More Reason to Come to Costa Rica
Are We Unpatriotic to Publish
This?
International Living Postcards—your daily escape
Dear International Living Reader,
Chris Hunter is someone you'll hear from occasionally in these Postcards.
Chris is IL's
financial editor—his brief
is to uncover the secrets of the global investment plays no-one
else has figured out yet.
Chris is a serious-money guy. He won't tell you how to double your
savings overnight. But if you want to grow and preserve your wealth—he's your
man.
Be warned: Chris doesn't pull his punches. You may even think what
he has to say is unpatriotic. But I recommend you pay close attention—he'll be
important to your financial well being.
Chris, take it away…
Len Galvin
Managing Editor, IL
Postcards
* * *
Is This How America Ends?
By Chris Hunter
You won’t read about it in the mainstream press, but there has
never been a better time to leave the United States in the country’s
233-year history.
You can hardly mention this without offending people these days.
If you do, you risk being called “unpatriotic.”
This, of course, is nonsense. The idea of America is that
people should have the right to shape their own lives...seek out
opportunities...and go wherever they want.
I still believe in that America. That’s why I always
encourage people to keep seeking out new places where you can live freer or
better. I suspect it’s why you’re reading these Postcards—because you, too, are searching
for that original America
all over the world.
As International
Living's financial editor, it’s my job to spot ways you can protect
and grow your savings so that they can be passed onto the next generation. Two
threats concern me the most: inflation and higher taxes.
America now
spends far more than it earns in tax revenue. To close this gap, Washington does two
things: it borrows dollars and it prints them.
The scale of this effort is staggering.
The amount of U.S.
government debt forced into the hands of the public has risen by $3.62 trillion in just over
two years. That’s an increase of 61%.
Meanwhile, over the last four years, Ben Bernanke has managed to
create out of thin air 60% of the entire monetary base of the country. (This is
a term economists use to describe the amount of money available to the
economy.)
This is bad news for the dollar. That’s because the more dollars
the Federal Reserve creates, the less each dollar is worth. The dollar has
already lost 95% of its buying power since the Fed was created in 1913. Given
the unprecedented increase in dollar creation over the last four years I expect
each one of today’s dollars to hold onto just half their current buying power
by 2020.
Twined with this inflation threat is 100% certainty of higher
taxes in the future. If you earn $62,068 or more you already pay four out of
every five dollars collected by the IRS. At the other end of the scale, today
roughly 50% of adult Americans don't pay any taxes...whatsoever. This shrinking
tax base will force Washington
to collect more of the tax take from those already shouldering most of the tax
burden. Anything else would be political suicide.
The dramatic increase in federal spending, the record number of
fresh dollars entering the system, and the shrinking tax base all mean that
time is running out for savers and earners who still have their homes, their
salaries, their savings, and their investments denominated in U.S. dollars.
My advice is simple: get out while you still can. Seek to
diversify your savings into other currencies and overseas assets. Seek
advice—like the investment ideas we publish in International Living magazine. And most important of all, don’t stop searching
for new lands of opportunity and new Americas beyond your borders.
Editor's note:
Chris
Hunter is our financial editor at International
Living. He started his career as a commodities and energy expert
for the global financial news giant Reuters. He also worked as an investigative
reporter in his native Dublin.
Chris later realized it was more lucrative to apply his investigative skills to
the markets. Chris spends most of time outside the U.S., tracking down emerging
markets investment ideas.