#740 - Nomad Capitalist - How To Travel The World And Pay No Tax

25:11And he literally isn't able to pay the money to leave. Yeah. Like a financial prisoner of his own financial success. Yeah. So, I mean, like Canada and other countries have it exit tax when you become a non -resident because their tax system is residential. If you live in Canada, you pay tax on anything that you earn anywhere in the world. So I invest in Cambodia. If I get a dividend from Cambodia and I'm a resident of Canada, Canada will tax that dividend minus whatever I pay in Cambodia, whatever. So people think, oh, that's a citizenship -based tax. No, because you can just simply leave. You don't have to go to the embassy and give up your passport.

25:49you just have to demonstrate that you've cut your ties and you've departed Canada. You can return to visit within limited parameters, but you're not giving up your citizenship to leave Canada. So he is the same exit text, just not the same requirement to give up his passport. Which makes it more difficult. The last year was the first year that I was fully exclusively filed in the US. And it wasn't like the UK was coming knocking on the door. I'm glad that I didn't have to go through the forms. that's the reason that you have an accountant that understands this stuff. But it's relatively simple.

26:23It's like, hey, I didn't spend 90 days in the United Kingdom. Therefore, I don't got to pay the United Kingdom any cash, but that's not the same as it is in America. In the UK, there's different tests, depending on what connections you have. It could be, you know, under 46 could be under 91. But yeah, the day's test can be difficult, because I think people think like in Australia and Canada, if I spend under 183, no, no, That's just one of the tests is how long you spend there. But what are your connections? What do you have? But yeah, they let you go. The UK is not one of the worst ones. And so it is aggressive.

27:01Is anyone else more aggressive than America? I mean, California is probably the most aggressive of all. So if you're living in the US and you're living California, you're just a man that's unbelievable. I'm gonna listen, you know what frustrates me? People say there's nowhere to go, because they live in a bubble. They watch their local TV news. Let's be honest, by the way, is the propaganda in the US really that much different than the propaganda anywhere else? It's, you know, they're telling you what the narrative they want you to hear.

27:36You know, it's, people live in the bubble and they say, well, where am I gonna go? Because their thoughts of where they're gonna go is Canada or Italy or something like that. By the way, Italy has a tax incentive now. I mean, at least they realize, hey, we've got to bring some money to this joint. I mean, if you can pay a flat 100 ,000 euros a year and you can make as much money as you want, they also have a 50 % to 70 % reduction for the first five years on taxes. So at least they've done something to bring people in. But you know what bothers me is there's nowhere to go. Even in a country like Ireland, pretty laid back like the immigration office, really laid back.

28:09A tax office laid back compared to the US. You come here to Malaysia, you come to a lot of places. It is not what it is in the US. And I'm not saying you shouldn't pay, I'm a big fan of following the law, just going to where you agree with the laws. Why try and fight and change the laws and fight against all your fellow citizens? What you wish existed already exists somewhere. Just go there and just you'll fit in. But the idea that there's nowhere to go is nonsense. The enforcement system, just the divisiveness, but just the adversarial relationship with the government. Again, speaking as a libertarian, not a huge fan of a lot of government.

28:54It's much less adversarial in some of these countries, whether it's the police, immigration, tax, these handful of Western countries. It is almost unique how adversarial they are. What should people do if they don't want to renounce their American citizenship, but they do want to try and dial their tax back? Well, if, I mean, if, again, if you're British, if you're Canadian, if you're from anywhere else, you should just find it in their place to live. If you are American, I didn't renounce immediately. I, I, I remember my father read, um, how the tax system worked. He would come up and read articles from the Wall Street Journal when I was a teenager.

29:30And I've said, wait a second, if you don't live here, you don't have to pay, that's ridiculous. He's like, well, it says here you can renounce your citizenship. I'm like, maybe I'll do it at 13. I'm like, maybe I'll do that because that seems ridiculous. Did they trap you like that? But nevertheless, I didn't move overseas in a medley renounce. I took advantage of dramatically lowering the taxes. So if you're an investor, you're at a disadvantage. So right now, you know, Bitcoin's up. And I was telling everybody, move out of your high tax country when Bitcoin was at 16 ,000, now it's at 45 ,000, because you would have saved that whole $29 ,000 delta in capital gains tax.

30:05As an American, investment is passive. Puerto Rico is an option. That's pretty much your option if you want to lower your taxes on passive investments. But if you run a business and a business to find as not a one man or one woman show, but a business with some employees and it can function without you, you can incorporate that business in some tax haven. I think if you're an American, it probably should be a zero -tax jurisdiction, just so the two systems don't fight too much. What would that be like? What would be an example? Well, the UAE, that really anymore. That was the one people think about.

30:37It's Dubai. I mean, they've really come in. I had one of our wealthiest clients of all time. Message me that at a night. I love the UAE, but this new 9%, not a fan. Hong Kong still is a decent system. I mean, depending on the business, the British Virgin Islands, there's also multiple structures. I mean, you're probably not gonna be running robust payment processing on any of this. So maybe there could be a US element to your business to do things like credit cards, but maybe the parent company is gonna move somewhere else. And so it depends, like, if the parent company, many different things.

31:06But, you know, traditional tax havens, British Virgin Islands, I live man, probably more difficult than it should be, Hong Kong now. You know, Panama is not as robust, but that's an option. Belize, not so robust. Depends. I mean, here in Malaysia, LaBouanne is 3%. But set up a company and probably a zero -text jurisdiction, figure out some kind of structure depending on what your business needs, depending on how people pay you. Take a salary from that company if you're married and you both work in the business, both take a salary. Obviously I'm not giving it. This is not formal tax advice. But if you're married, potentially you can take out close to about 250 grand.

31:44You can avoid social security and Medicare tax. and then on the rest of it you're going to pay some lower rate of tax. And so then the question is, if you can use things like tax treaties or tax credits to pay that lower rate of tax to some other country and then take it again as a credit against the US, you know, rather than moving to a zero tax country, do you move to a country where you can pay 5 % tax in Europe, for example? And then you use that as an offset against the US because you were going to pay the US anyway, you might as well put some tax into Europe and then live in Europe if you want to and then work towards your passport in five years.

32:17So these are the kinds of things that go into it. If you're going to be an American these days, you're going to have to pay something if you make more than six figures. And again, you know what, if you like the country and you want the option to go back and you're like, hey, for 10 years, let me pocket a boatload of cash. Fine, keep the US, pay the US. I'm not opposed to paying some tax. I'm just a guy who didn't want to live in the US, didn't want to be American. And so why would you not want to be something and pay for the privilege? If you like being it pay 10 % pay 8 % I mean that's not so bad.

32:52It's a lot better than what you're paying now Keep the American passport. You're not gonna get as good a deal as as you would as a UK citizen Just being able to pay zero but such as life The challenge though is again that passive income comes are you gonna sell the business for $50 million in the future? because that's where they're going to nail you. And so that's the issue where you might want to look at if you're only concerned about tax planning, expatriation, because if you can argue that your business is only worth one million today, and you only have a million dollars in other assets, maybe you're under that two million dollar threshold and you can leave with no exit tax at all.

33:26And then once the business grows, you know, I mean, I, again, tax was not really my motivator for leaving. It was the frustration of I don't like the way the country's being run and I don't really feel like I want to be part of it anyway. So why not just just expatriate? But I will say from a financial point of view, the time when that happened was very fortuitous. My business is worth a lot more money now. If I wanted to sell it, I'm going to save a lot of millions of dollars because I left when it was worth not really that a lot. What's the reality of this Puerto Rico hack? Well, I mean, you actually got to live there.

34:03I think it probably attracts you. So there's different criteria, but I'm just called half a year. Maybe let's call it a little bit more than half a year. I'm a more conservative guy. I mean, and I've seen some of these things. People pitch like what was one of the ones last year, the multi -pension plan. That one got unraveled. And they have at least different schemes that various advisors promote. Like, oh, it's so easy. You could just, you know, I'm not offended. The, oh, it's so easy because eventually that stuff comes crashing down. Let's say it's a little bit more than half the time in Puerto Rico to satisfy all the things.

34:32I do think it attracts the kind of person who's like, can I just get on a raft and float back to Miami? No, don't do that. Like, don't do that. It's a place that is not that efficient. What's the quality of life like? I've never been. I don't, I've been there only once. I think people say they tolerate it. And by the way, people say, oh, You know, it's like people move from California to Florida in droves now. And they don't think anything of that. People move from New York to Texas in droves. I would argue you'd save a lot more in taxes and maybe you'd have a closer cultural connection. Okay, a lot of people from New York are in Texas now.

35:20But you might have a closer cultural connection to someone in Ireland. If you're from Boston, if you're from New York, then moving to Dallas. But for some reason, moving to Ireland or moving to Panama is scary, moving to Texas, Oregon, Puerto Rico is not scary because it's in the US. I don't think a lot of the local Puerto Ricans necessarily like this, the system that they have going on there. I think you have some of the same issues as if you move to a foreign country. It's not that efficient. People tolerate it. I mean, if you want to do something at the bank, just prepare to spend all day. And so I get it.

35:55I mean, if you want to be an American or if you just like if you just can't if you already have tons of money But you plan on having tons more I get there's certain people who want to go there for me the issue was I Was I was single at the time when I expatriated I Didn't think I would dated American and so do you know many people I've had where their their best tax move is to move to Puerto Rico But they've got a Mexican girlfriend Well, is she going to get a green card? How are you going to hang out with your Mexican girlfriend? Right? So, I mean, that's where the dating piece comes in. Like, dude, I'll take the Colombians, I'll take the Russians, like the...

36:33Okay, I'm not any more, but... But that, for me, was the problem on Puerto Rico. Is you're kind of limited to who you can be with. What do you mean when you talk about the global citizen sandwich and the trifecta strategy? So the trifecta strategy is, as I get older, I'm more focused on being in one or two places, and then just kind of briefly visiting the others for business or checking out opportunities. But for a long time, I said, I can't decide. I just love it all. I'm a legitimately very curious person. I'm fascinated by absolutely everything. And I would say, hey, I'd go to Mexico. I'm going to have some Mexico.

37:19I'm going to have Latin America in my life. And then I'd come to Asia. Oh, I love Asia. This is great. And then I'd go to Europe. OK, the trifecta is you pick three home bases. You get either a residence permit or a citizenship. Theoretically, maybe you could live. There's a two -risk in some countries. And you basically have three home bases. And you split your time between them. Now you can modify it. But the pure trifecta, as I called it, was four months in one, four months in another, and four months in a third. So it might be from December through March. I'm going to be in Kuwait, then in May, June, July.

37:51I'm going to go somewhere in Europe. And then the rest of the year, I'm going to be in Latin America. And I want to experience everything the world has to offer. There's different business lessons you learn from being in different places. There's different cultures. I mean, Asian culture is substantially different in some ways to what you might be used to in the UK and the US. And so some people, 12 months a year, they're going to burn out. A lot of people come to Asia. they do the two -year thing. That's why they call them expats. It's not permanent. They're not immigrants, right? They don't plan on staying.

38:23I think if you spent four months a year in Asia in the best months, you would love coming back. And so that was the trifecta. And it just so happens that in the kind of countries that I tend to like, that can be very tax -friendly. And in some cases, it's just like, hey, you didn't spend six months in Colombia, so you don't owe us any tax. the goal was not tax avoidance that was the side effect. And so I'm in the tax business, right? People don't come to me to talk about how they don't like their mother or they want to dance salsa. They come because they have a problem paying too much tax. And so I prescribed it as I like it for the lifestyle.

39:00You might like it for the tax. The global citizen sandwich is exactly why I'm in Malaysia. Malaysia is qualumport. I'm not saying it's the absolute best place. It is the best value place in the world to live. Nice as people, it's humid, but otherwise good weather. Tons of consumer conveniences. I went to a five star hotel where we have our Nomad Cowpless Live event last year. They have a beautiful gentleman's club, like a cigar lounge. Got four cocktails at happy hour, served by a guy in a white dinner jacket who knows everybody who's successful in the country. and four cocktails cost me 23 bucks.

39:41The most beautiful ambiance you wear of smoking jacket, they come in, they can get a haircut. I mean, there's nowhere better. You obviously wouldn't pay that in Singapore. But I do trust Singapore more than if I have precious metals to store or I want to put $10 million in a bank, I'd rather do it there. I do think Malaysian banks are pretty darn safe, but I'm not putting my $10 million. They just don't have as many options. They don't have as many investment options as many currencies. It's harder to get the money out. So I'm going to sing a poor next door. That's the top layer of the bread. That's like the crem de la crem.

40:14The meaty part, the meat in the middle is where you live, Malaysia, and then the other layer of bread is, okay, I own a home in Malaysia. The trade -off is it's not really increasing in value. That's a good amount of supply. It'll take 10 or 15 years for me to see much appreciation. My investment is a lifestyle investment. And so, you know, I'm one of the largest investors in a fund that a friend of mine runs in Cambodia. I think Cambodia and Rivas State are some of the highest promise for capital appreciation of the next five to 10 years of any market in Southeast Asia and it's accessible. And so I wouldn't live in Cambodia.

40:50I wouldn't bank, you know, 10 million dollars in Cambodia. I don't think I need to live in Singapore. So the nice meaty part in the middle is where you spend your actual life living. And then the layers on top are the extremes of the asset protection. and then the more adventurous kind of capital appreciation. Can't you buy... And you can do that anywhere. You can buy land in Cambodia as a non -citizen, non -resident, is that right? No, there's like four countries in Asia. Thailand was promising to open it up, and I think they scrapped it for high investors. Malaysia, Japan, parts of Korea, I forget the other one.

41:30But Malaysia is actually the most open in Southeast Asia. You can own land. So you can actually buy land. You can build a house. I have a friend who's doing that In Cambodia, you cannot but you can own condo buildings now You know, there's a program You know if you if you donate money to a charity endorse by the king The king will give you citizenship Then you can go out as a newly minted Cambodians that is an imbi where you want But you can also sort of a Cambodian company and and you can do that So you know what my friend is he's at a Cambodian company full of everybody together because it's not really cost -efficient to do it, to buy one apartment.

42:04But generally in Asia, you're not going to get citizenship and outside of like Malaysia, you're going to buy a condominium. That's how it works. But they're very tax -friendly places. They're very laid back, very laissez -faire. People come to Qualumport. They think, oh, it's a Muslim country. And everyone who comes here, the most progressive people I know, they say, everyone told me, we don't care. especially if you're not, if you're not Malay Muslim, I mean, if you're Malay Muslim, okay, they're gonna judge you a little bit. Even if you're Malaysian, but you're not Muslim. You can wear the shortest shorts, you can wear the tiniest tops, you can do what you can drink, you can do whatever you want.

42:43We don't judge you. That's like that's between you and your God. We don't judge you. So it's this very laid back place. And I'm a big fan. Talking about Muslim countries that are both Muslim and not Dubai being British. That is the probably the most common after some like a season in Ibiza for the summer or Magaluff for Zantia or somewhere like that. A lot of people going to Dubai. A lot of my close friends going and living out there. There was a period some of my friends have been going out for literally 10 years. There was a period a while ago where, did you have to get you had to know an Emirati or something and if you knew someone who is Emirati, you could kind of get this extra blessing and then there was this other period for a brief while, maybe five years ago, up until five or four or five years ago where you had to go and do like a visa run once every quarter or something and now it's a little bit easier and it continues to be doing that.

43:42But what's the, give me the thoughts on Dubai because from a British person's perspective, it's the, It's no mad capitalist and capsulated in a single country. Again, I'm a bit of a contrarian, right? I mean, I think I almost like Qualcomm Poor. I think it is the best value, but I almost like it in a sense because it's not Bangkok. I want people to go to Bangkok. I just kind of like to do my own thing. So we had our company in Dubai for a while and we decided to move out. The banking, I think, is quite difficult. I mean, the quality of private banking is, it's not ready. It's just not. And I just had that experience as recently as two months ago.

44:25I've got to go and figure out, you know, what's happening with some money that I sent them because the quality of service in the banking system, not impressed. If you want to run a business, I think it's really designed for people who want to live there. So our finance team is in Tbilisi, Georgia. And every time we wanted to do something, they're like, we'll just come into the branch. It's like the US. They're like, well, people live outside of the US. What are you talking about? Like people live outside of Dubai, like we can't imagine that. Like, because people who live there who work in banks and stuff, their dream was to live in Dubai.

45:04How can you not live in Dubai? That's impossible. It's not really set up for remote operations. So, and now they're bringing in this 9 % tax and they're applying it more aggressively to even the free zone companies than the nine percent tax. I haven't heard of this. So, there's this global minimum tax that they brought in on big companies. So, if you have hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, the world got together and said, we can't have you moving all your profits to, you know, Bermuda. Let's apply some global tax that applies across the board, not to businesses like yours and mine, or maybe you're making hundreds of millions, but not in mine.

45:43And so they basically said, okay, everybody's gonna raise their rates. So a country like Ireland, for example, said, okay, we're 12 and a half, if you meet the threshold, we'll bump it up to 15. But what also happened was, some of these countries that wanted to kind of get along were like, okay, well, we'll increase our tax rates just on everybody. And the UAE did that. They said, okay, it's gonna be 9 % if you run an onshore business. But if you're in the free zones, which is where a lot of people would set up, you know, there's different free zones in Dubai and all over the country. As long as you're not working with other UAE, you know, entities, okay, and it's like, you're not going to pay.

46:15It's still going to be zero. I said, okay, that's kind of like Hong Kong. If you're based in Hong Kong, you pay tax. If you're offshore, there's no way you can exempt yourself and not pay any tax. Okay, fine. Fair enough. Well, then they started creeping in more and more and more into the free zones to where now it's like most people running a business are going to pay 9%. Even like we looked it into, can we just keep our trademarks there? Now, you have to do transfer pricing. You've got to move money into the UAE from your other companies to pay for the value of the trademarks that you're using.

46:45And then we're going to tax that at 9%. So the UAE basically rolled out a 9 % tax on domestic companies and then it's kind of been creeping into the companies that don't have any connection to Dubai. They just said, hey, it's 0 % tax. What a nice place to go. I can get a bank account. I can get a residence permit. I give the UAE incredible credit for making the residence process that you mentioned incredibly easy It is one of the easiest in the world and if you want to personally live there They've said for now. It's gonna be 0 % tax on your personal So if you would just have again stock or anings or something well actually stock if you have dividends could be a problem But if you just have capital gains if you have you know Bitcoin whatever fine But if you're gonna run a business that's based in the UAE.

47:26I don't think it's that ideal, but I give them incredible people respect for how they've made immigration super easy. And it just proves the point, if you run your country to where you don't have a big social welfare system, you don't want people to get away with crimes. Why wouldn't you let anyone who sets up a company, anyone who invests some money? Why wouldn't you let them come and be a resident? I mean, that's the way the US used to be. And so I see in that point, it's kind of like the new American dream. Anyone who wants to make something of themselves, come on in. and we're not gonna make it hard.

47:58And they don't. But I think on the tax side, in an effort to placate the global powers, they got a little bit more aggressive than they initially thought. And it's not the government's fault that the banks are difficult. But I'm just, I'm not impressed by the banks. I mean, we are talking about a country that changed the weekend only a couple of years ago. And just if there are people that don't know, the Dubai weekend used to be Friday, Saturday. So your Friday night would have been a Thursday night and you went back to work on a Sunday morning and One day one day everyone just woke up and the government said hey, guess what the weekend is Saturday and Sunday now all the British like yeah You're gonna like I'm working on Sunday like what the hell's that listen?

48:45I I think I mean Saudi Arabia is kind of doing this now as well. I mean Buhram was always one of the more liberal ones I mean, I think the whole golf with the UAE being the kind of the biggest standout has done an incredible job at what I would call, let's go out and figure out, basically go where you're treated best. Hey, who's doing this the best? Okay, let's just implement that. Okay, what have they got going on? That makes sense. From a policy perspective. Yeah, how interesting. Right. I mean, you know, you know, the bit here's where I can assess whether countries are failure. And I know this because we have people who work in some of these countries and that's That's why it was more affordable for us to go there.

49:23I don't know. That's not how we do it. We do it this way. Well, maybe the results suck and you should change how you do it, but your pride gets in the way. I have a great respect for the UAE and these other countries. I mean, they have a pride for their country, but it's not the pride doesn't get in the way of let's make the right decisions. Yeah. And they did an incredible job on that. How do you say like philosophically non -monogamous when it comes to the procedures? Yes. Yes. I think, I think, I think, I think non -monogamy in the context of choosing countries and policies and things, it makes a lot of sense.

50:02One of the things that I've had in my head is you've been talking through all of this today is dear God, how much paperwork is associated with all of this. You're talking about, I mean, dude, I had to submit, and I'm aware I tried to get into a very difficult country to get into, but I had to submit a a three inch thick 700 page hard copy portfolio for my O1. And, you know, to get a social security number and there's no license equivalency test. America has the worst, hey, guess what America? You can't drive. No one can drive in America, right? No one, everybody's a bad driver. There's no license equivalency between the UK and the US.

50:38I need to retake my theory test in order to be able to get a driver's license in order to be able to get a car, but before I did that, I had to get a social security number in order to get social security number, I had to show my I -94, but your I -94 is only triggered if you've entered the country through the border within the last three months, which meant that I had to leave to go to the Bahamas to come back just to trigger this arbitrary number. So my point being, I've had to deal with lots of paperwork and I essentially live in two countries. I'm invested in some form or a stakeholder in two different countries.

51:10And you're this big long octopus with with this tentacles wrapped around many countries. Like how does, how would anybody get, even begin to get this started without just drowning in tons of correspondence? Well, I was at a bank not so long ago in Serbia and I think the banks are safe there. I think it's a nice kind of diversification play but it was never a place I wanted to put a lot of money. And so I went and I said, okay, let me get a new debit card. Just in case I needed, I'm never gonna need it, but just in case I carry around like this many debit cards. And I want to pick it up. And they're like, oh, do you have a Dena card?

51:51I'm like, yeah, I guess it expired. So they're required by law to give you this card that you can make payments in Serbian Dinar. It's like nobody uses it, but they're required for you to give you one. And they're like, oh, we've got to cut up your debit card. And you've got to come back in a month. And I'm like, I'm not here. I'm here like once or twice a year. I'm not coming back. So, you know what, go where you're treated best. I'm just not gonna have a debit card and I'll keep a little bit less money in that account. And, you know, that's what it is. I'm probably gonna sell some land, I own.

52:22Next door Montenegro, just the thought of, oh my God, I gotta build a villa. You know what, someone's probably built a villa somewhere else and I can just buy it if I want to. And you know what, maybe I should just rent a villa for a while and just like put the money to work. So I think that you've got to, you know, That's kind of the whole thought process behind what we're doing is like you don't have to go to the US because yeah I had some properties that I owned in the US and It was the most laborious process now the US real estate market does have more liquidity than some other markets But where I own these properties it wasn't that great and I sold them and there were just so many fees and so many things to do and just like I mean I think like the grass was literally half an inch too long and I got a thing in the mail like violation and they're like they just want you to pay a hundred bucks.

53:09That doesn't really exist in all the other countries. I just went through I go through end of the year I pay all the bills for seven properties. I have one of the people in my finance team help me and It's pretty pretty darn easy and I have people who have helped me It's in many cases and many countries is more informal. Someone was your real estate agent three years later If you want their help with the Eric and I should think that I'll just go over there and check it out You pay them a few bucks. So I found that yes, there's bureaucracy. I mean, having, if you grow the business large enough, you just build an in -house team that specializes in it, we do it in -house.

53:46But I mean, the same with Dubai, it just became too much to manage. You know, we just said, you know what? We're just gonna go back where we were. So it is, go where you're treated best. And I think that again, the US is an, That's an extreme outlier. I saw a statistic not long ago that if you're getting a green card interview for a forget -if -it -like sibling or what kind of family member you're trying to come as through family reunification. From certain countries like India, Mexico, China, you applied in 1998. That's when you filed. That's when you did all the paperwork to get approved. you're now coming in to finalize the process in 2023 then.

54:35Now, whatever you think about family reunification, I mean, we do that for people all the time. You know, someone gets a Portugal residence permit and they add their wife through family reunification, takes, you know, a month or two or something. There's something, the US system is broken. And again, even in Ireland, just got someone a work permit the other day so they can go and work there and they can work for their own company. It's kind of a tax -efficient way for them to live in the country. It took like a month and a half. The person made a small mistake. The solicitor pointed it out. Oh my God, I'm so sorry, said the government officer.

55:10That doesn't happen in the U. I mean, the U .S. is an outlier. It's very adversarial, very counter -tank -truth. It really is. I mean, you had the best situation. I mean, go into a U .S. embassy in, and I've been there in Georgia, for example. And just watch the visa interviews there. I mean, I'm riddish. It's a nice touch. No, no, I went to Guatemala. Yeah. I went to the embassy there because the wait time, I was 88 days into a 90 day ester about to go over. And if I had, I would have been immediately banned from the country for God knows how many years. So I said, right, well, I'll leave. Go to God.

55:47I had to choice between El Salvador, Belize in Guatemala. I said, well, let's go to Guatemala. So I got to Guatemala and I'm able to get... you know, Berlin 2024. This is 2022. It's taken ages, because there's this backlog from COVID for people getting a one application, blah, blah, blah, London 2024. Guatemala next week. I'm like, hey, guess I'm going to Guatemala. So that was, I guess that was a little bit sort of nomad, nomad. I mean, you're still birder. I mean, I, so I think you, you kind of stand out as the shining, you know, it's like, oh, I finally somebody I, you know, like, an ex -colonist.

56:22Yeah. No, I mean, I think if you're British or Irish, I'm getting an L1 is more straightforward. But no, it's, it's, you know, people say, oh, you hate the US. I just don't think they're best at anything. I guess prisoner population per capita, they're not even best at obesity anymore.

56:50So I mean, like, I just want to go where things are best.

56:56And if people take nothing away from this, I just, I never felt good in the US again for multiple different reasons. But like when I started traveling, you know, the TSA, they open up your stuff. They're, yeah, I want to, I mean, just like just so many interactions with the government are unpleasant. that when you go to so many other countries, it's you think, or it must be the same. It's not the same. It really isn't. It's just not the norm. Let's say that there's someone who's listening to this, maybe two people, one of them's American, one of them isn't. And they're thinking, Andrew made a bit of sense there.

57:33I don't feel a massive amount of affinity. I feel like I could do with a change. But I don't really know where to start and going to somewhere to simply be a tourist. Like I need to perhaps I need to work in some regard. Where would you like you mentioned that the buys is very simple. What are some of the other places that's like on the The new passport bros starter kit who's what's included in that? Well, so I mean my focus I mean I've been an entrepreneur my entire life and I realized you know as maybe 20 years old I had a Vonage phone. I've ever been a member of Von it like a VoIP phone and I would I would basically you know I would call people for my business.

58:08I would call businesses. Hey, do you want to buy some advertising? And I realized pretty early on, why could I do this from anywhere? And eventually I started to do as I was traveling. I resisted the urge to move fully, but there were some years I traveled more than half the year and I'd be in China and nobody would even know. I would literally call my clients, they wouldn't have the difference.

58:33And I think that's the perspective I come from is you have something that you can take with you. So first, I would develop that. Is it, you know, I'm a cryptocurrency trader, I'm a stock investor, I have an online business, I'm a consultant, freelancer, whatever I can take with me. The cool thing about the US is there is more flexibility, again, not tax advice, but there's more flexibility, generally speaking, on keeping your US bank accounts. And so, you know, where's if you leave the UK or Canada, and they're more like, you should probably close that. I would get that in line first. Now, I think, you know, Qualcomm Poor v.

59:14like New York was like $0 .25 in the dollar. I mean, I just, you know, four cocktails, 23 bucks. That's like one cocktail in Las Vegas or something. You don't have to make as much, but I would get to the point where I can support myself. I mean, Dubai does have a lot of networking opportunities. depending on what you do. I think, I mean, it depends on your personality. I think a place like an island where they speak English, where it's very open. I would say the UK, but the UK has no way to move there. We had Nigel Farajit, no, we had Nigel Farajit, no Metacapolis live a couple of years ago. I told him like, you got rid of the investor visa.

59:55The startup visa doesn't really work. Even when it rarely does work, it's like you have to be the next Facebook or you have to be investing in the next Facebook. like there's just no way for a person with wealth or a business to move to the UK generally. It's just really just not a process for that. You can get a job and move to the UK, you can get married and move to the UK, but like a guy like me cannot easily move to the UK. So to me that's kind of a bulwark. I like a place like an Ireland, somebody else might like a place like a Switzerland that has maybe more established, I don't know what you want to call it.

1:00:29I mean, Dubai obviously has a lot of very new money. What about Portugal? What about Portugal? Portugal advertising for a while, coming live in Lisbon, it's on GMT, we'll give you a visa that's simple and so on. Is that not simple to get to? They are, but they get rid of the tax programs. They had a great tax incentive. It was for crypto. It was for crypto, right? They were looking to try and bring people in that were trading crypto. Okay, for crypto. Yeah. Unfortunately, I've lost some confidence in Portugal. not a bad place to live. For me, the places that I've mentioned today, Malaysia and Ireland, people complain in both cases for opposite reasons about the weather.

1:01:09To me, the weather is the least important thing. If you can't handle some humidity, turn on the air conditioning in Ireland and doesn't rain that much. So I think the use case for Portugal is like, oh, the weather is so nice. I've never entirely understood that one. So some of their incentives have gone away. I mean, the answer is there's something for everybody. I mean, I think Mexico is an interesting place. A lot of people have gone there. Is Mexico simple to be able to spend a three month, six month? I'm going to go and do my graphic design from that? Well, so I'm a big fan of having a residence permit, especially now.

1:01:45So Mexico technically is like the UK. You get 180 days visa free. But much like the UK, they're not doing it anymore. Hey, when are you leaving? I'm just here for the six months. Yeah, we don't accept that could get the hell out or I'll give you one month and then you need to leave If you can get a Mexican residence, which is pretty easy. I mean everything's easy nothing is easy But it's the qualifications are straightforward enough. You have a couple thousand in income every month You can get a residence permit live there all you want Obviously that if you live there too long there's a tax planning question But yes, I mean Mexico is a straightforward place Latin America is a place where if you have income You can get a residence permit.

1:02:22Asia is generally a place where you need to have wealth put some money in our bank by a property You know put in six figures Latin America's the place where if you're just starting out Hey show us 800 a thousand twelve hundred two thousand dollars a month in income for the last three six months twelve months Whatever here's your residence permit. You can live here all you want so I think Columbia is interesting people live in Medellin. I'm in Bogota I think all of Mexico is interesting. I mean, Mexico City in particular for me, but there's so many cities to pick. Portugal is interesting. They got rid of the tax incentive.

1:02:56Italy has a very interesting tax incentive. People like that. It just depends on what you want. I think we popularize the country of Georgia. Very tax friendly, not as affordable anymore with all of us here in the coming. East of Turkey, South of Russia. Okay. In the Caucasus. So now, Georgia, our media culture. I like in Georgia. Decreasingly conservative? They're coming into the land. Yeah, I mean, it's a very kind of conservative respectful culture laid back so like Armenian next door. They were always the ones who you know there's like 40 ,000 Armenians in Uruguay. I went there and I saw Armenian restaurants.

1:03:40Georgians were always more like chill, enjoy, great food, great wine, great hospitality. If you know a Georgian, and you've got like a friend for life. So in that regard, it's nice. The culture is a little bit different.

1:03:54I've enjoyed it, but I also see why some people can get stuck up on that. I mean, there's just so many play. And then there's Southeast Asia. I mean, Malaysia, Thailand. But that's, there's so many people. There's so many people. There's so many people. There's so many people. And presumably a little bit more procedural. You can get digital nomad visas. Thailand has the Thai -lead visa you pay for every five years. There are more affordable ways to do it if your goal is not permanence. You can also come to Malaysia for 90 days on a tourist visa and I would guess if you left for a couple weeks and came back, they'd give you another 90 days if you're a westerner.

1:04:29If you're not a westerner, it's 30 days and that becomes harder to navigate. If you can make $2 ,000 a month, I think it is, you can get a digital nomad visa that may not last forever. The question is, what's your level of commitment to this? For me, when I left the US, I said, I lied to myself, I'm gonna do this for a year. I knew I wasn't coming back. It was just, hey, keep the house, don't sell the house. But I always knew it was done. I think for some people, there's nothing wrong with saying, I'm gonna have a five year adventure. I'm gonna learn how the world works. I'm gonna pick up some new ideas.

1:05:01I'm gonna learn, hey, they do it over here. Same as we talked about in the UAE. Hey, here's how they do this over here. If I added that, I bet that would make my business better. I'm gonna save some taxes for five years. I'm gonna bring that money back and then just, you know, enjoy my life. I don't think you have to do that. I mean, I've talked about, you know, having kids, I could have kids and live in multiple places. You can hire a tutor. There's any number of things you can do. Yeah, well, that's a question. Let's say that somebody does have kids. What's a solution that you look at for your clients?

1:05:32Presumably a tutor that you would need to pay that would have to fly and be prepared to move with you? Well, I mean, some people just move to one place. They stay moved and they put their kids in international school. We've got a private client right now He's like I want to move to Thailand and I'm buying in the same complex as the school and I Mean that there's somebody to be said for that You could you know this international school is a lot of places you could homeschool a lot of places I mean some of the northern European countries are pretty nasty on that but most of the rest the world is not But if you don't want a home school yourself So I know a family, we got a guy who's speaking at our live event coming up this year named Josh was sheets and he's a family of four and They homeschool them and they travel around and they do it themselves I also met a very successful guy in the entertainment business Who is doing kind of my trifecta?

1:06:24He's like I heard you say trifecta and it's like that's kind of what I'm doing He has the homes around the world and They hired a tutor that travels with them. So there's different ways to do it So my point is I don't think that like this has to be a single person's game or a couple's game. I think you can keep doing it. If you decide to do it for five years and to get the experience and to save the money, maybe you get an extra passport in the process if you settle down in one place, I think that's fine too. It's always good to have more options, have more knowledge, but the idea that you have to give it up because now it's time to settle down.

1:06:59I mean, I, I mean, I, I talked to my friend. I said, bring your son, your son's like 17. Come over and visit me in Asia, bring him for two weeks, take him out of school. He'll learn more hanging around in Asia for two weeks than whatever they're teaching in the Chicago school system. Okay. I mean, believe me. So, you know, we have this bias that whatever happens in our country somehow works. Now, we complain about our country, Biden has sold us down the river, Trump is turning us into a fascist alcohol, whatever, right? We complain about it, but somehow it's still the best in the world. And that's not just Americans.

1:07:36Everyone says, I want people to say that. And it's like, well, wait a second. Again, what's best about it is your education system the best. I, who was it the other day? It wasn't go out of mall, but it was something similar is now outpacing the US in like math literacy. Chrissy or some shit? Not not not for real or something you've heard of, but like, you know, it's like El Salvador or something. Like they're better now. And so like, you, you can't have kids. I have a non -zero cohort of friends who are around about my age, mid 30s. And I think, yeah, I'm gonna, you know, kids are probably gonna come along at some point.

1:08:14Maybe they've got a partner or maybe they're looking and maybe they're engaged or married or whatever. And they're staring down the barrel of the US education system with trepidation. And I think in, like, I don't know, if I put a child in, I don't know what's gonna come out the other side. And, you know, look at how many different people are trying to innovate their way away from this. It's Waldorf schools. Or it's like, there's one here that's run, Apigee Park that's run by Tim Kennedy. And it's like, all of this stuff sounds great, but like, all of these things are largely unproven. Now, that may be better than something that's proven to also be completely crazy or useless.

1:08:52But like, do I want my kid to learn how to whittle a flute out of a fucking stick? Like, am I gonna teach him how to hoe the ground? Like, so the US, you're totally correct. Like, we have these things. Education to the head of friend. I had a friend who moved to Dubai and he had a salary, like a million dollar salary. So he was screwed as an American. Cause if you just have a salary, you just get a small exemption you pay on the rest. But he at least was still paying less than I lived in New York City and he told me when I had three kids, I had to earn $400 ,000 pre -tax as an end of the school.

1:09:24So to imagine for 13 years you put $400 ,000 into some fund for those kids and you had them live and do buy. They'd learn another language, they'd learn international, they would do something else. You tell me the extra money and not being in New York and being some international wouldn't be far better for them. Here's what else I think about it. One of the concerns that some of our clients have and some of my old friends in the US have is not just the low quality of education in the US, but oh, they're teaching, you know, this whole social conversation, they're teaching woke, they're teaching this, they're teaching that.

1:10:00And people sometimes get upset with me that I'm not so angry about this. And I say, I'm not angry about it because I don't even know what it is really, honestly. People aren't talking about that stuff where I live. And I don't have to be a part of it. I think that what makes people angry is powerlessness. And so we convince ourselves to stay in the bubble based on where we're born because that's the best. That's what we're told. And we're fed the propaganda. But then we gain this sense of powerlessness because we don't like the way things are being done. And we get angry about it. We become miserable because we don't think there's another option.

1:10:33I have plenty of options because I've decided to have options. And so therefore I don't just sit around like, I don't have to bother my, like if I don't want to do something or if I don't want my kids to learn something, whatever that may be, that's not going to do it. There's a solution to that. I don't have to feel powerless and carry this anger around with me. And I certainly don't have to think that I have to base my entire life on one politician getting elected and they're going to solve all my problems. I'd heard, I think I didn't heard you speak about some people that have traveled abroad when the wife is pregnant to give birth in another country.

1:11:09How common is that as a nomadic strategy. Well, I mean, I think it's much more common for people to come to the US and Canada and do that because, you know, most countries in the Americas have this birthright citizenship. If you're born on the soil, you're given citizenship. I actually know somebody from Armenia. I did not encourage them to do this. I wasn't even aware of it. They got a US visa. She and her husband, she came over and gave birth. Now she has an American child. That child cannot sponsor her. I was gonna say does that work up with for the parents? I think the child has to be an adult and then they can bring you.

1:11:46And so that's a faster one. I don't think you're waiting 25 years for that one, but you might wait five years. I'm like that. Yeah. Well, you get away at the 80s, right? But the child always has the opportunities. They also have now this lifetime citizenship. So it's like really this person watches my stuff and they didn't think of that. But the reverse, I mean, so this, the Joshua Sheets, they give birth to one of their children in Costa Rica. And so now they all got residents permits in Costa Rica and the child to Costa -Rican citizen. I think that's great because especially if you're like an American, Costa Rica is a nice antidote.

1:12:21Who hates the Costa -Ricans? Imagine you want to travel. Okay, Costa -Ricans need to visit to go to the US. Well, if you're a US citizen, you're going to go with your US pass we're required to. Costa -Ricans can pretty much go to most of the rest of the world. Canada, Australia, they can't go. Those are of them with the toughest ones, but they can go to the UK, they can go to all of Europe. I mean, Costa Ricans are pretty well accepted all around the world. So we're all salvaged. So we're Guatemalan's. I mean, those are pretty good passports, actually. You wouldn't think that the people you see, the entire story of that region is not so much Costa Rica.

1:12:55People are all trying to come to the US for more wealth. But if you have wealth, you have plenty of options in Central America. And so I think it's an increasing strategy. Brazil is one people go to Mexico is one. Sometimes you can get citizenship faster in Brazil. It's one year if you've got a child or a spouse. Now you've got to wait like an extra year to be processed. You probably should live there for a part of that two years. But it's in some cases a strategy for you to get a residence or even citizenship in the country. But if nothing else, you're just giving your child an extra. And I mean, when I met my wife, this is one of the things that's like, would you be willing to go to Brazil?

1:13:34So all right, that sounds reasonable. I'm like, that seems like a pretty open -minded person. You know, again, I had a friend who told me, you know what, you know what your superpower is? Is you don't have this nostalgia about things that cause you to put up barriers? Oh, we used to all go to the portillo's after high school. Like, you don't get into that. And so my question is, it's very entrepreneurial, I think. I want to give birth, I want to have, you know, my mother, my child give birth in Brazil, for example. What do I need to solve for? I need to buy a few flight tickets so that, you know, family members can come, because that's what people want.

1:14:12Okay, we want our family there. I need to, you know, maybe you've got to go there next number of months early for certain kind of, you know, appointments throughout the pregnancy, you know, like, that's what you have to solve for. And the payoff is you now have a child who has a passport that potentially there's a domestic economy. I think Mexico is, I mean, look at the peso. It's stunning credibly. I was on CBS a couple weeks ago talking about the pay, it's incredible against the US dollar. Mexico is moving in the right direction. I think you're potentially giving them a passport in some of those countries.

1:14:48There's going to be a lot of opportunities. If nothing else, it gives them an opportunity to travel, gives them more places to live. I mean, just you're just giving them a whole world of opportunities. You mentioned there about living in a place before you perhaps move there in your experience. Are there any locations that are fun to go on holiday and might seem romantic or seductive as an idea, but the reality of living there for one reason or another is not what the holiday promised. I was thinking the other day about Vienna. I love Vienna. And now Austria has no tax program. Again, my goal is, my goal is, people confuse this.

1:15:30I'm happy to pay some level of tax. We can argue with their taxes fair or not fair. My goal is not to always pay zero. If it happens that I pay zero, great, I pay a little bit great. I don't think any country is worth. If you're a successful person, 40 or 50%. Oh, you get free healthcare? Well, that's great. You made 10 million. You paid five million. You could have bought your own health care

1:15:52But I think that the challenge with some of those places that people like and my father loves Germany He just likes to vibe It's harder to meet friends there. I really like it optimizing

1:16:07Closed I mean, I remember flying back from Vienna 14 years ago. I sent next to a guy American guy married to an Austrian woman and I said, it's just a harder place to make friends. Now I think once you make friends in some of those places, it's their better friends than you'd have like an LA. I mean, it's more serious friends, but I would say the same thing about Georgia, for example. I mean, I have always been helped whenever I need something. It didn't take me that long to integrate. They're just open people. So I'm not saying this is good or bad. I love Austria, but I think that's, you know, maybe some of those central European places that a certain kind of person like myself, who doesn't like the Southern European laid back beach vibe, they think, oh, Austria.

1:16:47I love Vienna, but I think you're going to have a harder time making friends in a place like that. No, I don't think it's the language barrier. I can get by in Spanish. My Spanish isn't fluent enough, and I'm certainly not fast enough to engage in the long conversations that the barista in Bogota wants to have with me. If I saw for that, I could have tons of friends in Bogota. So that's an issue. The language barrier, I don't think in Central Europe it is. You know, I think there's places in Eastern Europe that are very direct. I appreciate certain directness over time. The directness turns into brusqueness in some cases.

1:17:27Obviously, and I'm not a big fan of resort destinations. I think people should, you know, I don't understand the thing of living in a vacation, like living in a Caribbean island, But to each their own somebody might like that. I'm not a laid back person But I think that you want to optimize for where can I make friends easily and Some of the happiest people that I know who are expats or even immigrants in very far -flung cultures None of their friends are expats. I've got a friend who lives in Thailand all of his friends are Thai and they're educated They speak English he speaks some Thai, but they kind of accommodate him in English but he thinks like a Thai person with some American attributes, but he really kind of has the whole kind of Thai approach.

1:18:12And he's stuck with it for that reason. So I think that you want to maybe have some local friends. And if you have a hard time doing that, I think that's probably a place it's more difficult. How many of the clients that you're working with and the people that you come into contact with, are doing the nomad thing as a protection strategy, kind of like being a, I guess, a global prepper in some regards. How is that on the rise? What are you noticing with trends with regards to that? It's an increasing number. I mean, there's always waves, right? So I think we're going to see that again this year with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as those go up.

1:18:57It just as we saw in 2021, COVID I think was a big wake up call for people. And we can debate, you know, I'm sure there are some people who have views that are more extreme than mine. But I mean, governments around the world are pretty restrictive. And it showed that citizenship really is an obligation. I mean, if you were Australian, you couldn't leave and you couldn't return. And look at how many people in Australia said, well, yeah, it's your fault you took a holiday to Mauritius. Like what about the rest of us? Like this whole kind of greater good. The individualism of Euro citizen, you've got a right to return to your own country.

1:19:33That's literally like international law, like the United Nations. This is not like some right wing concept. It was just thrown out the window. And so I think people realized in what people thought were these great infallible countries, like, oh, my country can screw me. They don't really care about me. I've been paying all these years and maybe I haven't even complained about paying And now when I need support, I'm hung out to dry. And so I think you're seeing more people saying, yeah, I want a backup plan, whether that's about people want health freedom, we have people from the US that when Roe v Wade was overturned, they said, I don't want to live in a country where abortion's not legal.

1:20:13What people don't understand about me and my brand, I don't judge. I mean, that's the international political views that I've kind of picked up. the, again, the Dubai approach of, let's just have the best, like, what works? If you want to live in a country where there's legal abortion, I'm not going to judge you for that. If you want to live in a place where there's less of a vaccine mandate, I'm not going to judge you for that. I might agree with some of those positions and I might agree in part or I might not agree at all, but like, I think people are realizing that, again, like, where they're born, does it mean it's always going to align with their values?

1:20:52I think a lot of these countries are changing. So yes, more people are looking for a plan B. There's a fine line between kind of forcing people to do what you've done, which they may not be comfortable with, and trying to open their mind to the idea that you can leave. Again, I'll tell you what we get a lot. I want to leave in five years when the kids all graduate. I mean, could the kids not go to school somewhere else? Would that maybe not be better for them? I don't have kids in high school, so it's not for me to judge. I think more people should have a plan A, not just because they can save money on taxes, but because I think you learn a lot, I think it changes you in very positive ways to live other places.

1:21:36And I think that people don't move because of this sense of fear. Again, they're happy to move to Florida, not happy to move an equal distance to some other country. But a lot of people want Plan B citizenship residents sometimes they want Plan B CD So yeah, not everyone that we work with now is moving Whereas when we started it was I want to move I'm tired of paying tax now. There's a lot of I don't want to move We're all move later or maybe all you know get a residence permit and spend three months there in the winter One of the guys I talked to very kind of a wealthy guy didn't realize as an American he just can't go to Italy and spend four months.

1:22:18Yeah, you can't 90 days, editor everyone 180. You need to get a residence permit, you need to get some kind of citizenship. So it's kind of clearing up some of those basic misconceptions as well. But what is the, you mentioned it a couple of times today that Italian, whatever the tax implications are and the, what is that? They've got a couple programs. So Greece rolled one out, Italy rolled one out. They're kind of based on the Switzerland model. It's a lump sum. So if you have a high income, you pay 100 ,000 euros a year. If you're married, it's 125. And that's all you pay. And it's more flexible than like what Portugal system was.

1:22:57Like where if you want to have your company in a tax haven, in pay zero, you can do that. You live in Italy, whatever amount of time per year. And then you pay them this lump sum. So that's kind of based on the Swiss system with different cantones. You can kind of negotiate different rates, but it's cheaper than Switzerland. And you can get citizenship in Italy, maybe in Greece. So that's kind of a flat amount. So if you make a million dollars a year or a million euros a year, it's 10 % basically. They also have an Italy incentives and they're going to shorten it this year for how long you can do it.

1:23:32And they're going to take away some of the most aggressive incentives. But you can reduce your tax rate like it's a freelancer between 50 and 70 % wherever depending on where you want to live in the country. So like in the north it'd be like 50 % reduction. So if the tax rate is 50%, you pay 25. If you live in the south, I think it's going to go down to 70%. So if the tax rate is 50, you pay 15. So it's not zero, but if you want lifestyle, I mean that's a much better deal. One of the things that I've been thinking today is you travel around the world, you have businesses in various locations, bank accounts in various locations, and you mentioned about being able to use different currencies.

1:24:12If someone put a gun to your head and said you have to have all of your life savings into one currency that isn't the US dollar, all right, what would it be? One of the others isn't half, I'm not threatening you. I promise I'm not threatening you. Yeah, be careful on the US. You know, you know, they're pretty aggressive over there. I Here's my construct. There's judgment when there's not judgmental and so I think Singapore is a pretty non -judgmental country IE if you go there on like an African passport they look at the list Is your passport in the list? Okay, they're okay. Here you go 90 days.

1:24:54Welcome. Whereas if you do that in the UK Okay, it's like, yeah, you got to visa, but like, hey, you know, I think if you're going to hold a currency, that policy applies equally. One of the wealthiest clients we've ever worked with says, I, you know, I'm from a place that like the West isn't like, I'm against my country, but I'm from a place like the country the West isn't like. I don't trust the UK. I don't want my money in UK banks. I wouldn't want to live in the UK. And it's just, I mean, for better or worse, there's a judgment of like, we like these people, not like these people. I would probably say the Singapore dollar, it's based around a basket of different currencies.

1:25:36It's the freest economy in the world. They do a great job running it. I mean, name a place where retail banks are lending money to the central bank.

1:25:51I would say this thing at $4. What about you? So let's say you're going around to smaller banks in these emerging or frontier countries or whatever. Can you actually put a significant amount of money deposited into the bank accounts there? Why do you do whatever you want? Should you? It's the question. Okay. So that first that question and then also how do you assess bank risk? What's a good way to assess bank risk? Well, I mean, look at the bank failures in the US last year. There were more bank failures in the US and I think pretty much every other country combined. So I think the risk is in the US.

1:26:27Now, you have the FDIC, which is basically broke, has less than 1 % of all the money. And if you had a couple of big bank failures, they're wiped out. And so your base could depend on, is the US Congress going to bail out banks? I'm not so convinced that, you know, oh, I've got millions of dollars in my bank account. Does the US Congress really want to be bailing out with taxpayer dollars in an increasingly kind of populous country? People who had millions of dollars in the bank. I'm not sure if it comes to that they're going to. So I mean, I look at banks in places like Singapore, there's some of the highest rates in the world.

1:27:02That's not an emerging economy. But some of those banks might have operations in other countries. I mean, look at a country mentioned Cambodia. There are stable Asian banks that opened up offices in Cambodia. People are going and investing in Cambodia. They're building my friend's strategy as he's buying real estate on corners in the city center that one day we'll get torn down to build skyscrapers or shopping malls. Because they're doing it. I mean, when I first went to Cambodia, they have like one skyscraper. Now they're going up everywhere. It's like a front -running gentrification. That's a good, it's like a band name or a book name or something.

1:27:46So like, yeah, I'm I going to get go to Cambodia and invest in like, you know, some local bank. I mean, no, I'm not going to put as much money there. I'm not going to go to Armenia and invest in the bank. It's like, oh my, a guy. I mean, this is like in Serbia. I mean, there are some banks like the 18th largest bank is like, it's owned by like a guy. No. But I can go to Armenia and there's banks, there's French banks. Yeah, I'm going to feel comfortable doing that because like, do you think if that French bank in Armenia collapses that nobody in France is going to pull their money from that bank, of course they are.

1:28:20So they have to make sure they move the money around. So I think the risk is based on the quality of the institution. I mean, in Georgia, the two largest banks are traded on the one that Stock Exchange. That doesn't mean they can't go under, just like banks in the US, where on the US Stock exchange they went under. But I think that if you look at those factors, you can find decent banks. You know, in a country like Ecuador, it's a lot of credit unions, very high interest rates, the US dollars, the official currency, which I actually kind of like because if anything ever happens, like they're not going to like force you to take their currency.

1:28:54But you know, the banks are, there's no big huge banks that you would trust like all your life savings. I think for me the point is I wouldn't trust anyone with my life savings. I mean, think about it. Look at Nigel Farage in the UK, whether you like him or not, you know what, we just don't want your business anymore. I mean, that can happen anywhere. So I mean, I've had things happen to me where they're like, you know, what, oh, you're charging for the, like, yeah, you're not really the kind of client we want. And then what do you do? Like the same bankers that want you to like, oh, give us all your business are the same ones that would cut you off at the knees.

1:29:33So I don't care how stable the bank is. I don't want any bank to have a line money. I just don't. But for me, yeah, I might put, if you put a million dollars in Singapore, would you put a hundred thousand dollars in the bank of Georgia? Obviously, in some of those emerging world banks, if you're willing to take on other currencies, I mean, the Georgia and Larry is done incredibly well in the last couple of years. Meanwhile, you made 13 % interest. So if you don't have any better places to park your money, that's an interesting kind diversification. There's some countries if you do that, you can get a residence permit, for example.

1:30:04So it's like, how does this stuff all work together? I wouldn't move $200 ,000 to a Dominican Republic bank. But if you told me, oh, we'll give you a fast track to citizenship, I'd be, I'm interested in that, right? So I think it all comes down to what are you getting out of the deal? Higher interest rates, residence citizenship, or just in the case of like, you know, And it can Bodia. It's probably same with anything. I'll give you one more thing. There's banks in places like the Bahamas. They don't even keep your money. They just have a council bigger banks all around the world that would never take you as a client.

1:30:40You know, BNB Parabah and France or Qatar National Bank, Qatar. Oh, God. They just basically... The Stubhub ticket reseller of bank accounts. They're basically just, yeah, I mean, they're small banks. They take your deposits and they just have your money. They don't make loans, right? Right? I mean, like, why is it like the US banks getting so much trouble? I mean, they just lend out to the Hilt And they're you know, they're so Aggressive in some cases you get a Hong Kong Hong Kong is actually opening up more now for banking But why is Hong Kong historically been so difficult to get a bank account?

1:31:14The banks literally don't want more money. They're so conservative. They have nowhere to put it That's wild That is absolutely crazy. What do you make of the, of the meme of the passport, bro? Because you have been doing this for significantly longer than that meme has come about. But there is a, you know, a strong trend at the moment of especially Western, especially men, deciding that there is a problem with the culture or the dating or the government or whatever it is. And then going, right, yeah, I'm out of here. Is this, were you an early adopter of this, or is this sort of playing into your guys' culture in some way, what are you seeing?

1:31:58I don't, I'll be honest, I don't entirely know. I thought is that that passport bro is kind of more focused on the dating element, right? And that's kind of a core driver of it. I think for me, many, many, many years ago, I mean, I was an entrepreneur. I wanted to be an entrepreneur at 12 years old. It wasn't cool back then. Like now it's cool. It wasn't cool when I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And so, I wasn't the most popular guy. And we just kind of like, who's this? The guy wants to start a business, but you're a freak. I remember like being 21, my friends would drive me to bars and girls would like, make fun of me.

1:32:36I was good like business meetings and it was embarrassing and retrospect like, go to these business meetings. but like, like, why are you wearing cufflinks? Like, what do you, weirdo or something? And I remember being like 22 or 23, and I was on one of my early trips, and I met this girl from China, and she's like, all the stuff that everyone else that was weird, she's like, fastened it by. Like in Asia, it's like, what is it? Like you're 23, and you have like a business, and you're making money, and like it's growing, like that's pretty, like that's pretty. Like, it's not like nobody in China would be like under 50 would be doing that.

1:33:06Like that's pretty cool. And it kind of showed me this kind of arbitrage opportunity. You know, I've dated people around the world. It's interesting. I never looked at it as something where, you know, I've never want to be one of these guys where it's like, I'm going to places, I've never chosen a place for dating, like Kuala Lumpur, probably not a great dating location. That's probably why some of the people don't choose it. I mean, Thailand or Indonesia is probably better. So I've never really chosen a place based on dating.

1:33:41But, you know, I've enjoyed meeting people from different places. I never wanted to make dating kind of the only aspect. But I certainly think that people should see competition in their life. I think the biggest thing, I mean, you look for competition for a restaurant. You look for competition if you're buying a product. I mean, people use apps and how can I save $3 as buying this product somewhere else? Why don't you use competition for your taxes and for the government that serves you? Why don't you use competition for the people that you meet? And again, I mean, really, is your, whether you just want to find a short -term relationship or whether you're looking for your soulmate or whatever it is, are the odds that they'll live around you?

1:34:26I mean, really, I have all of you, And if eight billion people, the person that matches you happened to also be born in Cleveland, Ohio. Like, it seems ridiculous to me, right? And if you look back throughout human history, I mean, people didn't have so many options that just learned to live with it, but like, you live in a village, and there were 50 people and you just, like, chose one. And really, those were the happiest relationships. Those are the most fulfilling relationships. So I, I mean, I, I, I, I, I'm, you know, Well, not the guy. I remember we were two in real estate in Medellin years ago, and people wanted to buy property for Airbnb.

1:35:03And we would go to some of the buildings and they'd be like, oh, this one, the government's for Airbnb, but the building banned Airbnb. And one place we went, they told a story of some woman was coming home with her child and a guy was being a service in the elevator. Like they opened the elevator door opens and there's this guy with, you know, with the and it's like, yeah, we don't want these people coming here anymore. Obviously, the idea that an American guy goes to Columbia and wants to find someone to date, I see nothing wrong with that at all. Some people do, that's ridiculous. But obviously, I'd like to have a certain level of class about it that we're not doing things in our lives.

1:35:44But there is, you know. That's the optimal way to do it. Look, Andrew, I really love your work. I think it's a very first principles approach to people who live on a rock and these lines around it are pretty arbitrarily drawn, apart from the oceans and even they weren't doing of your own choosing. And to think about it from first principles, I really, really like it. I think your input is massively needed and really hugely inspiring, actually. So I really love all of the stuff that you're doing. If someone wants to get started with this, if they said, Right, I'm bought in. This sounds like it's something that's kind of cool.

1:36:22What are the first places that they should go? We have a YouTube channel, I think, over 2 ,500 videos. We put something out, you know, 15, 16 times a month with these ideas you can watch and get to vibe. Our website, we've got almost that many articles, nomadcapilis .com. If you wanted a bit more aggregated, I wrote a book called nomadcapilis. It's on Amazon. It's more storytelling than specific ideas. We talk about some of the ideas. We talk about what's not possible. We talk about, you know, what you can do through the lens of 15 years of my exploring this so that the book is a way to aggregate it down into a shorter read And then we host this this annual event called no math capitalist live and we bring a curated list of people who Everything from frontier market investing to you know giving birth overseas to lowering your taxes We bring some of our staff that talked about our client work So, you know, from free to 10 bucks to live events.

1:37:18And then you'll do a white glove service. I'm gonna guess as well for the people that need it. Yeah, if you have, you know, a mid -six figure income or a low seven figure net worth or above, we work with people all the way up to, you know, billionaires to put together these holistic strategies because you heard me multiple times throughout, saying, okay, well, this bank account probably isn't working its own, but if you got a citizenship because you opened it, like, you want to kind of consider the holistic nature. And you have to consider the holistic nature given our tax conversations. I mean, nothing works in a vacuum.

1:37:51You can't just put your company in the British Virgin Islands and not move and think you're going to save tax because there's all kinds of rules around how that works. And so you have to understand that. And so that's what we help people figure out is not only the known unknowns, but the unknown unknowns. Calia, Andrew, I appreciate you. Thank you for today. Thank you. And Doug, here we have the Lemo Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their core insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Lemo, is that guy with the binoculars watching us?

1:38:31Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual .com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty Savings very underwritten by Liberty McFill and Churns Company and Affiliates Excludes Massachusetts.