For many of you reading this, you may already have an offshore bank account and possibly an offshore company in a place like Seychelles, Belize, Nevis, Cook Islands or Hong Kong.

However, there are clearly a large number of you still sitting on the fence and unsure of why you would ever want an offshore bank account.  There is also quite a few of you who aren’t even sure if it’s legal for Americans to set up an offshore company or offshore bank account.

To respond to the second question first, the answer is simply – yes.  There is a lot of fear propagated from big brother and the media intent on scaring you out of moving money offshore.

This is primarily for two reasons;

1. This is protectionism at its finest and big brother wants to control your money and forcibly take 30-50% of your income through taxation.  If your cash is held offshore, they fear you won’t pay and they won’t be able to collect.
2. With the fractional reserve banking system, for every $1 you take out of a US bank, that removes $10 from the money supply in the US economy.  No politician or central banker wants that.

To answer the first question, I will illustrate with two stories.  Both stories are factual with only the names and some details changed for privacy reasons.

Mike called me a few weeks ago to discuss his financial problems.  You see Mike is facing a $1.2M IRS tax lien.  This may or may not sound like a lot to many of you, but for him, this is a very big deal.

The trouble started over 10 years ago.  Mike was a good ole country boy.  He owned a small house on a couple of acres, a 50 acre farm left to him by his parents, and for income he owned and managed a small used car lot.  His wife worked as a school teacher and their combined income at the time was around $75,000 per year.

Mike and his wife were frugal people and never spent more than they earned, were debt free, yet lived a good comfortable life.

The problem arose from the operation of his used car lot.  Mike’s business was a typical used car lot selling clean, well maintained Japanese cars that were between 3-7 years old.  It was a good niche because the new car dealerships would take them on trade, but wouldn’t sell them on their own lots.  So they went to auction where Mike would pick them up at wholesale prices.

As with most ‘buy-here-pay-here’ used car lots, Mike offered his own financing to his ‘less than credit worthy’ buyers.  If properly managed this can be a pretty lucrative business as they charge exorbitant interest rates, require 30% down payments, and the buyer pays weekly.

If the buyer misses a payment, you shut the car down with a hidden electronic shut off switch and repo in the middle of the night only to resell the car again next week.

In this business it is typical for people like Mike to run into cash flow problems.  If tight on cash, they are unable to restock their lots, so they go to lenders who specialize in buying the book of notes from used car dealers.

This is where Mike’s troubles began.  The ‘businessman’, who agreed to buy Mike’s notes, also took it upon himself to start a new company using Mike’s personal information – social security number, date of birth, etc.

This scoundrel, Lester, was gracious enough to offer Mike a good deal buying these notes at a discount allowing Mike to increase cash flow for buying more cars.

Of course Lester also used this same company he created using Mike’s personal information to buy notes from many other used car lot owners.  After a couple of years, Lester was earning a very nice profit, but as you may imagine he was not reporting any of this to the IRS.

After a couple of years, Mike received a letter from the IRS saying he owed $500,000 in back taxes from his note buying business.  Good ole country boy Mike hadn’t earned enough to owe that kind of money in taxes over the past 10 years combined.

Knowing he was innocent and convinced this would be easy enough to prove to the court, Mike showed up defending himself against the IRS.  Long story short, Mike lost his temper in court and was sent to jail for 6 months for contempt.

During this time, Mike’s bank accounts were seized by the IRS and tax liens were placed on both his house and his farm.  The bank account seizure and property liens were completed before Mike was even found guilty and convicted of tax fraud.

At the direction of Mike’s lawyer, he plead guilty and was released from jail for time served and was required to submit himself to psychiatric evaluation which resulted in a permanent criminal record with an insanity plea.

This record along with the insanity plea prevents Mike from ever getting a US passport and makes it very difficult to find reasonable employment.  Ten years later, Mike is still fighting this battle.

My second story involves a friend of mine, Steve.  Like Mike, Steve was just a normal guy living a normal life.  He was married with 3 kids, nice house, nice cars, and good job in the IT sector with a good low 6 figure income.

Steve was also a frugal guy and had saved up a pretty decent nest egg.  Everything seemed to be going well for him.

Unfortunately Steve did not realize that his wife, Matilda, was not nearly as happy as he was with their normal suburban life.  Matilda was a nurse and happy with her career, but very unhappy with life at home.

We don’t really know what happened, but either she was bored with Steve or was just swooned by Sylvester, but either way she was receiving the majority of her affections from outside the boundaries of her white picket fence.

Sylvester was a sly cat.  He convinced Matilda that she deserved a better life and he was the one to provide that for her.  Together they devised a scheme to boost their own nest egg by depriving Steve of his lifetime of hard work.

Once the timing was right, Matilda registered a complaint with the police department against Steve for spousal abuse (completely false charges) and shortly thereafter filed for divorce under those grounds.  Matilda was a great actress and the police took the bait – hook, line and sinker.

Steve was arrested and hauled off to county jail.  He was held without bond because Matilda convinced the court that if released he would unleash his violent urges in retaliation against her and the children.

During Steve’s ‘vacation’, Matilda maxed out each and every credit card they held jointly.  Most of them were just cards tied to Steve’s credit, with Matilda as a secondary card holder.  She also wiped out their joint bank accounts and in the divorce settlement, Matilda was awarded the house, the cars, and an alimony payment that was 75% of Steve’s previous income.

I say previous income, because as you can imagine once Steve was in county lock up, his old job fired him.  After all, who wants a wife-beating criminal on the payroll?

In just a matter of a few months, Steve went from a happy husband and father with a sizable savings account, great job and nice house to an unemployed, penniless criminal that cannot see his own children and more debt than he can ever possibly pay off.

I am certain many of you are saying to yourself, “Nice stories, but that kind of thing would never happen to me.”  I can tell you that Mike and Steve said the same thing right up until the time it was too late.

Back to the original questions, “Why would you ever want or need an offshore bank account?”  For Mike and Steve, an offshore bank account held in a private offshore company name would have been an excellent insurance policy against the problems that eventually befell them.

Mike could have set up an offshore Seychelles IBC and opened an offshore bank account in the company name to use for his savings account.

This offshore savings account could have been the nest egg he kept outside of the reach of the US court system allowing him a financial backdoor in the unlikely event that he is ever a victim of identity theft.

Steve could have done the same thing setting up a Cook Islands LLC and offshore bank account for his savings and investment portfolio.

This offshore bank and brokerage account could have been Steve’s “Global Escape Hatch” in the unlikely event that his wife went off the deep end with Sylvester the cat.

These are but just two stories I could give out of countless tales from people who thought, “This would never happen to me,” until it did in fact happen to them and they wished they had already set up an offshore company and offshore bank account as a means of financial insurance.

I wrote a recent article titled, “Svetlana Takes Victor to the Cleaners” that discusses a unique opportunity to set up an offshore Seychelles IBC and European bank account.  This is a very low cost way to begin setting up your own asset protection plan.

Call today for your free 30 minute asset protection consultation.  Until next week, live well.

In future articles I will discuss some of the opportunities that arose from these meetings, but in the meantime, if you have interest in 2^nd passport opportunities, anonymous merchant account services, or private offshore banking and money management services, please send me an email and we can schedule a call to discuss your personal situation.

For those of you not aware, I now host a weekly radio show every Monday from 3-4pm EST on the Overseas Radio Network.  My show title is, “Global Escape Hatch”.  On the show we will discuss various topics ranging from privacy issues, offshore banking, taxation, investments, economics and more.

This week on “Global Escape Hatch”, my guest was a good friend of mine, Roger Arnold.  Roger is the chief economist for ALM Advisors, Inc. – a CA money management firm specializing in income portfolios.  He is also an economics columnist for The Street and has previously hosted his own nationally syndicated radio show called, “The Roger Arnold Show” for 15 years.

On the show this week Roger and I discussed the current state of the world economy and where he thinks things are headed.  He has been very prescient in the past having predicted the housing market crash and the following stock market tumble.  Below you will find the interview from the radio show.

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Bobby – What do you think is the general direction for global economic activity?

Roger – The US and Europe will continue to slow with both heading into a recession.

Bobby – Where do you see interest rates heading over the next couple of years?

Roger – The long yields in Germany and the US will converge with Japan with 10 year sovereign yields at about 1%, 30 year sovereigns at 2%, and 30 year fixed mortgages in the US at 3%.

Bobby – What about oil and gold?

Roger – Oil and gold could drop by as much as 50% before the end of 2012 as the global recession takes hold – they won’t stay there long and will provide the buying opportunity of the decade if not longer, especially for gold.

Bobby – What about US equities?

Roger – The S&P500 could drop by 30-50% because of the steepness and depth of the recession.  It may catch investors and traders unprepared.

Bobby – What about the Euro, does it survive long term?

Roger – The Germans, Brussels and the ECB are now committed to it.  They are very late in the acting, but the ECB will commence a quantitative easing program similar to the US Fed’s this year.  Yes, I think the Euro survives.

Bobby – What do you think will be the impact of the ECB printing Euros on the global economy?

Roger – The greatest beneficiary of the ECB printing Euros will be the eastern member states; Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, etc.  The eastern states rely on exports to the US for about 3 times as much of their GDP as do the western member states – so a falling Euro is a real benefit to them.  It makes their goods less expensive in the US and boosts their exports.

Bobby – Who is hurt by the falling Euro and the ECB printing?

Roger – Two main areas hurt by it are Chinese exporters to the US and US exporters to Europe.  Chinese exports to the US will become relatively more expensive versus European exports.  Some manufacturers will even switch from China to Eastern Europe.

Bobby – Could China choose to float their currency to compete against a falling Euro?

Roger – Probably not, but maybe.  We are watching very closely.  If history repeats itself, China will become increasingly antagonistic toward foreign governments and investors causing investors to flee China.  It could be disastrous for them.

Bobby – It seems you are fairly gloom and doom for the short term at least.  With interest rates so low, US equities at risk, gold and oil setting up for a fall, where should someone place their money these days?  Maybe you can offer me and my readers 5 or 6 ideas on how to make money in this environment.

Roger – I have only one investment suggestion right now.  Cash.  Short term money market accounts and cold, hard cash.  Just sit and wait for the fall.  The global recession is already underway and it will cause a rush to safety, which means US or German treasury bonds.  Whether or not you feel these are good investments is irrelevant.  When there is a recession and fear in the marketplace, people are ‘risk-off’ and go to cash and treasuries.  Be patient and wait for the drop.  You will likely see ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ investment opportunities very soon.

Bobby – Thanks for your time Roger.

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There you have it folks.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything Roger is saying here, but he has been very good at predicting this type of thing and it is very possible he will be right this time.

The main point is that right now is a very difficult time to make a decent return on your investment.  As Roger told me, he is now focusing on a return of investment instead of a return on investment for his clients at ALM Advisors.

From my perspective, I wouldn’t recommend liquidating your entire portfolio, but I would certainly put in some automatic trailing stop losses or buy some protective puts as insurance.  In addition, you may want to consider keeping a lot of cash in various currencies like Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, or Norwegian kroners as a way to hedge your country risk.

If you are interested in joining me – and 40 other radio show hosts – on the Overseas Radio Network, please click the link below to register for your free trial subscription.

Overseas Radio Network – “Global Escape Hatch”

Call today for your free 30 minute asset protection consultation.  Until next week, live well.

These 2 sub-sections deal with the detention of terrorism suspects.  The NDAA grants the president the authority to detain anyone, “who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,” or anyone who commits a “belligerent act” against the U.S. or its allies, “without trial, until the end of the hostilities granted by the authorization for use of military force.”

The big controversy here is that the 2012 NDAA gives the president the authority to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial or even any proof of wrongdoing.  Go back and reread the previous paragraph and piece the puzzle together.

The president now has the power to use military force to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial for committing a “belligerent act”.  If I could embed a music file here it would be – “dom, dom, dom…”

Folks, wake up and smell the gun powder.  The United States of America is rapidly becoming the United Socialist States of Amerika.  Yes, I am well aware this is not a popular viewpoint and am 100% certain there will be lots of hate mail and notifications of un-subscribers in my inbox Thursday afternoon.

For many of you though, I am certain you are gradually (or possibly rapidly) awakening to the reality.  While I don’t agree with the OWS crowd, they are right to be angry with the current state of affairs in the US.

Some people claim the right thing is to stay and fight the good fight.  My question to you is how long will that take?  Are you willing to wait 5 years?  10?  30?  More power to ya…

We could also discuss the new FATCA (foreign account tax compliance act) that takes effect in 2013.  This little gem was slipped in to the HIRE (hiring incentives to restore employment) act as a means to track down and punish offshore tax cheats.

In reality it was created to shackle you and your money to a broke nation run by politicians who have no intellectual ability or desire to maintain sound fiscal policies.

If you are unfamiliar with the details, you can read my article over on EscapeWealth to learn more.

Essentially though what you need to know is this piece of legislation is going to make it much more difficult and costly for you to bank, invest, or do business offshore.

These laws are created for the sole purpose of controlling the citizenry; controlling your movement, your capital, and ultimately your tax dollars.  Ironically the unintended consequences will produce the exact opposite effect.

Obviously there will be many sheeple that remain holding fast to the belief that the ship can be righted, but the most productive citizens will move some or all of their business and investment assets to a friendlier environment.  Some will even move their own ass to a friendlier environment.

This will only serve to increase the velocity of the downward spiral.  Over the past couple of years the number of people moving out of the US has increased dramatically – even according the US Dept. of State’s own records.  While this number still remains relatively low, it only takes a few of the next Steve Jobs’, Bill Gates’, or Sam Walton’s to have a huge impact on the economy.

How would the current business landscape look if only these 3 visionaries were born in Sweden or Australia?  Would the US still have a dominant world position?

I’ve spent the last several days on a road trip through several Eastern European countries.  I’ve been in Lithuania, Ukraine, Serbia and now Bulgaria.  Tonight I had dinner at an amazing traditional Bulgarian restaurant and the tab for a 3 course meal for 5 came to be a whopping $34, including service charge.  The same mean in Austin, TX would have been over $100, minimum.

The income tax rate is a flat 10% and you can earn 8% on a 12 month CD at a major bank.  Sofia is a very nice city and there are beautiful mountains with great skiing nearby as well as exceptional beaches on the Black Sea just a few hours away.

Tomorrow I will be in Hungary for a few days then on to Poland.  With the exception of Ukraine, I could easily live very well in any of these countries.  Ironically many of these are former soviet countries with long histories of communism but they have somehow broken away from that mold while the western world is falling into the same trap they escaped from.

I am not proposing that you pack up and move to Bulgaria or Serbia per se, but you may want to consider finding your own perfect haven sooner rather than later.

With US politicians bankrupting the country, inflation driving up the cost of living and some of the highest tax rates in the world (at least for producers), now may be the ideal time to craft your own ‘Global Escape Hatch’.

Regardless of your reason for celebrating, I encourage you to take some time away from the pressures of your job or business to spend with family and friends and to remember the things that are important in life.  And of course, eat yourself into oblivion as this is a winter holiday requirement.

I want to keep this issue short and sweet and address two things I am very excited about.  The first item of interest is the launch of the Overseas Radio Network.

A few months ago I was asked if I wanted to have my own weekly radio show.  Having no radio experience whatsoever, I was a bit skeptical, but agreed to discuss the possibility.  The more we talked about it, the more excited I became.

The Overseas Radio Network is a brand new online program with 40 radio show hosts from around the world.  The shows have some pretty unique titles with incredibly qualified hosts.  Some of them are;

• Global Escape Hatch – yours truly
• IRA Choices – Thomas Phelan
• Food Pilgrimage – Sage Russell
• Girls Guide to Paris – Doni Belau
• Mike’s Gringo Life in Nicaragua – Mike Cobb
• Live and Invest Overseas – Kathleen Peddicord and Lief Simon
• Investment Postcards – Prieur du Plessis
• Expert Expat – Robert Culpepper
• Escape to Mexico – Henry Altman
• Truth and Lies – David Finzer
• Wine Line – Robert Scott
• Yachts: The Perfect Escape Vehicle – Gary Fretz

This is just a few on the schedule, but the others are equally as unique and interesting with very qualified experts in their respective field.  Personally I feel this is an exciting endeavor as I get to be part of a group of like-minded experts discussing issues that are important to us and spreading the word about living an extraordinary life.

For you, this is a fantastic opportunity to listen and interact with each one of us on a weekly basis and get your most pressing questions answered.  Each and every one of us will be hosting a live radio show giving callers the ability to dial in and ask questions about any topic they wish.

Many of you subscribe to my newsletter because you are interested in protecting your assets and have an interest in offshore investments and internationalizing your life.  But many of you are still sitting on the fence and have yet to make the leap.

The Overseas Radio Network presents you with a unique opportunity to engage myself or any of the other show hosts directly and get your questions answered.

Do you want to know how to privately move assets offshore?  Interested in moving abroad but not sure how you would educate your kids in a foreign land?  Does the idea of living in Mexico excite you but you fear the news headlines and think the country is entangled in a drug war?  Do you want or need a 2^nd passport?

Everyone one of the radio show hosts have lived in at least one country outside of their birthplace.  Most of have lived in several places and have travelled extensively around the world.  Each one of us has tackled many of the obstacles that you feel are holding you back.  You can easily tune in to your show of choice (preferably to mine every Monday from 3-4pm EST) and ask the most pressing questions.

The show has its official launch in mid-January.  If you are interesting in learning more about the Overseas Radio Network and want to be updated with information regarding the show hosts, schedule, call in numbers and other information please click the link below.

Overseas Radio Network
Escape – Retire – Live

The last item that may be of interest to many of you is opening an offshore private bank account in Europe without the need for a personal visit.  Many of you may be aware that opening an offshore bank account is becoming increasingly difficult with countries around the world cracking down on ‘tax cheats’ and ‘criminals’ in an attempt to regain control of the world’s financial system and tax you into oblivion.

Earlier this week I had a face-to-face meeting with a private bank that I feel is an excellent option for many of you looking to establish your own ‘Global Escape Hatch’.  This bank has many benefits to offer including;

• Low set up cost
• Low fees
• No minimum deposit
• Private debit card
• Online brokerage account with stock and derivative trading on many world exchanges
• Wealth management services
• Multi-currency account with 30 different currency options
• No account reporting requirements to your home country
• 2.5-3% interest on cash accounts
• Deposit guarantee of 100,000 Euros
• Very safe bank with 17% capital adequacy ratio and 58% liquidity ratio
• Zero toxic mortgages on the balance sheet
• No branches or offices within the US

The preferred method for opening the account is through an offshore company.  This gives you the utmost privacy and eases the account opening process.  We can assist clients opening an offshore company in Seychelles or Belize (and others) to facilitate the account opening.

With the new FATCA rules enacted as part of the HIRE act in 2010, opening an offshore bank account will get much more difficult for Americans beginning in 2013.  Having an offshore bank account is one of the most important steps you should take in asset protection planning.  I would encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity while you still can.  No one knows how much longer it will remain possible for Americans to open an offshore bank account.

Call today for your free 30 minute asset protection consultation.  Until next week, live well.

This week I felt it would be important to address the topic, “What is Asset Protection?”  While you clearly have some idea what is involved in asset protection planning, I frequently get this question or some derivation thereof.

The quick and simple answer is that asset protection is a means of protecting your assets from future potential creditors or claimants.  From this perspective, a better definition may be that asset protection is a systemic approach to pre-litigation planning to deter lawsuits and encourage out-of-court settlements.

Another explanation may be that asset protection planning involves minimizing your personal and financial risks.  At Global Wealth Protection, we accomplish this with a 2 step process;

1. Create a veil of privacy for you and your assets
2. Create legal structures to segregate you from your assets while maintaining maximum control

By doing these 2 steps, we have accomplished the goal of making you appear unattractive to potential future creditors and claimants as well as provided you with the legal protections for those assets in the event that your veil of privacy is pierced.

Of course many people believe that they are not a target for litigation.  I have talked to enough people (read about  Susan and Frank – “Oh Good, the Government is Here to Help”), to know that lawsuits can come from nearly any source; tenants, credit card companies, friends, family, neighbors, contractors, coworkers, employers, employees, customers, and the list goes on and on.

There are many tools that can be used in asset protection planning.  One of the most basic tools is a Wyoming Limited Liability company (LLC).  A properly structured Wyoming LLC can offer you privacy (ownership is not disclosed to the state) and legal protections (Wyoming does not allow foreclosure of business assets) for your real estate, investment portfolios, private business interests, intellectual property, or nearly any other category of valuable asset.

Land trusts when combined with one or more Wyoming LLC’s can also be a very cost effective structure for protecting your real estate assets.  I work with many real estate investors who like this method as it offers them complete anonymity as well as legal asset protection from potential creditors.

I wrote a newsletter a couple of weeks ago titled, “Protect Your Assets Like the Uber-Rich” that addressed the specific topic of real estate asset protection.  After writing this article I had a couple of calls from friends of mine who are real estate investment professionals.  One has been in the business for over 10 years and another for over 30 years and both of them said this was the only method they use for protecting their real estate assets.

I am a firm believer in diversification of your assets among various investment categories as well as geographical diversification, or what I call ‘geo-arbitrage’.  This is effectively a ‘don’t put your eggs in one basket’ strategy from a global viewpoint.  I highly encourage clients to implement an offshore strategy as part of their asset protection planning.

At a minimum, clients should have an offshore bank account with some funds set aside for a rainy day.  You can grow your offshore presence with precious metals storage, brokerage accounts, or even managed accounts for the wealthier individuals.  The offshore world is the ideal scenario for web-based entrepreneurs.

For our online entrepreneur clients, we typically help them establish a Seychelles or Belize offshore company, offshore bank account, and offshore merchant account.  This gives online entrepreneurs an excellent opportunity to diversify geographically as well as lower his cost of doing business.

For those of you not up to date on US news, the FATCA requirements that are part of the HIRE act will make it much more difficult to set up and maintain offshore bank accounts and investments after 2013.  You have a very short window of opportunity to escape the draconian reporting and withholding requirements and establish your own offshore asset protection plan.

For those of you interested in developing your own private offshore asset protection plan, I can work with you one-on-one to formulate a strategy that works for your specific situation.

I will summarize by saying the 2 biggest mistakes people make are; 1- assuming they aren’t wealthy enough to need asset protection planning, and 2- waiting until it’s too late.

If you have a level of wealth that you cannot afford to lose, you need to minimize your risk.  And you need to do it before you have already been sued.  It will be much easier and cheaper to do it before it becomes necessary.

Call today to schedule your free 30 minute asset protection consultation.  Until next week, live well.

Now is the Time to Develop your own Asset Protection Plan Before it’s too Late

This week I want to stress the importance of developing your own asset protection plan now as opposed to later when it can potentially be too late.  In last week’s article, “Svetlana Takes Victor to the Cleaners”, we discussed Victor’s problems and how they could have been avoided if he had set the structure in place before his divorce.

For the past couple of days, I have been working with 2 clients who also wished they had a properly structured asset protection plan in place before they were sued.  I won’t get into the details, but Susan and Frank now have a $1.4M judgment against them in relation to a real estate deal that unexpectedly went bad.

I got the call earlier this week from Susan who explained the issues to me.  Basically there were some major, undisclosed problems with the property as well as partnership issues.  This lead to a default and foreclosure on the property giving them a total loss of several hundred thousand dollars.

Now Susan and Frank are looking at a $1.4M judgment which will completely bankrupt them both.  They had been working with lawyers who misguided them through this process and gave them bad advice.  Of course the lawyers can walk away happily with their fees while Susan and Frank are looking at financial destruction.

All hope is not lost here as we are working on an asset protection plan to help them salvage some of their wealth, but this would have been much easier, cheaper, and less risky had it been done one year ago.  Of course one year ago, Susan and Frank thought they were operating risk free.  Are you operating risk free?  Are you sure?

Of course potential future litigation is but one threat to your wealth.  In reality, the government is most likely your biggest threat.

Just this week, an article by Federal News Radio titled, “Library of Congress to Receive Entire Twitter Archive” was published discussing Twitter’s decision to release all old Tweets from all public users.

The privacy of the American people is rapidly deteriorating.  From last week’s article you may remember that the Senate recently passed a bill allowing the military to detain and imprison American citizens both in the US and abroad without trial for ‘suspicious activity’.

Now the Federal government is going to be privy to all of your Tweets including all of the previous years’ messages.  At what point does this madness end?

Much like the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on terror’, these new measures are sold to the public with the message of protection of the American people.  In reality, it is nothing more than another power grab meant to criminalize normal behavior allowing the government to enslave and impoverish the American people while the ruling class (politicians) gets to live high on the hog.

This destruction of privacy allows the government another way to tap into your private and business communications looking for signs of ‘suspicious’ activity.  Quite frankly, if you follow me on Twitter (@gwpro) you have read articles about offshore banking, offshore companies, tax minimization and other topics that could already be construed as ‘suspicious activity’.

Considering the vagueness of the ‘destruction of privacy agenda’, who’s to say that you aren’t already being watched?  Normally I try to be positive and optimistic about the future, but this news story about Twitter really scares me.

I hope you don’t just dismiss this and think, “Oh good, the government is here to help”.  Now is the time to develop your own offshore asset protection plan.  At a minimum, you need to have an offshore bank account.  This would allow you to keep a portion of your cash outside the reach of US jurisdiction.

Consider this your starter kit towards developing your own ‘Escape Hatch’.  If you are unaware, you should know that under the Patriot Act, the government has the ability to freeze all of your US bank accounts without due process or even charging you with a crime for nothing more than ‘suspicious activity’.

Of course, it’s highly unlikely that any of you would have concern over this, but it only takes one wrong move and voila, you lose access to your money.  Considering there is no downside to having an offshore bank account, this is an easy low-cost way to begin your own offshore asset protection plan.

Contact us today to schedule your free 30 minute asset protection consultation

Two weeks ago to the day I received a call from a friend of mine in the US.  Dave runs a motorcycle performance shop in North Carolina and called me to chat about business.  In the conversation he mentioned that he would be in Milan, Italy the next week and wondered if I was available.

Four days later I was on a flight to Milan and going to the EICMA International Motorcycle Exhibition with Dave and a few of his local Italian friends.  I won’t bore you with the details, but last week was a well deserved break filled with great Italian food, motorcycles, and supermodels.  We even managed to talk a little business.

I hope you enjoyed last week’s interview with Paul Rosenberg.  This was certainly different than my normal routine, but after reading his book, I just knew he was a perfect fit for this audience. 

Paul is one of the most intriguing men I have ever spoken to and leads a life that most of us only dream about.  If you missed last week’s newsletter titled “A Free Man’s Perspective”, you can find it on the website here.

Speaking of websites, we are in the process of updating the website and should be finished in the next few days.  For any of you that have visited the site, you certainly know it was very cutting edge….in 1997.

Aside from the old school look and feel of the site, it didn’t fully reflect what our firm does for clients.  Quite frankly it was too cumbersome to easily update, therefore it just didn’t happen.  I guess being busy is good, but in hindsight the website was allowed to suffer.  Lesson learned.

Now on to some useful information.  Many of you may have noticed that this week has been very interesting in the global debt markets (or at least those of you that actually care about that sort of thing).

Italy has now crossed an important threshold – the 10 year Italian bond yield exceeded the critically important 7% mark.  Many consider this to be the point of no return for European debt.  This is the point where Ireland and Greece started begging for their ECB handouts.

If you are unfamiliar with bonds, the price and yield are inversely related.  In other words, if the price of the bond goes down, the yield goes up, and vice-versa.  This week the Italian 10 year bond yield went dramatically higher (bond prices went down) signaling a lack of trust in the Italian government’s ability to maintain sound fiscal policy.

This puts Italy in a long line of European countries that had to go with hat in hand looking for a bailout to keep the Ponzi scheme….I mean government alive.  The big difference here is that Italy is significantly larger than any of the other PIIGS.

According to the IMF, Greece’s 2010 GDP was just over $300B ranking it as the 32^nd largest country in the world.  Italy’s 2010 GDP was just over $2T ranking it as 8^th largest or nearly 7 times the size of Greece.  Italy’s debt to GDP ratio is now over 120%.  This is completely unsustainable.  It is also likely to be the death nail in the EU coffin.

Folks, wake up to reality.  Nearly every major government in the world is dead broke.  The US debt to GDP ratio now stands at about 100%.  Japan is over 200%.  Debt has been the fuel of the last few decades and we are now running on fumes.

Many of you will read this and think, “Bobby’s a nutcase.  The world has had problems before, but we always pull through.”  Many of you will fire off an email demanding to be unsubscribed from the list because I am unpatriotic or disrespectful of the Obamessiah.  (FYI, you can unsubscribe yourself at the bottom).

Hopefully though, many of you will realize that you need to do something about it.  You need to develop your own ‘escape hatch’ giving you the right to work, live and play without fear and apprehension of what the political ruling class will do next to rob you of your freedom.

Your ‘escape hatch’ will vary depending on your own set of circumstances, but generally it involves creating a veil of privacy around you and your assets.  This is what many call the multiple flag strategy, or geo-arbitrage.

This can be as simple as setting up an offshore LLC and bank account to conduct your business and holding physical gold or silver as an inflation hedge.  Real estate investors may want to consider using a combination of land trusts and LLC’s, as discussed in my article ‘Protect Your Assets Like the Uber-Rich’.

No matter what your situation requires, it is important to create your own ‘escape hatch’ before it’s too late.  Our firm can help you with many of the strategies from residency and citizenship, US and offshore company formation, land trusts, living trusts, asset protection trusts, offshore banking, internet privacy and more.  Contact us today to schedule your free 30 minute consultation.

Bobby:  Hi Paul, thanks for joining me today.  I appreciate you taking the time to share with me and my readers.  Let’s get started, shall we?

Ok, I am very familiar with your company, Cryptohippie.  I am a devoted customer of yours and find this product to be a necessity in today’s world where privacy has become long forgotten human right.  I also want to thank you for offering my readers a free 7 day trial.  Can you tell me a bit about the product and what makes it so important?

Paul:  Sure.  You have a firewall to protect the data on your computer, and that’s a good idea, but then you send that data through the internet and a wide variety of thieves just pick it up in transit.  It’s actually easier for them that way.  And those thieves include governments, mafia-type groups, advertisers and many others.  We stop all that with encryption, multi-jurisdictional routing, and so on.  Essentially, we make you anonymous on the Internet, with no pain or strain.

Bobby:  How would someone pick up my data in transit?

Paul:  By capturing the traffic at your ISP, or at any the routers that connect to your ISP, or by comprising major Internet routers, or by tapping a cable, or by cutting a cable and forcing traffic through a router you control, or…

Governments simply force telephone companies to feed all their traffic to them.  It has been known for years that the NSA has offices in AT&T facilities and that they simply scoop up all their traffic; it’s easy to do with a fiber optic splitter. [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/ip-telephony/these-photos-illustrate-at-ts-phone-internet-tracking-activities-for-nsa/1103] It’s foolish to think that all the others are heroically defying the state.

Beside all that, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Hotmail and all the rest grab everything they can, whenever they can.  Then, data consolidators take hundreds of these databases and cross-reference them.

Bobby:  Why in the world would someone be interested in my data?  Why is it bad for someone to get their hands on it?

Paul:  Because there’s big money in it… as in many, many billions.  They scam credit cards all the time; you get paid back, but the credit card companies don’t.  Other times they use people’s information to setup bank accounts and move stolen money or criminal proceeds.  Even knowing who communicates with whom can be very profitable when it comes to commercial espionage.  Of course, governments save every email you send, records of every web site you visit, and so on.

They are also getting very good at searching all that data and assembling it.  And, they can use that information against you whenever they like.  Do you remember Nixon’s enemies file or Hillary Clinton’s 900 FBI files?  Those were microscopic, compared to what these guys have now.  By the way, “these guys” includes thousands or millions of bureaucrats.

Bobby:  I think I told you that I recently bought your book, “A Lodging for Wayfaring Men”.  Ironically I bought the book as a recommendation from one of my readers (thanks Jason).  I did not bother looking at the author’s name and didn’t actually realize you were the author until just a couple of days ago.  I have to say, this book was eye opening for me.  I am a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead” and your book almost seems like a modern day version.  Were you influenced by Rand?

Paul:  Oh yes.  I think almost everyone who writes seriously on liberty is influenced by Rand in one way or another.  There are areas of disagreement between the two of us, but she brought many excellent ideas to me and I am deeply grateful for her contribution.

Bobby:  One of the things I enjoyed most about this book was the philosophical aspect of being completely unwilling to accept the status quo.  The characters in the book are all bound by their own morality, but that clearly doesn’t seem to fit with society’s definition of good and evil.  Can you expand a bit on the philosophy in the book?

Paul:  Glad to.  Any type of morality that is imposed from without is a cheap replacement for the real thing.  If we are to be moral, it has to come from within us.  That’s why a man like Jesus always talked about ‘planting seeds’ or ‘cleaning the inside of the cup’.  He knew that the only legitimate goodness is that which grows organically within us.  Following external rules is second-hand morality at best, and very often a tool of manipulation.

Bobby:  Interesting concept – ‘morality imposed from without’.  Can you further explain what you mean here?  Also, you talk about Jesus, but from reading your book it seems you are not a very religious person, at least not in the traditional sense.  Can you also discuss this along with your idea that ‘second hand morality is often a tool of manipulation’?

Paul:  Sure.   Morality imposed from without demotes you; it degrades you.  To be a moral person, you must learn to judge rightly, to learn to choose the good, to hold to it even when you will suffer for it, and to spread that way of life.  It sets YOU as the decider, as the moral actor.  An imposed morality says that you are fit to be ordered around and nothing more.  It’s an insult.

Second-hand morality is almost the same, but is made to look better.  Some person or group claims to have a higher moral standing than anyone else and convinces people to take them on as an intellectual and moral partner.  They want you to adopt their moral standard, and they ALWAYS make that standard work in their favor.  That’s how they get people to willingly turn over their income and that’s how they get young men to willingly die for them.

As for Jesus, you are quite right:  I hold him in the highest esteem, although I’m certainly not religious in the traditional, systemic fashion.

Bobby:  Obviously with your company, Cryptohippie and your book, “A Lodging for Wayfaring Men”, this was not exactly a fairy tale fiction story.   There is an element of truth behind your writing.  You obviously believe strongly about this.  I tend to agree and see huge danger on the horizon for the world, but as an eternal optimist, I also see huge opportunity.

Today we have nearly every major world government spending more than it makes in tax revenue and borrowing the balance.  We are clearly on a path to some of the superpowers imploding due to their own socialist policies.  Nearly every day we are hearing news stories about the European Union countries, the US and Japan having significant budgetary issues and wanting to raise taxes on the wealthy – because they should pay more – in order to fund their agendas.  It seems like the “Atlas Shrugged” predictions are coming true.  But in today’s globalized economy, the solution seems to be ‘Gamma’ (from “A Lodging of Wayfaring Men”) instead of ‘Galt’s Gulch’.  What are your thoughts on this?

Paul:  Yes, I do think the Gamma solution – invisible commerce, communication and identity on the Internet – is our greatest tool.  Encryption is nearly free and it provides superb protection.  It can’t protect everything, but it seriously tips the balance in our favor.  That’s why governments world-over are promoting reasons to capture and regulate the Internet.  They massively screwed-up by allowing it to get started in the 90s.

Bobby:  So Cryptohippie is essentially someone’s entry point into Gamma as discussed in your book, correct?  And if so, what would you recommend for someone who is just becoming enlightened to this world of private digital commerce?

Paul:  Yes, Cryptohippie would function much that way. I definitely recommend that people learn about digital currencies.  The best starting point is DGCMagazine.com.  There’s a lot of good information to pickup there.  People have to start using encryption, if they haven’t already.  Many types are free, for goodness sake, and they are not that hard to use.  Mostly, however, I want people to start doing something.  Talk is cheap.  People must act if they want the world to change.  Waiting for someone else to do it is a waste of life – we must act.  I barely care where they get started, so long as they do get started – pick a spot and start exerting your will in the world.

Bobby:  As I stated before, I am an eternal optimist.  I truly believe that we are living in a pivotal time in history.  Imagine the opportunities available in Russia in the early 1990’s.  They emerged from communist rule and within just a few years entrepreneurship flourished.  I personally have some friends and clients there who have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams due to the turmoil during this era.  I see a similar situation today, but on a grander, more global scale.

Those that are intelligent, hard working, and opportunistic will be alert to new opportunities and will drive the world economy forward from the doldrums we have been experiencing over the past few years.  With technology advancing at such a rapid rate, there is no reason why people cannot live, work and play wherever they chose.  We aren’t shackled by geographical boundaries anymore, but many people are still afraid of change so they stick to the old norms.  Tell me your thoughts on where you see the opportunities of the future.

Paul:  The future is absolutely golden, if we can get through this next passage without global tyranny taking hold.  The situation is actually much, much better than people understand already.  But we’ll have to go through a very dangerous passage.  I actually wrote a long piece on this in my newsletter this month.  If you look at the right economic data, you’ll see that scarcity is slowly dying in the Western world – we just don’t feel it because our prosperity has been skimmed away from us even faster.  We stand at the edge of a tremendous economic boom; far bigger and better than anything in history.  We have just a few insanities to reject and a few simple virtues to return to.

Bobby:  Is there anything else you would like to share with my readers that we haven’t already covered?

Paul:  Hmmm… I guess not, but I would like to elaborate on something we discussed earlier:

Live your life.  Most of this world is designed to keep you within limits that other people have drawn. Even good people will try to keep you within pre-defined limits.  Ignore all of that.  Live your life.  Yes, get the best input you can find, ask advice of people who are able to provide it, live peaceably, live reasonably, live with kindness, but live your way.  Step outside the prescribed paths.  Try new things.  If you make mistakes (and you will), figure out why and avoid them next time.  Take some risks, accept pain when you must, and refuse to merely exist. Live.

Bobby:  I want to thank you again for your time and willingness to share.  Take care.

Paul:  Thanks for having me.

Living in Eastern Europe, I am somewhat sheltered from this, but with Facebook and all of the news outlets it’s impossible to avoid the implications of what’s going on with this movement.

The OWS movement reminds me of a scene from the movie ‘Network’ starring Peter Finch where he plays the role of network anchorman, presumably modeled after Walter Cronkite.  Click here to watch the scene.

Finch repeatedly says, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.  This was during the ‘70’s when the US was suffering from a recession, high inflation, high gas prices, and record high unemployment.  Sound familiar.

Today is a different world though.  We live in the age of Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and blogs.  We have reached a point of worldwide group consciousness never before seen in the history of mankind.

You can’t even burp in public anymore without someone recording the video on their iPhone, uploading it to YouTube and then sharing it with their 730 Facebook friends within seconds.

Some people believe the revolutions in Egypt and Libya wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for social media.  I tend to agree.  It provided a virtual medium for people to organize and plan for their civil (and sometimes not so civil) disobedience.

I personally have been dismissing the OWS movement as a bunch of ignorant, lazy, out of work 20 something hippies who don’t understand how the world works.  To some extent, this is the case.

But admittedly, I have been wrong to dismiss this movement as short term hippie protest against capitalism.  I feel the anger is misplaced toward Wall Street and the majority of the blame lies in Washington.  I would feel a bit better if it were labeled, ‘Occupy DC’, but regardless there is merit to their protests, and it shouldn’t be dismissed.

People are angry with the current state of affairs, and rightly so.  Maybe they don’t understand the underlying causes of the ongoing economic crisis, but nonetheless they have the right to be disenchanted with the way things are being handled.

I am sure many of you (if not all) agree that something is just not right today with the world.  There is something out of sync.

We are angry that our elected officials have no fiscal responsibility and continue to rack up government debt that will drag down American productivity and decrease the quality of life for generations to come.

We are angry that huge corporations that fund political parties are not allowed to go bankrupt while our businesses suffer in the downturn.  We are angry that our neighbor stopped paying his mortgage 2 years ago but still lives happily in his house while we continue to pay a mortgage payment on a house that is worth half of what we owe on it.

We are angry that big corporations have record amounts of cash on their balance sheets, but still refuse to hire.  We are angry that the US seems to be turning into a fascist police state robbing you and me of our personal freedoms.  We are angry that we used to have great 6-figure jobs and now have to work 2-3 shit jobs just to make ends meet.

We are angry that old ladies and children are subjected to intrusive pat downs by bullying TSA agents when they want to fly cross country and visit family.  We are angry that politicians get to vote on the citizens’ healthcare and social insurance plans while they get to opt out in favor of much more lucrative plans for themselves.

We are angry when we go fill up our gas tanks for $90 and then read about the subsidies the oil companies receive.  We are angry when we hear stories about companies like Halliburton who received billions in government contracts that were never put up for public bid – especially when we know the former US Vice President was also the former CEO of Halliburton.

Clearly I could go on and on.  There is much to be angry about today.

The potential exists for the OWS movement to be the beginning of a US revolution.  Not in the sense that the people take up arms and storm the White House, but in the economic sense that people are fed up with the system and they stop feeding the beast.

This is essentially what has been happening in Greece over the past few decades.  Greece has a long history of stupid government.  In 1922 the Greek finance minister declared that each drachma would be cut in half and the balance of value would be replaced by 20 year bonds paying a 6.5% coupon.

Imagine you had 10k drachma in your bank account in 1922 and the next day you have 5k drachma and a 5k bond paying 6.5% interest for 20 years.  On the surface this sounds ok, but in reality the Greek government paid the coupon payments for a few more years then defaulted on the bonds.

Between 1940-1944, Greece re-denominated the drachma several times and created inflation that amounted to 160,000,000,000% during that period.  As you may imagine, the people developed a severe distrust for the Greek government.

It’s not hard to understand why so many Greek business people ran the majority of their businesses in the ‘black market’ and outside of the watching eyes of the incompetent policymakers.  Effectively the Greeks decided to stop feeding the beast.

They said, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”.

What comes next though is critically important.

What do you intend to do about it?

Do you plan to join the OWS crowd all across America and hold up signs protesting your anger?  Do you plan to build a bunker under your house and stock it with water, can foods, gold, guns and ammo?

Or do you plan to protect the wealth you currently have and position yourself to profit from the market inefficiencies that are abundant today?

Obviously I am a big believer in proper asset protection planning.  It is critically important to create a veil of privacy around your assets to keep the wolves at bay.  A properly structured asset protection plan consists of limited liability companies (LLC), limited partnerships (LP or FLP), and asset protection trusts or living trusts to ensure your estate can pass on to your heirs without government interference.

I am also a big believer in providing value.  Is your skill set sufficient for the globalized job market?  Maybe you can learn a new language, get your master’s degree, learn how to write html code, learn to build wordpress sites, become proficient in options trading, or educate yourself on reading financial statements.  The options for improvement are virtually endless.  But sitting on your laurels does nothing to improve your own situation.

I recently talked with a friend of mine who saw a significant downturn in his business, so instead of whining and complaining then collected unemployment, he researched the job market.  What he found was that in a certain part of the country the job market was booming due to recent oil and natural gas exploration.  He packed up the car, moved there and got a blue collar job making about $80k per year.

Another friend who runs several different web stores went on a buying spree picking up website businesses selling for 1X profit.  Yes, 1X profit.  Sometimes even less.

I’ve got a couple of friends who have been buying up houses in a couple of specific markets for less than 50% of their sales price just 3 years ago.  They are buying only newer houses, renting them out, and selling them as investment property to investors around the world.  Then they do the property management on the backend.

Even my 15 year old daughter has taken it upon herself (sorry, I’m a proud papa) to leverage her skills into freelance work.  She recently started taking jobs on Odesk writing and promoting a couple of fashion blogs.  This is work she can do from anywhere in the world, it’s completely virtual.

There are thousands of available jobs on sites like Odesk or Elance and many people make their living doing various types of freelance work.  For those of you looking for higher paying jobs, a quick search on ExecuNet showed thousands of available jobs both in the US and abroad paying well into the 6 figure range.

The point is that there is opportunity everywhere.  In the ‘70s after the stock market crashed the majority of passive investors fled the equities markets.  But many people built great wealth buying at that time.

I’ve said it many times, but where turmoil exists, opportunity persists.  Personally I’d rather profit from the crisis instead of stock my bunker.

This week I want to share with you two separate news items that are both frightening and disgusting.  The first one occurred just about two weeks ago and involves a court case where the CA appeals court approved cell phone searches during traffic stops.  The details of the case can be found here.

It all started with a traffic stop and a driver that had some photos of guns on his phone.  The man was pulled over for speeding in Santa Cruz County and the officer suspected him of driving under the influence of drugs.

Upon further inspection the officer found the driver had an expired driver’s license and decided to impound the car.  The officer refused to allow the car to be parked roadside and await a friend of the driver to pick up the car.  At that point, the officer decided to conduct an inventory search of the car.

Upon the inventory search, the officer found a fully legal Glock pistol and the driver’s Blackberry phone.  On the screen of the phone there were pictures of two men holding AR-15 rifles.  At that point, another officer went through the contents of the driver’s phone.  It wasn’t until much later did they get a search warrant for this action.

Based on the info found on the phone, the sheriff’s office sent a SWAT team to execute a search warrant at the driver’s home 10 days later.  The SWAT team confiscated a cache of weapons, marijuana growing paraphernalia, and $15,000 cash.

In summary, the driver’s lawyer argued the search was a violation of the 4^th amendment and all evidence should be disallowed.  The judge agreed and ordered the information to be suppressed.  However the appeals court overturned the judge’s ruling on the grounds that the phone was part of the inventory check needed to process the vehicle impound.

Ironically the driver died of an unrelated incident before he went to trial, but the decision was released anyway solely for the purpose of creating a precedent for future cases.

I ask you dear readers, do you feel it is legal and moral for the police to have the right to confiscate and search your mobile phone if you are stopped for speeding or running a red light?  Is it legal and moral for the police to take this information acquired through unconstitutional means and raid your personal residence and confiscate your personal property?

If you can answer yes to either of these questions, you have clearly subscribed to the wrong newsletter.  Or you are a fascist troll lurking in the shadows trying to gain the perspective of freedom lovers in an attempt to shut down the party.  Either way, please unsubscribe at the bottom.

The second news article involves a bill the House Judiciary Committee passed on October 6^th, 2011 that would make it a federal crime for US residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that if carried out in the US would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

Essentially this is saying that if a US resident makes plans to use a controlled substance outside of the US, he or she would be subject to federal law even if the event took place in a country where the act is legal.

For example, let’s say you are planning a bachelor party for your buddy who is getting married in December.  The bachelor party is to be held in Amsterdam and the group decides that you all want to visit a couple of cafes and smoke some pot.

Keep in mind, you have not bought or consumed marijuana in the US, only made plans to do so in a country where the substance is legal to own and use.  But low and behold, your entire bachelor party group is now subject to prosecution.

What if you have been successfully running your medical marijuana dispensary in California for the past 5 years and have formulated a unique method to increase yields for other growers.  You may decide to provide consulting services to growers in other countries where marijuana is legal to grow and buy.

By providing this service as a US resident, you would now be in violation of this new law.  If interpreted broadly enough, doctors, academics and policymakers could even be charged criminally for contributing their expertise to companies or other agencies outside of the US.

Let me be as delicate as possible here – what kind of arrogant bastard thinks he can legislate the morality of its citizenry as well as regulate the actions of those citizens abroad?  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), that’s who.

Welcome to the United Fascist States of America.

How many of you are continuing to keep your head in the sand thinking the United States is still a free country?  In what bizarre universe does running a police state that directly violates the core foundation of the country constitute freedom?  When does criminalizing the citizenry for actions outside of your home country become the moral obligation of the ruling class?

I sincerely hope you are doing something to protect your assets and ensure your wealth for the future.  Please take the time to assess your own personal and financial situation and make sure you are prepared to prosper in the coming years.  Putting your head in the sand doesn’t make the problems go away.

Finally, I want to address some reader comments over the past couple of weeks.

I have received numerous questions about recent emails promoting the Chuck Hughes Cash Flow Trader trading service and the John Thomas Macro Millionaire trading service.

First of all, I made a mistake in the most recent email when I stated that John Thomas doesn’t use options.  I meant he is not a net buyer of options, but he does frequently sell options.  John looks at macro economic conditions and makes trades accordingly.

He is not tied to the stock market, bond market, currency market or the commodities market.  He will trade where the opportunity lies at any given moment.

Chuck is more of a technical trader that looks at individual stocks and trades options as both a buyer and seller.  Both services use options and both services are frequently traded, although Chuck’s service is a bit more actively managed.

I have lost count how many people have asked me if I personally use either of these services.  Let me be perfectly clear, I only recommend products that I have personal experience with.  So to directly answer the question, yes, I use both services.

I have been a trader and investor myself for many years.  I don’t follow every single trade from either service.  I use them both to further my trading education and unearth opportunities I may have not seen.  But I don’t trade someone else’s recommendations blindly and I wouldn’t recommend that you do as well.

I’m a huge advocate of personal responsibility so if I lose money trading, it’s my own fault, not the fault of some hedge fund manager who made a recommendation.  Accordingly if I make money, he doesn’t get the credit either.  I am the one that pays my bills and thus I am responsible for me.

I will mention that there is a 90 day money back guarantee on both services.  I personally spoke to my contact at the company on Wednesday to verify the policy and they honor the policy as long as you can send in proof (like a computer screenshot) that you have attempted to make the trades recommended.

If either service appeals to you, go for it.  They stand by their product.  But clearly this is not for everyone.  Rest assured that I will continue to make you aware of opportunities that I have personally vetted.  I do not blindly recommend anything just because it looks pretty.