even though I love Australia in your context. What about Dubai? Dubai is a big question mark. You're in the Middle East. It's opened up with no taxes or very low taxes. It's a hub between Asia, Europe, Middle East. What's your thoughts there? First time I went to Dubai was just going through the airport. And the airport back then, early 80s, A was a dump and B was about the size of the airport in Aspen, Colorado, where I lived from then. Okay, yeah. So the place is transformed totally and unrecognizably. It is, that place is science fiction. The question is, is it sustainable? And I asked myself that question. The problem is that it's right across the Gulf from Iran. I don't see Iran as being a problem for anybody, but U.S. politicians. Problem is that it's in the desert. Like Vegas. Yeah, and it's expensive to live in the desert. You're fighting the heat. You're fighting the sand. You've got to keep the place cool. Great place to live. Now it's, you know, wait until a disaster happens by an apartment, but right now it's extremely expensive. Last time to have bought in Dubai was when people were leaving their BMWs and Mercedes in the garages and just getting out of town. And apartments were very cheap, but now the place is booming. So nice place to visit at the moment, but as a speculator, I wouldn't do anything. I'd wait a few years until something bad happens. So we'll put that as one of your thumb sideways. What about in Southeast Asia? We talked about Thailand already. What about Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines? Any thoughts on those three or similar? You know, I love Southeast Asia and all of those countries that you mentioned are nice. And you could even say Laos, which nobody ever thinks about. But what do you want to do? Do you want to live there or do you want to look for entrepreneurial opportunities? Because I'm not sure where, I'm not sure where I'd look for entrepreneurial opportunities. I mean, 50 years ago, import, export and this type of thing was vastly different than it is today. Because communication was by mail and TALACs and very expensive international telephone calls. Now it's instantaneous. Everybody can do it. Everybody's looking for opportunities. So it seems to me those places should be mostly considered for digital nomads that have a gig that they can do on their computer. And I like, I think all of them would suit for six months of the year because you don't want to get into the TALAC system. So we already talked about Africa at the beginning of the show. What about Columbia? I hear a lot about Columbia. Well, I've been down there five or six times over the years and do a good part of Columbia too. And it really was violent. I mean, the first time I visited Bogota it actually was a scary city. In fact, the last time I visited Bogota, it was scary because we had bodyguards and separate vehicles that were, you know, it's kind of trouble with Columbia is it's beautiful and the problem is after World War II they had something called la violencia. And that was all about, you had, let's call them the liberals and the conservatives. The liberals would ride into town and if you were a conservative, they'd kill you. And then when the conservatives rode into town you was too alive and they'd kill you. And during this period lasted for 10 years after World War II, a couple hundred thousand people died violently. And then since then, they got into the drug trade. I'm for a hundred percent legalization of all kinds of drugs, of whatever description. Because we don't legalize things like drugs. It creates a giant profit margins and if it only goes violence and so forth. So that would help to solve the problem in Columbia. But you know- Good luck for the U.S. I don't know that the U.S. is going to legalize everything. The U.S. is even, it doesn't matter what the statistics are of legalizing. Now they've legalized marijuana in most places, but as to hardcore cocaine and things like that, that it'll have to be another generation before that current generation dies and a new generation starts up. We both hope that they legalize all of these drugs, of course, but unlikely to happen while the DEA is in existence because I suspect most DEA agents expect to retire multimillionaires. Oh, really? Do you think- See, I have mixed feelings on with it. I think you should legalize some. I'm not sure about, I have a brother who's a heroin addict. I'm not sure if, you know. So I'm on the fence. I know you're for legalizing everything. I tend to be a Aristotle, talked about, you know, the middle way, the Buddha, the middle way or the mean in the middle. So I tend to think, yeah, Joel Salatin is more like you. It's like, pretty much get rid of the government everywhere. Because you're well aware when drugs are illegal, it doesn't stop people from getting them. All it does, all it does is put a lot of profit in the arbitrage between where you can get them and where you can sell them. They ought to be easily available in the local drug store. But something like heroin, it's so addictive, like my brother got addicted to when he's 14. No, look, alcohol. Yes, alcohol is addictive. Tobacco is addictive. Oh, for sure. I mean, I think if it was more logical, you should also include, you know, cigarettes and alcohol in the same kind of regulatory framework. So it is definitely bizarre to me that it's Scandinavian. How is this your business? What other people do with their bodies? Your primary possession is your own body. And did you have a right to control other people's bodies and what they do? The answer is no, you don't, unless you believe they have a right to control what you do or don't do. So, you know, if somebody has these bad habits, it's because they have a bad moral character. Frankly, that's how they get into these things. So no, it's not in your business. Or certainly not the government's business because the government uses violence to enforce these laws. So it makes society itself being more violent. Look, there are a lot of people that have had bad habits like Sigmund Freud was a cocaine addict, OK? He prescribed cocaine. He found the cure for depression. It works very well in the short term. Well, listen, foolish on his part, OK? But it doesn't stop him from being productive, OK? How about sugar? Sugar is very addictive, very disruptive to people's physical health, get it illegalized. The market will solve these things and let people rise and fall to their own level. Yeah, let me ask you. So two last questions as we wrap up. Number one, if you had to live in the United States for some hypothetical reason. I do part of the year. I do. But let's say somebody had to base there where where do you like right now? Are you like in Florida because of the no state tax? Are you a California person? Seattle, Wyoming, Vegas, Texas? What's kind of if you had to pick a spot, where would you set up your base? Well, I like to be around people that I share a worldview with. And that would tend to put me in a so-called red state. OK. Just just just for that just for that reason. But you know, I suspect that over the next generation, the US is going to destabilize. And we might have serious succession movements, both a place like or certain counties in California breaking off. I wish Southern California would break off for the north. That would make me happy. Let the north and the north. They're kind of insane up there. Well, exactly in the farming areas of California, have nothing to do with either LA or San Francisco. Sure, that's entirely possible that the US is going to break up into several at least semi-autonomous regions. And it's not going to be pleasant because the last time that was attempted in 1861. That was a big deal. So so red state. So you're thinking of Florida, you know, of Florida, Texas, something like this, a red state. Yeah, a southern state. Wyoming has other problems, those wind-blown planes, unless you're around Jackson Hole, which is ultra expensive. Listen, I spent time in Virginia because I partially grew up in Virginia. And now that I'm getting older, it's like a salmon swimming upstream, perhaps. But let me ask you the rural part of Virginia. Let me ask you. Not within the Washington Beltway, which is not. That's not, that's not, that's not Republican by any means. So let me ask you this. I like to end with this question. Let's say you were decided you're going to go on one of Elon Musk's spaceships, go to live on Mars. And this is your last interaction with humanity, with humans. You're going to leave a letter for your family, friends, and so on. A short letter on anything, your life advice to those you leave behind that you've learned in your lifetime. What is that one paragraph? Let's say you only had a paragraph to write. What do you say your life wisdom to that group that's remaining behind here on planet Earth? Yeah, well, I'd say keep your pecker hard and your powder dry and don't take it seriously. Because this is all just dust in the wind. You live on a planet with crazy chimpanzees. So if I was going to another planet like Mars, which would have its own problems. Listen, there is no simple advice. I mean, philosophers have tried to give it for thousands of years. And what have people learned? Approximately nothing. But any wisdom that I do have to impart is in the books I've written. And I would direct your attention to the novels that I've written. Have you seen those, Ty? I've seen more than nonfiction books. I'm going to put some links in the show notes to grab. You have, of course, your very famous kind of book you wrote that I read sold over 400,000 copies. But yeah, we're going to put a link to your website in the show notes, your books. And I hope to do this call again. Maybe we'll do a Zoom when I'm down in South America. We can meet in Buenos Aires and do an in-person show. I think this question that I just asked you, I think my short answer to the world was there was a professor. If I was leaving and going to Mars, I would sum it up with there was a professor in the 60s who summarized Charles Darwin. And he said, it's not the smartest or the strongest who survived, but it's the most adaptable to the environment in which they find themselves. So I would say be adaptable and be a learning machine. And that is your best chance to live the good life here on earth. And so this was a great show. I appreciate you coming on. And I look forward maybe to be being there in South America with you. And yeah, I'm going to put the show notes at thylopes.com slash podcast Doug Casey, D-O-U-G-C-A-S-E-Y, thylopes.com slash podcast Doug Casey, all one word.