I have a negative bias going into the next week of trading, but it remains to be seen whether or not that will play out as predicted.

The EU’s bailout plan seems like a lot of bluff and talk so far and not a lot of action. They have however opted to carry out their market operations (buying of bonds on the market) in secret. So that has to have a lot of the speculative shorts spooked. You never know when the big bad boogeyman will swoop in with bags of your tax money to bankrupt you by manipulating the market in an ‘irrational’ manner. The initial reaction in the markets was of course a rocket shot in the Euro and the indices that track the eurozone equity complexes — and some tightening of blow out bond spreads, but the luster seems to be wearing off of that polished turd already.

In other news, gold is trading at an all time high in electronic trading after hours after closing at 1220 in the pits. Of course this will probably get it a mention in even the mainstream news sources and it’s rapidly moving back to a page 2 or page 3 story.

I’ve been a big believer in deflation and something that is called the ‘priceless dollar theory’ — or at least a variation of it. That said, I’ve been telling people privately for at least 6 months that I thought the dollar AND gold could perform quite well at the same time given what is going on. That’s obviously played out — but there may actually still be more room to the upside for both. We’ll just have to see just how far the Fed is willing to go to defend the euro (and likewise debase the usd).

Back to Greece for a second: it’s been reported that there will be more riots, er, i mean demonstrations tomorrow. This HAS to be factored into the markets already, right? right? Well, we’ll see.

So, this is not financial advice, cuz I’m not qualified to do that sorta thing. But, I would suggest that all long term investor types (the buy and hold stocks, not traders) calmly get out of the water at this point. We just saw some people get sucked under, and I think I saw a fin circling the wading pool.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

He’s an AUDITOR for a local UNIVERSITY….so first off, his employment solid, and second off he should have KNOWN better that he was taking a risk with buying his house.

One’s left to wonder what kind of self-importance these clowns would have if their prices had doubled. That said, walking away in a non-recourse state when you’re dramatically underwater is in almost every case the right thing to do

Seemed like every week was a ‘green candle’ (up week), and every month was a guaranteed winner for a while there. The investors/traders(?) who for whatever reason were buying each and every dip in the market were being rewarded in spades. It felt like a ‘one way’ market — UP.

That has all changed now.

The market has been straining and creaking lately with the most obvious signs the wild swings in volatility. At one point, today, during the most vicious part of the sell-off, at least a few of the more popular retail trading platforms upped the margin requirements for holding futures positions intra-day.

So what did that mean? It meant that the volatility was too great for the futures broker to feel comfortable letting traders hold ‘normal’ amounts of leverage in their positions.

In fact, the plunge today was recorded as the second largest on record — ever — and it came midday with a total collapse of the bid (anyone who was willing to buy), and after a brief, eye-watering plunge over 100 points down on the s&P and 1000 points down on the dow, snapped back up to just an ‘ordinary’ 3%+ down day.

So, that washed out the weak hands and we’re ready to move higher again, right?

I don’t think so.

As tempting as it might be for those who are bullish the US stock market to think that it’s safe to go back in the water, I would caution that extreme volatility like we’ve seen the last few days is really not the sign of a healthy bull market. It is the sign of what happens at the end of bull markets and at the end of bullish retracements within a larger bear market trend.

It was hard to watch the market action this afternoon and not think that there was a higher power at work providing liquidity to the markets through a favored son (cough cough JP Morgan).

Tinfoil aside, at this point the long held belief that the EU was in deeper doo-doo than even the US is starting to make its way into mainstream consciousness. Despite the attempts to play this decline today off as a glitch at a trading house, or an errant ‘fat fingered’ trade, even a cursory glance at the forex markets would tell you that that is utter b.s.

Huge unwinds were taking place where the Euro was down over 5% against the yen and over 2% against the USD! In one day!

That kind of violence puts anyone with any sort of leverage whatsoever completely out of a trade as even a 20:1 gearing would have your account blown up completely in one trading day (!) And forex is a domain where 50:1 and 100:1 are more the norm.

Anyways, good luck if you are crazy enough to attempt to trade anywhere in and around this kind of violence, and remember, when volatility is infinite, even 1% leverage will get your account zero’ed in a hearbeat.

If the S&P can’t bounce up to the 1150ish area by the close, all eyes will be on 1105.

Ok, that got a lot crazier than even I thought it would today. As you can see from a cursory view of the news or my post above, the S&P sliced though 1150, dissected 1105 and plunged to 1065 in a wink before finally rebounding up to 1127 to close.

The amount of violence and the % moves were enough to rip your head off if you were playing with any leverage, and the moves in the forex market were even more outrageous.

See my post up above for more…

The recent fubars in Greece and the EU’s predictable response is as good a catalyst as any to get back into the swing of things.

Today looks like it might get interesting.

More commentary at the close.

Luckily (for Switzerland) they kept the Swiss Franc (CHF) and won’t be asked to cover the PIIGs and they move towards default or bailout.

Click Here to Open a Swiss Bank Account!

While I was stumbling around I found these guys here who can help people get a Swiss bank account — a traditional port in a storm, so to speak.

Ironically, back in 2008 when everything was going haywire in the world’s financial system and I was working for a company doing offshore banking down in Uruguay, we saw applications for new accounts and interest in moving to a safe haven skyrocket — even in the face of liquidity evaporating everywhere.

Anyhow, if you have any interest in carving out a little safe haven for yourself, regardless of where you live, you should check out the link.

Click Here to Learn the Secrets of Swiss Banking

When we were selling accounts within accounts in South America we used to charge 250 bucks…The price may have gone up though, because frankly, we were one of the cheaper alternatives.

The guys who make a living from selling ‘account opening services’ (really just telling you where to go to open an account) can charge over 1000 USD.

These guys here have put together an ebook for just 47 USD. Insanely cheap.

Click here to move your money to the safety of Swiss Banking — before it’s too late!

The Sovereign Society, for the uninitiated here, has made a business out of promoting the political belief that every person should be their own ’sovereign’ individual. Sovereign society, with their email newsletters — including the A-letter — brought the idea of personal sovereignty to the forefront of many a liberty-loving libertarian’s inbox.

In addition, as part of the Agora publishing group, they began selling conferences, get-togethers in far-flung, usually tropical, offshore locations, books on becoming a perpetual traveler, and expatriation, and services to help the budding sovereign man or woman take the plunge.

Recently, with the economic turmoil in the US, the polarizing political environment, the specter of rising taxes to pay for some of the obscene overspending of the last several decades, and a huge demographic bubble of baby boomers moving through the system like a pig in a python, many recent or near retirees are starting to move their money or themselves offshore.

Of course, one of the cruel jokes the US government plays on all those that are, ‘too clever by half’, is that they’ve already thought through the ramifications that a mass exodus would bring to the US. The results? Well, perhaps the most significant is that the US is one of the only countries in the world — I think the other is Libya, seriously — that taxes non-residents on worldwide income.

What does that mean?

That means, that if you are a US born citizen, no matter where you live, even in the extreme case of someone who leaves the US with no intention of ever returning, you owe the US government taxes and are expected to file a tax return annually. So much for the ‘land of the free’ huh?

What about the Foreign Earned Income Tax Credit?

Ok, truth be told, there is a break on the first 80,000 usd that you earn abroad. However, and this is the cruel part, it has to be earned from labor. You cannot apply capital gains or interest to this exemption. So, you see, the typical retiree, or even trader who did not arrange their affairs in a complicated mishmash of foreign offshore corporations, finds themselves paying taxes for a company whose services they are not receiving.

While it’s difficult for me to shed too many tears for the tax situation of too many baby boomers, this in particular is a raw deal, and it cuts across traditional generational or demographic boundaries.

So What About this 80k Tax Credit?

Truth be told, I believe it is a subsidy for the US (or foreign corporation) and used as a recruiting tool for getting expatriate workers to move themselves and/or their families overseas. In the countries with expatriates that I’ve lived in or visited, very few US expats have the freedom to own their own real estate and start their own businesses due to limitations placed on foreigners. With the advent of the Internet this is changing of course as more entrepreneurs and even employees move offshore, and coincidentally there were some rumblings about revoking this tax credit last year that had the expat community’s feathers ruffled.

Ok, So What Does this Have to Do with the Sovereign Society?

Well, like I was saying, they’ve moved into selling services to expat wanna-be’s. One of the things they began selling was a book called The Billionaire’s Loophole. From what I gather, the ‘loophole’ is basically that you can (and should if the financial situation makes sense) expatriate permanently, seek out a second passport or permanent residency somewhere, renounce your US citizenship, and then once renounced, apply for (and get) a certificate which formally renounces your citizenship, let’s you avoid US taxes, and apply for US Visas for whenever you want to visit the grandchildren.

A lot of people were intimidated by the process of doing this. So, the Sovereign Society went to great lengths to explain how simple, easy, and painless it was — including printing letters from readers and customers who explained in their own words how surprised they were at the ease with which they shed their US taxpayer chains. These were basically testimonials in the guise of long copy, but they were somewhat convincing nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the testimonials, along with the rebound in the stock market perhaps, has had the unwanted side effect of reducing the “urgency” of the matter, and removing the illusion of scarcity. So, what is a marketer to do? Well, of course, the answer is to introduce the element of scarcity.

The Sovereign Society’s newest email explains that the window is closing on those that want to expatriate. How do they know this? Well, they’re pointing out the fact that US State Department has started charging a 450 USD fee for expatriation.

While the US charging for fees for things that used to be free is no ‘revelation’, they further point out some subtle signals that may indicate that the consular offices of U.S. embassies that handle expatriations are increasingly overburdened.

While this too seems thin, there is further ‘evidence’ that suggests that some expats are experiencing delays in getting their “certificate of loss of nationality,” or CLN. The CLN, or course, allows you to get a Visa to enter the US after you’ve expatriated, and also allows you to avoid US taxation while residing outside of the US.

While the Sovereign Society likes to make hay out of these ’straws in the wind’, I’m more inclined to think that these are not really anything more than a demographic eventuality, and a bad economy, making it more affordable for expats of all colors to get out of Dodge.

However, the Sovereign Society and Agora publishing in general, never miss a good opportunity to fan the flames of paranoia among the libertarian sect. And, truth be told, if you ever sit around and have a few beers with the expat crowd, you’ll learn the embers are never really all that far from the surface.

so, why embed this piece of art in my blog?  so next time i want to see some brilliance, i don’t have to go searching on youtube for it of course! enjoy.

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.

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?”