Hello from Lima, Peru,
I'm here just on an overnight stopover and meeting with the Chief Editor and Manager of El Dolar Vigilante (TDV Latin America) over a pisco sour in the airport hotel bar. Briefly, if you read spanish at all, you should really check out TDV Latin America or TDV Spain. Both have been putting up some tremendous original content from their regions… so good that if you don't read Spanish, you may just want to use Google Translate to read.
I've just come from a completely whirlwind week at Galt's Gulch Chile and I'll get into that further below, but I want to start with what is on the top of my mind today.
BEAUTIFUL TIMES FOR LIBERTARIANS
Is it just me or is this the best time in modern human history to be a freedom loving libertarian? The whole Obamacare thing is like a savory Argentine steak for us… with an amazing Chilean wine on the side. You really can't make up just how ridiculous this whole thing is!
All of us on the side of the fence who believe all centrally planned and violently enforced things are not only immoral but destined for failure are sitting quite smugly lately. It's not the first time. We're smug people to begin with however… Libertarians and Austrian economists (economists who believe in human action and not top down communist style regulations and controls on the economy and money system) have been right countless times. But, this Obamacare debacle has to really take the cake.
As good friend Jeffrey Tucker put it, and to paraphrase, this was the fastest collapse of a government program in history. It didn't even get out of the gate!
All kinds of numbers have been thrown about as is normal whenever government is involved, but I heard one figure that said they spent $600 million to design the world's worst website! Even funnier is watching all the central planners have committees and meetings trying to figure out what happened… many of them who don't even have an email account! It's like watching the Soviet Union all over again but this time in HDTV! And then to watch Nobel peace prize winner Czar Obama dance around and use war terminology to explain how they are going to fix it (a tech surge, to be exact!) had me laughing out loud in public places, looking around and pointing at my computer screen, expecting the rest of the room to follow in laughter.
Apparently on the first day the website was up six people managed to sign up! Oh, and for a kicker, there are apparently 500 counterfeit Obamacare websites up that are stealing people's info. Here's a tip: if the website works, you are on the wrong one.
Then I heard about Rob Ford, the grand duly elected mayor of Toronto.
I have to say one thing about Kanada… I talk a lot about how I don't like it, but their politicians have not caught on to the US style. Prime Murderer Pierre Trudeau regularly gave the finger to the media. PM Jean Chretien once got a protester in a chokehold, now known as the Shawinigan Handshake. And now, the mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, within a span of a few days has admitted he smokes crack and then followed it up with a video of him in a drunken, murderous rant!
While this might appear as yet another reason to dislike government I went the other way on this one. He smoked crack? So? Was anyone hurt while he smoked crack? If not, it is a non-story. Him overseeing a police gang who regularly kidnaps and murders people who smoke crack, that should be the headline.
Then, somehow, a murderous rant of his got onto the internet within hours. Here again though is why I prefer this guy to most politicians. Instead of doing the Bill Clinton and saying, "I didn't inhale" on both counts, he owned up. He said he did both. On the murderous rant instance he just said, "I was incredibly inebriated."
I can respect that. Who hasn't had some evenings where they drank too much and did some things they regret? I actually felt a small bit of Kanadian pride when he just owned up to it all. It only lasted two seconds and I quickly squelched it, but if you are going to have a crazy, immoral, thieving mayor, then at least don't add "blatant liar" to the list of adjectives.
But, just as I almost closed on a positive note about politicians I saw this headline, "UK Tory Deputy Mayor: The Best Thing for Disabled Children is the Guillotine".
Oh, and Barack Obama was quoted this week as saying, "I'm really good at killing people".
And with that…
GALT'S GULCH CHILE
Let's get back to something positive!
I have to commend all the staff at Galt's Gulch Chile this week for an excellent first annual spring event. You really had to be here to believe it (and they should be soon posting videos of the event at the website).
For a number of days we wined, dined and watched an incredible group of speakers including Ben Swann (the Ben Swann Report), Luke Rudkowski (We Are Change), Angela Keaton (antiwar.com), Bob Murphy (Ludwig von Mises Institute), Josh Tolley (Josh Tolley Radio) and numerous others.
We sat in an amazing courtyard on glorious 75F sunny days with peacocks and swans roaming around, met more than a hundred amazing people and listened to these amazing speakers. I have been at Galt's Gulch since the very beginning and this was an incredibly gratifying event. Numerous times I whispered to myself, "if you build it, they will come".
And they did.
We had a fun and very productive time. In fact, all of the people above were sitting around a table late one night at the Gulch and we came upon an idea that we believe will change the world (for the better we hope!). You'll hear about that soon.
That is exactly what I expected when I thought about a place where numerous freedom-minded individuals could all come to coalesce in a less oppressive environment.
Unfortunately some of the other big name libertarian thought leaders couldn't come including, in my opinion, the biggest name today (who I will not name for his privacy) and Wendy McElroy who has already purchased at the Gulch but who has yet to even visit! And then there is Adam Kokesh, a good friend of TDV who finally was released from prison just a few days ago so he also couldn't make it down… I wish he had listened to me a year and a half ago when I offered the chance to come to Acapulco so he wouldn't have to spend months in a cage as he just did.
ONWARD
It is late at night and I need a few hours of sleep… especially after having been on four continents in the last two weeks at three separate events/conferences. When I wake I should be on my way back to Acapulco (you can visit at our hotel here or even buy a condo in the hotel here). If things go well, I should end up spending part of the year in tropical, free Acapulco and part of the year in the Mediterreanen climate in the wine country of Chile, 45 minutes from the beach and 45 minutes from Santiago.
And the rest of the time likely out and about planting freedom seeds and helping to free slaves. My next scheduled appearance is in St. Kitts with people like Peter Schiff, Doug Casey, Rick Rule and Mark Skousen, just to name a few.
And keep your eyes open, we may be having a very exclusive TDV Wealth Management event in Panama near the end of January for high net worth people looking to internationalize and protect their assets and possibly a more all-encompassing event near March or April… location to be announced.
I bid you a fond farewell for the moment.
