by Dr Richard Cawte for The Q Wealth Report

Do you really need to fill your day with action and noise?

Many adults become terrified at the idea that they might not have something to do! Those that are parents transfer the terror to the children. The lines: “Oh my god, what do I DO with the kids?” are spoken with a shudder, as though every second of the child’s day MUST be filled with some entertainment or other.

Some children literally cry if the world they face is not a full-on bombardment of video games or fast moving TV shows. Whatever our status or our age, we all seem to live in a world that regards “nothing to do” with horror.

We are afraid of silence. We are afraid of confronting (or meeting) our true selves!

Leave the television on and there are no awkward pauses in conversation (because there is no meaningful conversation!). There is no time to reflect, to create humour, to recount a story. But hey! If we were all to do “nothing” more often, we might find ourselves more relaxed, more in control of our thoughts and emotions, and more able to communicate effectively.

Down-time is vital. Being still and quiet in the midst of a moving, noisy world is in itself a good thing. It encourages thought. It encourages self-awareness. And the onus is on the mind to be creative, truly creative: to make something of nothing, rather than having everything plonked in front of it ready-made.

My advice is simple… make time to do absolutely nothing. Provide no distractions. Switch off the mobile phone, take the landline phone off the hook, have no TV, newspapers, radio, no loud music, no toys, games – in short, nothing! nada! zilch!

Otherwise your engine-speed gets accustomed to being highly-revved. Without down-time, you will find it harder to unwind as you grow older.

And if the idea of really, really having nothing to do is just too scary, then here’s another alternative: Take up a meditation or yoga technique that you can practice alone, and in silence.

LONDON, 20th June 2008, Peter Macfarlane reporting for The Q Wealth Report

With just ten days to go until the 30th June deadline for US persons who have bank and other financial accounts in a foreign country to report those accounts to the US Department of Treasury, the IRS has been making the most of the opportunity for publicity by issuing warnings.

Many expat Americans may hold a few small accounts in different parts of the world without realizing that their aggregate value has now exceeded $10,000, due to the fall in value of the dollar.

US persons are required to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), Form TD F 90-22.1, each year if they have a financial interest in or signature authority or other authority over any financial accounts, including bank, securities or other types of financial accounts, in a foreign country, if the aggregate value of these financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year.

As Tax-News.com reports:

There is nothing improper about setting up or maintaining such accounts, the IRS reassured taxpayers. However, IRS officials are concerned that US persons may overlook that their accounts are large enough to trigger reporting obligations.

“There are responsibilities that go along with owning such foreign bank and financial accounts,” announced IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, continuing:

“Foreign account owners must remember that they may have to report their accounts to the government, even if the accounts do not generate any taxable income.”

It might be time to look at what kind of offshore tax shelters do NOT trigger IRS reporting requirements. Here are five to get you started…

1. Buy securities from an offshore bank or brokerage. While a securities account is reportable, you can still buy securities in the old way – over the counter from a bank, with a paper certificate issued in return. Store the certificate securely offshore.

2. Real Estate is the ultimate non-reportable investment. (Of course if you derive income from it, for example by letting the property, you might find reporting requirements kick in. But the mere fact of having a property sitting there increasing in value and protecting your wealth is not reportable)

3. Foreign Safe Deposit Box. Neither the box, nor the contents of it, are a reportable account. Most banks will require you to open an account first before renting you a box, but provided you keep the account value under the $10,000 limit you don’t have to declare it. For added security and confidentiality, hold it through a corporation. Want to know where to rent a safe deposit box? Email info@petermacfarlane.net and ask me.

4. Valuables such as gold and diamonds kept in a safe deposit are not reportable either. Emeralds from Brazil are a great investment at the moment, performing better than diamonds. Of course you need to buy right. The Q Wealth Report offers a free report about investing in gemstones called Diamonds are Forever in the members area.

5.  Warehouse or depository receipts. Certificates that represent a specific asset (typically precious metals) are not reportable. A certificate should provide for “allocated” storage – that is specific bars, coins, barrels etc in a specified warehouse. A “pooled” account is probably reportable. The different typews of storage are explained in more detail in The Q Practical Offshore Banking Guide 2008.

Editor’s note: For more information like this, check Peter Macfarlane’s blog at www.petermacfarlane.net

by Tom Dyson

There was a knock at the door. A soldier entered the room and raised his arm in salute. Then he drove his boot heels together to produce a loud snap. He waited for the politician’s attention…

I studied the soldier’s crisp brown uniform. It looked like something you’d wear to a dress party. His black patent leather shoes matched his belt and the peak of his hat. The gold buttons on his sleeve were so shiny they could decorate a Christmas tree.

The politician turned to the soldier. He took a whispered message. Then he dismissed him with a flick of the wrist…

Tito Saguier is a senior member of Paraguay’s government. Last week, Tito invited me to the senate for a cup of coffee and a discussion about Paraguay’s future.

Soldiers escorted us everywhere we went. Other soldiers opened doors and saluted as we walked past. A female soldier stood at attention at the door to Tito’s office. She wore the same pressed uniform as the male soldiers, except, instead of trousers, she wore a mini skirt with knee-high Nancy Sinatra boots.

Paraguay has a new government. It just won power. The old government held power for 61 years. I wanted to know how this new government would behave. Would those in power continue to steal? Would they decrease the size of government? Would they decrease regulation and taxes?

An investor has several reasons to take a close look at Paraguay… Itaipu is the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. Thanks to Itaipu, Paraguay generates 10 times more electricity than it needs. Per person, Paraguay has access to more free energy than any other country on Earth. This energy will never run out… and it’s clean.

There are few taxes in Paraguay… and a small government. It has no external debt and no currency restrictions. The Paraguayan currency – the guarani – has risen almost 50% against the dollar in the last couple of years… and is the best performing currency in the world this year.

Paraguay has this interesting geographical location right between Brazil and Argentina. Both of these countries have huge populations compared to tiny Paraguay. Paraguay can make a fortune trading with both. Plus, Paraguay is a member of the Mercosur, the free trade agreement that also includes Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Goods produced in Paraguay are not subject to Brazilian and Argentine tariffs.

Paraguay is very cheap and unknown. There is no industry, and the stock market is tiny. And there’s a potential trigger for a rally: The Argentine government has raised export duties on soybeans to 40% and banned the export of beef. I found evidence Argentine farmers are about to rush into Paraguay, where ranchland is cheap and the politicians don’t steal their profits.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the answers I was looking for from Tito Saguier. At one point, I asked him for details on Argentine and Brazilian import duties. He didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t familiar with the trade terms of his neighbors.

And he was full of bland generalizations. “We want to increase economic production… and encourage foreign investment,” he would say without any further explanation.

I think Paraguay is ripe for investment. Let’s hope the government doesn’t get in the way…

The above article is reproduced courtesy of DailyWealth. We hope Q Wealth Report readers find it useful.

If you have mastered the correct way of eating fruits, you have the secrets of youth and beauty, longevity, health, energy, happiness and normal weight.

We all think eating fruits means just buying fruits, cutting it and just popping it into our mouths. But it’s not so easy as you think!

What is the correct way of eating fruits?
Fruits should be eaten on an empty stomach, not after meals!

If you eat fruit like that, it will play a major role to detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight loss and other life activities.

Let’s say you eat two slices of bread and then a slice of fruit. The slice of fruit is ready to go straight through the stomach into the intestine, but it is prevented from doing so.

In the meantime the whole meal rots and ferments and turns to acid. The minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil.

So please eat your fruits on an empty stomach or before your meals! You have heard people complaining – every time I eat water-melon I burp, when I eat durian my stomach bloats up, when I eat banana I feel like running to the toilet etc – actually all this will not arise if you eat the fruit on an empty stomach. The fruit mixes with the putrefying other food and produces gas and hence you will bloat!

Another thing: it’s not true that some fruits like orange and lemon are acidic. All fruit becomes alkaline in our body.

When you need to drink fruit juice – drink only fresh fruit juice, NOT From the cans. Don’t even drink juice that has been heated up (most juice you buy in cartons has been pasteurized, that is heated). Don’t eat cooked fruits because you don’t get the nutrients at all. You only get to taste. Cooking destroys all the vitamins.

But eating a whole fruit is better than drinking the juice. If you should drink the juice, drink it mouthful by mouthful slowly, because you must let it mix with your saliva before swallowing it.

You can go on a 3-day fruit fast to cleanse your body. Just eat fruits and drink fruit juice throughout the 3 days and you will be surprised when your friends tell you how radiant you look!

Here are some details on specific fruits:

KIWI: Tiny but mighty. This is a good source of potassium, magnesium, Vitamin E & fibre . Its Vitamin C content is twice that of an orange.

APPLE: An apple a day keeps the doctor away?
Although an apple has a low Vitamin C content, it has antioxidants & flavonoids which enhances the activity of Vitamin C thereby helping to lower the risks of colon cancer, heart attack & stroke.

STRAWBERRY: Protective Fruit.
Strawberries have the highest total antioxidant power among major fruits & protect the body from cancer-causing, blood vessels-clogging free radicals.

ORANGE : Sweetest medicine.
Taking 2 -4 oranges a day may help keep colds away, lower cholesterol, prevent and dissolve kidney stones as well as lessens the risk of colon cancer.

WATERMELON: Coolest Thirst Quencher Composed of 92% water, it is also packed with a giant dose of glutathione, which helps boost
our immune system. They are also a key source of lycopene – the cancer fighting oxidant. Other nutrients found in watermelon are Vitamin C & Potassium.

GUAVA & PAPAYA: Top awards for Vitamin C.
They are the clear winners for their high Vitamin C content. Guava is also rich in fibre, which helps prevent constipation. Papaya is rich in carotene; this is good for your eyes.

Drinking Cold water after meal = Cancer! Can u believe this??

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you .
I t is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion.

Once this ’sludge’ reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the
intestine.

Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to Drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

More “Q Health” tips soon… because health is a very important part of Wealth!

by Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

Yesterday, FDIC insured First Integrity Bank was the 4th US victim of the recent credit crunch. According to analyst blogger Nick Jones of Real Deal Financial, the FDIC keeps a ‘problem list’ of banks. In the first quarter, the number of banks on the list rose about 20% to 90 banks. That statistic is up about 70% this year.

Agora Financial’s 5-Minute Forecast also had some interesting statistics recently: FDIC insured banks in the U.S. made $14 billion less last quarter than they did one year back. The FDIC has set aside $37 billion dollars in reserve funds. That is a 20-year high. The scary part is that the percentage of troubled loans that could be rescued by that $37 billion is at a 15-year low!

Think about it. Just another in a long series of my comments that I have called “Bankrupt Banks and the New Gold Rush.” If banks in the USA are no longer secure, the US dollar is also logically not a secure place to keep your wealth. A lot of smart people realise that, which accounts for why the price of gold (the traditional store of wealth in troubled times) just keeps on rising.

There are other alternatives too. Precious stones are one. Real estate is another, if you buy carefully – people will always need a place to live. I’ll be writing more about these themes over the coming weeks. If you haven’t yet added our blog to your RSS feed reader (or your Google, Yahoo or MSN account) I would urge you to do so, so you don’t miss out. It’s very simple – just click on the appropriate button on the right of your screen!

Watch this space!

“Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.”

So says  an interesting article in today’s International Herald Tribune on the anti-aging effects of red wine.

Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline has just bought, for $720 million, a startup called Sirtris whicxh was founded in 2004 to cary out research into anti-aging. It is said that the research is based on an ancient biological survival mechanism, called resveratrol, present in red wine. This switches the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging.

Apparently mice in tests would have had to take the equivalent of 100 bottles of red wine each per day (!) to see results in initial tests… but finally scientists have caught on to the fact that  red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial.

Maybe the conclusion of all this, and what GlaxoSmithKline will learn for their $720 million, is that we can better just drink a glass or two of red wine a day and forget about trying to put wine in capsule form?

by Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

It being Monday morning in this part of the world, I was reminded of a few pieces of research I read about recently, showing that getting up in the morning is bad for teenagers.

Starting school earlier, studies show, leads to decreases in learning and productivity. Studies in the US have found that it’s normal for adolescents to go to sleep later at night and wake up later in the day than adults, and that early starts and loss of sleep could be hampering student performance in school.

The logical choice, of course, would be to start school later, but for some reason a lot of school boards don’t like that idea. Maybe they think the teenagers are lazy. Maybe, teenagers haven’t been fully and properly comditioned yet into the wage slave lifecycle?

Starting school later is something they do in Finland for example. Finnish students begin school later, and study fewer hours, than in other rich countries. Yet Finland consistently ranks within the top five countries of the world for educational performance, the others being Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and – interestingly – Canada. (I say interestingly, because Canada might at first glance appear to have something like the dismal school systems in the US and UK, but that’s a whole different topic)

Now I’m no teenager, but I also hate getting up early in the mornings. I don’t believe that teenagers are really so different from the rest of us. Yet I know plenty of people who like to get up early, finding it the most productive time of the day. I guess it was one of those people who invented that phrase “Early to Bed, Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy, Wealthy and Wise!”

The answer is simply that we are all different. We all have different attributes. There is no one size fits all strategy. Just like in so many other matters (eating and investing are two we frequently highlight) we have to learn to listen to our bodies, to our instincts which have been conditioned out of us by culture and education.

Our bodies are very adept at telling us when we need to sleep and when to wake. I’m convinced that if you simply sleep when you feel tired, and wake up when you feel refreshed and motivated, you’ll not only be a whole lot more productive in your work, but you’ll be healthier too and you will live longer. There’s no science to it. Whether you wake and work later or earlier, doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you find the best time of day for yourself, rather than listening to what others tell you.

As with a lot of health issues, the problem comes when we don’t listen to our bodies. I believe waking up to an alarm clock probably does your body about as much harm as smoking a cigarette. If you do it for years on end, it will take years off your life. Waking up naturally and feeling refreshed and relaxed is the beginning of a successful, wealth-creating day.

So, that’s just one reason why the wage slave lifestyle and memntality is bad for you. If you are unfortunate enough to still be living that, do something brave. Get rid of the alarm clock. Come to our seminar in Panama in November, and Richard and I will personally make sure it changes your life for the better!

I could go into this in much more depth, and will do sometime soon in a Q Wealth Report article. But for now, I need to take a rest…

Further reading:

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9989914

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/07/earlyshow/contributors/emilysenay/main700043.shtml