Second citizenships from the Caribbean have been in the news recently. This time, however, it’s nothing to do with the economic citizenship programs of Dominica and St Kitts!

Many politicians in Caribbean nations hold multiple citizenships. It’s quite normal for people from small countries, many of whom have gone abroad to work, acquired citizenship there, then come home to play a more active role in island politics.

Recently, however, a minority of extreme nationalist politicians have been making it into an issue, leading to resignations and to other politicians renouncing citizenships publicly. It’s been in the news most recently in Jamaica, but also in St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.

Most voters seem to take a reasonable approach. BBC, for example, quotes a Jamaican businesswoman Thalia Lyn as follows:

“A lot of them go abroad because they want to make money and then come back here and pick up from where they’ve left off.

“And to say to them that if you want to make a contribution to your country it’s not allowed and you would then have to disclaim the country where you might have made your fortune, I don’t think that’s quite right.”

If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need much convincing of the fact that dual or multiple citizenships are beneficial – not just for the individuals involved, but also for the countries in this case who get to benefit from people with more international experience… as they say “travel broadens the mind”. In government, surely an open mind is essential!

You can read more about this issue in the following BBC articles:

Dealing with the diaspora

Dual citizenship: loyalty or convenience

We also recommend this Q Wealth webpage if you haven’t yet seen it:

The Q Wealth Report article on Second Passports

by MB for The Q Wealth Report

A libertool is any tool that you can use to liberate yourself … to free yourself from whatever holds you back. It’s a tool that advances your competence, effectiveness, freedom, health, wealth, happiness, etc.

What are some examples of Libertools?

• Wealth-building and personal managment skills enable you to free yourself from a ‘wage slave’ lifestyle, or from getting bogged down in stress.
• Simply knowing where you are going is a libertool. Most people don’t have realistic plans. If you don’t know where you want to go, it’s unlikely you’ll ever get there!
• Online wealth building skills (whether your own e-commerce business, or simply using online brokerage accounts etc) can help you achieve the financial freedom you deserve to live the life you desire.
• Health and wellness information, like understanding good nutrition and healthy living, will empower you to prevent or overcome most illness and disease.
• PGP, Virtual Private Networking and other technologies that protect you online against identity theives, censorship and so on are libertools that let you get on with your daily life in freedom and privacy.
• Learning to use your instincts (for example “Instinctive Investing”) is a proven technique to free yourself from conditioning you have grown up with, and constant dumbing down by the mainstream media.
• The online virtual economy is a potent libertool for individual economic empowerment.

In short, anything that brings about positive individual empowerment is a libertool. There are many other examples. In the Q Wealth Report we focus on empowering you with libertools. Focusing on the positive can be a very powerful strategy to improve conditions of individual lives, as well as in the world generally.

Look for, identify and develop your own personal libertools!

The opposite of a libertool is slavetool. Oppressive governments use slavetools, such as vast surveillance databases or unjust and unfair tax collection strategies, designed to keep us under control. Perhaps even worse, slavetools are sometimes deeply embedded inside our psyches, based on the conditioning we have received since childhood.

Many people think they can break free by “fighting slavetools” or trying to reform them - concentrating the negative. Maybe, what they should do instead is identify and develop libertools, use them every day, and persuade people to use them. Would that work better?

What do you think? Please write in and let us know.

What will you be doing the week after the US elections? Whatever the results, it will certainly be time for some thought… and things are not looking good. At least not for the majority.

I know what I’ll be doing the week after the US elections. I will be at a luxury resort in Panama, watching from a distance what is going on, exchanging ideas and helping a select few freedom-loving individuals with their quests to create, protect and grow their wealth – offshore!

People who have heard Richard and I speak know that the Q Wealth Report is not just about money. Wealth has a much wider meaning, extending to well-being and even the common good of the community in which we live. And health is an essential part of wealth! I always keep these things in mind when thinking about wealth creation. What goes around – comes around.

If you are ready to do something about your future, to “escape the matrix”, then I cordially invite you to join us in Panama that week in November. For the cost of a vacation, you’ll be getting so much more… as well as a chance to see some of that country we write about so much, both its good sides and bad sides.

More information is on our events website, www.QWealthEvents.com

See you there!

Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

by Peter Macfarlane for Q Wealth Report

News just in from the British no2id.net newsletter about a seriers of data leaks (six million Chileans are the latest victims) got me thinking about something else I read a few weeks back over at Vera Verba. Sean Hastings, co-author of ‘God Wants You Dead’, wrote:

A lot of the people that I tend to socialize with are libertarian types with strong feelings about freedom and privacy. I have always been very pro-freedom, but am skeptical about the need for privacy.

You can read the full article here. Meanwhile here is the news from no2id:

The personal data of six million Chileans were stolen at the beginning
of May and briefly published on a website. They included names, e-mail
addresses and street addresses. A hacker said he stole them online from
the health ministry, the electoral authority and the state-run phone
company. Not to be outdone, the highly official website of the Swiss
Justice and Police Ministry has just published a confidential document
about Europe’s Schengen immigration control arrangements. But it was all
a “mistake” a ministry spokesman said — prompting some Swiss to wonder
what the ministry might get up to with even more important data, namely
theirs. Next door, the German government has admitted that 189 desktop
computers, 328 laptops, 38 data storage devices and 271 mobile phones
belonging to the federal authorities went missing between 2005 and 2007.
48 of them disappeared outside Germany. Some contained sensitive or
secret data.

This of course comes hot on the heals of followup from Italy, regarding the brief publication of all Italian tax returns on the internet. Although the Italian government quickly removed the site, The Economist reports that the data is now being offered on Ebay.

So, should we be prepared to give up our privacy, to keep our freedom… as western governments are so keen on persuading us? Do we need to be under constant surveillance so the government can keep us safe? Not on your life! I am making a conscious effort to escape the matrix by refusing to provide personal data unless absolutely necessary.

Credit bureaux are somethe worst offenders, as I wrote recently in The Q Practical Offshore Banking Guide 2008 which is available for free download now to all Q Wealth Members. Fact is, nobody even bothers to write about data leaks from credit bureaux because private financial data is leaking out every minute of every day in quite a routine manner.

At Q Wealth we always focus on practical solutions. There is one solution to the credit bureaux data leak problem – and that is to use only offshore bank accounts and credit cards. Offshore banks do not file these horrible credit bureaux reports.

If you need any advice on offshore bank account opening, you are in the right place. Check out the Q Wealth Report and also my personal offshore banking blog over at www.petermacfarlane.net

P.S. The info on our next Recipes for Success event in Panama is now up on the site at www.qwealthevents.com Come join us there. More in a later blog entry. You can reserve your space today.

How To Play With Ideas

Without Going Nuts!

Most of you don’t remember the good old days, when people accepted the fact that human life included risk. Professors ate DDT to show that it was okay, policemen actually chased criminals (instead of waiting an hour for a dozen guys in black PJs to show up), and teenage boys carried rifles through the subway on their way to ROTC!

But, alas, those days are gone, and we live in a world of obedient bicycle helmet-wearers, kids under adult supervision till they’re thirty, and where fifty million of us express our ‘individuality’ by wearing the same stupid Che Guevara T-shirt.

The world has become filled with people who will accept absolutely anything, except risk. (Imagine these folks at 80: Ready to die, having never actually lived.)

Sure, there are still young people who think they’re being ever-so-cool by rebelling against their parents, but have you ever noticed how they do it? Sex, drugs and bad music! Hey, Funk Master Slick! That’s exactly what your parents did! That is so over… and so utterly boring.

We’re about to take you on a journey through one of the nastiest junkyards on the planet – to the land of true danger – the realm of ideas gone wild!

Get this into your heads now – there ain’t nothing dangerous like an idea. Don’t believe me? Then take it from someone who murdered 20 million of his own guys. This creep knew about danger:

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?

–Joseph Stalin

Trust me, if you ever want to scare people – and I mean REALLY scare the crap out of them – start spreading a completely new idea. It works every time. Now, by “scared,” we don’t mean that they’ll whisper about you behind your back – we mean they’ll keep their children indoors and beg their politicians to “do something about this threat to our way of life!”

And when we say “ideas,” we’re not talking about the wimpy little word-clusters that your teacher shoved down your throat in school; we’re talking about unauthorized thoughts…Ideas that have no pedigree, no track record, no important person’s endorsement – just a raw naked idea that you expose to the world. It’s pretty unlikely that you have any experience with such things, but they are incredible!

You think fire’s a rush? Ha! All the rules are known and all the methods of handling it safely (or not) are clear to anyone who can read a page or two. Playing with fire is passé.

Sex? Sex was old-hat in the Stone Age! Sure, our bodies are designed to love it, but if you think you’re being some kind of rebel by having sex, you REALLY need to crack open that mind of yours. People have been doing nothing much except sex for, what, a million years? Get over yourself.

And drugs? Dude, you haven’t a clue! Pharmicate with yourself all you want, but stewing your brain in a chemical soup is lame, lame, lame, compared to actually using the thing.

Sex and drugs are cheap rebellion, but thinking… that scares the hell out of people. Why else do you think they avoid doing it at all costs? (Do you have any other way to explain the Macarena?)

But as soon as you start to really think for yourself, you’ll find a swarm of voices flying at you, screaming that ideas are dangerous, and that you could end up dead, or – even worse – laughed at.

Maybe you’re saying to yourself, “People do too think!” Ha! we say! They run from it! They exchange a few slogans and repeat a few pre-approved phrases, but not much more. Regurgitating words that you hear from “important” people is NOT thinking!

So, we’re going to show you the most flamboyant ideas-gone-wrong, laugh with you, and help you catch a breath or two between the ever-pounding waves of “Thinking will make the whole tribe hate you!”

More to follow…

Paul Rosenberg is a writer and publisher at Vera Verba Visit his site to read more. He gave a series of presentations on Trusts, Setting your Mind Free, and the Digital Economy at the recent Q Wealth Event, Recipes for Success – Cancun 2008 If you would like to meet him, he is scheduled to be at the next Q Wealth Event in Panama City, Panama, this November.

“Study well what the billionaire does. It may make you a millionaire.”

- John Emmerling

Wealth and Wealthy People

By Michael Masterson

There is no shortage of billionaires today. In 1985, there were fewer than 20 of them. Today, there are more than one thousand.

Wealth is gradually moving away from the United States. In 2003, eight Americans made the top 10 in Forbes’ annual list of billionaires. This year, only two (Warren Buffett and Bill Gates) made the list. And less than half of the entire list is made up of Americans.

Still, 443 American billionaires is nothing to sneeze at. Nor is their collective net worth of around $1.6 trillion. At least for the moment, the U.S. still has the world’s largest and most profitable economy. But India and China are catching up. Their economies are growing fast. And they are not wasting trillions of dollars on foreign wars.

With the dollar falling and our economy on the brink of a depression, it’s highly likely that Americans will continue to get poorer in the next few years. It’s also quite possible that the U.S. will be passed by China or India and become a second-tier economy. Even if that doesn’t happen, Americans will have to take quick and drastic action to protect themselves and preserve the wealth they have.

One of the best ways you can create and maintain wealth is by following the lead of people who’ve already done it.

About 33 percent of the very rich got their money through inheritance. The Waltons, for instance. The rest – two out of three – created their wealth through business. About half of those mega-entrepreneurs started with family money, and the other half started from scratch. These are the people – like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page – who earned the wealth they have. These are the people I’d listen to if I wanted advice on how to succeed today.

I don’t know any of these billionaire entrepreneurs (BEs) personally, but I’ve done a lot of reading about them. I figured you might want to know what makes them tick and how they got where they are. Here is what I’ve discovered:

• Formal education matters – but not always.

The great majority of BEs – about 90 percent – have a college degree. But it’s not necessary for success. Among the world’s super-rich today, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Fred DeLuca, David Geffen, and Andrei Melnichenko didn’t graduate from college. And David Murdock (Dole Foods), S. Truett Cathy (Chick-fil-A), and Richard Desmond (British publishing magnate) never finished high school.

• BEs work harder and longer than the people who work for them.

Most say they work 50 to 55 hours a week. Some, like centibillionaire Canadian communication mogul Ted Rogers, work 12 hours a day. And some, like Bill Gates (when he worked at Microsoft) and eBay founder Jeff Skoll, took no vacations for years while their businesses were growing.

• BEs are constantly looking for profit opportunities.

When they hear about an economic or business development, they think, “How could I profit from that?”

• BEs don’t dwell on mistakes.

They view problems as learning opportunities. “I don’t remember any mistakes,” the late pharmaceutical billionaire James Sorenson told Forbes, “only the opportunity to overcome problems.”

• BEs think neither completely positively or negatively, but strategically.

Instead of thinking, “That’s impossible” or “I can do anything,” they think, “Is that possible?” and “If it is, how could I do it?”

• BEs don’t believe in luck.

In a recent Forbes poll of the 400 richest people in the world, none said they had become wealthy entirely by luck. Some said they considered luck to be a minor factor. Most, like Oprah Winfrey, consider luck an outsider’s way of describing someone who works hard and seizes opportunity. “Luck,” Winfrey says, “is preparation meeting a moment of opportunity.”

• BEs are not driven primarily by money.

“Studies show that the desire for financial success is no stronger among entrepreneurs than among those not starting a company,” says entrepreneur expert Kelly Shaver. Wharton School management professor Raphael Amit agrees: “No one is saying they don’t like their wealth; but what matters more is the innovation, the intense commitment they have to an idea and the difference it can make. Money is a byproduct.”

If you want to survive and prosper in the first decade of 21st century, emulate the habits of the world’s richest people. Educate yourself about money. Make conservative investments. And seize opportunities to start and/or invest in entrepreneurial businesses.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

BBC News reports outrage in tax-shy Italy after the outgoing government published every Italian’s declared earnings and tax contributions on their website!

The information was published with no warning for nearly 24 hours. It was later removed after a formal complaint from the country’s privacy watchdog.

The finance ministry described the move as a bid to improve transparency. Deputy Economic Minister Vincenzo Visco is quoted as saying ”he could not understand what all the fuss was about.”

This is Peter Macfarlane for the Q Wealth Report. I’m writing this from the airport, just leaving Cancun, Mexico… where a small but select group of investors gathered for the first Q Wealth Events “Recipes for Success” retreat.

The event was great fun, taking place in a top spa hotel with great food. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and the hotel’s service could not have beeen better! We had a diverse group of couple and singles from different countries and backgrounds… but the one thing they had in common was a desire to protect their privacy, and increase their wealth and well being. Everyone here was already well versed in basic offshore and PT theory, so the presenters moved swiftly to a higher level and some very interesting discussions resulted. We are even planning some group trips in South America later this year!

Anyway, the next Recipes for Success event will be in Panama City, Panama in the first week of November. Keep it free in your diary! We already have some signups. Details of the event should be up on the site of Q Wealth Events (www.qwealthevents.com) within the next couple of weeks, but if you would like to put your name down ahead of time, please email the Q WEalth office. I’m looking forward to meeting you there!

Original source: http://www.petermacfarlane.net/2008/05/10/live-from-cancun-recipes-for-success-2008/