Fubarrio Expat Trader

I started reading a brilliant book called “Emergency” by Neil Strauss.

It was published in 2009, and I guess the reason I hadn’t really been exposed to it is because I’ve been down here.

Neil is/was a writer for Rolling Stone and the New York Times and details his personal journey from a timid, shy, inept, city slicker who laughs at the ‘end of the world’ crowd in 1999 at the turn of the millennium into a full-fledged doom and gloomer, tin foil hat wearing, chicken little and how and why he got that way.

His metamorphosis takes place over a period of nearly 10 years and all the while he is either taking meticulous notes and photos with the intent on writing this book, he has a fantastic memory and is a shutter bug or he recreated everything in excruciating (often very humorous) detail once he had talked his publisher into doing the book.

He learns how to hunt, fish, track, fight, live off the land, urban evasion, stunt driving, etc. etc. etc. He travels to special schools setup to train wilderness nuts and military men and turns his Los Angeles backyard into a training ground for outdoorsmanship- much to the dismay of his girlfriend, and his neighbors I’m sure.

All the while he is working on a “bug out” plan where he just gets “out of dodge” and expatriates to a small Caribbean island called St Kitts or St Kitts and Nevis fame.

Second Passport

Along with an offshore bank account, his pursuit of a second passport seems to be one of the costliest extravagances in his disaster preparedness plans and the one probably furthest out of reach of his average reader. After searching far and wide, including brushes with the Sovereign Society at their annual gathering at an offshore conference in Mexico, he runs into a guy from St Kitts who convinces him that the real estate investment exemption — put in place supposedly to help to support the islands’ displaced sugar cane workers — is the way to go.

This was back during the real estate boom, so apparently pulling a cool 300,000 out of a Los Angeles area home was no big ‘to-do’ to pay for the condo in St Kitts.

Even at that, he’s a year and a half into paying for the real estate and the outrageously expensive legal bill — some 60k plus and he still doesn’t have his passport yet, although with 50 pages left in the book he is told by a swarmy lawyer that makes him very nervous he is being scammed that he has been approved.

Second passports in Uruguay are pretty common as many of the locals here have ancestry somewhere in the EU they can trace back to and many of them carry EU passports from Germany, Italy, and Spain. There is also a lot of interest in second passports for the expats who are here as an Uruguayan passport will let them travel visa free to a number of countries — especially in south america — that would have been previously costly to enter. In addition, there is also the desire to obtain a second passport in order to thumb their nose at the US for good, or just to give them a ‘just in case’ plan if things continue to deteriorate between the US and the rest of the world on the diplomatic front.

A Bug Out Plans and Bug In Plans

Neil’s preparedness makes him classify a ‘bug out’ and a ‘bug in’ plan. First, he wants to be a prepared survivalist in case he is unable to get away to bug out retreat in the Caribbean. In addition, he is worried that a true global catastrophe will take down a small Caribbean island even faster than the US.

His bug out plan involves going to St Kitts with all manner of secondary thoughts put into his head by his wealthy survivalist friends — submarines, gyrocopters, pilot licenses, offroad military grade motorcycles for getting out of the city unscathed. He also decides to (eventually) work within the system and become a member of the civilian disaster preparedness teams and a qualified EMT.

He thinks first of all, it’s good training, and second of all, it will help him have the credentials he needs to get past roadblocks or other official inconveniences should he need to put his bug out plan to work.

Overall, this guy is a great writer. One should read the book for the chapter titles alone which have such intriguing title as “Tips on Death Cult Etiquette”

Just a great read and although he may have colored up some of the stories, a lot of the appeal is in how honest and up front most of this tell-all appears to be.

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The holidays, and Christmas in particular are always an interesting time for the Expat.

Some miss friends and family, some miss the traditions and the particularities of celebrating ‘back home”.  For me, it’s simply the dreading of trying to find appropriate gifts for friends and family when I am so far away and so out of touch.

Since Uruguay, in particular, makes so little that wouldn’t spoil in shipping, and we are so far away from friends and family the best gifts are those things that can be purchased, and shipped, online.  I also try to put some thought into the gift and not just send a default ‘gift card’.

Among those things that seemed to work, and were generally appreciated in the past, seemed to be movies and DVDs.  For example:

For a couple of years, I bought my parents a subscription to Netflix — the company that lets people in the US build up lists of movies they want to watch and the company sends DVDs via mail, you keep it for as long as you want, then return it via US post in a handy envelope that comes with your DVD.  Basically, DVDs delivered to your door — no late fees.  Yes, I realize if you haven’t been living under a rock or expatriated for the last 5 years you know what netflix is, but I have some international readers where this doesn’t exist – yet.

For a couple of years before this, I bought my parents DVD sets of popular TV shows that I’d enjoyed on cable, like the Sopranos.  They didn’t have HBO and I realized they probably never would and would certainly enjoy the series.  Fortunately, for the rest of the cable challenged world A&E released the Sopranos on basic cable, but the edited version seemed to cut some of the meat out of the story line — nudity was blurred out in the strip club which wasn’t so bad (you get the idea), but some scenes involving some of the more graphic violence, drug use, and colorful language (swearing, cursing, etc) actually effected some of the character development — and some of the edits taking out the swearing take out some of the comedy of the original edit.

For my boy, I bought him the complete set (at the time) of the Star Wars series (less episode 3).  He of course had already watched them in the theater, but loved them so much he could watch the DVDs over and over.  During some family viewing time with him I was subjected to the horror of jar-jar-binks in Episode I, but fortunately was quick enough to so some of my own post production edits by muting that obnoxious character each time he appeared on screen — to my son’s dismay.

For the last couple of holidays my immediate family has agreed that presents are for the children only, following a growing national trend I believe, however, I had some extended family and friends that I also wanted to find a gift for.

The two most challenging families (for me), included my Aunt & Uncle (and their immediate family — LOTS of cousins and nieces and nephews) and my friend who served as best man at my wedding.

The reason is, our immediate interests are so different.  As you have seen, fubarrio, is not one to shy away from talking about, writing or advocating

• Violence, be it graphic or gratuitous,
• Vulgarity – curse words, cussing, colorful language,
• Lewd Behaviour
• Adult Situations
• Sexual Content, or
• General Nastiness.

However, my Aunt, Uncle and their entire family are all Mormons.  They belong to the Church of Latter Day Saints. And, the best man at my wedding — well his whole family is very religious conservative Pentecostal Christians.  When I inevitably absent mindedly curse in front of them, I can see their ears curly up inside their heads.

Well, both of these families have been taught that exposing themselves and their families to R-rated — and even PG-13 rated films is bad for their spiritual energy….in short something to be avoided.

I remember hanging out with my friend and his wife in my boring hometown where there is nothing to do but rent videos on a Friday night.  We’d go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video to rent film and looking at the stacks of DVDs….His wife would invariably recommend a light hearted comedy or family oriented PG film, while I was looking for some Drama, Suspense or Horror films which invariably contained content which was seen as “objectionable”.  She doesn’t even allow her kids to play a lot of what I consider pretty tame video games for the same reason.

So, in short, I was pretty certain that a DVD set of Deadwood wasn’t going to be all that much appreciated.

Family Films

So how about if I just buy these families a Disney DVD compilation or something — all the classics or the Pixar stuff (?)  My biggest concern was that given their interest in family friendly films, and the fact that they wouldn’t buy most of what Hollywood produced for the rest of us, the chances are they already had these movies and had watched them 100 times together.

Then, I had a flash of inspiration.  I’d heard that there were some people, Mormons I believe who had had a church elder explain as far back as the 1970’s that R-rated movies were generally something best to be avoided. (of course, the problem is, there are some really great movies — with great moral or historical lessons — that got branded with R Ratings for violence, nudity, adult situations, etc.)  Some of the really great movies that have a little bit of undesirable content include Glory &  Titanic.

Well, there was great demand from Conservative Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Families with Minors, Dentists (for their young patients), Teachers, Prison Wardens, and Religious Leaders for feature film quality content that had been “cleaned” or otherwise edited for content — like they do for broadcast television or on long flights — but in DVD form so you can watch when the family is ready to watch — Or, be able to deliver it on demand to your classroom, congregation, or passengers, or whatever.

Edited Movies

The demand created a cottage industry around selling and renting edited movies to this market thirsty for clean family-friendly films.  If I had been smart enough to do this several years ago there were still a couple of companies who where renting out edited DVDs with the Netflix model — where subscribers could choose a program to deliver them edited DVDs by mail and no late fees.

Unfortunately, a court case between Hollywood and companies who edited and sold or rented the DVDs had given the studios the power to put all these guys out of business.

There was a separate company that had created a DVD player, ClearPlay, that would take an original CD, as long as someone at ClearPlay had edited it and created a file in their library, and take out the naughty parts.  The problem was, to make this work you had to have a special player, a USB drive, a PC with a connection, and you had to pay a monthly subscription — basically forever.

If I got them ‘hooked’ on this service I’d be basically adding another bill to the monthly nut of these young families, or obligating me to continue paying their monthly — and the monthly nut was outside of my xmas budget for gift giving if I had to cover the whole year.

Edited DVDs

There used to be quite a few sites that sell Edited DVDs — or DVDs with the objectionable content removed, but most of these are out of business when you do google searches or have shifted their business model to selling “family friendly” previously viewed and reviewed and rated films.  Giving them membership with one of the companies like CleanFlicks which does the reviewing and recommendations seemed like a decent idea, but there was that monthly membership fee again.

I finally found a site that would allow me to buy online edited DVDs.  I could buy here and have them shipped to my friends and family.  I managed to catch one of their sales, liquidating some inventory.  I’m not sure if they are in danger of being put out of business as well, but I managed to snag some nice new releases of blockbuster films like the Spider Man Series, 3:10 to Yuma, and GI Joe, Star Trek, and Angels and Demons.

I know DVDs and movies just get consumed, but most of my family seemed to enjoy the gift of entertainment.  As it pertains to these edited movies, hopefully, they can appreciate and enjoy the relaxed family time of having a movie they can watch and enjoy without worrying about a gratuitous sex scene, or some profanity popping up in front of their five year old…”mommy, what does fubar stand for?”

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…out of large “too big to fail” institutions and into small community banks (or your mattress)

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OK, so I admit it.

I’m a ‘hater’.

But.

Those sultans, sheiks and princes with their inherited oil wealth, ostentatious (in the extreme) lifestyles, and absurd overconfidence in areas of business they clearly don’t understand are pretty hard to root for at times.

So, forgive my schadenfreude as the farce that is the ‘brilliance’ or the ‘miracle’ of the middle east is slowly eroding.

I admit, I don’t follow the ‘news’ — like one would expect i would — these days.

But, what i gather is dubai world gave people the impression that they were government backed….then turned out to be not guaranteed by the government (this is key to why this is even remotely funny).

So, below is a video of a puff piece done to talk about dubai’s amazing growth.

if you can watch the video (especially the part where the chairman of some big quasi gov backed projects accuses most of the world of having ‘bad taste’ — and i guess inferring his is superior) without tasting vomit in the back of your mouth, kudos!

The *funny* part is when he is listing his duties and at minute 9 he is describing his various jobs/titles/duties and mentions,

“chairman of ‘la mar’ (or something like that) properties…which is government of dubai….”

at which point he reaches up and scratches the side of his nose.

this is a classic ‘tell’ for someone who is lying or knowingly stretching the truth.

The people who were backing dubai world are just now finding out that winks, nudges, and ‘implicit guarantees’ can all go ‘pound sand’. It’s hard to fault them and the market from presuming otherwise though given all the hanky panky the u.s. has pulled in making implicit guarantees, explicit ones — (converting fannie and freddie debt to us t’s for example)

Ciao,
UG

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British pound in currency trading

The sterling is managing to hold its gains in forex trading on the currency market today.

The forex trading, U.S. dollar, Fujii, stock market, risk trade”
U.K. pound has been wavering due to economic data coming out of Great Britain. However, the pound sterling is managing to maintain it’s price in the usd/gbp pair due to USD weakness.

Indeed, a flagging u.s. dollar against the JPY & Euro zone currencies continues this week.

Comments from Japanese minister Fujii are creating issues, while European jawboning hasn’t helped the dollar.

The strength in the pound and the ‘risk trade’ is continuing as the stock market surges and investors seek alpha.

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U.S. dollar weakens in currency trading

The U.S. dollar is weakening in currency trading on the FX market as economic news comes in from a variety of corners. Of particular interest right now is the fact that China is saying that it will hit its yearly economic growth goal.

So far, China claims, its economy has gown 7% this year. The target of 8% was set earlier this year, and it is no surprise that the Chinese are strictly adhering to the rhetoric that the goal of 8% economic growth will be met by the end of the year.

Also of interest to the U.S. dollar is the fact that Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke has been avoiding monetary policy talk. His speech yesterday in San Francisco did not mention it. However, there are hopes that he will address the subject today.

Bernanke’s take on the economy is becoming increasingly important, as some analysts, notably those at Barrons, claim that the U.S. economy is in a position to handle 2% interest rates, and that it is time to hike. The Fed has indicated dovishness in the past, so it will be interesting to see if Bernanke responds to this challenge.

See Also

• U.S. Dollar in Currency Trading
  The economic calendar and currency trading on the FX market

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•    British Pound Traders Look Ahead to BoE Minutes to Help Revive Currency’s Rally
•    Canadian Dollar Tumbles after BoC Rate Decision as Officials Repeat Concerns over the Currency
•    Australian Dollar Bolstered by Yet another Upgrade on the RBA’s Hawkish Policy Stance

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• US Dollar, Japanese Yen Down as DJIA Hits Fresh 2009 Highs
• Euro Consolidates Below 1.4965
• British Pound Fails to Break Above Trendline Resistance
• Canadian Dollar Gains as Foreign Investment Climbs, Ahead of Bank of Canada’s Rate Decision

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Is it better to fight fundamental or technical trends? What if the fundamental bias is defined by the RBA warning the market of its intentions to hike and clearly defining its tolerance for further rate hikes while the chart is offering up a five-month descending trend channel with heavy reinforcement from resistance?

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