The Weekend Vigilante

Hello from chilly and bleak Calgary, Canada,

After visiting Doug Casey’s Gulch in northern Argentina I had returned home to Acapulco for a few days before making my way to the great white north.  As I was returning to Acapulco my email inbox began to fillup with people asking me if I was OK.  Apparently there was a devastating, massive 7.9 Earthquake near Acapulco.

I quickly Skype called my house in Acapulco worried about my kids and dogs.  One of my maids answered (maids, cooks, nannies and drivers cost about $10 each per day so I have countless people making life as carefree as possible).  I asked her if everything was OK.  ”Why?” she asked.

“Wasn’t there a massive earthquake there?” I responded.

She didn’t even know what I was talking about.  Strange, I thought.  So, I Skype messaged TDV’s head office in Acapulco.  ”Everything OK there, Mike?” I asked.

“Yes, why?” he responded.

Starting to feel a bit silly now, I explained that the media around the world is reporting a massive devastating earthquake near Acapulco.  He said that he felt something but it was really nothing.  He didn’t think anyone would have even noticed much less it being “world news”.

It really shouldn’t have surprised me.  I’ve had enough experiences with the media to know that about 70% of what they say is outright incorrect and 20% is skewed in one way or another towards the propaganda focus of the time (in this particular case it is trying to make Mexico look as dangerous as possible), not leaving much but a slim shred of actual valid information to be gleaned from it.

This look at different global issues of the propaganda mouthpiece, Slime magazine, issued in December shows in particular why most Americans seem so stupid… it’s for the most part not their fault, they are particularly targetted for ensuring they know nothing about what is going on in the world:

While the rest of the world hears about how much of the world is in a state of revolution, Americans get told that anxiety is good for you!

Apparently not much has changed in the last few hundred years as Mark Twain said long ago, ”If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”

NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES

Having kids is a ton of fun.  I like to ask them questions just to get them thinking about things.  Recently I asked my 5 year old daughter if she was really rich what she would buy.  She pondered for a second and then concretlely asserted, “Lots and lots of candies.”

I then posed the same question to my 7 year old son who is a movie buff.  He also thought about it for a second and then said, “A bigger TV!”  I laughed.  We have a $5,000 top of the line, 65″ LED TV!  It is, almost literally, one of the biggest and best TVs on Earth.

I always find asking people that question is enlightening.  Almost everyone wants to be “rich” but when you ask them what they’d do with the money the answer is often, “buy another home” or “get a better car”… hardly massive improvements to their life.

It got me thinking about what some of the best purchases I’ve made in my life are.  The #1 one, by far, was getting LASIK surgery.  I used to have terrible vision and one night in a hotel room in Shenzhen, China, in 1996, someone tried to break into my hotel room.  I grasped for my glasses but couldn’t find them.  The door opened and all I could make out was a figure… I couldn’t tell who he was, whether he had a weapon or what his intentions were.  Luckily he was about 5 feet tall and about half my weight so he decided to run off and find an easier target.  But I felt very vulnerable in that position and immediately looked into eye surgery.  In 1996 LASIK was very new… so new that it was still considered to be experimental, but I signed all the waivers and went in for about 20 minutes of work, went home and slept and woke up with 20/20 vision.  To me that is about as close to a miracle as I’ve ever know.  The gift of sight.  It was by far the best thing I’ve ever done.

Any material item pales in comparison to that… but recently I bought something that has made a noticable improvement in my life: noise cancelling headphones.  The technology for this has been around for a long time but to my knowledge no one had ever really produced a product that lived up to the expectations… until now!

After hearing about it from a good friend of mine I purchased the Bose Q3 headphones for about $300.  They are almost miraculous!  Opposite of LASIK, these headphones don’t give you the gift of hearing… they give you the gift of not hearing!  Silence.

Having two kids, two chihuahuas and a house full of friends, family and staff, sitting down and being able to think and concentrate when writing can be harder than it sounds.  But, with these headphones, at a flick of a switch, almost all sound disappears.  Any constant sound like air conditioners, fans or the ambient sounds when on an airplane or in a vehicle are almost completely negated.  It’s like turning the world off.

In the past I’d often have to blast music to cut off the sounds of the outside world around me.  But with these headphones, because it negates so much of the outside noise you can then listen to music at much, much lower levels and it can be just as enjoyable.  I am currently writing this in my hotel room, listening to DI.fm’s vocal trance internet radio station at a very light but enjoyable level and it is like the world around me does not exist.

They are the best thing I’ve bought all year and you won’t see me at Starbucks, or a beach bar with my laptop, or on an airplane ever again without them.

GET YOUR GOLD OUT OF DODGE

We have been working on a complete compendium to internationalizing your precious metals for nearly a year now and we have delayed its release numerous times as we keep finding more we wish to add to it.  But, we are finally committing to a release date.  It will be released on April 9th.

For those looking to buy, sell, transport and store precious metals globally this report will be a valuable guide on how best to do it and how to avoid some of the numerous pitfalls that can occur.  The report is free to TDV and TDV Golden Trader subscribers or will be $44.95 to purchase.

WANTED: VIDEO EDITOR/PRODUCER

TDV is looking for a video editor/producer to help us produce marketing videos as well as documentary style videos.  We are looking for a talented person looking to gain valuable work experience and to accept a smaller up-front pay in return for gaining a percentage of any sales/revenue generated by the videos created.  Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested.

DO YOU LIVE TO WORK OR WORK TO LIVE?

I found the following joke quite funny as often Americans come down to Mexico and say these very things to many Mexican people who are living a very fulfilling and happy life with little or none of the stresses that people in the top 2/3rds of North America feel.

A businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village
when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small
boat were several large tuna. The businessman complimented the
Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to
catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while.

The businessman then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch
more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s
immediate needs. The businessman then asked, but what do you do
with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep
late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my
wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine
and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The businessman scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you.
You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a
bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy
several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.
Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell
directly to the processor and eventually open your own cannery. You
would control the product, processing and distribution. You would
need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico
City, then LA and eventually New York City where you would run your
expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all
take?” To which the businessman replied, “15-20 years.” “But what
then, señor?” The businessman laughed and said, “That’s the best
part! When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell
your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would
make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?” The businessman said, “Then you would
retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would
sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with
your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could
sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

THAT’S ALL FOR THIS WEEK

That’s it for this week.  Next week I’ll be back in the dangerous earthquake destruction zone in Acapulco, digging out from underneath all the rubble and trying to avoid getting beheaded by the narco drug lords.  That, or sitting poolside in the shade of a glorious 90F day watching the hummingbirds visit our flowers, the cruise ships float into beautiful Acapulco Bay and enjoying all the fresh organic food and drinks from the local mercado… all in peaceful silence with my Bose headphones.  What you think I’ll be doing depends on whether you pay any attention to mainstream media or not.

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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