0:00

Hello everybody, welcome back to the

0:02

show. My guest today is Andrew

0:04

Henderson. He's the founder of Nomad

0:06

Capitalist, a global citizenship expert and

0:09

a financial consultant known for helping

0:11

people with offshore strategies. Should

0:13

you stay in the country you were

0:15

born in? Is that the best, happiest

0:17

place for you to be? What if

0:19

there were a different option? Well, that's

0:21

Andrew's entire philosophy, to go where you're

0:24

treated best. Expect to learn the best

0:26

travel hacks to save on taxes, what

0:28

it actually means to have dual citizenship,

0:30

why America ranks so low from a

0:32

tax and financial standpoint, what you should

0:34

do if you don't want to renounce

0:36

your citizenship but do want more international

0:38

flexibility, the best visas to get that

0:40

are easy to acquire, and

0:43

much more. Very cool,

0:45

really cool stuff that someone's made an

0:47

entire career out of treating

0:49

the entire globe as

0:52

one market that you can kind of

0:54

move between. Most of us think that

0:56

that ends the boundaries of our country,

0:58

but Andrew sees the world in a

1:00

bit of a different way. And yeah,

1:02

there's like at least a

1:05

bunch of things that you will take away from this that you've never

1:07

heard of and never even thought of. And

1:09

I think encouraging people to see themselves

1:12

as citizens of the world is a

1:14

good thing to do. I genuinely think that Andrew's making the

1:17

world a better place, so I really hope that you enjoy

1:19

this one. This Monday, don't forget Dr.

1:21

Joe Dispenza is joining me on Modern Wisdom,

1:23

one of the most requested guests, and it

1:25

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4:43

and gentlemen, please welcome Andrew

4:46

Henderson. How

5:05

do you describe what you do for work

5:07

when you meet someone at a cocktail party?

5:12

I like to say that I help people go

5:14

where you're treated best. Those

5:16

are five magic words I learned them from my father

5:19

at a very young age. He gave

5:21

me a permission slip. I did not have to stick around

5:23

where I'm from. I didn't

5:26

have to stick around and take care of my parents because

5:28

they didn't want their kids taking care of them. They wanted

5:30

their kids to go where the

5:32

best opportunities were and he thought back in the

5:34

1990s where I grew up in the United States,

5:37

there would be better opportunities by the time I got

5:39

around to being in business. And

5:42

so what I've discovered is if

5:44

you live in the United States or if you live

5:46

in a country like it, you're probably paying way too

5:48

much in tax. I'm not saying you should pay zero

5:50

but you're paying too much for what you're getting. There's

5:53

probably some things holding you back. I think

5:56

what we're seeing now is there's a lot of opportunities

5:58

in business around the world. increasingly

6:00

there's multipolarity where

6:02

the US is pitted against other places and so

6:05

there's going to be a choice which market you

6:07

want to sell to. So

6:10

we help people at Nomad Capitalists

6:12

reduce taxes, become dual citizens, find

6:14

opportunities around the world that most

6:16

people don't talk about because

6:19

I'm a pretty contrarian guy and

6:22

I think that what we think is the best

6:24

is often not. It's

6:26

strange having read and listened to

6:28

a good bit of your work. From

6:32

first principles it's kind of weird that people presume, well this

6:34

is the place that I was born. So

6:36

this is the place that I'm supposed

6:38

to work and live and die and

6:40

bank and pay taxes and date, all

6:42

of these things. Well

6:46

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio in the US,

6:50

right in the lake and right across the

6:52

lake from Canada. When I look and

6:54

I say what if I've

6:56

been born right across that lake, I mean the

6:59

grand scheme of things, that lake is a pretty

7:01

small thing. And

7:04

if you're Canadian you

7:06

can leave your country and you can leave your

7:08

tax burden behind for one thing. You don't have

7:10

to follow Canadian regulations when you live overseas. You

7:13

have a passport that for years, I mean it's the joke,

7:16

that people respect you a lot more and

7:18

people are more open to giving you a

7:20

bank account in other countries. So life as

7:22

a global citizen is a lot easier. Life

7:25

just as a Canadian traveling is a

7:27

lot easier. People

7:30

aren't picking on you. And

7:32

to say that you're born that close

7:34

to where your identity would have been

7:37

different to me just shows the miracle

7:39

of birth. But

7:41

not only, the movie Midnight in

7:43

Paris talked about were we

7:45

born in the wrong part of Earth's

7:48

history. Would you rather have been born 50 years

7:50

ago? We can't change when

7:53

we were born but we can certainly change where we were

7:55

born. And if we weren't born in a place that we

7:57

want, we can change that.

7:59

I also have And I think as my father said, sure,

8:02

when I was born in 1984, the United States, according to

8:05

the studies that do this, it was the best

8:07

place to be born. But there wasn't

8:10

a lot of competition. I'm talking

8:12

to you from Malaysia. I think it's the

8:14

best value destination in the world for someone

8:16

who can work from anywhere. And

8:19

you would have never even been talking about it in 1984, but

8:22

you can talk about it today. And

8:24

so there's a lot more competition. The world

8:26

changes, the world evolves. And even if

8:28

you were born in the right place, maybe it's not the right

8:30

place today. What

8:32

about cultural displacement? I

8:35

was born in the UK and I live in America

8:37

on an 01 visa. And

8:40

this part of me does feel

8:42

culturally displaced. You know, a lot of the

8:45

way markers that you would, references and things from

8:47

history and things from your past and stuff from

8:49

culture and stuff from all the rest of it,

8:52

that can be a little bit disquieting. What's that

8:54

like as a global citizen? Well,

8:58

obviously different places and different cultures. I think that if

9:00

you look at it in a sense, we're all the

9:02

same. Obviously we all have the same motivations. In

9:05

a sense, we're very different. There are places

9:07

that I think it is difficult to adapt.

9:11

I think that part of my background in the United

9:13

States coming from a very humble background probably caused me

9:16

at times to spend a bit more time in places

9:18

where people were a bit less

9:20

agreeable because you're

9:23

taught where I'm from

9:25

that look inwardly first. But

9:28

let's take Malaysia, for example. I think you have

9:31

probably some of the kindest people in the world.

9:33

It's a quality that I've looked at as being

9:35

extremely important. I look at

9:37

a place that I've spent more time in the last year next to

9:39

where you're from in Ireland. Some of

9:41

the most polite and kind people

9:44

and welcoming people in the world

9:46

that have done an incredible job transforming

9:48

their country in the last 30 or 40 years. I

9:52

say to myself, I mean, those are important markers.

9:54

I think the things that we're used to, sure,

9:57

there's places where I go and I still have an American mindset.

9:59

that and it's frustrating and I was just, you know, just talked

10:01

to my team yesterday but there are people all over the place.

10:04

You know, we're going to run this like a business

10:06

run by a guy who's from the United States and

10:08

yet being out of the United States for

10:10

many, many years, causes

10:13

one to develop an international mindset to where if I

10:15

were to go back to the US today, I think

10:17

I'd feel very culturally displaced from there because

10:20

number one, I'm politically homeless. I

10:23

don't agree with Trump on everything. I

10:26

certainly don't agree with Biden on everything. And

10:29

yet if you don't agree on everything, it seems

10:31

for a lot of people, you're a communist or

10:33

you're a fascist. I

10:36

think that people are at each other's throats where

10:38

I'm from. I think that

10:40

would be the ultimate cultural displacement that someone

10:42

who's kind of developed an international sense of

10:46

thought wouldn't be very

10:48

welcome there today. How many

10:50

passports and bank accounts and stuff do you have?

10:54

I think it's five passports now, always

10:56

looking for a new... I had a

10:58

coach, he said, how about one new passport and

11:00

one new property a year? The properties I decided

11:02

I kind of got P-editors around the

11:05

world, so I just split my time up, have

11:07

employees in different places, kind of

11:09

got tired of staying in hotels. But

11:11

okay, the passports, I think for now, I'm good. Yeah,

11:15

we've opened probably dozens of bank accounts all over

11:17

the world. We have multiple companies around the world.

11:20

We invest in things like stocks all around the world. And

11:22

as I said, I mean, we're really, in my

11:24

business, no medical, I mean, we're expanding the

11:27

higher people around the world. We've largely been

11:29

kind of Europe focused over the years, but

11:32

we're really doing a lot of work now in Latin America,

11:35

hopefully soon in Asia. So I

11:37

mean, for me, they call it planting flags. I

11:40

want to have as many flags as possible, but

11:43

I want them to be correspondent to what the

11:45

opportunity is. I live in Malaysia because

11:47

as someone who can work from... And I live in Malaysia

11:49

most of the winters now. As

11:52

someone who can work from anywhere and who can

11:54

live anywhere, for me, the idea

11:56

of paying $10 million for this apartment.

12:00

and then paying five or six million

12:02

dollars in tax because Singapore can demand

12:04

that just as a one-time purchase for

12:06

a foreigner. I don't have to

12:08

do that. To live in a place that's

12:10

marginally easier to live

12:13

in than Malaysia where this place is

12:15

600 grand and

12:18

everybody marvels at how cheap that is for what you

12:20

get. And

12:22

yet, if I want to bank, I

12:24

trust Malaysian banks, but Singaporean banks to me are

12:26

the gold standard. So I'm looking for all the

12:28

places around the world where I can take advantage

12:31

of what are you the best at. And

12:34

the reality is when we say, go where you're

12:36

treated best, the place where you're from, they're probably

12:38

not the best at anything. The

12:40

US does not have the best banks. They're not the safest

12:43

banks. I mean, they have the most bank failures of any

12:45

country in the world combined. But

12:50

if they are the best at something, you should use it

12:52

for that. I'm

12:54

looking for places that are the best and I'm planting flags

12:56

there. And I think places

12:58

all around the world are the best at something. How

13:01

do you conceptualize the different elements that a

13:03

person has to manage or play with, country

13:06

of residence, bank accounts, tax status, stuff

13:08

like that? Is there a

13:10

series of knobs and levers that we're playing with?

13:14

Yeah, I think so. I mean, what I decided

13:16

to do in our business was to make it

13:18

based on what I've experienced. I mean,

13:20

a lot of people out there will help you get a

13:22

passport in the Caribbean. I

13:25

thought there's a real world challenge of going

13:27

out and doing this. It can be tough.

13:29

I mean, you go to banks, a lot of banks

13:32

don't want to take non-residents these days, for example. But

13:35

yeah, I broke it down. And I'm continuing to add

13:37

things to this day. I mean, you mentioned dating. I

13:39

think that's a great one to add. Where

13:41

should you be dating? I

13:43

just had a guy who worked for me.

13:45

He lived in Ireland. He broke up with his girlfriend

13:47

of seven years. Okay, obviously, there's a bit of the

13:50

rebound phase going on. But

13:52

I took him to a couple of our offices. We had some work

13:54

to do around other parts of kind

13:56

of Eastern Europe. And it was

13:58

a dramatic shock that like, wow, these people. are much

14:00

more interested in me than maybe

14:03

someone back home where I'm just kind of standard

14:05

fair. And I

14:08

think that if you just look at everything

14:10

in life and saying, am I doing this the best? People

14:13

probably ask themselves similar questions just

14:17

without the geographical element. So I decided

14:19

to add this overlay of geography to

14:21

it. Okay. So

14:24

tax is one that's important, how much

14:26

tax you are paying, ability

14:28

to invest, banking accounts, quality

14:31

of life. What else am I missing

14:33

from the big buckets? Where's

14:35

your company based? Which in part is based on

14:37

where you live. I mean, so the mistake is

14:40

if you live in the United States but you're

14:42

putting your company in the British Virgin Islands, you

14:44

can avoid tax. I mean, they figured that one

14:46

out. I mean, you have to move

14:48

as well. But

14:51

if you live in a tax-friendly place like Malaysia,

14:54

you can have your company in a number

14:56

of places that serve you well. Where

14:58

are you hiring people? Where do people have

15:00

the best attitudes? I don't know that we're

15:02

paying people that much less than we'd pay them in the US. They're

15:06

certainly probably keeping more money than they would

15:08

to an equivalent American. But

15:10

we can start off paying them less to begin with

15:12

and then quickly scale them up. Once the risk is

15:14

reduced, we can hire more people, try more things. So

15:18

I think for a business owner, those are important elements.

15:20

Where's your business base? Where are the employees based?

15:22

And they all work together. But then

15:25

again, there's the personal things. Where's your data stored?

15:28

If you're in crypto, I think people should

15:30

perhaps have a ledger and the ledger should

15:32

be stored somewhere that's an asset haven. Where's

15:35

your precious metals stored? I've

15:39

always liked lightweight business models. My entire life, I've

15:41

started my first business at 19, I never wanted

15:43

to have a business where I had to buy

15:45

a ton of assets. I had to have a

15:47

factory. I think it's

15:50

a business because then you could just be profitable immediately

15:52

and then you scale and

15:54

nobody owns you. I think the

15:56

same thing about life. If I want

15:58

to live in Malaysia, do I really want to be... drag

16:00

down to all my stuff is stored in

16:02

Malaysia. If I own certain investments, it's all

16:05

sitting in my living room. I

16:08

want to run a kind of a lightweight lifestyle where

16:10

I'm flexible. I

16:12

think that's the name of the game in this century. What's

16:16

the difference, can you explain to me, between owning

16:19

a passport, being a citizen, being

16:21

a resident, having a visa? What

16:24

do all of these different things mean? Generally

16:28

speaking, citizens are entitled to get a passport.

16:30

There's some things where a stateless person can

16:33

apply for a passport, and then what's the

16:35

nationality? Generally speaking, if you're a citizen,

16:37

you can apply for a passport. Passport's

16:39

a travel document. You want to be a

16:41

citizen. I've been talking,

16:43

there's the latest version of

16:46

an old scam, the Mexican passport scam, where some

16:48

guy puts your name in the system and they

16:50

can print out a passport. You

16:52

don't have any of the formal stuff that shows

16:54

you've actually been naturalized, and eventually, at least

16:57

historically speaking, people start traveling these passports and they

16:59

eventually have a problem, because you're not really a

17:01

citizen. You want to go through the proper channels

17:04

to become a citizen, and therefore to get a

17:06

passport. There's

17:08

a number of ways to get a passport. If

17:11

you have a parent or a grandparent or

17:13

a great-grandparent, in many cases, who comes from

17:15

somewhere, you could potentially go back

17:17

and get that citizenship. You

17:20

can go back to a great-grandparent's generation and knock

17:22

on the door of the embassy and say, Hey,

17:24

I fancy a passport. In

17:27

some, they even took it back even further. Italy,

17:30

for example, as long as Italy existed,

17:32

or Slovakia, they even went back one

17:34

further recently. Yeah. You

17:36

have to get your documents. Obviously, the further back,

17:38

the harder it is to prove, and there are

17:40

some exceptions. Like in the case of Italy, if

17:42

somebody became American before the next one was born,

17:44

there was no dual citizenship. I mean, there's some

17:46

caveats. But yeah, you can go

17:49

back through your family tree and you can track that. You

17:51

can get a citizenship that way. There's some other ways

17:53

to get a citizenship so you can invest in about

17:56

a dozen formal programs and a number of

17:58

informal programs where if you're... starting a

18:00

business and hiring 20 people. There's probably a

18:02

country that would like to give you citizenship in exchange

18:04

for doing that. If you want to

18:06

make a donation to a Caribbean country, they'll give you a passport in a

18:08

matter of months. And then, of course, you

18:10

can just go and live in some country and

18:12

eventually become naturalized two or three years in Argentina,

18:14

up to 30 years in San

18:17

Marino in Europe, or something like

18:19

that. And

18:22

so to be a resident gives you permission

18:24

to live somewhere. A country like Malaysia is

18:26

never really going to give anybody citizenship. Asian

18:29

countries, it's not really their thing. Citizenship

18:32

is kind of an ethnic thing, but

18:34

you can be a resident. And so I can

18:36

have a resident's permit for a certain period of

18:39

time, as long as I keep my nose clean,

18:41

as long as I maintain whatever got me to

18:43

permit, whether I'm married to a citizen, whether I

18:45

invested, whether I did start a company, I'm

18:47

a resident. If you're a resident in

18:50

a European country, if you go

18:52

to the UK, six years, you live their X

18:54

number of days a year, eventually you can apply

18:56

for citizenship. And so

18:59

there's different ways to look at this. Ireland,

19:01

for example, if you live there

19:03

for five years, you can apply for citizenship, arguably

19:05

one of the best passports in the world, not only in

19:07

the European Union, but also has access. You can live and

19:09

work in the UK. Everyone likes

19:12

the Irish. And

19:14

yet you can live in Ireland for those five years as

19:17

a special tax status that locals

19:19

don't have, but that foreigners

19:21

can avail themselves of. So

19:24

you could live in Ireland, speak English, have all

19:26

the services, pay some tax,

19:28

but not the full 52% people are

19:30

paying on their salaries, and then

19:32

get one of the best passports in the world. So

19:35

there's different ways to approach it. Plenty of Americans now

19:37

just want it. They want a

19:39

residence permit in Mexico or Argentina or Malaysia

19:41

is a place to go and be welcomed.

19:43

They want a citizenship just in case something

19:46

happens. They want a

19:48

citizenship because I think in the future, being an

19:50

American will be bad for global business. And

19:53

I've seen that myself. But

19:56

some people want to move. So is this a plan B?

19:58

Is it a bad plan B? back up or

20:01

is it like hey what I did I don't want

20:03

to live here anymore how do I

20:05

move somewhere else how do I navigate the world. Yeah

20:08

how just how badly does the US

20:10

rank on your global

20:12

list of places from a tax

20:14

and financial perspective. If

20:16

we ranked on tax I mean it is

20:19

the one country that just across the board

20:21

taxes citizens no matter where they live. Here's

20:24

the international view I'm a pretty libertarian guy I believe

20:26

in lower taxes I don't know why

20:28

you have to pay so much tax in the US especially because

20:30

you get nothing. Even my father shares

20:33

the same view he likes to travel to Germany now he

20:35

likes to travel to Europe he's like alright you know what

20:38

at least here they're getting something you

20:41

don't get anything in the US and

20:45

even though that said I know

20:49

no one ever signed up to pay high taxes but if you

20:51

live there you know that the only US you

20:53

got to pay the high taxes if you

20:55

don't want to pay them you should be allowed to leave but

20:57

the US is the one country that

21:00

without restriction taxes you no

21:02

matter where you live. Now if you're a

21:04

business owner you can incorporate your business somewhere

21:06

offshore you can pay yourself as an employee

21:08

of that offshore company and legally not have

21:11

social security tax you can exempt a whole

21:13

bunch of money you can defer additional money

21:15

at a pretty low rate I'm

21:17

not saying you're going to move overseas and pay the

21:20

exact same taxes we help Americans pay a lot less

21:23

but you still have to file you still have to

21:25

keep track of all the rules what

21:27

happened when I gave up my US citizenship was I

21:29

was suddenly able to access a lot more of my

21:31

company's capital our company is a cash flow

21:33

company we don't have to reinvest at all for our

21:35

growth I took some money

21:37

out I built the collection of pied-a-terres up so

21:40

now I can travel around and live the lifestyle that

21:42

I talk about always having someone

21:44

comfortable to go I couldn't do

21:46

that I've got an apartment here in

21:48

Kuala Lumpur it's owned by a company

21:51

nobody in the jurisdiction of the

21:53

company understands it nobody in Malaysia understands

21:55

it it was done for one reason

21:57

it's the legal way for me to

22:00

require real estate as a US citizen without

22:02

paying a huge amount of tax. And

22:05

so there's all these restrictions that Americans have. Again,

22:08

if you stay in the US, pay

22:10

your taxes. If you want to vote,

22:12

if you think Trump's going to lower your income tax rate 2%,

22:14

good luck. But

22:17

if you leave, you should be allowed to leave. And

22:20

I think that Australia's kept towing in the way that

22:22

the US is going. Canada, there's been

22:24

people talking about it. There's

22:26

this notion now that citizenship is not as much

22:29

a privilege as it is

22:31

a responsibility. It's an obligation. Even

22:33

if you don't drive on the roads, even if you don't send

22:36

your kids to the schools, why aren't you

22:38

paying? Because you're American, you should pay for the privilege.

22:40

But what is it? I didn't choose to be born

22:42

here. And again, I was born 50 miles from Canada.

22:45

And so for me, that's what's pretty unfair. And

22:47

so in that regard, it must rank like the

22:49

lowest of all. I mean, my friend is

22:51

from Norway. And if he just

22:53

leaves the country and moves to Dubai in

22:56

the first three years, he has to

22:58

pay a certain amount of tax. But

23:00

after that three years, he's done. And if he

23:02

moves to any number of nice countries that they

23:04

like, he's done. So that's like a very, very

23:06

small version of what the US does. But the

23:08

US, for as long as you are a US

23:10

citizen, you have to pay. And

23:13

you know what? If I liked the US so

23:15

much, I'd be willing to pay that low rate of tax.

23:17

But for me, the issue is, I think

23:19

it's offensive that there's this

23:22

idea that since the Civil War, just having

23:24

that citizenship means you should have to pay.

23:27

If I live there, I'll gladly pay. That's the deal.

23:30

I was fully compliant when I lived there. I

23:32

didn't agree with the rates, but you follow

23:34

the law. I think people

23:36

should have the chance to leave. I think anything else

23:38

is kind of like it's abuse. Wasn't

23:42

there one other country with

23:44

that global tax thing? I

23:47

was funny because I had an employee of mine

23:50

that said, oh, I have an Eritrean taxi driver

23:52

at this Eastern African country next to Ethiopia. I

23:54

guess it broke away from Ethiopia in the 90s,

23:56

I think. And they imposed a

23:58

diaspora tax. I think it was 2%. percent

24:01

on anybody who's living overseas. And I think that they're like, oh, if

24:03

you want to renew your passport, show us, you pay the tax. It

24:06

really wasn't enforced because as you can imagine, like

24:08

the United States has a lot more global power

24:11

to influence banks and set up IRS offices and

24:13

everything else than Eritrea does. You

24:15

know, war torn kind of the North Korea

24:18

of Africa. And

24:20

she's like, yeah, the guy says he doesn't pay the DSPR

24:22

tax. So yeah,

24:24

they do it. Again, there's other

24:26

countries that in limited circumstances do it. It's

24:29

kind of tip towing in. I think you'll see

24:31

more countries doing a de facto version

24:34

of it, as in it's

24:36

already kind of the fact that if you're leaving

24:38

a country like Australia or like Canada, maybe, and

24:42

you just kind of live a totally digital nomad

24:44

lifestyle with no base, did

24:47

you really leave? Maybe you should still pay us.

24:50

So it's getting worse,

24:52

which is why I think having second passports

24:54

is important. I'm not opposed to

24:57

paying. Listen, I will spend some time in

24:59

Ireland and I will pay something.

25:02

But I don't think, I mean, for 50% of

25:04

your income, you know, it's

25:07

easy to make 40 grand and to say, hey, I'm

25:09

happy to pay my four grand. No

25:11

one's arguing about that. When you

25:13

run a business that makes a lot of

25:15

money and the government almost gets in your

25:17

way more than they're

25:21

helping you and you realize, well, wait a

25:23

second, over there, they're doing it with 5% tax. Why

25:26

do you need 50? And oh, by the

25:28

way, have you been to Dubai recently? The roads are a

25:30

heck of a lot better than they are in Cleveland, where

25:32

I'm from. Where's this

25:34

money going? So I

25:38

think there's a certain class of countries where they're

25:41

clamping down because they don't like the competition that

25:43

I'm talking about. They don't realize I can come

25:45

to Malaysia with a territorial tax system. My company

25:47

can be based somewhere else. Maybe

25:49

I'll pay a little bit of tax on my own personal salary,

25:51

but my company will be entirely tax-free and I can take a

25:54

dividend. And I can pay a couple

25:56

of percentage points of tax at the most. And

25:59

I can't. I support the country, I

26:01

buy a lot of stuff, maybe I employ some people,

26:04

and they're happy with that. Australia

26:07

and the US and Canada don't like that. Malaysia

26:10

does like that. What

26:14

is the process of saying, I don't want

26:16

to be an American anymore? What is that?

26:20

You go to a US embassy overseas. Obviously, all the

26:22

embassies are overseas. Hang on, hang on. So you have

26:24

to leave. You can't tell

26:26

America in America that you don't want to be

26:28

American anymore. No, because generally

26:30

speaking, there's two appointments. You go in the first

26:32

appointment, they explain it to you. Are you sure

26:34

you want to do it? Okay. And then generally,

26:36

it's a comeback. It could be the

26:39

same day. It could be a week from now, it

26:41

could be six months from now in some countries. Depends

26:43

on which embassy you're dealing with. But

26:45

after that second appointment, you

26:47

leave your passport and you walk out. And

26:50

you're still in this transitional status. The State

26:52

Department hasn't approved it yet, which

26:54

is generally just a de facto process.

26:58

But I mean, you're in a sense not an American

27:00

anymore. So I mean, you can't walk

27:02

out back on the US soil. Like what

27:05

they're going to deport you to wear. Oh,

27:07

of course. Wow. Yeah, I didn't even think

27:09

of that. How funny. So

27:11

I mean, if you didn't plan

27:13

this correctly, you could have no passport. They

27:18

generally like they'll ask me and I was like,

27:21

the most professional experience I've ever had with

27:23

the US government was my

27:26

expatriation. Like I would even

27:28

say kind with

27:30

the people. Now that everyone has that experience. But

27:33

I did. And they're like, hey, we want to make sure you

27:36

want to show us you have another passport just to

27:38

make sure we don't want you to be stateless. There

27:40

is there are a couple of people who've chosen to

27:42

be stateless and then they have to go and like

27:44

get some stateless travel document. It's really confusing. No

27:46

one's ever going to understand. Don't don't

27:48

travel if you want to do that. You're going to have a

27:50

tough life. But yeah, I mean,

27:52

theoretically, I guess if the embassy doesn't force

27:55

you to. Not every embassy

27:57

is going to force you to prove that you have a good life.

28:00

I have another passport. I

28:02

remember there's a story of a guy back when dual

28:04

citizenship was far less common. I met this guy who

28:06

lives in Vanuatu. He renounced in the

28:08

70s because he wanted to become a

28:10

Vanuatu citizen to be an equal footing for business. You

28:12

could not be dual, so he had to get up

28:14

to the US. There's no US embassy

28:16

in Vanuatu, so he flew to Australia. They

28:19

took his passport. He's like, well, how do I leave

28:21

Australia now? They're like, well, that's not our problem. There

28:24

was this whole discussion of like, well, you

28:26

can just hang out for 90 days and we'll deport

28:28

you and we'll figure out where

28:30

to deport you to. He's like, the

28:32

fact of Vanuatu. Eventually

28:35

he got like an emergency passport or something and

28:37

he got sent back. Wow. Yeah,

28:40

I mean, there's a little bit

28:42

of planning required. Yeah, Jesus. What

28:44

about exit tax? When

28:47

you left, what is that? Is

28:49

there such a thing? So

28:52

yeah, the US has an exit tax. By the way,

28:54

a lot of countries, I mean, this is one thing

28:56

people pick on the US. I

28:58

get why they do it because

29:01

the idea is if you made a whole bunch

29:03

of money here, you don't just get to wipe

29:06

the slate clean and pretend that money wasn't made

29:08

while you were a US citizen. Much

29:11

of my wealth now was made when I was

29:13

living overseas. We can't argue with those roads and

29:15

bridges that are doing it for me, but they

29:18

would say, well, you are still a US citizen. You still had

29:21

our support. If you have $2

29:23

million or more, if you earned,

29:25

what's the inflation adjusted number for this year? I

29:28

don't know, probably if you paid like $800 and some

29:30

thousand dollars in income tax federally over

29:32

the last five years, if that's what your income tax

29:34

bill was for the last five years, or

29:37

if your taxes aren't in compliance, which

29:39

you can bring them into compliance before

29:41

you expatriate. So if any of

29:43

those things are applicable, then you've got

29:45

to pay an exit tax where basically they sell your

29:47

assets on paper. So we've had clients

29:49

who come to us where the first time they come

29:52

to us, they have $10 million. Their business

29:54

is worth $10 million. And

29:56

so if they leave, they started it for zero at the

29:58

$10 million gain, whatever that is. that's the

30:00

tax minus a small exemption. They're

30:03

like, well, I can't afford that. Then they come back

30:05

two years later. Now it's worth 50 million. They can't

30:07

afford to renounce. I

30:10

have a friend

30:12

in Canada who has a number of

30:14

businesses that have grown an awful lot,

30:17

and he literally isn't able to

30:19

pay the money to leave. Like

30:22

a financial prisoner of his own

30:24

financial success. Canada

30:28

and other countries have an exit tax

30:30

when you become a non-resident because their

30:32

tax system is residential. If you

30:34

live in Canada, you pay tax

30:36

on anything that you earn anywhere in the

30:39

world. So I invest in Cambodia. If I

30:41

get a dividend from Cambodia and I'm a

30:43

resident of Canada, Canada will tax

30:45

that dividend minus whatever I paid in Cambodia,

30:47

whatever. So people think, oh, that's

30:49

a citizenship-based tax. No, because you can just simply

30:51

leave. You don't have to go to the embassy

30:53

and give up your passport. You just have to

30:56

demonstrate that you've cut your ties and you've departed

30:58

Canada. You can return to visit

31:00

within limited parameters, but you're

31:02

not giving up your citizenship to leave Canada.

31:04

So he has the same exit tax, just

31:06

not the same requirement to give up his

31:08

passport. Yeah, it makes it more difficult.

31:11

Last year was the first year

31:14

that I was fully exclusively filed

31:16

in the US. And it wasn't

31:18

like the UK was coming knocking on the door. I

31:21

mean, I'm glad that I didn't have to go

31:23

through the forms. That's the reason that you have

31:25

an accountant to understand this stuff. It's relatively simple.

31:27

It's like, hey, I didn't spend

31:29

90 days in the United Kingdom. Therefore,

31:33

I don't got to pay

31:36

the United Kingdom any cash, but that's not the same as

31:38

it is in America. In

31:40

the UK, there's different tests, depending on what connections

31:43

you have. It could be under 46, it could

31:45

be under 91. But yeah, the days test can

31:47

be difficult because I think people think like in

31:49

Australia and Canada, if I spend under 183. No,

31:52

no, no, that's just one of the tests is

31:54

how long you spend there. But what are your connections?

31:56

What do you have? But yeah, they let you go.

31:58

The UK is not one of the worst. worst

32:00

ones. And

32:03

so it is

32:05

aggressive. Is anyone else more

32:08

aggressive than America?

32:11

I mean, California is probably the most aggressive of

32:13

all. So if you're living in the US and

32:15

you live in California, you just mean that's unbelievable.

32:18

I mean, listen,

32:21

you know, what frustrates me, people say

32:23

there's nowhere to go. Because they live

32:25

in a bubble. They watch their local TV

32:27

news, let's be honest, by the way, is

32:30

the propaganda in the US really that much

32:32

different than the propaganda anywhere else? It's,

32:35

you know, they're telling you

32:37

what the narrative they want

32:39

you to hear. You know, it's

32:43

people live in the bubble and they say, Well, where am

32:45

I going to go? Because their thoughts of where they're going

32:47

to go is Canada or Italy or something like that. By

32:49

the way, Italy has a tax incentive. Now, I mean, at

32:51

least they realize, hey, we got to bring some money into

32:53

this joint. I mean, if you can pay a flat 100,000

32:55

euros a year, and you can make as much money as

32:58

you want. They also have a 50 to 70% reduction

33:00

for the first five years on taxes. So at

33:02

least they've done something to bring people in. But

33:04

you know, what bothers me is there's nowhere to

33:06

go, even in a country

33:09

like Ireland, pretty laid

33:11

back like the immigration office, really

33:13

laid back the tax office laid

33:18

back compared to the US, you come here to Malaysia, you

33:20

come to a lot of places, it is not what it

33:22

is in the US. And I'm not

33:24

saying you shouldn't, you know, pay.

33:27

I'm a big fan of following the law,

33:29

just going to where you agree with the

33:31

laws. You know, why try and fight and

33:33

change the laws and fight against all your

33:36

fellow citizens, what you wish existed already exists

33:38

somewhere, just go there and just you'll fit

33:40

in. But the idea

33:43

that there's nowhere to go is nonsense. This

33:46

the enforcement system, just

33:48

the divisiveness, but

33:50

just the adversarial relationship with

33:53

the government. Again, speaking as

33:55

a libertarian, not a huge fan of a

33:57

lot of government. It's much

33:59

more than that. It's adversarial in some of these

34:01

countries. With. As the police immigration

34:03

tax. These.

34:05

Handful of western countries. it is

34:08

almost. Unique. How adversarial

34:10

they are. What

34:12

should people do if they don't renounce their American

34:14

citizenship? Or they do want to try and dial

34:17

their tax back. Well

34:19

I mean it's again, if you're British, if you're Canadian,

34:21

if you're from anywhere else uses find on their place

34:23

to live. If. You are

34:25

American. Idol Renounce Immediately I

34:28

I I member my father

34:30

read com. Have. A tax

34:32

system or to me, who to mom and read articles

34:34

in the Wall Street Journal when I was a teenager

34:36

and I said, wait a second if you don't live

34:38

here, ya to pay that's ridiculous is like what says

34:40

here you can renounce your citizenship. I'm like maybe I'll

34:42

do it thirteen and like maybe I'll do that because

34:44

that seems ridiculous. Did. They trap you

34:46

like that. But. Nevertheless, I did

34:49

move overseas and Amelie renounce. I.

34:51

Took advantage of dramatically lower the taxes.

34:53

so if you're an investor, Your.

34:55

The disadvantages: So right now in a Bitcoins

34:57

up and I was telling everybody, move out

35:00

of your high tax country with when bitcoin

35:02

was sixteen thousand. Now is it forty Five

35:04

thousand? Ah, because you have saved that whole

35:07

twenty nine thousand dollar delta in capital gains

35:09

tax. As. As an

35:11

American, investment is passive. Porto.

35:13

Rico is an option. That's. Pretty much

35:15

your option if you want a lower your

35:17

taxes on passive investments. but if you run

35:19

a business. And. A business defined

35:22

as. Not. A one man or

35:24

one woman show. But a business with some employees

35:26

in a can function without you. You can incorporate

35:28

that business in some tax haven. They give you

35:30

an American. It probably should be a zero tax

35:32

jurisdictions. Just to the two systems, don't fight too

35:35

much. What would that be like will be an

35:37

example. Ah

35:39

I'm whether you a that really anymore. that was one

35:41

people think about his Dubai and Everly come and I

35:43

had a one of our wealthiest clients of all time.

35:45

Mrs. May's it a night. I love

35:47

the way but this new nine percents

35:49

not a fan. Ah, Hong Kong

35:52

stores a decent system. I mean depending on

35:54

the business in of British Virgin Islands is

35:56

also multiple structures. I mean. You're.

35:58

probably not going to be running ribbon payment processing and

36:01

it is so maybe there could be a US element

36:03

to your business to do things like credit cards but

36:05

maybe the parent company is going to move somewhere else

36:07

and so it depends like it's a parent company. Many

36:10

different things but traditional tax havens, British

36:12

Virgin Islands, Isle of Man probably

36:14

more difficult than it should be, Hong Kong now,

36:18

Panama is not as robust but that's an

36:20

option, Belize not so

36:22

robust. Depends,

36:24

here in Malaysia, Labuan is 3% but set

36:27

up a company and

36:30

probably a zero tax jurisdiction. Figure out some kind

36:32

of structure depending on what your business needs, depending

36:34

on how people pay you. Take

36:36

a salary from that company if you're married and

36:38

you both work in the business, both take a

36:40

salary. Obviously, I'm not giving this, it's not formal

36:42

tax advice but

36:45

if you're married, potentially you can take out close to

36:47

about 250 grand. You

36:49

can avoid Social Security and Medicare tax and

36:52

then on the rest of it, you're going to pay some

36:54

lower rate of tax. Then the question is

36:56

if you can

36:58

use things like tax treaties or tax credits

37:01

to pay that low rate of tax to

37:03

some other country and then take it again as a credit

37:05

against the US, rather than moving to

37:07

a zero tax country, do you move to a country where you can

37:09

pay 5% tax in Europe, for

37:11

example? Then you use that as

37:13

an offset against the US because you were going to

37:15

pay the US anyway, you might as well put some

37:17

tax into Europe and then live in Europe if you

37:19

want to and then work towards your passport in five

37:21

years. These are the kinds of things that go into

37:23

it. If you're going to be an

37:25

American these days, you're going to have to pay something if

37:27

you make more than six figures. Again,

37:31

you know what? If you like the country

37:33

and you want the option to go back and you're

37:35

like, hey, for 10 years, let me pocket a boatload

37:37

of cash, fine,

37:40

keep the US, pay the US. I'm not

37:42

opposed to paying some tax. I'm

37:44

just a guy who didn't want to

37:46

live in the US, didn't want to be American.

37:49

Why would you not want to be something

37:52

and pay for the privilege? If you like

37:54

being it, pay 10%. Pay 8%. That's

37:56

not so bad. It's a lot better than what you're paying

37:58

now. Keep the American. passport, you're not going

38:00

to get as good a deal as you would as a

38:02

UK citizen, just being able

38:05

to pay zero, but such is life. The

38:08

challenge though is, again, that passive income comes, are you

38:10

going to sell the business for $50 million in the

38:12

future? Because that's where they're going to nail you. And

38:15

so that's the issue where you might want to look at,

38:17

if you're only concerned about tax planning, expatriation.

38:20

Because if you can argue that your business

38:22

is only worth $1 million today, and you

38:25

only have $1 million in other assets, maybe you're

38:27

under that $2 million threshold and you can leave

38:29

with no exit tax at all. And

38:32

then once the

38:34

business grows, again,

38:36

tax was not really my motivator for leaving. It

38:39

was the frustration of, I don't like the way

38:41

the country's being run and I don't really feel

38:43

like I want to be part of it anyway,

38:45

so why not just expatriate? But I

38:47

will say from a financial point of view, the time when that

38:49

happened was very fortuitous. My business is worth a lot more money

38:52

now. If I wanted to sell it, I'm

38:54

going to save a lot of millions of dollars because

38:56

I left when it was worth

38:58

not really a lot. What's

39:00

the reality of this Puerto Rico hack? Well,

39:05

I mean, you've actually got to live there. I

39:09

think it's probably a correct term. How

39:11

many days per year? There's different criteria, but I'm going to just

39:13

call it half a year. Maybe

39:15

let's call it a little bit more than half a

39:17

year. I'm a more conservative guy. I mean, and I've

39:19

seen some of these things people pitch like what was

39:21

one of the ones last year, the Malta pension plan.

39:24

That one got unraveled. They have all

39:26

these different schemes that various advisors promote like, oh,

39:28

it's so easy. You could just, you know,

39:30

I'm not a fan of the, oh, it's so easy because eventually

39:32

that stuff comes crashing down. Let's say it's a

39:34

little bit more than half the time in Puerto Rico to satisfy all the

39:36

things. I do think it attracts the kind

39:39

of person who's like, can I

39:41

just get on a raft and float back to Miami?

39:44

No, don't do that. No, don't

39:46

do that. It's

39:49

a place that is not that efficient. What's

39:52

the quality of life like? I've never been. I've

39:55

been there only once. I

39:59

think people say. tolerate it. And

40:03

by the way, by the way,

40:05

people say, oh, you

40:07

know, it's like people move from California to

40:09

Florida in droves now. And

40:12

they don't think anything of that. People move

40:14

from New York to Texas in droves, I

40:17

would argue, you'd save a lot more in taxes,

40:19

and maybe you'd have a closer cultural connection. Okay,

40:21

a lot of people from New York are in

40:24

Texas now. But you might have

40:26

a closer cultural connection to someone in Ireland. If

40:29

you're from Boston, if you're from New York, then

40:31

moving to Dallas. But

40:34

for some reason, moving to Ireland or moving

40:36

to Panama is scary. Moving

40:38

to Texas or in Puerto Rico is not scary,

40:40

because it's in the US. I don't think a

40:42

lot of the local Puerto Ricans necessarily

40:45

like this, the system that

40:47

they have going on there. I think you have some

40:49

of the same issues as if you move to a

40:51

foreign country, it's not that efficient. People tolerate

40:53

it. I mean, if you want to do something at the

40:56

bank, just prepare to spend all day. And

40:58

so I get it. I mean, if you want to be

41:00

an American, or if you just can't,

41:02

if you already have tons of money,

41:05

but you plan on having tons more, I get

41:07

there's certain people who want to go there. For

41:09

me, the issue was,

41:11

I was single at the time when

41:13

I expatriated. I didn't think

41:15

I would date an American. And so

41:18

do you know how many people I've had where

41:20

their best tax move is to move to Puerto

41:22

Rico, but they've got a Mexican girlfriend? Well,

41:25

is she going to get a green card? How are you going to

41:27

hang out with your Mexican girlfriend? So I mean,

41:29

that's where the dating

41:33

piece comes in. Like, dude, I'll take

41:35

the Colombians, I'll take the Russians, like

41:37

the... Not

41:39

anymore. But that for

41:41

me was the problem on Puerto Rico is

41:43

you're kind of limited to who you can

41:47

be with. What do

41:49

you mean when you talk about the

41:51

global citizen sandwich and the trifecta strategy?

41:55

So the trifecta strategy is... I'm... As

42:00

I get older, I'm more focused on

42:02

being in one or two places and

42:05

then just kind of briefly visiting the

42:07

others for business or checking

42:09

out opportunities. But

42:11

for a long time, I said, I can't

42:13

decide. I just love it all.

42:15

I'm a legitimately very curious person. I'm

42:18

fascinated by absolutely everything. And

42:20

I would say, I'd go to Mexico. I can have

42:22

some Mexico. I have said Latin American in my life.

42:25

And then I'd come to Asia. Oh, I love Asia.

42:27

This is great. And then I'd go to Europe. Okay.

42:29

I need some of this. Okay. The trifecta is you

42:31

pick three home bases. You

42:33

get either a residence permit or

42:35

a citizenship. Theoretically, maybe you could live, there's

42:37

a two risks in some countries and

42:39

you basically have three home bases and you split

42:42

your time between them. Now you can modify it.

42:44

But the pure trifecta, as I called it, was

42:46

four months in one, four months in another and

42:48

four months in a third. So it might be

42:51

from December through March, I'm going to be in

42:53

Kuala Lumpur where it's warm. Then April,

42:55

May, June, July, I'm going to go

42:57

somewhere in Europe. And then the

43:00

rest of the year, I'm going to be in

43:02

Latin America. And I want to experience everything the

43:04

world has to offer. There's different business lessons you

43:06

learn from being in different places. There's different cultures.

43:08

I mean,

43:10

Asian culture is substantially different in some ways

43:12

to what you might be used to in

43:14

the UK and in the US. And so

43:16

some people, 12 months a

43:18

year, they're going to burn out. A lot of people

43:20

come to Asia. They do the two-year thing. That's

43:22

why they call them expats. It's not

43:25

permanent. They're not immigrants, right? They don't

43:27

plan on staying. I think

43:29

if you spent four months a year in Asia

43:31

in the best months, you would love coming back.

43:34

And so that was the trifecta. And it

43:36

just so happens that in the kind of countries

43:38

that I tend to like, that can be very tax

43:41

friendly. And in some cases, it's just like, hey, you

43:43

didn't spend six months in Colombia, so you don't

43:45

owe us any tax. The

43:48

goal was not tax avoidance.

43:50

That was the side effect. And so I'm

43:53

in the tax business, right? People don't

43:55

come to me to talk about how they don't like

43:57

their mother or they want to dance. So I'm going

44:00

to talk about they come because they have a problem

44:02

paying too much tax and so I prescribe it as

44:04

I like it for the lifestyle, you might like it

44:06

for the tax. The global

44:08

citizen sandwich is exactly

44:11

why I'm in Malaysia. Malaysia is

44:14

Kuala Lumpur. I'm not

44:16

saying it's the absolute best place, it is the

44:18

best value place in the world to live. Nicest

44:21

people, it's humid but

44:23

otherwise good weather, tons of consumer conveniences.

44:25

I went to a five-star hotel where

44:27

we have our Nomad countless live event

44:31

last year. They have a beautiful gentleman's

44:33

club like a cigar lounge. Got

44:36

four cocktails at happy hour, served by a

44:38

guy in a white dinner jacket who knows

44:40

everybody who's successful in the country and

44:43

four cocktails cost me 23 bucks. The

44:47

most beautiful ambiance, you wear a smoking jacket,

44:49

they come and they can get a haircut.

44:51

I mean, there's nowhere better. You

44:54

obviously wouldn't pay that in Singapore. But

44:57

I do trust Singapore more than if I

44:59

have precious metals to store or I want to

45:01

put $10 million in a bank, I'd rather do

45:03

it there. I do think Malaysian banks are pretty

45:05

darn safe, but I'm not putting my $10

45:07

million. They just don't have as many options. They don't

45:10

have as many investment options, as many currencies, it's harder

45:12

to get the money out. So

45:14

I'm going to Singapore next door. That's the

45:16

top layer of the bread. That's like the

45:18

creme de la creme. The meaty part, the

45:20

meat in the middle is where

45:22

you live, Malaysia. And then the other

45:24

layer of bread is, okay, I own

45:27

a home in Malaysia, the trade off is, it's

45:29

not really increasing in value. That's a good amount

45:31

of supply. It'll take 10 or 15

45:33

years for me to see much appreciation. My investment

45:36

is a lifestyle investment.

45:39

And so, you know, I'm one of the largest

45:41

investors in a fund that a friend of mine

45:44

runs in Cambodia. I think Cambodian real estate has

45:46

some of the highest promise for capital appreciation in

45:48

the next five to 10 years of any market

45:50

in Southeast Asia, and it's accessible. And

45:52

so I wouldn't live in Cambodia, I

45:54

wouldn't bank, you know, $10 million in

45:56

Cambodia. I don't think I need to

45:59

live in Singapore. So the nice meaty part

46:01

in the middle is where you spend your actual

46:03

life living and then the layers on top are

46:06

the extremes of the asset protection and

46:08

then the more adventurous kind of capital

46:10

appreciation. Can't you

46:12

buy you

46:14

can buy land in Cambodia

46:17

as a non citizen on

46:19

resident that right. No

46:21

there's like four countries in Asia tile

46:24

in with was promising to

46:26

open it up and scrap it. I'm

46:28

for high investors Malaysia

46:30

Japan parts of Korea

46:33

forget the other one. Malaysia is actually

46:35

the most open in south east Asia you can own land so

46:37

you can actually buy land you can build a house i have

46:40

a friend is doing that. I can

46:42

body you cannot be you can own condo

46:44

buildings now. I know there's

46:46

a program you know if you were if you

46:48

donate money to a charity endorsed by the king

46:51

the king will give you citizenship. Then

46:54

you can go out of the newly minted Cambodian citizen by

46:56

what you want but you can

46:58

also be Cambodian company. Can

47:00

you can do that so you know my friend

47:02

that was he's at the Cambodian company hold everybody

47:05

together is that really cost efficient to do it

47:07

to buy one apartment. I'm

47:09

but generally in Asia you're not

47:11

gonna get citizenship and outside of

47:13

Malaysia you're gonna buy a condominium

47:15

condominium that's how it works

47:18

but they're very tax friendly places

47:20

they're very laid back very laissez-faire.

47:22

People come to call them for the go

47:24

to Muslim country and

47:27

everyone who comes here. Most

47:29

progressive people I know they say everyone told

47:32

me we don't care. Especially

47:34

if you're not if you're not malay Muslim and if

47:36

you're malay Muslim okay they're gonna they're gonna judge a little bit. Even

47:40

if you're Malaysian but you're not Muslim weather

47:42

shorter shorts you can wear

47:44

the tiniest tops you can do what you can drink

47:46

to do whatever you want we don't judge you that

47:49

like that between you and your god. We

47:51

don't judge you so it's very laid

47:53

back place. I

47:56

am a big fan talking about Muslim

47:58

countries that are both. Muslim and not

48:01

Dubai being British, that

48:03

is probably

48:05

the most common after somewhere like

48:08

a season in Ibiza for the summer

48:10

or Magaluf or Zanti or somewhere like

48:12

that. A lot of people going

48:14

to Dubai. A lot of my close friends going

48:16

and living out there, there was a period, some

48:19

of my friends have been going out for literally 10 years.

48:21

There was a period a while ago where you

48:23

had to know an Emirati

48:26

or something, and if you knew someone who

48:28

was Emirati, you could kind of get this

48:30

extra blessing and then there was this other

48:32

period for a brief while, maybe

48:35

five years ago, up until four or five years

48:37

ago where you had to go and do like

48:39

a visa run once every quarter

48:42

or something, and now it's

48:44

a little bit easier and it continues to

48:46

be doing that. But what's the, give me

48:49

the thoughts on Dubai, because from a British

48:51

perspective, it's nomad capitalist

48:53

encapsulated in a single country. Again,

48:57

I'm a bit of a contrarian, right? I mean, and I

48:59

think I almost like Kuala Lumpur. I think it is the

49:02

best value, but I almost like it in a sense because

49:04

it's not Bangkok. A

49:06

lot of people go to Bangkok. I just kind of like to do my own

49:08

thing. So

49:13

we had our company in Dubai for a while

49:15

and we decided to move out. The

49:18

banking, I think, is quite difficult. The

49:21

quality of private banking is not ready.

49:25

It's just not. I just had that

49:27

experience as recently as two months ago. I've

49:30

got to go and figure

49:33

out what's happening with some money

49:35

that I sent them because the quality of service in

49:37

the banking system, I'm not impressed. If

49:39

you want to run a business, I think it's

49:41

really designed for

49:44

people who want to live there. So

49:47

our finance team is in Tbilisi, Georgia. Every

49:51

time we wanted to do something, they're like, well, just

49:54

come into the branch. It's like the US.

49:56

They're like, well, people live outside of the

49:58

US? What are you talking about? Like people that

50:01

are going to buy like we can't imagine that

50:03

like because people who live there who work in

50:05

banks and stuff their dream was to live

50:07

in Dubai. How can

50:09

you not live in Dubai it's impossible it's

50:12

not really set up for remote operation so.

50:16

I mean now they're bringing this nine percent

50:18

tax and they're applying it more aggressively to

50:20

even the free zone companies than you would.

50:22

Can you explain the nine percent tax I

50:24

haven't heard of this. So

50:26

there's this global minimum tax they brought in

50:29

on big companies so if you have hundreds

50:31

of millions of dollars in revenue. The

50:33

world got together and said we can't have

50:35

you moving all your profits to you know

50:37

bermuda let's apply some global tax that applies

50:39

across the board not to businesses like yours

50:42

and mine or maybe you're making hundreds of

50:44

millions but not mine. And

50:48

so they basically said okay everybody's going to raise their

50:50

rates so a country like Ireland for example said okay

50:52

we're twelve and a half if you

50:54

meet the threshold will bump it up to fifteen. What

50:57

also happened was some of these countries that wanted to

50:59

kind of get along were like okay

51:01

well we'll increase our tax rates just on everybody. And

51:04

the ua he did that they said okay it's gonna

51:06

be nine percent if you run an onshore business. What

51:09

if you're in the free zone which is where a lot of

51:12

people would set up in those different free zones in Dubai and

51:14

all over the country as long as you're not

51:16

working with other you a you know. Entities okay

51:18

and it's like you know you're not

51:20

gonna pay it's still gonna be zero I said okay

51:22

that's kind of like Hong Kong if you're based in

51:24

Hong Kong you pay tax if you're offshore there's no

51:26

way you can exempt yourself and not pay any tax.

51:29

Okay fine fair enough well

51:31

then they started creeping in more and more and more into

51:34

the free zones to where now it's like. Most

51:36

people running a business are

51:38

gonna pay nine percent even like we looked

51:41

into can we just keep our trademarks there

51:43

now you have to transfer pricing you gotta move money

51:45

into the ua e. From your other

51:48

companies to pay for the value of the trademarks that you're

51:50

using and then we're gonna tax that at nine percent. So

51:52

the ua basically rolled out a nine percent

51:55

tax on domestic companies and then it's gonna

51:57

be creeping into the Companies that

51:59

don't have any. Connection to Divide it is said

52:01

eight zero percent tax when. Nice place to go.

52:03

I can get a bank account, I can get

52:05

a residence permits. I give you a incredible credit.

52:08

For. Making the residents prices that you mention incredibly

52:10

easy. it is one of the easiest in

52:12

the world and if you want to personally

52:14

live there. They've. Said for now it's

52:17

you be zero percent tax on your personal south

52:19

you just have against stocker earnings for something well.

52:21

Actually started the of dividends could be a

52:23

problem but if use of capital gains if

52:25

you have been a bitcoin but ever fine.

52:28

But. If you're gonna run a business, it's based in the

52:30

you A Yeah, I don't think it's that ideals but

52:32

I give them incredible. Ah, Respect.

52:35

For. How they've made immigration super easy And

52:38

it just proves the point. If you

52:40

run your country to where you don't

52:42

have a big social welfare system, You.

52:44

Don't get away with crimes. Why wouldn't you

52:46

let anyone who sets up a company, anyone

52:48

who invest some money. Why wouldn't you let

52:51

them com and be a residence? Minutes.

52:54

The where the Us used to be in so

52:56

I see and that point. but it's kind of

52:58

like the New American dream. Anyone who wants to

53:00

make something of themselves? come on and we're not

53:02

going to make it hard and they don't. But.

53:04

I think I'm a tax. Arm.

53:06

In an effort to placate. The

53:09

Global Powers. They. Got a little bit

53:11

more aggressive than they initially thought. And

53:13

it's of the government's fault with the banks

53:15

are difficult but just under a Not impressed

53:17

by the banks and we we are talking

53:19

about a country that change the weekends. Only

53:22

gonna be as ago and just if the

53:24

people the people that don't know the to

53:27

buy a weekend used to be. Friday.

53:30

Saturday, so you're Friday night would have been a

53:32

Thursday night and you went back to work on

53:34

a Sunday morning. And with

53:36

one day he one day everyone

53:38

just woke up. And the government

53:40

said hey, guess what. The

53:42

weekend is. Saturday. And Sunday Now.

53:45

All the British like the ivory that is going

53:47

to collect. I'm working on Sunday. What? What the

53:49

hell that wasn't I. I

53:51

think. I mean Saudi Arabia's kind

53:53

of doing this now as well. I mean buffering

53:56

was always on the more liberal ones arm a

53:58

mythic the hole golf with the you. The being

54:00

the kind of the biggest stand out. Has. Done

54:02

an incredible job at what I would call.

54:05

Let's. Go out and figure out. Basic.

54:07

Got were you're treated best. Hey, who's

54:09

doing this the best? Okay, let's let's

54:11

just implement that. Okay, what would

54:13

have they got going out and lemmings. and

54:15

from a business perspective? yeah, how interesting. It's

54:18

it's great. Immediately you know the bit here so I

54:20

can assess with our country's a failure and and I

54:22

know this because I I we have people who work

54:24

in some of these countries and that's why it was

54:27

more affordable for us to go there are up. That's

54:29

not how we do it. We. Do

54:31

it this way. Well. Maybe the

54:33

results socks and he should change how you do

54:35

it, but your pride gets in the way. I

54:37

have a great respect to the Us in other

54:39

countries. I. Mean they have a

54:41

pride for their country but not this is

54:44

the price doesn't get no way of let's

54:46

make the right decisions. Yeah and they did

54:48

an incredible job on that. Would

54:50

you say like. Philosophically non monogamous

54:53

when it comes to their procedures.

54:56

Yes, Yeah,

54:58

I'm I. I I think I think

55:00

non monogamy in in the context of

55:02

choosing countries and policies and things, it

55:04

makes a lot of sense. One.

55:07

Of the things I've had him ahead as you've been. Talking.

55:10

Through all this today is. The. A

55:12

God. How. Much paperwork. Is.

55:15

Associated with all of that you're talking

55:17

about. I mean Tude. I had to

55:19

submit an I'm aware I tried to

55:21

get into very different country to get

55:23

into. By to submit Ace a three

55:25

inch thick seven hundred page hard copy

55:27

portfolio from Iowa. One. Alliance or

55:29

you know, to get a Social Security number

55:31

and is no license equivalency test. America has

55:33

the worst hey guess what America you can't

55:35

drive. No one can drive in America right?

55:37

No one. Everybody's about dry that there's no

55:40

license equivalency between the youtube us. I need

55:42

to replace my theory test in order to

55:44

be able to get a driver's license in

55:46

order to be of get a car. but

55:48

before he did that I had to get

55:50

social Security number to notice that social security

55:52

number had to show my I ninety four

55:54

when you're I ninety four than he triggered.

55:56

If you've entered the country through the border

55:58

within the last three months. Which meant that. to

56:00

leave to go to the Bahamas to come

56:02

back just to trigger this arbitrary number. So

56:04

my point being, I've

56:06

had to deal with lots of paperwork and I

56:09

essentially live in two countries, all right? I, I,

56:11

I'm invested in some form or a stakeholder in

56:13

two different countries. And you're this like

56:16

big, long octopus with his tentacles

56:19

wrapped around many countries. Like

56:22

how does, how would anybody get even

56:26

begin to get this started without just

56:28

drowning in tons of correspondence? Well,

56:32

I was at a bank not so long ago, um, in

56:36

Serbia and I think the

56:38

banks are safe there. I think it's a nice

56:40

kind of diversification play, but it was never a

56:42

place I want to put a lot of money. And so when I said,

56:44

okay, let me, let me get a new debit card just in case I need

56:46

it. I'm never going to need it, but just in case I carry

56:49

around like this many debit cards. Um,

56:53

and I want to pick it up and they're

56:55

like, Oh, do you have a Dina card? I'm like,

56:57

yeah, I guess it expired. So they're required by law

56:59

to give you this card that you can make

57:01

payments in Serbian Dinaars. Like nobody uses it, but

57:04

they're required for you to give you one. And they're like,

57:06

Oh, we've got to cut up your debit card and what

57:08

you've got to come back in a month. And I'm like, I'm

57:11

not here. Like I'm here like once or twice a year. I'm

57:13

not coming back. So, you know

57:15

what, go where you're treated best. I'm just not going

57:17

to have a debit card and I'll keep a little

57:20

bit less money in that account. And,

57:22

um, you know, that's what it is. Uh,

57:25

I'm probably going to sell some land. I own next

57:27

door in Montenegro, just the thought of, Oh my God,

57:30

I got to build a villa. Like, you know what,

57:32

someone's probably built a villa somewhere else and I can

57:34

just buy it if I want to. And you know

57:36

what, maybe I should just rent a villa for a

57:38

while and just like put the money to work. Um,

57:42

so I think that you've got to, you know, that's kind of the whole thought

57:44

process behind what we're doing is like, you don't have

57:46

to go to the US because yeah, I had some

57:48

properties that I owned in the US and

57:51

it was the most laborious process. Now

57:54

the US real estate market does have more liquidity

57:56

than some other markets, but where I own these

57:58

properties, it wasn't that great. And

58:01

I sold them and there were just so many

58:03

fees and so many things to do and just

58:05

like I think like the grass was literally half

58:07

an inch too long and I got a thing

58:09

in the mail like violation and they're

58:11

like they just want you to pay a hundred bucks. That

58:14

doesn't really exist in all the other countries. I just

58:16

went through. I go through end of the year. I

58:19

pay all the bills for seven properties. I have

58:21

one of the people in my finance team help

58:23

me and it's

58:25

pretty darn easy. And

58:28

I have people who have helped me. It's in many

58:30

cases in many countries is more informal someone was your

58:32

real estate agent three years later if you want their

58:34

help with the air conditioning that I'll just go there

58:36

and check it out. You

58:39

pay a few bucks so I found

58:42

that yes there's bureaucracy. I

58:45

mean having if you grow the business large enough you

58:47

just build an in-house team that specializes in it we

58:49

do it in house but I

58:51

mean the same with the with Dubai it became

58:54

too much to manage you know

58:56

we just said you know what we're just going to go back where we

58:58

were. So it

59:00

is go where you're treated best and

59:02

I think that again the US

59:04

is an ex that's an extreme outlier.

59:09

I saw a statistic not long ago that. If

59:13

you're getting a green card interview for

59:15

a forget if it's a sibling

59:17

or what kind of family member you're trying

59:19

to come as through family reunification. From

59:24

certain countries like India Mexico China you

59:26

apply in nineteen ninety eight. That's

59:30

when you file that's when you that's when you did

59:33

all the paperwork to get approved you're

59:35

now coming into finalize the process in two

59:37

thousand twenty two thousand twenty three then.

59:41

Now whatever you think about family reunification I mean we

59:43

do that to people all the time you know someone

59:45

gets a Portugal residence permit and they add their wife

59:47

through family reunification takes you know a month or two

59:49

or something. There's

59:52

something that the US system is broken and again

59:54

even in Ireland just got someone a work permit

59:56

the other day so they can go and work

59:58

there and they can work. their own company and

1:00:00

it's kind of a tax efficient way for them to

1:00:02

live in the country. It

1:00:05

took like a month and a half. The person made

1:00:07

a small mistake. The

1:00:09

solicitor pointed it out. Oh

1:00:11

my God, I'm so sorry, said the government officer. That

1:00:15

doesn't happen to you. I mean, the US is an

1:00:17

outlier. It's very adversarial,

1:00:21

very cantankerous. It really is.

1:00:23

I mean, and you had the best situation. Go

1:00:27

into a US embassy in, and

1:00:29

I've been there in Georgia, for example,

1:00:31

and just watch the visa interviews there.

1:00:34

I mean, it's a nice touch. No,

1:00:36

no, I went to Guatemala. I

1:00:39

went to the embassy there because of the

1:00:41

wait time. I was 88 days

1:00:43

into a 90-day ESTA about to go over and

1:00:45

if I had, I would have been immediately banned

1:00:47

from the country for God knows how many years.

1:00:50

So I was like, right, well, I'll leave. Go

1:00:52

to, God, I had the choice between El Salvador

1:00:54

Belize in Guatemala. I was like, right, well, let's

1:00:56

go to Guatemala. Go to Guatemala. I'm able to

1:00:58

get, you know, Berlin 2024. This

1:01:01

is 2022. It's

1:01:04

taken ages because there's this backlog from COVID for

1:01:06

people getting a one application, blah, blah, blah. London

1:01:08

2024. Guatemala next week. I'm

1:01:10

like, hey, guess I'm going to Guatemala. So

1:01:14

that was, I guess that was a little bit sort of nomad.

1:01:16

Nomad. I mean, you're still burning.

1:01:19

I mean, I think you kind of stand out

1:01:21

as the shining, you know, it's like, oh, I

1:01:23

finally somebody I like. An

1:01:27

ex-colonist. Yeah. No,

1:01:29

I mean, I think if you're British

1:01:31

or Irish, I'm getting an L1 is

1:01:34

more straightforward. But

1:01:36

no, it's, you

1:01:39

know, people say, oh, you hate the

1:01:41

US. I just don't

1:01:43

think they're best at anything. I

1:01:45

guess prisoner population per capita.

1:01:49

They're not even best at obesity anymore. So,

1:01:55

I mean, like, I just want to go

1:01:57

where things are best. And

1:02:03

if people take nothing away from this, I

1:02:06

just, I never felt good in the US,

1:02:08

again, for multiple different reasons. But like when

1:02:10

I started traveling, the TSA, they open up

1:02:13

your stuff, they're yelling at me. Just

1:02:15

so many interactions with the government are

1:02:17

unpleasant that when you go to

1:02:19

so many other countries, it's,

1:02:22

you think, oh, it must be

1:02:24

the same. It's not the same.

1:02:26

It really isn't. It's

1:02:28

just not the norm. Let's

1:02:30

say that there's someone who's listening to this, maybe two people,

1:02:33

one of them is American, and one of them isn't. And

1:02:35

they're thinking, Andrew made a bit of sense

1:02:37

there. I don't feel a massive amount of affinity. I feel

1:02:39

like I could do with a change. But

1:02:42

I don't really know where to start and going

1:02:44

to somewhere to simply be a tourist. Like I

1:02:46

need to, perhaps I need to work in some

1:02:48

regard. Where would you, like you

1:02:50

mentioned that Dubai is very simple. What

1:02:53

are some of the other places that's

1:02:55

like on the new

1:02:57

Passport Bro Starter Kit? What's

1:03:00

included in that? Well, so, I mean,

1:03:02

my focus, I've been an entrepreneur my entire life. And

1:03:04

I realized, as maybe 20 years old, I had a

1:03:06

Vonage phone. I don't really remember if it was Vonage,

1:03:09

like a VoIP phone. And I would

1:03:11

basically cold call people for my business. I would

1:03:13

call businesses. Hey, do you want to

1:03:15

buy some advertising? And I

1:03:17

realized pretty early on, why can't

1:03:19

I do this from anywhere? And eventually I started

1:03:21

to do it as I was traveling. I

1:03:24

resisted the urge to move fully. But there were

1:03:26

some years I traveled more than half the year

1:03:28

and I'd be in China and nobody would even

1:03:30

know. I would literally call my clients. They

1:03:33

wouldn't know the difference. And

1:03:38

I think that's the perspective I come from, is

1:03:40

you have something that you can take with you.

1:03:43

So first, I would develop that. Is

1:03:46

it, I'm a cryptocurrency trader. I'm

1:03:48

a stock investor. I have

1:03:51

an online business. I'm a consultant. Yeah.

1:03:53

Freelancer. Whatever I can take with me.

1:03:56

The cool thing about the US is

1:03:59

there is more. flexibility again, not tax

1:04:01

advice, but there's more flexibility generally speaking

1:04:03

on keeping your US bank accounts and

1:04:06

So, you know, where's if you leave the UK

1:04:08

or Canada? I give there's they're more like you

1:04:10

should probably close that I Would

1:04:14

get that in line first now. I

1:04:16

think You

1:04:18

know quality poor versus like New York

1:04:20

was like 25 cents on the dollar I mean

1:04:23

I just you know for cocktails 23 bucks. That's

1:04:25

like one cocktail in Las Vegas or

1:04:27

something You

1:04:30

don't have to make as much but I would get to the

1:04:32

point where I can I can support myself I

1:04:36

mean Dubai does have a lot of networking opportunities Depending

1:04:39

on what you do I

1:04:42

think I mean it depends on your personality I

1:04:44

think a place like an island where they

1:04:46

speak English where it's very open I

1:04:49

would say the UK but the UK has no way to

1:04:51

move there We had

1:04:53

nice for Rajat no met we all we had Nigel Farage

1:04:55

at Nomad capitalist live a couple years ago I told him

1:04:57

like you got one of the investor visa The

1:05:00

startup visa doesn't really work even if even when it

1:05:03

rarely does work It's like you have to be the

1:05:05

next Facebook or you have to be investing in the

1:05:07

next Facebook Like there's just no way for a person

1:05:09

with wealth or a business to move

1:05:11

to the UK. Generally It's just really

1:05:13

just not a process for that You

1:05:16

can get a job and move to the UK you can get

1:05:18

married to move to the UK But like a guy like me

1:05:20

cannot easily move to the UK so

1:05:23

To me that's kind of a bulwark You

1:05:26

know, I like a place like an island somebody

1:05:28

else might like a place like a Switzerland that has

1:05:32

Maybe more established. I don't know what you want

1:05:34

to call it. I mean Dubai obviously is a

1:05:36

lot of very new money What about palm? So

1:05:39

what I saw Portugal were advertising for a while

1:05:41

come and live in Lisbon It's on GMT will

1:05:43

give you a beer that's simple and so on

1:05:45

is that not simple to get to They

1:05:48

are but they get rid of the they go to the

1:05:50

tax program. They had a great tax incentive The

1:05:53

crypto rose right they were looking to try and bring people

1:05:55

in that were trading crypto like okay

1:05:57

for crypto Yeah

1:06:00

Unfortunately, I've lost some confidence in Portugal.

1:06:04

Not a bad place to live. For

1:06:07

me, the places that I've mentioned today, Malaysia

1:06:10

and Ireland, people complain in both cases for

1:06:12

opposite reasons about the weather. To me, the

1:06:14

weather is the least important thing. If you

1:06:16

can't handle some humidity, turn

1:06:19

on the air conditioning. In

1:06:21

Ireland, it doesn't rain that much. So

1:06:23

I think the use case for Portugal is like, oh,

1:06:26

the weather is so nice. I've never

1:06:28

entirely understood that one. So some

1:06:30

of their incentives have gone away. The

1:06:33

answer is there's something for everybody. I

1:06:35

think Mexico is an interesting place. A lot of

1:06:37

people have gone there. Is Mexico simple to be

1:06:39

able to spend a three months, six months? I'm

1:06:42

going to go and do my graphic

1:06:44

design from there? Well,

1:06:46

so I'm a big

1:06:48

fan of having a residence permit, especially now. So

1:06:51

Mexico technically is like the UK. You get

1:06:53

180 days visa free. Much

1:06:55

like the UK, they're not doing it anymore. Hey, when are

1:06:58

you leaving? I'm just here for the six months.

1:07:00

Yeah, we don't accept that. Get the hell out. Or

1:07:02

I'll give you one month and then you need to leave. If

1:07:05

you can get a Mexican residence, which is

1:07:07

pretty easy. I mean, everything's easy. Nothing is

1:07:09

easy, but the qualifications are straightforward enough. You

1:07:11

have a couple thousand in income every month.

1:07:14

You can get a residence permit, live there all you want. Obviously,

1:07:17

if you live there too long, there's a tax

1:07:19

planning question. But yes, I mean,

1:07:21

Mexico is a straightforward place. Latin America is

1:07:23

a place where if you have income, you

1:07:26

can get a residence permit. Asia

1:07:28

is generally a place where you need to have

1:07:30

wealth, put some money in our bank,

1:07:32

buy a property, put in

1:07:34

six figures. Latin America is the place

1:07:36

where if you're just starting out, hey,

1:07:39

show us 800, 1,000, 1,200,

1:07:42

$2,000 a month in income for the last three, six

1:07:44

months, 12 months, whatever. Here's your residence permit.

1:07:46

You can live here all you want. So

1:07:48

I mean, I think Columbia is interesting. I

1:07:51

live in Medellin. I'm in Bogota. I think

1:07:53

all of Mexico is interesting. I'm in Mexico

1:07:55

City in particular for me, but there's so

1:07:57

many cities I mean, to pick. The

1:08:00

thing they get rid the tax incentive. Italy has

1:08:02

a very instinct tax incentive. People like that. Ah,

1:08:05

I'm. You.

1:08:07

Know it's depends on what you want. To

1:08:09

me I, I, I think we popularized the

1:08:11

country of Georgia. Very tax friendly not as

1:08:13

affordable anymore with I was Your Comments or

1:08:15

east of Turkey south of Russia. Okay,

1:08:18

in the Caucasus? Yeah, so now you

1:08:20

know what you're You're only ultralight and

1:08:22

injured. Or

1:08:25

decreasingly conservative. Coming

1:08:28

into land. Ah

1:08:30

made it very kind of. Conservatives:

1:08:34

Respectful. Culture. Laid

1:08:36

back. So. Like our media next

1:08:39

door they were always the ones who

1:08:41

him there's there's like forty thousand Armenians

1:08:43

and Uruguay. I went there and I

1:08:45

saw Armenian restaurants. Georgians were always more

1:08:47

like chill. Enjoy! Great food, great wine,

1:08:49

great hospitality. If you know a Georgian

1:08:51

you like a friend for life I'm

1:08:53

so that regard it's nice. The. Culture

1:08:55

is all of a different. Ah,

1:08:57

I'm. In,

1:08:59

I've enjoyed it, but I also see why see but

1:09:01

he gets to get stuck up on that. I

1:09:04

mean this is so many play

1:09:06

another Southeast Asia I mean Malaysia,

1:09:08

Thailand but that does though many

1:09:10

little bit more restricted to wealth.

1:09:12

And presumably a little bit more procedural.

1:09:15

You. Can get digital Nomad visas. Thailand has the

1:09:17

tie a lead. these are you pay a fee

1:09:19

every five years Arms There are more affordable ways

1:09:22

to do it if your goal is not permanence.

1:09:24

You can also come to Malaysia for ninety days

1:09:26

and a tourist visa and I would guess if

1:09:28

he left for a couple weeks in combat or

1:09:30

they give you another ninety days. If you're a

1:09:32

westerner, Ah mean of you're not a

1:09:35

westerner. it's thirty days in that becomes hard navigate. But

1:09:37

if you to make two thousand dollars a month as

1:09:39

good as you can get a digital digital Nomad Visa

1:09:41

that may not last forever. But the question is, you

1:09:43

know what's your level of commitment to this? For me

1:09:45

when I left the U S A said. I

1:09:48

lied to myself, how many do this for

1:09:50

a year. I

1:09:53

knew I wasn't coming back. it was just take keep

1:09:55

the house, Don't sell the house. but

1:09:58

i always knew it was a was it was done I think

1:10:00

for some people, there's nothing wrong with saying, I'm going

1:10:02

to have a five-year adventure. I'm going to learn

1:10:04

how the world works. I'm going to pick up some new ideas. I'm going to learn,

1:10:07

hey, they do it over here. Same as we

1:10:09

talked about in the UAE. Hey, here's how they do

1:10:11

this over here. If I added that, I bet that

1:10:13

would make my business better. I'm going to

1:10:15

save some taxes for five years. I'm going to bring that

1:10:17

money back and then just enjoy my life. I don't think

1:10:19

you have to do that. I've

1:10:23

talked about having kids. I

1:10:25

could have kids and live in multiple places. You

1:10:27

can hire a tutor. There's any

1:10:29

number of things you can do. Yeah, that's a question.

1:10:31

Let's say that somebody does have kids. What's

1:10:34

a solution that you look at for your clients, presumably

1:10:36

a tutor that you would need to pay that would

1:10:38

have to fly and be prepared to move with you?

1:10:42

Well, I mean, some people just move to one

1:10:44

place. They move and they put their kids in

1:10:46

international school. We've got a private client right now.

1:10:49

He's like, I want to move to Thailand and

1:10:51

I'm buying in the same complex as the school.

1:10:57

There's something to be said for that. This

1:11:00

international school is a lot of places. You could homeschool in

1:11:02

a lot of places. Some of the

1:11:04

northern European countries are pretty nasty on that, but most

1:11:06

of the rest of the world is not. If

1:11:10

you don't want to homeschool yourself, I

1:11:12

know a family. We've got a guy who's

1:11:14

speaking at our live event coming up this

1:11:16

year named Joshua Sheets. He's a family of

1:11:18

four. They homeschool them

1:11:20

and they travel around and they do it

1:11:22

themselves. I also met a very successful guy

1:11:25

in the entertainment business who

1:11:27

is doing my trifecta. I heard you

1:11:29

say trifecta and he's like, that's what

1:11:31

I'm doing. He has the homes

1:11:33

around the world and they

1:11:36

hired a tutor that travels with them. There's

1:11:39

different ways to do it. My

1:11:42

point is, I don't think that this has to be

1:11:44

a single person's game or a couple's game. I think

1:11:46

you can keep doing it. If you decide to do

1:11:48

it for five years and to get the experience and

1:11:50

to save the money, maybe

1:11:53

you get an extra passport in the process if you

1:11:55

settle down in one place, I think that's fine too.

1:11:58

It's always good to have more options, have more knowledge. But

1:12:00

the idea that you have to give it up because now

1:12:02

it's time to settle down. I

1:12:05

mean, I

1:12:07

talked to my friend. I said, bring your son.

1:12:09

Your son's like 17. Come

1:12:11

over and visit me in Asia. Bring him

1:12:14

for two weeks. Take him out of school.

1:12:16

He'll learn more hanging around in Asia for

1:12:18

two weeks than whatever they're teaching in the

1:12:20

Chicago school system. Okay. I mean, believe me.

1:12:23

So, you know, we have

1:12:25

this bias that whatever

1:12:27

happens in our country somehow works. We complain

1:12:30

about our country. Biden has sold

1:12:32

us down the river. Trump is

1:12:34

turning us into a fascist L. Whatever. Right.

1:12:37

We complain about it, but somehow it's still the

1:12:39

best in the world. And that's not just Americans. Everyone says

1:12:41

a lot of people say that. And

1:12:45

it's like, well, wait a second. Again, what's best

1:12:47

about it? Is your education system the best? Who

1:12:50

was it the other day? It wasn't Guatemala, but

1:12:52

it was something similar. Is now

1:12:54

outpacing the US in like math

1:12:56

literacy or some shit. Not

1:13:00

Korea or something you've heard of, but like,

1:13:02

you know, it's like El Salvador or something

1:13:04

like they're better now. So,

1:13:07

you can't have kids. I

1:13:09

have a non-zero cohort

1:13:12

of friends who are around about

1:13:14

my age, mid-30s. And I think, yeah,

1:13:16

I'm going to, you know, kids are probably going to come along

1:13:18

at some point. Maybe they've got a partner or

1:13:20

maybe they're looking and maybe they're engaged or married or whatever. And

1:13:23

they're staring down the barrel of

1:13:25

the US education system with trepidation.

1:13:28

And they're thinking like, I don't know if I put a

1:13:30

child in, I don't know what's going to come out the

1:13:33

other side. And, you

1:13:35

know, you look at how many different people are

1:13:37

trying to innovate their way away from this. It's

1:13:40

Waldorf schools or it's

1:13:42

like, there's one here

1:13:45

that's run Apogee Park that's run by Tim

1:13:47

Kennedy. And it's like, all of this stuff

1:13:49

sounds great, but like all

1:13:51

of these things are largely unproven. Now that may

1:13:53

be better than something that's proven to also be

1:13:55

completely crazy or useless. But like,

1:13:58

do I Want my kid to learn how to...

1:14:00

what do a flute out of a fucking

1:14:02

sticks like? Am I gonna teach him how

1:14:04

to hope? hope the ground like so the

1:14:06

U S you totally correct like every with

1:14:08

and we have these things. Education's.

1:14:11

I had of ran. At. A

1:14:13

framework to you by any the salary for

1:14:15

the million dollar salary he was screwed as

1:14:17

an American. Because if he does have

1:14:19

a salary discover small exemption a pan the rest but

1:14:21

he elites was still paying less them. I lived in

1:14:24

New York City and he told me when I had

1:14:26

three kids I had to earn four hundred thousand dollars.

1:14:28

Pretax is an underscore. To. The match new.

1:14:30

For thirteen years, you put four hundred thousand dollars

1:14:32

into some fund for those kids. And

1:14:35

you had him live in Dubai. They'd

1:14:37

learn another language. They'd learn international. they

1:14:39

would do, you know, something else? You.

1:14:42

Tell me the extra money. And.

1:14:44

Not being in New York and being some international

1:14:46

wouldn't be far better for them. Here's.

1:14:49

What else I think about it? One

1:14:51

of the concerns that some of our clients and

1:14:53

some my old friends in the Us have is

1:14:55

not just the low quality of education the U

1:14:57

S. By. Other teaching.

1:15:00

You. Know there's this whole social conversation they're

1:15:02

teaching woke they're teaching this to teaching

1:15:04

that and people sometimes get upset with

1:15:06

me. that on that. So angry about

1:15:08

this. And. I say I'm not angry

1:15:10

metics. I don't even know what it is

1:15:12

really. Honestly, People. On taught

1:15:14

me that stuff where I live. And

1:15:17

I don't have to be a part of it.

1:15:19

I think that what makes people angry as powerlessness.

1:15:22

And so we convince ourselves to stay in the

1:15:24

bubble based on were born because that's the best,

1:15:26

that's what we're told and were fed the propaganda.

1:15:28

But then began his sense of powerlessness because we

1:15:30

don't like the way things are being done. And

1:15:32

we get angry. Bet it would become miserable. Because.

1:15:35

We don't think is another option. I.

1:15:39

Think of options. For.

1:15:41

Decided to have options and so they're part of the sit

1:15:43

around like a lot of bother mice like if I don't

1:15:45

want to do something of a don't want my kids to

1:15:47

learn something whatever that may be Ups would not gonna do

1:15:49

it. this is there's a solution to that will have to

1:15:52

be feel powerless in carry this anger around with me. And.

1:15:54

i sort we don't have to think that

1:15:56

i have the base my entire life on

1:15:58

one politician getting elected and they're going to solve

1:16:00

all my problems. I'd

1:16:03

heard, I think I've even heard

1:16:05

you speak about some people

1:16:07

that have traveled abroad when

1:16:10

the wife is pregnant to give

1:16:12

birth in another country. How common

1:16:14

is that as a nomadic

1:16:17

strategy? Well,

1:16:19

I mean, I think it's much more common for people

1:16:22

to come to the US and Canada

1:16:24

and do that because, you know, most

1:16:26

countries in the Americas have this birthright

1:16:29

citizenship. If you're born on the soil,

1:16:31

you're given citizenship. I

1:16:33

actually know somebody from Armenia. I did not encourage them

1:16:35

to do this. I wasn't even aware of it. They got

1:16:37

a US visa. She and her husband, she came over

1:16:39

and gave birth. Now she has an American child. Um,

1:16:42

that child cannot sponsor her. I was going to

1:16:44

say, does that work upward for the parents? I

1:16:47

think the child has to be an adult and then they can bring you.

1:16:51

Uh, and so that's a faster one. That's, I don't think you're

1:16:53

waiting 25 years for that one, but you might

1:16:55

wait five years or something like that. Yeah. Well, you're

1:16:57

going to wait the 18th. Right. But the child always has

1:16:59

the opportunities. Um, they also

1:17:01

have now this lifetime citizenship. So

1:17:04

it's like, really, this person watches my stuff

1:17:06

and they didn't think of that. But

1:17:08

the reverse, I mean, so this, um, the,

1:17:10

the, uh, you know, Joshua Sheets, they gave

1:17:13

birth to one of their children in Costa

1:17:15

Rica. And so now they all got

1:17:17

residence permits in Costa Rica and the child's a

1:17:19

Costa Rican citizen. Um, I

1:17:22

think that's great because especially if you're like

1:17:24

an American, Costa Rica is a nice antidote.

1:17:26

Who hates the Costa Ricans? Imagine

1:17:28

you want to travel. Okay. Costa

1:17:30

Ricans need a visa to go to the U S well, if

1:17:32

you're a U S citizen, you're going to go with your U

1:17:34

S pass. We're required to, um,

1:17:38

Costa Ricans can pretty much go to most of

1:17:40

the rest of the world, you know, Canada, Australia,

1:17:42

they can't go, those are the toughest ones. But

1:17:45

they can go to the UK. They can go to

1:17:47

all of Europe. I mean, Costa Ricans are pretty well

1:17:49

accepted all around the world. So are all Salvador, Guatemalans.

1:17:51

I mean, those are pretty good passports. Actually, you wouldn't

1:17:54

think that the people. You

1:17:56

see the entire story of that region is not

1:17:58

so much Costa Rica. People are

1:18:00

trying to come to the us for more wealth

1:18:02

but if you have well you

1:18:05

have plenty of options in central america

1:18:08

and so i'm i

1:18:10

think it's increasing strategy brazil is one

1:18:12

people go to mexico is one, sometimes

1:18:15

you can get citizenship faster in brazil it's one

1:18:17

year if you've got a child or a spouse

1:18:20

you gotta wait like an extra year to be processed you

1:18:22

probably should live there for a part of that two years

1:18:25

but. Is

1:18:27

it in some cases a strategy for you to

1:18:29

get a residence or even citizenship in the country

1:18:31

but if nothing else you're just giving your child

1:18:33

an extra and i mean when i when i

1:18:35

met my wife is one of the things that's

1:18:37

like would you be willing to go go to

1:18:39

brazil all right that sounds reasonable i'm like that

1:18:41

seems like a pretty open minded person. I'm.

1:18:45

You know i get i. I

1:18:48

had a friend told me you know what you

1:18:50

know what your superpower is you don't have

1:18:52

this nostalgia. About things that cause

1:18:55

you to put up barriers we used to all

1:18:57

go to portillo is for you know after high

1:18:59

school like you don't you don't get into that.

1:19:02

And so my question is very entrepreneurial i

1:19:04

think. I wanna give birth

1:19:06

i wanna know my mother my child

1:19:08

give birth in brazil for example what

1:19:11

we need to solve for i need to buy a

1:19:13

few flight tickets. So that you know family members can

1:19:16

come to the people want to get one of family

1:19:18

there. I

1:19:20

need to you know maybe you gotta go there

1:19:23

x number of months early for certain kind of

1:19:25

you know appointments for the pregnancy you know like.

1:19:28

That's what you to solve for and

1:19:30

the payoff is you have a child who

1:19:33

has a passport. That potential

1:19:35

is a domestic economy i think mexico is

1:19:37

i mean look at

1:19:39

the pace so. It's done

1:19:41

incredibly i was on cbs a couple weeks

1:19:43

ago talking about the pay it's incredible against

1:19:45

the us dollar mexico is moving in the

1:19:47

right direction. I think you're

1:19:49

potentially giving them a passport in some of those

1:19:52

countries there's a lot of opportunities.

1:19:55

If nothing else it gives them an opportunity to travel give

1:19:57

them more places to live in the just you're just giving

1:19:59

them a whole. world of opportunities. You

1:20:02

mentioned there about living in a place before

1:20:04

you perhaps move there. In your

1:20:06

experience, are there any locations

1:20:10

that are fun to

1:20:12

go on holiday and might seem romantic

1:20:14

or seductive as an idea, but the

1:20:16

reality of living there for one reason

1:20:18

or another is not what

1:20:20

the holiday promised? I

1:20:24

was thinking the other day about Vienna. I

1:20:26

love Vienna and now

1:20:29

Austria has no tax program. Again,

1:20:31

my goal is people

1:20:34

confuse this. I'm happy to pay some

1:20:36

level of tax. We

1:20:38

can argue whether their tax is fair or not fair. My

1:20:40

goal is not to always pay zero. If it happens

1:20:42

that I pay zero, great. I pay a little bit, great.

1:20:45

I don't think any country is worth, if you're a

1:20:47

successful person, 40 or 50 percent. Oh,

1:20:49

you get free healthcare? Well, that's great. You

1:20:51

made 10 million. You paid 5 million. You paid 5

1:20:55

million in healthcare.

1:20:58

I think that the challenge of some of those places that

1:21:00

people like, and my father loves Germany. He

1:21:03

just likes the vibe. It's

1:21:05

harder to meet friends there. I

1:21:07

really look at optimizing. I

1:21:12

remember flying back from Vienna

1:21:14

14 years ago. I sat next to a

1:21:16

guy, an American guy, married to an Austrian woman. He

1:21:18

said, it's just a harder place to make friends. I

1:21:20

think once you make friends in some of those places,

1:21:23

they're better friends than you'd have like in LA. I

1:21:26

mean, it's more serious friends. I

1:21:28

would say the same thing about Georgia, for

1:21:30

example. I have always been helped whenever I

1:21:32

need something. It didn't take me that long

1:21:34

to integrate. They're just open people. Listen,

1:21:37

I'm not saying this is good or bad. I love Austria. I

1:21:41

think that maybe some of those central European

1:21:43

places that a certain kind of person like

1:21:46

myself, who doesn't like the Southern

1:21:48

European laid back beach vibe, they

1:21:50

think, oh, Austria. I love Vienna,

1:21:52

but I think you're going to have a harder time making

1:21:55

friends in a place like that. No,

1:21:57

I don't think it's the language barrier. I

1:22:00

can get by in spanish my spanish is it fluid

1:22:02

enough and i'm certainly not fast enough to

1:22:05

engage in the long conversations that the

1:22:07

barista in bugota wants to have with

1:22:09

me if i solve for that

1:22:12

i can have tons of friends

1:22:14

in bugota. I'm

1:22:16

so that's that's an issue the language barrier i don't

1:22:18

think any in central europe it is. You

1:22:23

know i think there's places in eastern europe that

1:22:25

are very direct i appreciate certain directness over time

1:22:27

the directness turns into brusqueness in

1:22:29

some cases. Obviously

1:22:32

i'm just i'm not a big fan of

1:22:34

resort destinations i think people should you know.

1:22:38

I don't understand the thing of living in a

1:22:40

vacation like living in a caribbean island but to

1:22:42

each their own somebody might like that i'm not

1:22:44

a laid back person. But

1:22:46

i think that you want to optimize for where

1:22:49

can i make friends easily and

1:22:51

some of the happiest people that i

1:22:53

know who are expats or even immigrants

1:22:55

in very far-flung cultures. None

1:22:57

of their friends are expats i've got a

1:23:00

friend who lives in thailand all of his

1:23:02

friends are thai and they're educated they speak

1:23:04

english he speaks some thai but they kind

1:23:06

of accommodate him in english but he

1:23:09

thinks like a thai person. What's

1:23:11

the american attributes but he really kind

1:23:13

of has the whole kind of thai

1:23:15

approach. I'm and

1:23:18

he's stuck with it for that reason

1:23:20

so i think that you want to maybe

1:23:23

have some local friends and

1:23:25

if you have a hard time doing that i think it's

1:23:27

probably a place it's more difficult. How

1:23:30

many of the client you're working with

1:23:32

the people that you come into contact with. Doing

1:23:37

the nomad thing. As

1:23:40

a protection strategy kind of like

1:23:42

being a i guess

1:23:44

a global prep in some regard

1:23:48

how is that is that on the rise what do

1:23:50

you noticing with with regards to that. It's

1:23:52

an increasing number there's always waves right

1:23:55

so i think we're gonna see that

1:23:57

again this year with bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

1:24:00

see as those go up. It

1:24:03

just as we saw in 2021, COVID

1:24:05

I think was a big wake-up call for people. And

1:24:09

we can debate, you know, I'm sure there are some

1:24:11

people who have views that are more extreme than mine,

1:24:14

but I mean, governments around the world were

1:24:17

pretty restrictive. And it showed that

1:24:19

citizenship really is an obligation. I mean, if

1:24:21

you were Australian, you couldn't leave

1:24:23

and you couldn't return. And look at

1:24:25

how many people in Australia said, well,

1:24:28

yeah, it's your fault you took a holiday to Mauritius.

1:24:31

Like what about the rest of us, like this whole kind

1:24:33

of greater good, the individualism of you're a citizen,

1:24:35

you've got a right to return to your

1:24:38

own country. That's literally like international law, like

1:24:40

the United Nations, it's not like some right

1:24:42

wing concept, was

1:24:44

just thrown out the window. And

1:24:46

so I think people realized in what

1:24:48

people thought were these great infallible countries

1:24:51

like, oh, my country can screw me.

1:24:54

They don't really care about me. I've been paying all these

1:24:56

years. And maybe I haven't even complained about paying. And now

1:24:59

when I need support, I'm hung out to dry.

1:25:02

And so I think you're seeing

1:25:04

more people saying, yeah, I want a backup plan. Whether

1:25:08

that's about, you know, people want

1:25:10

health freedom. We have

1:25:12

people from the US that

1:25:14

when Roe v. Wade was overturned, they said, I don't want to

1:25:16

live in a country where abortion is not legal. What

1:25:19

people don't understand about me and my brand, I

1:25:22

don't judge. I mean, to me, that's the

1:25:24

international political views that

1:25:26

I've kind of picked up the

1:25:28

again, the Dubai approach of let's

1:25:30

just have the best, like what works.

1:25:35

If you want to live in a country where there's

1:25:37

legal abortion, I'm not going to judge you for

1:25:39

that. If you want to live in

1:25:41

a place where there's less of a vaccine

1:25:43

mandate, I'm not going to judge you for that. I

1:25:46

might agree with some of those positions that I might agree

1:25:48

in part or I might not agree at all. But

1:25:50

like, I think people are realizing

1:25:52

that, again, like where they're born, does

1:25:55

it mean it's always going to align with their values?

1:25:57

I think a lot of these countries are changing. And

1:25:59

so So yes, more people are looking for a

1:26:01

plan B. There's

1:26:03

a fine line between kind of forcing

1:26:07

people to do what you've done, which

1:26:10

they may not be comfortable with, and

1:26:12

trying to open their mind to the idea that you

1:26:14

can leave. Again, I'll tell you what

1:26:16

we get a lot. I want

1:26:18

to leave in five years when the kids all graduate. I

1:26:23

mean, could the kids not go to school somewhere else? Would

1:26:25

that maybe not be better for them? I

1:26:27

don't have kids in high school, so it's not for me to judge. I

1:26:31

think more people should have a plan A,

1:26:33

not just because they can save money on

1:26:35

taxes, but because I think you learn a

1:26:37

lot. I think it changes you in very

1:26:39

positive ways to live other places. And

1:26:42

I think that people don't move because

1:26:44

of this sense of fear. Again, they're

1:26:46

happy to move to Florida, not happy

1:26:48

to move an equal distance to some

1:26:50

other country. But a

1:26:52

lot of people want plan B, citizenship,

1:26:54

residence. They want plan B, C, D,

1:26:57

E. So

1:27:00

yeah, not everyone that we work with now is

1:27:02

moving, whereas when we started it

1:27:04

was, I want to move, I'm tired of paying tax. Now

1:27:07

there's a lot of, I don't want

1:27:09

to move, or I'll move later, or maybe I'll

1:27:11

get a residence permit and spend three months there

1:27:13

in the winter. One of

1:27:15

the guys I talked to, a very kind

1:27:17

of wealthy guy, didn't realize as an American, he

1:27:20

just can't go to Italy and spend four months. Yeah,

1:27:24

you can't. It's 90 days at every 180. You

1:27:26

need to get a residence permit. You need to get some kind of

1:27:28

citizenship. So it's kind of clearing

1:27:30

up some of those basic misconceptions as well. But

1:27:35

I think you mentioned it a couple of

1:27:38

times today that Italian, whatever

1:27:40

the tax implications are and

1:27:42

what is that? They've

1:27:45

got a couple programs. So

1:27:47

Greece rolled one out, Italy rolled one out. They're kind

1:27:49

of based on the Switzerland model. It's a lump sum.

1:27:52

So if you have a high income, you pay 100,000

1:27:54

euros a year. If

1:27:56

you're married, it's 125, and that's

1:27:58

all you pay. And it's... More flexible than

1:28:00

like what Portugal system was like where if you

1:28:03

want to have your company that tax haven in

1:28:05

pay zero you can do that. You.

1:28:07

Live in Italy, whatever amount of time for

1:28:09

year and then you pay them. Is this

1:28:11

a lump sum? Ah I'm so that's kind

1:28:14

of basis with that the Swiss system with

1:28:16

different can times. you can kind of negotiate

1:28:18

different rates bits it's cheaper than Switzerland ah

1:28:20

I'm and and you can get citizenship in

1:28:23

Italy or maybe in Greece so it's kind

1:28:25

of flat amounts of you make a million

1:28:27

dollars a year or million euros a year

1:28:30

that ten percent. basically. I'm they

1:28:32

also have in Italy. Ah,

1:28:34

Incentives and they're going to shorten it this year for

1:28:36

how long you can do it. They're gonna take away

1:28:38

some of the most aggressive incentives. But. You can

1:28:40

reduce your tax rate like as a freelancer, between

1:28:43

fifty and seventy percent wherever depend on where you

1:28:45

live in the country, So I can them in

1:28:47

the North it be like fifty percent reduction. South.

1:28:50

The tax rate is fifty percent. You pay twenty

1:28:52

five if you will have in the south at

1:28:54

the gets in a good at a seventy percent

1:28:56

Said the tax rates fifty you pay fifteen. Ah

1:28:59

sweet that zero. But if you

1:29:01

want lifestyle, I mean that's a

1:29:03

much better deal. One.

1:29:06

Of the things I've been thinking today as you. Travel.

1:29:09

Around the world you have businesses in

1:29:11

various locations, bank accounts and various locations

1:29:13

and you mentioned about being able to

1:29:15

use different currencies. If

1:29:17

someone put a gun to your head and

1:29:20

said you have to have all of your

1:29:22

life savings into one currency. That

1:29:24

isn't the Us dollar. Night.

1:29:27

What? Would it be? On

1:29:30

letters and half hour at Southern City for who's not

1:29:32

driving. Will I promise? I'm not threatening. Ah

1:29:36

yeah, be careful on the U S yellow, the other

1:29:38

they're They're pretty aggressive over there I can I. Use

1:29:41

my construct. Their. Judgments when

1:29:43

there's not judgmental. Ah,

1:29:45

I'm in so. I

1:29:48

think Singapore's pretty nonjudgmental country. I

1:29:50

he if you go there on like

1:29:52

an african passport they look at the

1:29:54

list. Is your passport

1:29:57

the list? Okay Their motives: Virago. Ninety

1:29:59

Days Welcome. Whereas. If you

1:30:01

do that in the Uk it's like yeah

1:30:03

you get a visa but like I am.

1:30:06

I think if you're going to hold. A

1:30:08

currency that policy applies equally. Ah, one

1:30:11

of the wealthiest clients will ever worked

1:30:13

with his eyes. Are you now? I'm

1:30:15

from a place that like the West

1:30:17

doesn't. I'm against my

1:30:20

country, but I'm from a place like the country the

1:30:22

west of the like. I don't trust the Uk. I.

1:30:24

Don't want my money and Uk banks or what I want to live

1:30:26

in the Uk. And.

1:30:29

It's. It's it's it's to me, for better or worse, there's

1:30:31

a judgment of like We like. He's about as useful. I

1:30:35

would probably said to singapore dollar space

1:30:37

to run a basket of different currencies.

1:30:39

Ah, I'm. It's the

1:30:42

freest economy in the world.

1:30:44

Ah, I'm. They do

1:30:46

a great job running it. I mean

1:30:48

name a place where. Retail.

1:30:50

Banks are lending money to the central bank.

1:30:53

Ah, I'm. A

1:30:56

I would say sick of the Singapore dollar. What?

1:30:59

About easy. Let's say you're going around

1:31:01

two smaller banks in knees, emerging or

1:31:03

frontier countries or whatever. Can you actually

1:31:05

put a significant amount of money. Deposited

1:31:08

into the bank accounts there. Are.

1:31:11

You do it every one. Ah, studio is

1:31:13

the question ah I'm are you okay so

1:31:15

that first that question and then also how

1:31:17

do you assess bank risks with a good

1:31:20

way to assess bank risk. Well

1:31:22

I mean look at the bank failures in the

1:31:24

Us West Him: they're more bank failures in the

1:31:26

Us and I think pretty much of our country

1:31:28

combined. Ah, I'm so I a basic. The risk

1:31:31

is in the Us now. You. Have

1:31:33

the Ft I see. Which. Is

1:31:35

basically broke as less than one percent of all

1:31:37

the money was if if you had a couple

1:31:39

big bang theory their wiped out and see a

1:31:41

best the depended on his the Us Congress gonna

1:31:43

bail out. Banks. Ah,

1:31:47

I'm not so convinced that you know our

1:31:49

that millions of dollars my bank account? Does

1:31:51

the Us Congress really want to be bailing

1:31:53

out with taxpayer dollars in increasingly kind of

1:31:55

populous country. People. who had million dollars

1:31:57

the bank i'm not sure if it comes that they're

1:31:59

going to. So, I mean,

1:32:02

I look at banks in places like Singapore,

1:32:04

they're some of the highest rated in the

1:32:07

world. That's not an emerging economy. But

1:32:10

some of those banks might have operations in

1:32:13

other countries. I mean, you look at a

1:32:15

country mentioned Cambodia, there are stable Asian

1:32:17

banks that opened up offices in Cambodia.

1:32:19

People are going and investing in Cambodia.

1:32:21

They're building my friend's strategy as he's

1:32:24

buying real estate on corners in

1:32:26

the city center that one

1:32:29

day will get torn down to build skyscrapers

1:32:31

or shopping malls because they're doing it. I mean,

1:32:34

when I first went to Cambodia, they had like

1:32:36

one skyscraper. Now they're

1:32:38

going up everywhere. It's like

1:32:40

a front running gentrification. That's

1:32:44

a good, it's like a band name or a book

1:32:46

name or something. So, like, yeah, am

1:32:53

I going to get go to Cambodia and invest in

1:32:55

like, you know, some local bank? I mean, no, I'm

1:32:57

not gonna put as much money there. Am I

1:33:00

going to go to Armenia and invest in the bank?

1:33:02

It's like owned by a guy. I mean, this like

1:33:04

in Serbia, I mean, there are some banks like the

1:33:06

18th largest bank is like it's owned by like a

1:33:08

guy. No, but

1:33:11

I can go to Armenia and there's banks like there's

1:33:13

there's French banks. Yeah,

1:33:16

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna feel comfortable doing that

1:33:18

because like, do you think if that French bank in

1:33:20

Armenia collapses that nobody in France is going to pull

1:33:22

their money from that bank? Of course they are. So

1:33:25

they have to make sure they move the money around. So I

1:33:27

think the risk is based on the

1:33:30

quality of the institution. I mean, in Georgia, the two

1:33:32

largest banks are traded on the one that stock exchange

1:33:34

doesn't mean they can't go under just like banks in

1:33:36

the US run the US, your US

1:33:39

stock exchange they went under. But

1:33:41

I think that if you look at those factors, you

1:33:45

can find decent banks, you know,

1:33:47

in a country like Ecuador, it's a

1:33:49

lot of credit unions, very high interest rates, the

1:33:52

US dollars, the official currency, which

1:33:54

I actually kind of like because if anything ever happens,

1:33:56

like they're not going to like force you to take

1:33:58

their currency. But you know, the There's

1:34:01

no big, huge banks that you would trust

1:34:03

all your life savings. I

1:34:05

think for me, the point is I wouldn't trust anyone with

1:34:07

my life savings. Think about it. Look

1:34:11

at Nigel Farage in the UK. Whether you like him or not, you

1:34:14

know what? We just don't want your business anymore. That

1:34:17

can happen anywhere. I've

1:34:22

had things happen to me where they're like, oh,

1:34:27

you're charging for the... Yeah, you're not really

1:34:29

the kind of client we want. Then

1:34:32

what do you do? The

1:34:34

same bankers that want you to go give us all your business

1:34:36

are the same ones that would cut you off at the knees.

1:34:38

I don't care how stable the

1:34:40

bank is. I don't want any bank to have all my money.

1:34:43

I just don't. For

1:34:47

me, yeah, if you put a million dollars in Singapore, would

1:34:49

you put $100,000 in the Bank

1:34:51

of Georgia? Obviously, in

1:34:54

some of those emerging world banks, if you're willing to take

1:34:56

on other currencies, I mean, the Georgian lorry has done incredibly

1:34:58

well in the last couple years. Meanwhile, you

1:35:00

made 13% interest. If

1:35:02

you don't have any better places to park your money,

1:35:04

that's an interesting kind of diversification. There's some countries, if

1:35:07

you do that, you can get a residence permit, for

1:35:09

example. It's like, how does this stuff all work together?

1:35:12

I wouldn't move $200,000 to a

1:35:14

Dominican Republic bank, but if you

1:35:16

told me, oh, we'll give you a fast track to

1:35:18

citizenship, I'd be... I'm

1:35:20

interested in that. I

1:35:24

think it all comes down to what are you getting out

1:35:26

of the deal, higher interest

1:35:28

rates, residence, citizenship, or

1:35:31

just in the case of like, you know, Cambodia,

1:35:36

it's probably stable than you think. I'll give you one

1:35:38

more thing. There's banks in places like the Bahamas. They

1:35:40

don't even keep your money. They just

1:35:42

have accounts at bigger banks all around the world

1:35:44

that would never take you as a client, you

1:35:46

know, BNB Paribas in France or Qatar National Bank

1:35:49

of Qatar. Oh, God. I like

1:35:51

this. What is the stub hub

1:35:53

ticket reseller of bank accounts? They're

1:35:56

basically just, yeah, I mean, they're small banks. They take your

1:35:59

deposits and they just have... your money somewhere else. They don't

1:36:01

make loans. Why is

1:36:03

it like the US banks get in

1:36:05

so much trouble? They just lend out

1:36:07

to the health. They're so aggressive

1:36:11

in some cases. You go to Hong Kong.

1:36:13

Hong Kong is actually opening up more now for banking,

1:36:15

but why has Hong Kong historically been so difficult to

1:36:18

get a bank account? The banks literally

1:36:20

don't want more money. They're so conservative. They

1:36:22

have nowhere to put it. That's

1:36:26

wild. That is absolutely

1:36:28

crazy. What do you make of

1:36:32

the meme of the passport bro? Because

1:36:34

you have been doing this for significantly

1:36:36

longer than that meme has come about,

1:36:38

but there is a strong trend at

1:36:40

the moment of especially Western, especially men

1:36:44

deciding that there is a problem with

1:36:46

the culture or the dating or the

1:36:48

government or whatever it is, and then

1:36:51

going, I'm out

1:36:53

of here. Were

1:36:55

you an early adopter of this or is

1:36:57

this sort of playing into your guys' culture

1:37:00

in some way? What are you seeing? I'll

1:37:04

be honest. I don't entirely know. My thought

1:37:06

is that that passport bro is kind of more

1:37:08

focused on the dating element. That's kind of a

1:37:11

core driver of it. I

1:37:14

think for me, many, many,

1:37:16

many years ago, I wanted

1:37:19

to be an entrepreneur at 12

1:37:21

years old. It wasn't cool back

1:37:23

then. Now it's cool. It wasn't cool when I wanted

1:37:25

to be an entrepreneur. I wasn't the

1:37:29

most popular guy. You're just a weird kid. Yeah,

1:37:31

just kind of like, who's this? The guy

1:37:33

wants to start a business? You're a freak. I

1:37:36

remember being 21 and my friends would

1:37:38

drag me to bars and girls would make fun of

1:37:40

me because I would go to

1:37:43

business meetings and it was embarrassing. In

1:37:45

retrospect, go to these business meetings. Why

1:37:47

are you wearing cufflinks? What are you, weirdo or

1:37:49

something? I remember being like 22 or

1:37:52

23 and I was on one

1:37:54

of my early trips and I

1:37:56

met this girl from China. She's

1:37:59

like, all this stuff that everyone else that was weird, just

1:38:01

like fascinated by. Like in Asia, it's like, what is

1:38:03

it like, you're 23, and you have like a business,

1:38:05

and you're making money, and like, it's growing, like, that's

1:38:07

pretty, like, that's pretty like, like, nobody in China would

1:38:10

be like under 50 would be doing that, like, that's

1:38:12

pretty cool. And it kind

1:38:15

of showed me this kind of arbitrage

1:38:17

opportunity. You know, I mean, I've, you

1:38:20

know, dated people around the world is it's interesting, I never

1:38:23

looked at it as something where, you know, I've never wanted

1:38:25

to be one of these guys where it's like, I'm going

1:38:27

to places, I've never chosen a

1:38:29

place for dating, like Kuala Lumpur, probably not

1:38:31

a great dating location. That's

1:38:33

probably why some of the people don't choose it. I

1:38:37

mean, Thailand or Indonesia is probably better. So

1:38:40

I've never really chosen a place based

1:38:42

on on dating. But,

1:38:47

you know, I've enjoyed, you know, meeting

1:38:49

people from different places, I, you know, I

1:38:51

never wanted to make dating kind of the

1:38:54

only aspect, but I certainly think that people

1:38:59

should seek competition in their life. I

1:39:01

think the biggest thing, I mean, you

1:39:03

look for competition for a restaurant. You

1:39:06

look for competition, if you're buying a product, I mean, people

1:39:08

use apps, and how can I save $3 buying

1:39:11

this product somewhere else? Why don't

1:39:13

you use competition for your taxes? And for

1:39:15

the government that serves you? Why not use

1:39:17

competition for the people that you meet? And

1:39:19

again, I mean, really is your whether you just want

1:39:22

to find a short term relationship, or

1:39:24

whether you're looking for your soulmate, or whatever, whatever

1:39:26

it is. Are

1:39:29

the odds that they live around

1:39:31

you? I mean, really, if all people out

1:39:33

of 8 billion people, the person that matches you happen

1:39:36

to also be born in Cleveland, Ohio, it

1:39:39

seems ridiculous to me, right? And if you

1:39:41

look back throughout human history, I mean,

1:39:43

people didn't have so many options, they just learned to live

1:39:46

with it. But like, you lived in a

1:39:48

village, and there were 50 people, and you

1:39:50

just chose one. And really, those are the

1:39:52

happiest relationships. Those are the most fulfilling relationships.

1:39:57

So I mean, I yeah, I'm you know,

1:40:00

I'm not

1:40:02

the guy, I remember we were towing real estate in

1:40:04

Medellin years ago and people wanted to

1:40:06

buy property for Airbnb and we would go to some

1:40:08

of the buildings and they were like,

1:40:10

oh, this one, the government's for

1:40:13

Airbnb, but the building banned

1:40:15

Airbnb. And one

1:40:17

place they went, they told a story of

1:40:19

some woman was coming home with her child and

1:40:21

a guy was being serviced

1:40:24

in the elevator. And the elevator

1:40:26

door opens and there's this guy with

1:40:29

a woman and it's like, yeah, we don't

1:40:31