Dateline: Dublin, Ireland In most countries of the world, if you live outside of the country of your citizenship you don’t pay income taxes back home. Americans don’t have that freedom and must pay income taxes no matter where they live. However, as many of you...
Dateline: Derry, Northern Ireland If you’re a person who makes a living through entrepreneurial pursuits, whether it’s business, investing, or consulting, you already know that you frequently need to be a creative problem solver. That’s practically common knowledge....
Dateline: Letterkenny, Ireland I’m writing this in mid-November 2016. If you’ve walked past a TV anywhere in the world or graced social media any time over the last year and a half you’ve seen highlights from the clown show known as a US federal election. From the...
Dateline: Letterkenny, Ireland History has trends. One of the most obvious and major trends in the West since the attacks on September 11, 2001 is that governments are becoming more authoritarian. In London, there are cameras watching virtually everyone. In the US,...
Dateline: Oslo, Norway + Budapest, Hungary I’m starting this article at the airport in Oslo, Norway. I’ll finish and send it from a hotel room in Budapest, Hungary. Thirty years ago, based on that information, you might have guessed I was an executive with a big oil...
Dateline: Belfast, Northern Ireland Go buy a lottery ticket. Does that sound like the stupidest financial advice you could ever read? Maybe it is. On the other hand, it might be the best two bucks you spend this week. Let me explain why. First of all, let’s make...
Dateline: Derry, Northern Ireland I first became an expat 31 years ago when I legally emigrated to the United States and successfully pursued a green card. Years later, I left the US, surrendered my green card, and became a legal permanent resident of Belize. After...
Dateline: Dublin, Ireland Every book about investment basics talks about the value of having your portfolio well diversified. The rationale is that if you hold all of your net worth in, say, energy stocks and a relevant global event triggers huge losses in the energy...
Dateline: Pattaya, Thailand One of the major challenges of expat life is making sure you have decent medical care and coverage. I’ve noticed that the 20-somethings who travel the world seldom talk about this. But I’m 57 years old and my wife is only a few years behind...
We all have our own priorities in life. We each make our own subjective assessment of what trade-offs are worth it and which are not. These decisions, whether we explicitly realize it or not, depend on our personal values. Leaving one’s native country can be a...
Dateline: Guangzhou, China Freedom is a cheap word. It gets thrown around, particularly by politicians and their accomplices, in ways that cheapen and corrupt the concept. One thing people have in common in Venezuela, the UK, America, China, North Korea, and the...
Dateline: Hong Kong I read one of Andrew’s Facebook posts about being “stuck” and it really got me thinking. The thrust of Andrew’s post is that sometimes we blame others for the situation we’re in. We tell ourselves things like, “That won’t work for me, because I...