“Gold, you and your cohorts have been accused of misleading investors into thinking that you would help them preserve their wealth, when exactly the opposite has been true of late. How do you plead?”

That’s the subject of a fascinating new debate article by David Galland that we’ve just added to our ‘Free Articles‘ section. David brings some new insight in an easy-to-read manner and includes some useful charts to back up the arguments. You can read Trial of Gold

Just today we’ve seen the dollar dipping once again into its downward spiral. Don’t be misled by short term booms! And as further evidence that the government’s conspiracy to control money is breaking, sovereign countries are beginning to reject the so-called anti money laundering controls that the US is seeking to impose on the rest of the world.

A lucky few will be joining us in Panama just after the US elections for our next Recipes for Success workshop event. If you can’t join us in Panama but our interested in Q Wealth’s practical solutions not just to protect your assets but to see them grow during the coming crash… then you can sign up right here and now for a no-risk trial subscription to Q Wealth Report!

As far back as 1999, a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded: “We believe that reducing television viewing should become a population health priority.”

A group of Oxford University researchers have found that kids who have television sets in their bedrooms are much more likely to sleep less than those who do not.  On average they are deprived of a month’s sleep per year.  A whole month’s sleep in every year.

It might surprise you to learn that children who do not get enough sleep are more than twice as likely to end up smoking, drinking alcohol and using drugs by the age of 12 to 14.

Watching television before going to bed – or worse still watching it when we are in bed – in itself actively reduces our chances of a good night’s sleep

Here are ten reasons to throw away your TV:

1) Television makes us fatter.

2) Television decreases our ability to think for ourselves.

3) Television weakens our self-esteem.

4) Television removes our sense of cultural identity.

5) Television depletes our immune system.

6) Television deprives us of sleep.

7) Television affects our sex life.

Television creates fear, not peace.

9) Television decreases our respect for senior citizens.

10) Television is directly linked with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

How much television do you watch?  How much do your children watch?  Should we all be paying much closer attention to the amount of television we are exposed to?

Television, the Silent Killer in your Living Room is a full e-book that will tell you all you need to know.  All of the claims are supported by scientific research from major bodies. This is a book that you must read, whether you have children or not…and I urge you to tell your friends and family about it too.

Further information at www.richardcawte.com

Note: Richard Cawte is founder and joint editor of The Q Wealth Report. Please also see Q Wealth Report issue 43 (available for download in the Members Area) for an indepth study of the dangers of television.

by Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

The jury is out on this question. It is however under serious consideration. Some financial big guns apparently believe so.

“Systemic risk has become bigger and bigger … don’t be surprised if policy makers need to close down markets for a week or two in coming days”. Those are the words of New York professor and former senior advisor to the US Treasury Nouriel Roubini, interviewed by Bloomberg. He continues: “Things will get much worse before they get better. I fear the worst is ahead of us.”

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has also discussed shutting down the markets. He first said that world leaders were discussing shutting down global financial exchanges, and then later said he didn’t mean it.

Apparently, the US is following the interventionist example of Pakistan! According to a commentator at Naked Capitalism:

Their stock-market falls like crazy so Pakistan bans short-selling. Monkey-see, monkey-do: the FSA of UK and SEC of US ban short-selling. Widely recognised as an idiot move. Tampering with market mechanisms can only cause more damage. Anyway – it did not work for Pakistan either. So next they shut the market. Stocks can’t go down if people can’t trade – brilliant?

Er. No. Angry investors stone the stock exchange – and when it does open it crashes maniacally.
Monkey see – monkey do. Why not close the markets in Western countries?

I personally believe that the governments will try to control the markets in a more sophisticated manner, by subtle or not so subtle manipulation rather than direct closure. But in these times, we must be prepared for anything.

What is the solution? Keeping cash positions is certainly not a good way to preserve your wealth. Maintaining your assets in fiat currencies (like the dollar and the euro) must be about the worst possible thing to do. Not only can these assets be seized by mere accusation (don’t believe it can’t happen to you – it happened to Iceland!) , but even more worryingly they can and will be devalued indefinitely until they are worth nothing. That is precisely what is happening, as the Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett points out.

In issue 51 of The Q Wealth Report, we suggest some serious solutions to this problem. Hard assets you can invest in. Investments that have a true intrinsic value. If you would like to ensure you are one of the first to read issue 51, click on the “Join Now” link above to sign up. If you would prefer to “try before you buy” we’ll be happy to send you a free sample back issue (not the current issue) of Q Wealth Report. You can obtain it by entering your email address in the Q Bytes sign up box.

by Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

For a while recently, let’s say the first half of October this year, the talking heads got to me. I was glued to the financial crisis. I was watching CNN and BBC World, and dozens of different RSS feeds on the internet, reading all the commentary, checking currency rates every few minutes…

It took a long, introspective walk on the beach for me to realize I was taking entirely the wrong approach. It is so easy to be sucked into mass media hysteria. It was happening to me. It happens to all of us at times. But it’s much more important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

The markets are being manipulated. We are not in a free market situation. We are now dealing with government owned banks in North America, Europe and elsewhere. Besides the clear government market manipulation (a.k.a. bailout) that we see, you don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist nut to see that there are lots of other hidden factors at play. Lots of special interest groups with their hands in the pot, trying to direct the way things go at every turn in their own interests. Lots of infighting too.

We as individuals or ‘little guys’ have no hope of controlling what is going on or even of predicting things with any degree of accuracy. The best thing we can do right now is just say no – no to participation in manipulated financial markets.

The realisation I came to during that walk on the beach last week was simply that years ago I made some decisions about my life that I still believe in, more strongly now than ever. Wealrth for me is not just money which can gom up and down as governments decide, but quality of life – a healthy life with friends and family. Time to do things I believe in, that please me. In other words – I want to be in control of my life.

Quality of life for me is not being a slave to the TV all day, seeing who is the next person to be wheeled in to comment on the financial crisis. These days, lack of information is not so much of a problem as information overload. “Less is more,” as they say.

Life goes on. I already ‘headed for the hills’ as the Americans say years ago. Or to be more precise, I headed for the beach. I left my country of birth (the UK) to live in a place with a better quality of life, a tropical climate, and lower living costs too. A place where people are friendly and have time to chat and pass the time. Nothing is forever, as things can change. But right now I am very happy with my life as it is. That is by far the most important thing to me.

It is rewarding to live in a place I enjoy, do work I enjoy around my own schedule, and most of all to know that I am helping clients to protect themselves, their families and their assets from everything the world can throw at them.

If you haven’t yet made those essential first steps to freedom, however, these will be tough times for you. Sometimes it takes a jolt to wake people from their complacency. To encourage them to take action, either to protect their freedoms or even to make a new and completely fresh start. If you can’t look me in the eye and honestly say you are happy with your life and financial situation, then there is no time like the present to get started on new plans to protect and build your wealth – well away from the greedy hands of big governments! The time to start is now. Today! How? With a suscription to The Q Wealth Report, of course.

As a subscriber you are entitled to many and varied benefits that most people don’t even make full use of, including the Members’ Section where you can download back issues and a number of unique free reports. You can join us on our events and trips. You can email us and benefit from our huge network of contacts and informal advice. More than ever, I want to make Q Wealth about you, our valued client. More than ‘just’ a newsletter, I want Q Wealth to something about you – an important part of your financial future and your financial and personal freedom. Choose freedom, wealth and privacy today!

Note: the above article is a brief extract based on an article by Peter in the forthcoming Issue 51 of The Q Wealth Report. This report will be sent to members shortly and includes 24 pages of reasoned, detailed analysis, including new and exclusive subscribers-only material from Richard Cawte, Peter Macfarlane, Jacques Haeringer and others. To be sure you receive your copy as soon as it is released, plus to receive immediate online access to a range of members-only reports on investing and wealth creation offshore, sign up now.

By Bill Conde for The Q Wealth Report
Conventional wisdom has it that if you want to become very wealthy (in monetary terms) you need to save money and not buy things that will decline in value, like cars and consumer goods, on credit. I agree. But here is one technique I learned from my father that has helped me many times to get those consumer goods I wanted – quickly and without building up debt.

Most people will wander around shops looking at things, starting with the base of what their budget is. I work the other way around. I start out deciding what I want, then I figure out the budget I need and how to get it. (I even do this with real estate, which drives realtors crazy because I will never tell them the price range I am looking at.)

Anyway, this technique is deceptively simple. Go out to the shops, decide on the high ticket item you want to buy, and preferably place an order for it. I once read in a book that successful people always treat themselves to just a little more than they can really afford, and that stuck with me as a form of mental justification because I do enjoy my little luxuries. Buy quality, not the cheapest product. Over the long term you will come out ahead by buying quality goods.

Once you’ve placed the order, the store will give you a delivery date. Then you go and figure out how you are going to pay for it.

Sounds crazy? You bet. It takes a lot of discipline and a good dose of self-confidence.

But I’ve done this many times for something I really want. And always, somehow, I managed to make the deadline. Sometimes it means cutting back on something else that is non essential. But often I find some deal reaches fruition that pays for it. Usually it’s not just one deal, but a combination of little things that come together so I don’t end up in the bind of losing my deposit or being unable to pay for my purchase. In the worst case you can usually talk people in to waiting a few extra days, but you don’t want to.

You would be amazed that this technique works, because on the surface it sounds crazy. But analyzing it carefully, it is just a form of goal setting. How many times have you read that it’s important to set specific goals and deadlines? And how many times have you not done so, and then complained that you can’t afford things you want?

Having something you really want already on order, and a fixed deadline by which you have to pay for it, is about as specific as you can get. It really focuses the mind. On the other hand, the potential downside is minimal. You literally have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Try it – it will work for you!

Legislation originally drafted to prevent terrorist financing has been used by the UK government to seize around £4 billion from two Icelandic banks, according to a report by Bloomberg. British PM Gordon Brown has reportedly threatened to seize more Icelandic assets in the UK.

In what the Financial Times described as an ‘ill-considered invocation of anti-terror laws’ the UK Treasury seized assets in an attempt to protect British creditors who held deposits in failed Icelandic banks. One of the assets seized was the UK bank Singer and Friedlander (also a major offshore player through its Isle of Man subsdiary) which was owned by Icelandic bank Kaupthing. This pre-emptive move, according to the Icelanders, was what precipitated Kaupthing’s failure, as loan covenants on the British subsidiary were activated.

What do we learn from this? Iceland went in about a week from a small, respectable Western European nation to being brought to its knees and having it assets seized under anti-terrorism laws. We’ve heard of private individuals being wrongly accused and having their assets seized. Now we see Western banks getting the same treatment.

“I think it’s terrible. Much as in theory I wouldn’t mind the government seizing the bank’s assets, to do it under laws we were told were there for our protection from terrorists is horrific and terrifying,” says a commentator from Hampshire, England, commenting on a student discussion board. But other opinions on the same discussion, and press coverage in the right-wing tabloid News of the World, paint a picture of Britain happy to see its anti-terrorism laws being used in financial disputes. The media spin has given broad public support to the misuse of legislation.

We are not surprised at all by this action – on the contrary we expect to see more like this happening. Not so long ago even we considered it far fetched when we heard rumors about the “Amero” or two parallel US dollar currencies, one for internal transactions and one for international use. Now, however, we see two gold prices – an official one, and a free market one. It is clear that the markets are being misled and manipulated.

As always, we are being told that government action is for our own good. The Icelanders may have made some bad business decisions, but we can hardly blame this tiny economy for the world financial crisis, and using anti-terrorist legislation to seize their assets is an extremely worrying precedent. Expect to see things like this repeated. With 99% of US assets (yes, you read that right, see this article about DTCC for more details) owned by a company you have probably never heard of that is bigger than Google, Microsoft, GM and GE – combined! – the abuse of power now going on is quite simply frightening.

The governments of the world are out to steal your money – and your gold. You need to take action to protect your assets and your family. This may be an uncomfortable thought, but if you research this matter further and open your mind to what is going on, you will be in a much better position to come out of this crisis with profits.

If you would like to discuss this with the Q Wealth Experts in person, sign up right away for Recipes for Success in Panama next month, the week after the US election. If not, then I would urge you to sign up for a Q Wealth Report subscription right away. We will bring you news that matters like this, together with expert analysis to protect your wealth and your purchasing power.

Spain, France and Germany are listed as the best locations for expats to raise their children, according to the findings of the second report of three in the Expat Explorer survey, “Offshore Offspring.”

Expat parents were asked to rate their host country in five areas:

* Time their children spent outdoors
* Time their children spent studying
* Cost of raising children
* Number of languages spoken by their children
* Whether their children would remain in the country

Spain, India and China are the cheapest countries in which to raise children, with half (55%, 50% and 50% respectively) of expats living in these countries reporting they experienced reduced costs for their children compared to their country of origin. The survey also revealed that finance capitals are the most expensive countries in which to raise children.

Almost half (44%) of expats reported that their children spent more time outdoors in their adopted countries. The Mediterranean and countries with wide open spaces scored highly in this category – Australia came top of the table, where more than three-quarters (80%) of parents reported that their children spent more time outdoors, followed by Spain (59%) and France (57%).

A third of parents overall said that their children study more since becoming expats, with more than half (56%) reporting that it remained about the same. Expatriate children in India topped the table, with two-thirds (67%) studying more now than before, followed by children in France (57%) and Singapore (42%).

Children living in European countries learn the greatest number of languages. Spain had the highest percentages of expat children speaking languages, with almost all (94%) speaking two or more languages.

The full report by HSBC Bank International gives the primary expat countries the following overall rankings:

1. Spain
2. France
3. Germany
4. Canada
5. Singapore
6. US
7. Australia
8. India
9. China
10. Belgium
11. Hong Kong
12. Netherlands
13. UK
14. UAE

The survey questioned 2,155 expatriates living in over 48 countries, however only countries with at least 30 respondents were analysed in the league tables.

Source: Lowtax.net

Note: Q wealth Expert Peter Macfarlane also runs a blog on lowtax.net, which is an excellent resource for those seeking to know more about offshore jurisdictions.

Five days ago I wrote a blog entry about ‘The Doomed Dying Dollar.’ Yet the dollar remains strong. Why?

Markets have always taken an extremely short-term view, and never more so than now. What we saw yesterday, for example, was a substantial fall in the Mexican peso and the Brazilian real. The peso, which has been stable against the dollar since 1995, fell 25%, until the Mexican Central Bank intervened with $2.5 billion and it went up again. The Brqazilian government similarly intervened.

The dollar, in my view, is still due to take a big hit… but it might take days, weeks or even months until this happens. The longer it takes, the worse it will be when it happens. I’ve been reading recently about people moving into US treasuries as a safe haven. This is absolutely nuts. How can the obligations of a country that was already bankrupt and just printed another $700 billion be a ‘safe haven.’ It is quite the opposite.

Mexican and Brazilian fundamentals are much better. We haven’t seen any bank failures in Mexico or Brazil, and we are unlikely to, because they haven’t engaged in anything like the risky lending practices we have seen in the ‘developed’ world. But the fall in commodities prices and the global recession have hit these economies short term, and a lot of people out there (the majority) truly believe this BS about US treasuries being a safe haven. That is why money is flowing out of Brazil and Mexico.

The fact is markets are unpredictable right now. I’m not going to suggest buying in to Mexico or Brazil because they might well fall further, even though logically they don’t deserve to. Markets do not behave logically or rationally.

What I will stick to is my prediction that the dollar is doomed and dying, even if it is having a little rally right now. I wouldn’t keep your money in US dollars, or pounds or Euros for that matter either. I continue to recommend gold and well priced real estate, or just diversification into a basket of diverse currencies like the Chinese Yuan or the Norwegian Kroner on the assumption that you will win some, lose some. Because nobody can realistically predict what will happen next. This is not a time for playing the markets!

And now, if you will permit me, a little plug. We have just made some updates to the site here. We are in business to sell you something! We would like you to consider subscribing to The Q Wealth Report so you can get more in-depth analysis on topics like this, all related to international wealth building and asset protection.

But now, more than ever, you need to spend your money wisely. That is why we are offering you a FREE SAMPLE COPY (a back issue of our choice) of The Q Wealth Report so you can try before you buy. The way to receive it is to subscribe to our free e-mail newsletter Q Bytes which is sent out approximately every month, or when time permits (it is free after all, we give priority to our paying customers and right now, we are extremely busy!)  Anyway by signing up for Q Bytes (which you should do here http://www.qwealthreport.com/q_bytes.php) we will send you a download link to get your free sample copy. Please do it now before you forget!

Regards,

Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

by Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report

Bernanke is about to fire up the printing press to maximum capacity. The dollar surged today against all logic (stock market down, the Fed printing money like never before…) But I predict it will do an about face and precious metals will break out in spectacular fashion. Buy gold, physical only…ignore the manipulated paper market.

Why do I say that? Because the whole point of buying gold is that you can’t print it. Or can you?

As I predicted last week, we are seeing a big and growing divergence between the official gold  ’spot’ price and the price at which you can actually buy the stuff.

Why is this? I found a good reply on marketwatch.com to someone who said you can’t print gold out of thin air:

Actually they are (sort of) [printing gold out of thin air] and that’s why gold is not currently at $1200 +.  If you do not have physical possession of your gold then how do you know its there? Go to any of the gold sales houses (Kitco for example) and you will see a disclaimer that says that supplies are low and there are delays with sending the gold out – because supplies are low??? (what ever happened to prices going up because of supply and demand like it does for oil?) But then there are ways to buy gold where you never actually take possession of it – you have the word of the company that it is there thought so you should feel ok. Well, what if they take your 100oz. of gold that they have in storage and sell it on paper a few more times. As long as no one wants it delivered they are good to go – printing gold out of thin air. What I would be interested to see is everyone that has paper gold to demand possession – I suspect a bunch of problems for many sellers because I seriously doubt they would be able to make good on even most of the paper claims – then see where spot prices go to…

If you need any evidence of this, well Swiss banks are seriously worried about it at the moment because they are short on their gold and silver certificates. I wrote about this yesterday over at petermacfarlane.net: Swiss banks are short on silver and gold backing paper.

If you have some of those strong dollars, I truly believe you should keep on buying physical gold. Forget all other types of gold!

We are certainly living in exciting times. After some years we will come out of this crisis. Some people will be a lot poorer, and others a lot richer. Which group will you be in? Join us now and you will have the chance to preserve your wealth and see it grow!

P.S. The freedom, wealth and privacy information we publish here has never been more necessary nor more in demand. We are now offering a FREE SAMPLE COPY (back issue – our choice) of The Q Wealth Report to anyone interested. All we ask is that you sign up for our free email newsletter, Q Bytes. You can join free and receive your free sample copy right now using the sidebar on your right (or, if you are viewing us via an RSS feed, simply visit http://www.qwealthreport.com/q_bytes.php)

Are you sitting, waiting for the “right” opportunity to come along? Follow this advice.

By Dr Richard Cawte

There are plenty of opportunities out there.  The deal of a decade doesn’t happen once every ten years, it happens as often as you want it to.  Life is not about opportunity, it’s about choices: the choices you make each and every day.  Are you choosing to welcome new opportunities or have you already decided that things never go your way, that someone else is always the lucky one?

One thing is for sure: if you are in a permanent state of high stress, worrying about money, fretting over how you’re going to pay the bills, you will find it harder to bring the wealth that you want into your life.  It’s a simple rule: it doesn’t matter how many ships there are out at sea or how full of goodies they are, none of them can get into the harbour if there’s a storm raging.  Your ships come in over a calm sea.

We all have plenty of ships out there in the seas of opportunity, but often we are so anxious, so worried, that we create too much turbulence for them to get to the dock.  To become a magnet that attracts what you want in life, you need to say farewell to worry and stress.  After all, when did you last see a worried magnet?

If you walk away from something out of fear, you take it with you.  One of the things I help my mentoring clients do is to face up to their fears, but not in a way that is uncomfortable.  I don’t believe that we have to “move out of our comfort zone” in order to achieve success.

Stay in your comfort zone!

In fact, I help people do the opposite: move right into your comfort zone, because by doing that, you find you’re doing what comes naturally, and you find that you’ve walked up to your fears in the process, and that the monsters you created in your mind are really just poodles you can handle easily!

Do it with a smile.

When you’re in your comfort zone, it’s easy to smile.

To me, that’s what life’s about.  If you ask me how I measure wealth, I’d say that you can measure it in how many times you smile each day.

It makes good business sense too.  There’s a great Chinese proverb (I love those old proverbs!) that says: “A man who cannot smile must not open a shop” and that’s absolutely right.  When you’re doing something that makes you feel good about yourself you are more likely to smile, and that is attractive to other people.

For some reason people seem to think we have to be serious to show we’re working hard.  When the boss comes in to the office, everyone stops messing around and joking and pretends to be very serious.  It’s one of the things we all have to unlearn, because you can bet your bottom dollar that when you’re doing something that makes you smile, you’ll spend more time doing it, and you’ll be successful as a result.

So, it really does pay to be light-hearted! Or, to put it another way,  Wealth Mastery is Being Well.
Note: The above entry is a brief extract from an article entitled Being Wealth = Well Being by Dr Richard Cawte which appears in issue 51 of The Q Wealth Report, available to subscribers at the beginning of September 2008. Log in here. If you would like to find out more about Dr Richard Cawte, visit his website www.richardcawte.com

Dr Richard Cawte will also be speaking on Wealth Psychology and Well-Being at Recipes for Success – Q Wealth’s event in Panama City, Panama this November. For further details you can visit www.qwealthevents.com