The Weekend Vigilante

Hello from the beach in Acapulco,

I am back home in Mexico after nearly three weeks in Argentina and very happy to be here. Home is where your heart is and for me that is right here in Southern Mexico. I’m a believer that there is a “right” place for everyone in the world… and it just so happens that rarely are you lucky enough to be born in that place so it is well worth taking the time to look for it.

My search took my whole life and a devoted five year trip that encompassed 100 countries. In the end there were two outright winners, Thailand and Mexico. Although there were many other places that I’d also have absolutely no problem living for at least a few years, including Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brazil, Paraguay and Japan just to name a few. In actuality, there are not many places I outright dislike and would not want to live. These include Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, Bolivia, El Salvador and Russia.

But the point is, if you haven’t found your place yet you should keep looking. I had one friend from Vancouver who would regularly visit New York. In Vancouver nothing ever seemed to go right for him but every single time he visited NYC it was like all the doors opened for him, beautiful girls came to him, opportunities fell in his lap. I told him, “you’ve found your place”. You know it because everything seems to flow with the greatest of ease. This is how it is for me in Mexico… I am so in tune with the vibe here that anything I want or need comes to me. In places where you are out of tune with your surroundings the things you want and need are repelled by you.

If you haven’t found your place yet, keep looking.

THE INSANITY OF THE WAR ON DRIED FLOWERS

A big part of the vibe or energy of a place comes from its local criminal gang, the government, and their random, illogical deeming of what is perfectly allowed and what can be punishable by kidnapping or death.

This was reinforced on my most recent trip. In northern Argentina every single store sells “coca y bica”. These are coca (cocaine) leaves and sodium bicarbonate (otherwise known as baking soda). The locals like to chew large bunches of the leaves stuffed in to their cheek like a squirrel would do… and they add some “bica” to activate the leaves. It is a well known digestive and many chew or drink the leaves in a tea after meals.

New at the Salta airport is a “drug sniffing” dog. I was unhappily surprised to see this sign of the drug war. For the most part Argentina has stayed away from this stupid war on dried flowers but the ludicrousity of it all was juxtaposed when one man who had just finished stuffing his cheek full of coca leaves knelt down to pet the dog as he playfully walked by.

In the US that perfectly peaceable transaction would have required a SWAT team and that man would be kidnapped into slavery (what else do you call involuntary servitude?) for years if not decades.

You really see the stupidity of it all when you travel. In Japan being caught with even 0.1 gram of the healthy, mind-expanding herb marijuana can get you 5 years in a cage and extortionate fines of up to half a million dollars. Yet, you can buy psychedelic magic mushrooms at almost any street vendor shop – perfectly legally in Tokyo for just a few yen.

Two Liars and Criminals MeetProbably the worst part of it all, as with almost all government enforced programs, is that the consequences of the actions are often the exact opposite of what was intended. The supposed intention of the “war on drugs” is to reduce “drug” use. Well, after 40 years of the “war on drugs”, which was instituted by Richard Nixon, who had Elvis Presley anointed “Federal Agent at Large”, drug use has only increased. Even the Federal Agent at Large in charge of the War on Drugs, Elvis Presley, died from drug abuse (admittedly, mostly prescription drugs which are in fact far more dangerous than dried flowers).

Paul Rosenberg of the Free-man’s Perspective recently wrote:

“The chief… smugglers of our day are the drug lords, bringing cocaine and heroin into the United States and Europe. Because these products are so strongly forbidden, their price has risen astronomically (cocaine is not much harder to produce than sugar) and the people involved in the trade have become very rich… rich enough to engage in an arms race with the anti-drug police of the Western
states. The more the arms race escalates, the more deadly both sides become.

For some perspective on this, consider that cocaine and heroin were fully legal in the United States before the First World War. There was no forbidden trade, no stunningly rich narcotics traffickers, no assassination squads, no depletion of the national treasuries, no one in jail for drug offenses, and an addiction rate no higher than the one that now exists.”

Recently, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, ranked 701st on Forbes’ yearly report of the wealthiest men alive, and worth an estimated $1 billion, officially thanked United States politicians for making sure that drugs remain illegal. According to one of his closest confidants, he said, “I couldn’t have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you.”

The US Government currently has El Chapo high on their list of most wanted, dead or alive. For Mexico’s sake, they better hope that El Chapo is never captured or killed… that would enter Mexico into a massive battle for his territory… something that the US Government is well aware of. The US Government has been trying to destabilize Mexico for years, from planting Swine Flu here to having the White House running guns directly to the narco-traficantes in Mexico.

Because the “war on drugs” isn’t about stopping the usage of drugs. It’s about the continually taking away of our liberties and as a way to further enslave the public in prison camps.

REFLECTIONS ON ARGENTINA

After spending a few more weeks in Argentina it is readily apparent that things continue to get worse and worse as communist, Cristina Kirchner, continues to destroy the country.  Most gas stations are out of gas on a very regular basis.  Line-ups for ATMs can go down the block at certain times of the day as people try to withdraw their 1,000 peso per day maximum limit (about $200).  And just while I was there they instituted all sorts of inane capital controls and taxes.

They stopped allowing Argentines to use their debit cards when outside of the country… and they instituted a tax on sushi… surely taxing imported tuna will save the disastrous socialist government!

As well, they continue to not allow the importing of certain things such as Apple iPhones… to protect the very important Argentine cell phone manufacturers like… well… I don’t think there are any.  So, instead of Argentines having access to new technology even the upper class walk around with 1997 era mobile phones.

But, rather than comment on it myself, a good friend and TDV subscriber, V.T., who previously lived in the communist Soviet bloc, then lived in Canada for a number of years and has lived in Buenos Aires for the last year reported in with his thoughts:

It is quite fascinating to be on the ground and watch how the socialist-fascist psychopath politicians are destroying again this beautiful country… Energy shortages, currency controls, import restrictions, you name an evil and Cristina and the cohorts are doing it, except soccer and tango…

Now that the province of Mendoza is the last producing province to revoke Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales’ (YPF) – concessions in the country, I expect a few nasty things to trickle down. First, YPF is taking the governments to court stating that they honored all their work commitments (which, speaking to local YPF people it seems to be true) and that this will take time. The actual issue is that, due to a perceived and artificial growth, more energy is needed and the government is bankrupt and can’t buy more oil, so they’re trying to turn the screw on the international companies.

Secondly, for now, YPF is not allowed to produce oil. I see ahead SERIOUS diesel and gasoline shortages, which in turn will add to the general discomfort and social unrest and to a further slowing of the economy since the tracks wouldn’t move (talking about increasing exports using only track to move the stuff, there is no railroads to bring the products to the ports!).

Thirdly, there is an increasing noise about Argentina nationalizing YPF’s assets… People here are saying that the government doesn’t have the money (which is correct) for such a bold move. In addition, even if Argentina would do such a stupid thing, WHAT are they going to do with concessions? They don’t have the expertise nor the money to get the stuff to the refineries.  I don’t think, personally, that anything dramatic will happen, but meanwhile, I’m making sure that my driver’s company is stocking up on fuel so I can travel without too many commotions (will we be attacked while driving because we have fuel?) and watch the locals suffering for lack of transportation (I forgot to mention the weekly subways’ strikes, asking for increased wages to protect against the rampant inflation: 25-35%, and going…).

Fourthly, Argentina still caps the oil and gas prices and make the life of the explorers and producers an inferno…To top it off, it seems that late in 2011, ExxonMobil chairman came to visit the Energy and Planning ministers (the company being already committed to spend in Argentina many billions of dollars in gas and oil shale) to try to reason with them and he was shown the door and sent home, with some nasty comments… Meanwhile, the industrial output in January and February fell, and now, as far as inflation goes, Argentina has the second fastest inflation rate in the world (after Venezuela). The journey of Cristina’s economic model continues…

Real estate, especially in Buenos Aires, is, from practical stand point, paralyzed.  Transactions fell 15% in January and 15% in February, basically due to currency controls imposed by Cristina as soon as she won the elections in October (more on that below) and the sales plunged 41% since October. Property values have risen in the last decade, providing more stable returns than the Argentine dollar bonds, which posted annual losses four times in the past decade. Because of the currency controls, potential buyers are struggling to get dollars and the sellers are reluctant to lower the prices, preferring rather to pull the properties off the market; they do that because they want to use real estate as a protection against inflation. Out of about 1,000 properties for sale or rent with one of the real estate agencies, only 10 owners accepted pesos (how is that as a sign for Argentina’s health?).  Some buyers are turning to the unregulated “blue market” to get dollars, where they have to pay almost 5 pesos for one dollars, while the official exchange rate is 4.20 to 4.30. For me, this is good, since I’m exchanging my dollars in pesos to pay for my living expenses.  How long will this situation last? My prediction is by the end of this year, the latest mid next year, will see another 2001/2002 (currency collapse) and I’m looking forward to buy real estate then.

Currency controls, along with the import restrictions, are really, in my opinion, putting the last nail in the coffin…There are SO MANY stupid things this government is doing, that there is no other label than sociopaths! These days, they don’t allow anyone to withdraw more than 1,000 pesos a day from the ATM (they now have even frozen Argentinians’ debit cards when they go to Chile to buy stuff that’s significantly cheaper or “normal” stuff that’s not available in Argentina…Cristina’s daughter made the comment that “importing all those gadgets would hurt Argentina’s economy”! ). On one hand, one might make a case for the poor locals, but on the other hand, WHY doesn’t the government want as many of my dollars as possible to get into Argentina? Besides that, the facts are not stopping here…My experience is that, having a pesos and a dollars bank accounts, is like that: if I want to wire dollars from other places into my dollar account here, they’d automatically be exchanged into pesos and I would have to get AFIP’s (Argentine IRS) approval to get (at least) part of my initial dollars back as dollars. Aha! So they want my dollars in, but I need to get permission to have/use them…now I get it…Old memories (from my Soviet bloc days) come back hunting…”

In my last trip to Argentina (“Dont’ Cry for Argentina“) I stated that a Argentine peso collapse was imminent.  V.T. is now predicting basically the same.

What will that mean for Argentina?  Nobody knows exactly.  But if the government can be removed from every facet of Argentine economic life then very quickly the gas and ATM lines would fade away, a flood of new products from around the world would enter into Argentina, prices for a time would be very cheap (and good for building a house… hint hint) if you had your savings in anything but the Argentine peso.

Will there be chaos in Argentina?  Perhaps some outbreaks in Buenos Aires.  The majority of the country is farmland.  And the Argentine peso has collapsed and become worthless five times in the last forty years so if this comes as a surprise to anyone in the country then they deserve what is coming to them.

WE NEED THE GOVERNMENT FOR ROADS!

I was recently accosted by a brainwashed statist in Toronto, Kanada, who seemed to think he had me cornered on the perfect argument for why we need government.

“What about traffic lights!” he shouted, flailing his arms in the air.

“What about them?” I responded.

“We need traffic lights, you have to admit that!” he said, smuggly as though he had just completed a deft checkmate against Garry Kasparov.

“I don’t know. I don’t know that we need traffic lights,” I responded, honestly. “I’ve been to many places where they don’t use them and things work fine… in fact, I prefer it. Nothing is so soul draining as sitting for minutes at a red light when there is no other traffic around for miles,” I continued.

“Of course we need traffic lights!” he stammered, “And who is going to do it if government doesn’t!”

Well, I have just returned from another fair sized city, Salta, Argentina, with a population of about half a million. There are hardly any traffic lights in the entire city. There are no stop signs. People just go when they can go and don’t when they cannot. And it works fine. I didn’t see any accidents, didn’t hear one car honk or see any signs of “road rage”. That road rage, by the way, is caused by the thousands of rules that the slaves are forced to adhere to… so when one slave doesn’t submit to one of the rules, the other slaves quickly attack them for being less subjucated than themselves.

After all, with the government in charge of “education”, your average person cannot even figure out the most basic of math questions, much less remember the leviathan of rules and regulations they are supposed to adhere to. Your average youth in the western world today is someone like this girl thanks to her years of indoctrination and dumbing down, after all:

To be fair to her though, she did state that she was just “guessimating”.

A TDV EXPAT COMMUNITY

We’ve mentioned this a few times over the last few months but after my most recent trip to Cafayate and Doug’s Gultch it has become quite clear that it doesn’t meet everyone’s particular needs or capabilities. It certainly is not “cheap” by most people’s standards… and not everyone is interested in a golf, polo and wine lifestyle.

So, we’ve given more thought to starting our own dollar vigilante expat community. We are looking at a number of interesting locations in some very free areas… many on or near a beach. So we thought we’d ask you. Would you be interested in a TDV expat community somewhere in the world?

You can answer the poll here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/questions/399461106732992/

The main points about our particular expact community would include things like:

• Price (cheap)
• In as free a country/region as possible
• Warm weather year round
• Near the ocean/beach
• Very good high speed internet access
• Highly self-sufficient (grow most of our own food, supply our own power)

Of course, when we get down to choosing a spot we’ll be asking you what you are looking for as well… these are just a few of our ideas for now. You’ll be surprised to hear a few of the countries we have in mind.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

The world can be such a beautiful place… and sometimes seeing it from a different angle in a different way makes it even more so. That’s why I enjoyed this photo this week.

At first glance it may look like some sort of painting but it is a photo taken from directly above a caravan of camels in the Turkish desert at sunset. The black figures you see are just their shadows.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND

That’s all for this week. We’ll be back on a more even schedule now that I am back from Argentina. Have a great weekend!

The Dollar Vigilante is a free-market financial newsletter focused on covering all aspects of the ongoing financial collapse. The newsletter has news, information and analysis on investments for safety and for profit during the collapse including investments in gold, silver, energy and agriculture commodities and publicly traded stocks. As well, the newsletter covers other aspects including expatriation, both financially and physically and news and info on health, safety and other ways to survive the coming collapse of the US Dollar safely and comfortably. You can sign up to receive our FREE monthly newsletter, our Basic Newsletter ($15/month) or our Full Newsletter ($25/month) with specific stock recommendations and updates at our Subscriptions page on our website at DollarVigilante.com.

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