10 Reasons Why You Need an Offshore Bank Account

By: Nick Giambruno

You may have wondered: “What’s the difference between having a bank account at Bank of America and having an offshore bank account?”

The truth is, there’s possibly all the difference in the world.

Here are the top 10 reasons why you need an offshore bank account.

Reason #1: Dilute Your Political Risk

Doug Casey has said over and over that the biggest risk you face today is not market or financial risk—as big as those risks are—but rather the risk from your own government.

There’s no doubt this kind of risk is rising in most parts of the West. Governments are hopelessly sinking deeper into insolvency. They’re turning to the same desperate measures they always have throughout history, and it’s a big threat to your savings.

It’s only prudent to expect more bail-ins (as we’ve seen in Cyprus), bank deposit taxes (as we’ve seen in Spain), retirement savings nationalizations (as we’ve seen in Poland, Hungary, Portugal, and Argentina), and capital controls (as we’ve seen in Cyprus and Iceland), among other destructive actions. And these are just a few recent examples.

If you think these kinds of things can’t happen in your country, think again. Continue reading "10 Reasons Why You Need an Offshore Bank Account"

The Biggest Lesson from Microsoft's Recent Battle with the US Government

By: Nick Giambruno, Senior Editor, InternationalMan.com

A court ruling involving Microsoft’s offshore data storage offers an instructive lesson on the long reach of the US government—and what you can do to mitigate this political risk.

A federal judge recently agreed with the US government that Microsoft must turn over its customer data that it holds offshore if requested in a search warrant. Microsoft had refused because the digital content being requested physically was located on servers in Ireland.

Microsoft said in a statement that "a US prosecutor cannot obtain a US warrant to search someone's home located in another country, just as another country's prosecutor cannot obtain a court order in her home country to conduct a search in the United States."

The judge disagreed. Continue reading "The Biggest Lesson from Microsoft's Recent Battle with the US Government"