Peter Macfarlane: May 2008

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Protecting you against the falling greenback!

PETER MACFARLANE: PROTECTING YOU AGAINST THE BANKRUPT GREENBACK!
As early as January 2007 Peter Mac warned audiences at several events in Panama City about the coming crash and revealed strategies to diversify assets into other asset classes currencies. People who followed his advice secured their assets before disaster struck, saving millions. Peter says: “If you want to see where the dollar is going next, look at where the United States stands at these two pages from the CIA website. Do it now before they are censored…”
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2188rank.html

Do Business in Panama

For the latest and most informative options for doing business in Panama including Panama corporations and packages for domiciling your company, visit http://www.dobusinessinpanama.com/

Expat Medical Services

When it comes to looking after your health and that of your family, it’s never too early to plan ahead. If you are contemplating moving abroad to retire or work as an expat, or you’re already living an international PT/sovereign individual lifestyle, it’s extremely important to have this aspect “covered.” At Expat Medical’s site you can obtain online quotes for long or short term health insurance no matter what is your country of citizenship or residence. All coverage is underwritten by Lloyds of London.
http://www.expatmedical.net/

Expat Medical Services

GENERICARD

GENERICARD is a leading international private label payment card consultancy. We develop and facilitate co-branded and generic card programs. We also specialize in offshore acquiring (international merchant accounts). GENERICARD plans, designs and implements multi currency prepaid card programs and e-wallet systems, along with payment processing, web-based online reporting and brand-building opportunities. You as client control payments to customers, members, affiliates or employees in real time, globally.
http://www.genericard.com/

Q Wealth Events

Q Wealth Events, exclusive gatherings covering successful international investing and living… a great way in which to discover some quite extraordinary secrets about acquiring, protecting and growing your wealth in a secure international environment - from unique experts you would never normally be able to find!
http://www.qwealthevents.com/

Q Wealth Report

Sunday, April 27th, 2008
What can the Q Wealth Report do for you? You will discover how to legally avoid taxes, discover how to protect the assets you already have, you will learn the secrets of generating wealth - often with no money down, learn how to be financially secure and free - never have to worry about money again - instead live a relaxed, happy lifestyle, acquire the skills to apply knowledge to put your ideas into action to increase your freedom, autonomy, security and independence, have opportunities to connect with like-minded people, refresh and refocus at Q Wealth Events. Above all you will be inspired and will acquire a new, free, mindset!
http://www.qwealthreport.com/

Invest in the Dominican Republic

Sunday, April 27th, 2008
Your reliable portal for offshore investments in the Dominican Republic and Caribbean region! We are experts in offshore banking, international credit and debit cards, tax-tree residence, second citizenship, international asset protection, company formation, real estate, divorce, vacation properties, hotels and golf in Dominican Republic, Panama, Haiti and Cuba.
http://www.invest-dr.com/

VIP Divorce

Sunday, April 27th, 2008
Learn how you can legally divorce “offshore” in as little as 24 hours, with or without consent of your spouse, offering fast legalization by consulates of USA, UK, Ireland, Italy, Philippines or any other country, reducing the trauma: get it over fast and get your life back on track now and potentially save thousands of dollars in legal fees!
http://www.vipdivorce.com/

Easy Car Registration

Sunday, April 27th, 2008
Why register your car offshore? We offer low registration cost and annual fees, huge potential tax savings - avoid European VAT, luxury taxes, etc., no need to travel - plates sent to you by DHL courier, legally avoid expensive compliance tests, small additional cost for personalized plates for global citizens, permanent tourists, diplomats and consuls, employees of international organizations, military personnel and others.
http://www.easycarregistration.com/

YOUR SECRET OFFSHORE SAFE DEPOSIT BOX

YOUR SECRET OFFSHORE SAFE DEPOSIT BOX
By Peter Macfarlane for The Q Wealth Report
You might well, sooner or later, end up in possession of sensitive papers or other portable assets of great value that should be kept in a safe place - like an offshore safety deposit facility.
What kind of things are we talking about? Here are a few:
Automobile Titles, Coins (rare) , Passports , Bank Records, Bearer Shares, Citizenship Records, Bills of Sale, Pension Records, Tax Records, Birth Certificates, Service Records, Medals, Death Certificates, Trust Papers, Wills, Divorce Decrees, Savings Bonds, Title Papers, Family Valuables Stock Certificates, School Transcripts, Heirlooms, Rare Stamps, Private Writings, Immigration Papers, Mortgage Papers, Leases, Insurance Policies, Inventories, Life Insurance Policy, Jewelry, Backup Hard Drive, Bond Certificates, Cash, Gold and Silver, Platinum
A safety deposit box is also recommended for estate-planning purposes. To pass the contents of a safe deposit box without any formalities all that is necessary is that another person have access and a key. This is accomplished by having the inheritor be a signer on the box. If you don’t want them to have access during your lifetime, you keep the key and arrange for it to be delivered to them in a sealed envelope with instructions, upon your death or disablement.
SHOULD YOU USE A BANK OR AN INDEPENDENT BOX COMPANY?
Generally, the best solution is to rent a safety deposit box in a reliable major, first class bank - not just a box company. Many banks will require that you also have an account with them and that withdrawals to pay the box rent be authorized in advance.
Why should you use a bank rather than an independent safe deposit company? Because independent companies seem to fold or get robbed with great regularity. Like public storage facilities, they are also frequently used by less-desirable characters. As a result, the client lists of independents tend to be under a higher degree of Big Brother surveillance than regular bank safe deposit facilities.
On the other hand, a private storage outfit may not require any identification to open a box. They may accept any nom de plume you care to give them. Customers may be admitted on the basis of a plastic card without any need to sign in. As such a box is not linked to any account or payment facility, it behoves the user to pay several years in advance. This will avoid the box being opened and the contents sold for non-payment of rent.
One client told me the sad story of how, after a long hospital stay due to cancer, he discovered that his box in a public storage unit had been opened after a year for non-payment of rent. The contents were sold at auction. He had a collection of old stock certificates that were worthless as stocks, but worth a great deal to collectors. One had a rare original signature of inventor Thomas Edison. They were disposed of as scrap paper.

THE BEST COUNTRIES FOR SAFE DEPOSIT BOXES
Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg are traditional safe havens that are perfect for safe deposit boxes. A good country for a box is one where there is no need to show a passport or go through any formal border controls. This is not the case with Switzerland - unless you take your chances on one of the very few secret unmanned border crossings.
Vienna and Zurich airports are also convenient national airline hubs. You can conveniently pass through these countries when travelling between other cities. Just arrange a stop over long enough to visit your stash; putting in or taking out what you need. For a safety deposit box locale you don’t need to seek out a tax haven. Any peaceful, stable country where property rights are respected is just fine.
Almost all banks offer safety deposit boxes. If yours is located in a country where you have no problems, it doesn’t matter much which one you use. But you should have at least one person you trust who knows about the box and is able to access it. If you have an accident, it is important that your box not be forgotten or abandoned.

REMEMBER TO KEEP THE KEY SAFE!
When you have opened the box, consider depositing the key in a sealed envelope with the bank’s safekeeping office or your personal private banker. By doing this, you ensure that the key won’t be discovered on your person or among your possessions by anyone with dubious intentions, like your soon-to-be ex-wife.
Many bank safety deposit boxes have two keys - one is held by you. The second (a general pass key) is kept by the bank. Only with both can the box be opened.

FINGERPRINTS USED TO UNLOCK THE MOST MODERN BOXES
In the very latest, high-tech, safe deposit boxes, there is no key. These safe-deposit boxes can be opened only with fingerprint scans. Another solution is to use boxes in places where they have combination locks. Experienced safe-crackers are good at opening combo-locks. They are less secure than complex keys - in our experience. We are likewise not keen on secret memorized numbers. Why? Because we have more than once forgotten an important combination or password.
Be sure that you can access the box without showing ID, in case you lose it and need to get at your backup copies within the box! Some banks, particularly those in Zurich, want to see and photocopy ID every time you access your box - even if you are well known. Whereever your box may be, be sure you are introduced to several of the staff who can help you access your box without ID should you need to. Tell them to take a good look and remember you personally so you can always access your box or the money in the account without any identification. Tell them your favourite stupid joke or story and tell them to remember it so that you can tell it again many years later. Then they will remember you!

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?
Don’t just take a safe deposit box key and keep it on a gold chain around your neck at all times. This is something that movie villains do.
If you want something secret, always think ahead. Don’t tell anyone about it. Leave the key and instructions with your personal banker or someone you trust implicitly. Also think ahead! Leave death instructions in your box - just in case something happens to you. These can be written, or can be on a CD in video form. Your box will be opened after about a year or two of inactivity - if and when the annual fees don’t get paid.
Sometimes a safe deposit box is forgotten for decades. About seventy years after the criminal mastermind Al Capone and reputed billionaire died in prison, a closed bank that he once owned in Chicago was found to have a long forgotten, secret, locked underground vault registered in his name. His money had never been found. A national television network bought rights to show the drilling and re-opening of this vault ‘live on TV.’ Many people, myself included, tuned in for the grand opening. We thought it would be an event to equal the discovery of King Tut’s fabulous tomb in Egypt. What happened? It was a good show with a let-down for an ending. Apparently, someone with a spare key to Al Capone’s safe deposit facility had arrived there first. Nothing of the slightest interest was in the vault.

YOUR SECRETS? DO THEY DIE WITH YOU?
Most offshore banks will require that you have a bank account with them and that they be authorized to withdraw your annual safety deposit box rent payments from that account. With such instructions and automated payment you could be dead for many years before you are presumed dead and your box is drilled. Thus, your banker should perhaps be instructed to open your instructions (not your box) in case he doesn’t hear from you for a certain period of time, like say three years. Better yet, your banker should be instructed “after 3 years of no contact, please contact my attorney, XYZ, or your kids, wife, best friend.” Someone you trust should have instructions on what to do with your assets in the event of your death, disappearance or disability. Your banker should be told what to do or how and when he is to contact those persons who will surely know where you are.
Perhaps someone you trust, who has nothing to gain from suing you, should be given a sealed power of attorney or an assignment, plus a valid will, so that all loose ends are tied up. Without this, in Switzerland, for instance, the bank just keeps your assets! Simple as that. In English speaking countries, there is usually an escheat law covering dormant accounts and abandoned safe deposit box contents. In England, unclaimed money and assets go to ‘The Crown.’ In California, box contents and accounts dormant for over seven years, go to the Teachers’ Pension Fund.
In such cases, the heirs have only a very limited time to make claim. Most never do because they never learn of the assets.

YOUR ANONYMOUS SAFE IN AN AUSTRIAN PALACE
The Swiss and the Austrians generally excel at running discreet safe deposit facilities. In nearly all countries, ID is required to rent a safe box. But in Austria, at the time of writing, there is one safe deposit company offering anonymous safes. It has been around for years and was highly recommended by a reader. It’s a good place to store second passports, bank cards and other PT paraphernalia that you may not want to keep in your home country.
This company has its facilities in the basement of a beautiful Viennese palace. Its name is Das Safe and its website is http://www.dassafe.com/. If you are in Vienna, you can visit them at Auerspergstrasse 1. We predict they will stay in business for a long time to come, but for how long they will be allowed to take anonymous business, is open to question.
Other recommended safe deposit facilities in Austria are at the Schoellerbank branches (where no key is required - access is regulated by an electronic fingerprint scan) and at the Raiffeisenbank in the enclave of Jungholz.

A RELIABLE SAFE DEPOSIT COMPANY IN PRAGUE
Another service we know of is Prague Safe Deposit in the Czech Republic. Although they do require valid ID to open a box, the service, from then on, is highly professional and discreet, with no ID required for later access. You can pay up to five years in advance. Entry to the main vault is self-service with a swipe card system at the main door. You can give the door card and key to anyone. They can then gain access to your safe-box without the need to meet any staff or identify themselves in any way.
This particular enterprise is a joint venture between one of the Czech banks and the Chequepoint chain of money changers. It has been around since 1992. They are located in the basement of an old bank building just off the famous Wenceslas Square. They welcome visitors to stop by and inspect the facilities. The street address is 28 Ijna 13. The website is http://www.safedeposit.cz/.

The Four Layer PT Privacy Account

THE FOUR LAYER PT PRIVACY ACCOUNT
Our banking expert, Peter Macfarlane, is back from a trip to a tropical island, excited by a new privacy tool!
Well, let’s get straight to it. I’ve just discovered what, definitely, is one of the more interesting secret banking opportunities to come along in quite some time. It combines the best of a major, household name USA-based custodian, an online trading account with real-time access to US markets operated from behind an offshore shield (an IBC or International Business Corporation), and an account in a European offshore centre for transactional banking and passthrough purposes in USD and EUR. No minimum deposit required either. An exceptional combination!
With this neat structure, there’s no leakage of information between your company and you. You are free to buy and sell US stocks, send and receive wire transfers online in all major currencies, invest in top mutual funds, and do all kinds of onshore banking and cash-management business in the name of your offshore company. Your funds are held securely in major American and German banks.
Here’s how the three layer privacy deal works:
1. At the heart of the package, you will receive your own Belize offshore company. This company is nominally controlled by a professional director and bearer shares, so nobody can identify the real owner. (Naturally, this company can also be used for other business elsewhere should you so choose.) A blank power of attorney will be signed by the director, so he will never know your name, and neither will he know where the company is doing business or operating accounts.
2. Your new company establishes a business relationship with a brokerage house that is licensed by the Financial Services Commission in an English-speaking Caribbean nation to carry on the business of Securities Dealers and Investment Advisors. All the paperwork is taken care of - you just have to sign.
3. This brokerage opens a client account for you at their custodian in the USA. Penson (http://www.penson.com/) is a highly respected $100 million public company operating in the USA, Canada and the UK. It ranks ahead of ABN Amro as the USA’s sixth largest clearing firm by number of clients. (Source: Investment News, July 2004)
4. It is from the above account that your daily business is carried out. Your major funds are held by this custodian at all times.
What is the point of this? Simply, only the brokerage in the Caribbean sees your ID documents. Not us, not Penson. Your privacy is protected by strict confidentiality law. Your ID document is never sent to the USA. Only the company name will appear on your account.
What are the ID requirements? You will need to nominate a person (yourself or any other person with valid ID) who will be the person of record on the trust company’s books. This person needs either a passport copy and matching utility bill, or two forms of government ID. Scanned or faxed copies are accepted - there is no need for notarizations.
This simple paperwork means account opening can normally be completed quickly - within just a few days, a big plus over other accounts which require reams of tedious paperwork.
But wait, there’s more - a fourth layer! What we’re offering above is a brokerage account, but it can’t be used for day-to-day banking. And you probably wouldn’t want to wire money directly there anyway. So, we’ve added an extra link: a retail bank account in Cyprus, also opened in the Belize company’s name.
Not in the southern part of Cyprus which is an EU member sharing information with all and sundry, but in the northern part which is controlled by Turkey - this disputed territory has been in a kind of limbo since 1974. Since the place isn’t recognised by any other country, it is very, very difficult for any snoops from off the island to breach the banking secrecy of Northern Cyprus.
Don’t be put off by the political status of Northern Cyprus. Quite the contrary, it’s a big plus for privacy. We’re not suggesting you should put serious money there. But as a passthrough account, it’s the perfect thing for breaking the money trail which Big Brother might choose to follow. And, in actual fact, the bank we are using there keeps funds only in correspondent accounts at the Frankfurter Sparkasse in Germany, a stable and venerable institution established in 1822.
Internet banking is included in this arrangement at no extra cost, so you can log on from anywhere in the world and wire funds. It’s also possible to apply directly to the bank for a credit card giving you instant access to your funds worldwide (the credit card is subject to a small minimum balance requirement.)
How does the account opening process work? Here’s a typical timeline.
1. Q Wealth Report’s office receives your order.
2. Within a day or two, Peter Macfarlane will email you (or fax you if you prefer) to arrange the name of the Belize company from a list of ready-made options.
3. When you have chosen the name, Peter will immediately email you your new account number at the Cyprus bank, already reserved in the company name.
4. Peter will also email you the simple application forms you need to sign, along with scanned copies of the company documents (hard copies follow in the mail, of course)
5. You email or fax the forms along with your ID documents direct to the brokerage house. The trust company will advise you directly of your account number, log-in details, etc. and your account is ready for use!
6. The account in Cyprus will be activated immediately, but before withdrawals are allowed, the bank will need to receive hard copies of the application form and company documents in the mail. Peter will help you with all this.
Impressed? I certainly was. I know the brokerage company had to jump through a lot of legal hoops to get this set up, but they succeeded in creating a product which offers both bearer-share anonymity and security of funds.
And the price? Even more impressive, at just USD 3,995 - what you might expect to pay for just the company elsewhere! Naturally, this fee is all inclusive of, not just incorporation, but all Belize taxes, resident agent fees, mailing address and the like.
I’m not sure how much longer we will be able to offer these accounts. If you would like one, please get in touch with us today. If you have any questions, give us a call or drop us a mail at Q Wealth Report.

Live from Cancun - Recipes for Success 2008

Live from Cancun - Recipes for Success 2008Saturday, May 10th, 2008
Am writing this from the airport, just leaving Cancun, Mexico where a small but select group of investors gathered for the first “Recipes for Success” event.
The event was great fun and 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. 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 info@petermacfarlane.net I’m looking forward to meeting you there!

“There are no markets any more, just interventions”

So says Chris Powell, secretary/treasurer of Gold Anti-Trust action (GATA). GATA are off to Washington for a conference called “Anybody Seen our Gold?”
I thought my readers would be interested in the following article. If you’d like to read more and help support GATA, you’ll find their full contact details underneath.
Groucho Marx made a small fortune in vaudeville and then lost it all in the stock market crash of 1929. His sense of humor was no help to him then. One day in the early 1930s he was sitting in a bar with his friend Morrie, and Morrie was trying to console him.”Yes,” Morrie told Groucho, “we’ve lost a lot of money and it hurts, but we’ve still got our health and our lives ahead of us, and some people donâ??t even have that. Take my cousin Fred. He’s much worse off than we are but heâ??s pressing on as best he can. Fred lost his leg in a carriage accident when he was 5. His parents were killed in a tenement fire when he was 12. His wife ran off with his best friend when he was 27. And then he had diabetes at 29.”Groucho was not to be consoled; he had lost too much money in the crash. He snarled back at Morrie: “Diabetes at 29? That’s nothing. I had Radio at 104.”
We investors in the precious metals have taken some hard blows lately, if not quite as hard as the blows taken by, say, investors in Bear Stearns. But we’ve taken such blows regularly over the last decade and still have come out ahead, so we should be able to put things in perspective.
It may be a little easier for those of us in the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee. The committee was founded in 1999 to expose manipulation of the gold market and the rigging of related markets. From the start we were ridiculed as “conspiracy nuts.” But hardly a day goes by now without evidence of official market rigging showing up in even the establishment news media.
We in GATA haven’t minded the “nuts” part that much. But we’re actually public record nuts.
For the scheme to suppress the price of gold is increasingly a matter of ordinary public record.
It was a matter of public record in January 1995, when the Federal Reserve’s general counsel, J. Virgil Mattingly, told the Federal Open Market Committee, according to the committee’s minutes, that the U.S. Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund had undertaken “gold swaps.” Those minutes are still posted at the Fed’s Internet site:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/fomc/transcripts/1995/950201Meeting.pdf
It was a matter of public record in July 1998, six months before GATA was formed, when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress: “Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.” That is, Greenspan himself contradicted the usual central bank explanation for leasing gold — supposedly to earn a little interest on a dead asset — and admitted that gold leasing was all about suppressing the price. Greenspan’s admission is still posted at the Fedâ??s Internet site:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/testimony/1998/19980724.htm
Incidentally, while we gold bugs love to cite Greenspan’s testimony from July 1998 because of its reference to gold leasing, that testimony was mainly about something else, for which it is far more important today. For with that testimony Greenspan persuaded Congress not to regulate the sort of financial derivatives that lately have devastated the world financial system.
The Washington Agreement on Gold, made by the European central banks in 1999, was another admission — no, a proclamation that central banks were working together to control the gold price. The central banks in the Washington Agreement claimed that, by restricting their gold sales and leasing, they meant to prevent the gold price from falling too hard. But even if you believed that explanation, it was still collusive intervention in the gold market. You can find the Washington Agreement at the World Gold Council’s Internet site:
http://www.reserveasset.gold.org/central_bank_agreements/cbga1/
Barrick Gold, then the largest gold-mining company in the world, confessed to the gold price suppression scheme in U.S. District Court in New Orleans on February 28, 2003. On that date Barrick filed a motion to dismiss Blanchard & Co.’s anti-trust lawsuit against Barrick and its bullion banker, JPMorganChase, for rigging the gold market.
Barrick’s motion said that in borrowing gold from central banks and selling it, the company had become the agent of the central banks in the gold market, and, as the agent of the central banks, Barrick should share their sovereign immunity and be exempt from suit. Barrickâ??s confession to the gold price suppression scheme is posted here:
http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/img2003/memoformotiontodis.pdf
The Reserve Bank of Australia confessed to the gold price suppression scheme in its annual report for 2003. “Foreign currency reserve assets and gold,” the RBA’s report said, “are held primarily to support intervention in the foreign exchange market.” The RBA’s report is still posted on the Internet at the central bank’s site:
http://www.rba.gov.au/PublicationsAndResearch/RBAAnnualReports/2003/Pdf/operations_financial_markets.pdf
Maybe the most brazen admission of the Western central bank scheme to suppress the gold price was made by the head of the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements, William S. White, in a speech to a BIS conference in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2005.
There are five main purposes of central bank cooperation, White announced, and one of them is “the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.” White’s speech is posted at GATA’s Internet site here:
http://www.gata.org/node/4279
Last October the editor of the Freemarket Gold & Money Report and the founder of GoldMoney, James Turk, a longtime consultant to GATA who will be speaking at this conference, revealed some U.S. Treasury Department reports showing that since May last year the U.S. gold reserve has been mobilized for leasing to suppress the gold price. Those records are available on GATA’s Internet site:
http://www.gata.org/node/5637
In complaining about the manipulation of the gold market, GATA has not been called “conspiracy nuts” by everyone. We have gained a good deal of institutional support over the years.
First came Sprott Asset Management in Toronto, our main sponsor for this conference. In 2004 Sprott issued a comprehensive report supporting GATA. The report was written by this conference’s keynote speaker, Sprott’s chief investment strategist, John Embry, and his assistant, Andrew Hepburn, and was titled “Not Free, Not Fair — the Long-Term Manipulation of the Gold Price.” It remains available at the Sprott Internet site here:
http://www.sprott.com/pdf/pressrelease/press_release_not_free_not_fair.pdf
Then in 2006 the Cheuvreux brokerage house of Credit Agricole, the major French bank, issued its own report confirming GATA’s findings of manipulation in the gold market. The Cheuvreux report was titled “Remonetization of Gold: Start Hoarding,” and you can find it at GATA’s Internet site:
http://www.gata.org/files/CheuvreuxGoldReport.pdf
And in September last year Citigroup — yes, Citigroup, a pillar of the American financial establishment — joined the conspiracy nuts. It published a report titled “Gold: Riding the Reflationary Rescue,” written by its analysts John H. Hill and Graham Wark, declaring: “Gold undoubtedly faced headwinds this year from resurgent central bank selling, which was clearly timed to cap the gold price.” You can find the Citigroup report at GATA’s Internet site here:
http://www.gata.org/files/CitigroupGoldReport092107.pdf
Even those authorities who don’t want to run afoul of government institutions that with a few computer keystrokes can create virtually infinite amounts of money may have to admit the opportunity for central banks to manipulate the gold market. For it is widely acknowledged that annual world gold production is about 2,400 tonnes, that annual net world gold demand is about 3,400 tonnes, that gold production is falling as demand is rising, and that the thousand-tonne gap between production and net demand is being filled mainly by central bank dishoarding and leasing. What do you suppose the gold price would be if central banks were not supplying more than a quarter of annual demand?
Just prior to the smashing down of the gold price in March, the gold lease rate turned negative. That is, the usual miniscule interest rate charged on borrowed gold was not enough incentive for bullion banks to keep borrowing gold from central banks and keep selling it into the market. No, central banks began to pay bullion banks to short gold. (Remember this the next time you hear assertions that central banks lease gold to make money from a “dead asset.”)
So a bigger question today is not whether central banks and their agents manipulate the gold market — even Citigroup sees it now — but why this should ever have been a mystery or a controversy in the first place. For the manipulation of the gold market by central banks is only the most basic economic history.
That’s what the gold standard was about — governments fixing the price of gold to a precise value in their currencies, a price at which governments would exchange their currencies for gold, currencies that were backed by gold.
Though the gold standard was abandoned amid the Great Depression, that was not the end of government efforts to control the gold price. The United States and Great Britain attempted to hold the price at $35 per ounce throughout the 1960s in a public arrangement of dishoarding that came to be known as the London Gold Pool. The London Gold Pool was overwhelmed by demand and was shut down abruptly in April 1968.
Since then there have been sporadic selling of gold by central banks and, increasingly, leasing of gold by central banks, even as the gold price has continued to rise.
That the London Gold Pool was a scheme to manipulate the gold price is not denied even as the purposes of the more recent selling and leasing by central banks may be disputed.
But it is all much bigger than that. Gold is only part of it.
For market intervention is exactly why central banking was invented. Intervening in markets is what central banks do. They have no other purpose.
Central banks admit intervening daily, even hourly, in the currency markets, buying and selling their own currencies and those of other governments to maintain exchange rates at what they consider politically desirable levels. Central banks admit doing the same in the government bond markets. Now there is even evidence that the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department have been intervening frequently in the U.S. stock markets since the crash of 1987.
You don’t have to settle for rumors about the “Plunge Protection Team,” also known as the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. Again you can just look at the public record.
The Federal Reserve injects money into the stock and bond markets every day, on the public record, through what are called repurchase agreements the Fed makes with the major New York financial houses, its so-called primary dealers. The financial houses become the Fed’s agents in directing that money into the markets.
As of this week the money that has been deployed into the stock, bond, and derivatives markets by the Fed through the repo pool stood at about $360 billion. Last October the repo pool was only $160 billion. In only six months the money in the repo pool has far more than doubled.
Three hundred sixty billion dollars are plenty for pushing all sorts of markets around or propping them up. Indeed, market manipulation is the only purpose of the repo pool.
Now central banks are trying to scare the gold market with the plan of the International Monetary Fund to sell 400 tonnes of gold in the name of rotating into supposedly superior investments, like government bonds — as if anything else with so little risk could match gold’s increase in value in dollar terms, 300 percent over the last 10 years, an average of 30 percent per year. But if you look closely, you will find that the IMF says its gold sales are only to substitute for any unfilled quotas in the Western central bank agreement on gold sales, the Washington Agreement, and so are not to add to the annual dishoarding of official-sector gold. And if you look even closer, you may begin to wonder whether the IMF even has any gold at all.
This month I wrote to the managing director of the IMF, Dominque Strauss-Kahn, with five questions about the IMF’s gold. I copied the letter to the IMF’s press office by e-mail, and quickly began to get some answers from one of its press officers, Conny Lotze.
My first question was: “Your Internet site says the IMF holds 3,217 metric tons of gold ‘at designated depositories.’ Which depositories are these?”
Conny Lotze of the IMF replied, but not specifically. She wrote: “The fund’s gold is distributed across a number of official depositories,” noting that the IMF’s rules designate the United States, Britain, France, and India as IMF depositories.
My second question was: “If you’d prefer not to identify the depositories for security reasons, could you at least identify the national and private custodians of the IMF’s gold and the amounts of IMF gold held by each?”
Conny Lotze replied, again not very specifically: “All of the designated depositories are official.”
My third question was: “Is the IMF’s gold at these depositories allocated — that is, specifically identified as belonging to the IMF — or is it merged with other gold in storage at these depositories?”
Conny Lotze replied, still not very specifically: “The fund’s gold is properly accounted for at all its depositories.”
My fourth question was: “Do the IMF’s member countries count the IMF’s gold as part of their own national reserves, or do they count and identify the IMF’s gold separately?”
Conny Lotze replied a bit ambiguously: “Members do not include IMF gold within their reserves because it is an asset of the IMF. Members include their reserve position in the fund in their international reserves.”
This sounded to me as if the IMF members are still counting as their own the gold that supposedly belongs to the IMF — that the IMF members are just listing the gold assets in another column on their own books.
My fifth question to the IMF was: “Does the IMF have assurances from the depositories that its gold is not leased or swapped or otherwise encumbered? If so, what are these assurances?”
Conny Lotze replied: “Under the fund’s Articles of Agreement it is not authorized to engage in these transactions in gold.”
But I had not asked if the IMF itself was swapping or leasing gold. I had asked whether the custodians of the IMF’s gold were swapping or leasing it.
This prompted me to raise one more question for Conny Lotze. I wrote her: “Is there any audit of the IMF’s gold that is available to the public? I ask because, if the amount of IMF gold held by each depository nation is not public information, there doesn’t seem to be much documentation for the IMF’s gold, nor any documentation for the assurance that its custody is just fine. Without any details or documentation, the IMF’s answer seems to be simply that it should be trusted — that it has the gold it says it has, somewhere.”
And Conny Lotze … well, that was 10 days ago, and she has not answered that question yet, and I don’t think she is going to. For I’m beginning to find that the only thing that offends a government officer more than a four-letter word is that five-letter word: A-U-D-I-T.
That the International Monetary Fund apparently refuses to account for the gold it claims to have should be potential news for the financial media. We hope they will pursue that issue before they next attempt to scare the gold market with stories about IMF gold sales.
But GATA may have somewhat bigger news than that today.
Last week GATA’s Washington law firm, William J. Olson P.C. of McLean, Virginia, received a letter from the Federal Reserve in response to the freedom-of-information request we sent to the Fed and the Treasury back in December, seeking access to all documents in their possession that mention “gold swaps.” The Fed’s letter confirms that it has such documents and says that some of them will be made available to us but others will not be made available or will be redacted because they contain, among other things, “trade secrets” and “privileged or confidential” memorandums or letters. By telephone the Fed has told our law firm that about 400 pages are being reviewed for release to us.
Right now we can only speculate about these documents, but the Fed’s letter does admit something important: that the U.S. government knows things about gold that it does not want the public to know, that the U.S. government has secrets about gold, and that these secrets involve the gold market, not the mere location of U.S. government gold reserves.
Maybe the financial media should pursue these issues too. For what is there to hide about the U.S. gold reserves unless it involves market manipulation?
But since even Citigroup acknowledges it now, it should be no secret that the price of gold has been manipulated through the strategic dishoarding of gold by central banks and their sale of gold futures and options at strategic moments. So the biggest question of all may be why central banks manipulate the gold price and what this means for investors.
Gold has been manipulated by central banks because it is a currency that competes with their own currencies, a currency whose price helps set the price of government currencies and helps determine interest rates. More than that, gold is the ticket out of the central bank system, the escape from coercive central bank and government power. As an independent currency, a currency to which investors can resort when they are dissatisfied with government currencies, gold carries the enormous power to discipline governments, to call them to account for their inflation of the money supply and to warn the world against it. Because gold is the vehicle of escape from the central bank system, the manipulation of the gold market is the manipulation that makes possible all other market manipulation by government.
In recent months central bankers often have complained about what they call “imbalances” in the international financial system. That is, certain countries, particularly in Asia, run big trade surpluses, while other countries, especially the United States, run big trade deficits and consume far more than they produce, living off the rest of the world. These complaints by the central bankers about “imbalances” are brazenly hypocritical, since these imbalances have been caused by the central banks themselves, their constant interventions in the currency, bond, commodity, and derivatives markets to prevent those markets from coming into balance through ordinary market action lest certain political interests be disturbed.
Yes, when markets balance themselves they often do it brutally, causing great damage to many of their participants. The United States enacted a central banking system in 1913 because for the almost 150 years before then the country went through a catastrophic deflation every decade or so. Central banking was created in the name of preventing those catastrophic deflations.
The problem with central banking has been mainly the old problem of power — it corrupts.
Central bankers are supposed to be more capable of restraint than ordinary politicians, and maybe some are, but they are not always or even often capable of the necessary restraint. One market intervention encourages another and another and increases the political pressure to keep intervening to benefit special interests rather than the general interest — to benefit especially the financial interests, the banking and investment banking industries. These interventions, subsidies to special interests, increasingly are needed to prevent the previous imbalances from imploding.
And so we have come to an era of daily market interventions by central banks — so much so that the main purpose of central banking now is to prevent ordinary markets from happening at all.
Central banking controls the value of all labor, services, and real goods, and yet it is conducted almost entirely in secret — because, in choosing winners and losers in the economy, advancing infinite amounts of money to some participants in the markets but not to others, administering the ultimate patronage, central banking cannot survive scrutiny.
Yet the secrecy of central banking now is taken for granted even in nominally democratic countries.
Maybe the Federal Reserve’s intervention to rescue Bear Stearns through the Fed’s de-facto subsidiary, JPMorganChase, has been grotesque enough to prompt some devastating public inquiries by Congress and the news media. But what a hundred years ago in the United States was called the Money Power is so ascendant today that it sometimes even boasts of its privilege. What other agency of a democratic government could get away with the principle that was articulated on national television in 1994 by the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Blinder? Blinder declared: “The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth.”
The truth as GATA sees it is this:
First, gold is the secret knowledge of the financial universe, but it is becoming an open secret. That is GATA’s work — to bust the secret open. We will continue to use freedom-of-information law against the Fed and the Treasury Department about their policies toward gold and the disposition of the U.S. gold reserves. Of course central banks can no more afford to account fully for their gold reserves than the Fed and JPMorganChase can afford to disclose details of their negotiations for the rescue of Bear Stearns. Indeed, the disposition of Western central bank gold reserves is a secret more closely guarded than the blueprints for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Second, all technical analysis of markets now is faulty if it fails to account for government intervention.
And third, that intervention against gold is failing because of overuse, exposure, exhaustion of Western central bank gold reserves — we estimate that the Western central banks have in their vaults only about half the 32,000 tonnes they claim to have — and the resentment of the developing world, which is starting to figure out how it has been expropriated by the dollar system, a system in which people create real goods and send them to the United States in exchange for mere colored paper and electrons.
The Western central banks are attempting a controlled retreat with gold, bleeding out their reserves so that gold’s ascent and the dollar’s decline may be less shocking. But GATA believes that the central banks may have to retreat farther than anyone dreams: that when the central banks are overrun in the gold market, as they were overrun in 1968, and the market begins to reflect the ratio between gold supply and the explosion of the world money supply of the last few decades — as the market begins to perceive the difference between the real and the unreal — there may not be enough zeroes to put behind the gold price.
Not quite a hundred years ago Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem that foresaw the decline of his country’s empire and attributed it to a loss of the old virtues, the virtues that were listed at the top of the pages in the special notebooks, called “copybooks,” that were given to British schoolchildren — virtues like honesty, fair dealing, Ten Commandments-type stuff. The name of Kipling’s poem is “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” and its conclusion is a warning to the empire that succeeded the one he was living in:
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled,And their smooth-tongued wizards withdrewAnd the hearts of the meanest were humbledAnd began to believe it was trueThat All is not Gold that Glitters,And Two and Two make Four,And the Gods of the Copybook HeadingsLimped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future,It was at the birth of Man.There are only four things certainSince Social Progress began:That the Dog returns to his VomitAnd the Sow returns to her Mire,And the burnt Fool’s bandaged fingerGoes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished,And the brave new world begins,When all men are paid for existingAnd no man must pay for his sins,As surely as Water will wet us,As surely as Fire will burn,The Gods of the Copybook HeadingsWith terror and slaughter return.
I quoted that much of Kipling at Doug Casey’s conference in Arizona last month and when I got to the part about terror and slaughter returning, all I could conclude with was “Have a nice day.” I was a little ashamed of that this week as I walked with my daughter to the Lincoln Memorial just across the river here and stood on the portico where Martin Luther King stood 45 years ago as he spoke of renewing Lincoln’s pursuit of liberating humanity. “Let us have faith that right makes might,” Lincoln said, “and, in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
GATA has the faith that right will make might and thanks you all for coming here to help us with our duty.
* * *
Help Keep GATA Going
GATA is a civil rights and educational organizationbased in the United States and tax-exempt under theU.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches arefree, and you can subscribe at http://www.gata.org/.
GATA is grateful for financial contributions, whichare federally tax-deductible in the United States.Contact GATAinfo@gata.org
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee7 Villa Louisa RoadManchester, Connecticut06043-7541 USAhttp://www.gata.org/

The Trap of Exchange Traded Funds

I’ve recently been asked by my editors at Q Wealth Report to prepare an article on Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) - touted as a simple way to buy and sell gold, silver and other precious metals.
I came across the following excerpt from an article on the excellent Kitco site by Jim Willie which I felt might be of interest to readers. I don’t say I agree with every word here, but it’s certainly worth further investigation:
The Exchange Traded Fund concept is simple. The application is not, especially when criminal motive is executed, protected by USGovt regulators and Wall Street bankers. Any ETFund managed by a US firm or London firm should be regarded as fraudulent unless proven otherwise. To me, it is beyond disbelief, moving toward shock, that the gold community has not attacked the StreetTracks GLD fun for its fraudulent operations. They fail to comply with their own prospectus. They fail to comply with disclosure. They have successfully diverted plentiful physical demand into a fund managed by JPMorgan. Gold believers have been duped. Every day, one can read of some respected analysts who endorse this ETFund vehicle, despite its fraud. Where is the thought process? If the mafia opens up a neighborhood savings & loan after city-wide thefts, then one should harbor suspicion. The Barclays ETFund for silver, named SLV, is another fraud. Jim Turk of GoldMoney has revealed its highly questionable behavior. Both GLD and SLV have probably been using their gold and silver bullion to short gold and silver for a few years. These vehicles keep down the price of gold & silver, or at least neutralize money invested in them in terms of the metal prices. The precious metals community has been hoodwinked, still happening sadly. The gold community does a great job in researching and scrutinizing the track record, competence, and integrity of management when examining a stock for a mining firm, but not for ETFunds like GLD and SLV. Very strange and inconsistent usage of gray matter in my opinion. The Hat Trick Letter provides a special report on this controversial topic in February, with past coverage in the April 2007 report last year.
Read the full article here:
http://www.kitco.com/ind/willie/apr162008.html

Coin Collecting as Currency

“There is one standard against which (the current) debasement of currencies can be measured and one asset which investors can own to protect themselves: That standard and that asset is gold.”
Ian Lamont, writing in The Scotsman, Edinburgh
In my regular column for the Q Wealth Report this month, I would like to make a little diversion from my normal theme of banking and brokerage accounts. Why? Although bank accounts and stock market investments are an essential part of a balanced portfolio, there is another element which I believe is equally important: precious metals.
In 2002, I wrote here in the Q about the privacy advantages of Digital Currencies. Besides being a very good way of transferring money below Big Brother’s radar screens, systems like e-gold, 1mdc and GoldMoney (add .com to any of those names to visit their websites) are also a very convenient way to hold gold as an investment.
Anyone who, around that time, put a portion of their wealth into what is widely considered to be the only real money, has done very well. On the first of January, 2002, gold was at USD 278.80 per ounce. By the first of January 2005, it had risen to USD 438.80 per ounce. According to my calculator, that’s an increase of 57%. Of course the price varies (sometimes quite substantially) on a daily basis - but you get the general idea.
EDITOR’S NOTE: February 2008 update, Gold up to USD 920 per ounce and still rising!
Where is gold going next? A senior gold analyst for Merrill Lynch recently gave his opinion on CNBC: “I wouldn’t be surprised to see gold break $500 an ounce in the next few years, or to even test its highs.” Gold’s high, by the way, was $850 or more - so there is plenty of room to move up from current levels. Gold is still less than half its former high, while the International Monetary Fund recently warned that, “dollar depreciation will continue (on average) due to large deficits.”
I WILL REPEAT: February 2008 update, Gold up to USD 920 per ounce and still rising!
I agree. Gold has always been a safe haven during difficult times. And I don’t see the world becoming more stable any time soon.
But this article is not about investing in gold. It is about a less-known field of investment, but one which is very interesting for Q readers - rare coins. It is an investment which is certainly influenced by the price of gold, but which also acts on other factors.
What are Collector Coins?
Don’t confuse collector coins with bullion material such as Krugerrands or Maple Leafs. Collector coins are rare specimens which are usually (but not always) made of precious metals. They belong in your personal portfolio or collection. If you buy smart, they always have a liquid value - and can be easily disposed of at the world market price if you want to cash out. Like any other investment, this market price can go up and down.
So, why would you invest in rare coins as opposed to bullion? Basically because collectibles are not on Big Brother’s radar screen… and this is very, very good for you as a privacy seeker. Read on.
You might have heard of the Golden Rule: “he who has the gold, makes the rules.” Gold bullion translates into power. It is highly politically sensitive. The price of gold has a profound influence on the value of national currencies. That’s why the US government has so much of it, and why they stopped selling it in 1975. This calls to mind the old adage: “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Big business also sees gold as something that must be kept under control. In just one trading day, billions of dollars in gold, gold shares and contracts can change hands. That amount of money is hard to ignore.
So big government and big business do not want the price of gold to soar, and are trying hard to restrain it. In other words, gold is not an entirely free market.
And when it comes to buying, selling and holding gold, all kinds of complications can arise. Businesses dealing in bullion in the traditional financial centres such as the USA, UK and Switzerland are being watched like hawks. They are required to hold licences which are difficult to obtain. They are frequently accused of money laundering and have, in fact, been drafted as spies by Big Brother. They are required to make regular reports to government on virtually all transactions.
Anonymous bullion transactions are next to impossible. The days when you could just walk into a bank and buy bullion, no questions asked, are long gone. And if you cross an international border carrying gold bullion, expect to be asked a lot of intrusive questions by customs officers.

Privacy Advantages of Collector Coins
In contrast, the amount of money invested in collectibles each year is no threat to anybody.
This means you are still relatively free to buy and sell collectible coins without questions. You can buy and sell in cash, or make flexible arrangements with dealers. How many investments these days can you cash out anonymously anywhere in the world?
One of the most interesting ‘privacy features’ of collector’s coins is that many are legal tender in their respective countries. That means you can legally carry them across borders without having to declare them. For example, when entering or exiting the USA you are required to declare cash above $10,000. If you carry St Gaudens $20 gold coins, that is five hundred coins.
Yet the ‘real’ value of these coins is in the $600 - $1300 range - per piece! Grabbing the calculator again, in this example you could perfectly legally walk out of the USA with $650,000 without having to declare it. In fact, with collectible coins, it is quite possible to carry millions of dollars in your pocket. The customs officer (even if he knows anything about the value of rare coins, which is very unlikely) is obliged to count legal tender at face value. This is a loophole which few people have exploited, and therefore remains open.
Investing in Silver Coins
What about silver? Gold attracts such attention that silver often gets forgotten. But silver coins are of great interest as investments, too. In fact, coin experts are currently recommending silver coins as a better (albeit less liquid), long-term investment holding opportunity.
Talking of unusual loopholes, here is a titbit of historic interest. To this day, most people think that the American Morgan and Peace silver dollars contain an ounce of silver. For decades, in the last half of the 1800s, the US government maintained an official price for gold of about $18.67 an ounce. However, $20 silver dollars only contained about $15-$16 worth of silver at $1.00 an ounce. (Yes, the government made a profit on these coins just as they do today on their eagle bullion coins.) This meant that smart Europeans could exchange $20 silver dollars for a $20 gold piece and make a profit by melting them in Europe. Actually, this accounts for the rarity of many American $5 gold pieces of the 1820s and 1830s. Visiting Europeans loaded up on our world-class gold pieces and melted them upon returning home. Perhaps this paid for their passage on the ships of the era?

Don’t know where to get started?
If this opportunity tickles you, and you would like to find out more about investing in rare coins, I would be pleased to make referrals to a relevant expert. I have referred a number of clients to him in past years and all have been most satisfied. In fact, he is one of the most-respected names in rare coins and precious metals. He has been in the business since 1958, is there for the long term, and deals in coins ranging in price from under $100 to more than $1 million.
This chap is a professional who respects the privacy of his clients. Since he operates discreetly, he has also asked that we do not name him here in print. However, once you are in touch with him, you are welcome to check out his credentials publicly, or even to meet with him in person, before sending him any money.
Once you are in contact with him, he will be able to make specific, honest and up-to-date buy recommendations, as well as arranging delivery or safe custody.
If you would like a referral to our “Coyne Chap” please contact Peter Macfarlane in the Q Wealth Report offices in the first instance. Please specify the approximate sum you are looking to invest (as a rough guide, it’s generally not worth the hassle of privacy-friendly investments of less than $15,000, unless you are intending to transfer a regular monthly sum).

Gold purchase and storage for European clients

I just established a new relationship with a bank in Western Europe (Euro zone) who are keen to help our clients who wish to invest in gold coins. They specialize in Napoleons. I’ve said this will appeal to Europeans, but it’s actually open to anybody prepared to travel to Europe.
You can go there and buy the coins (paying in cash or by bank transfer) then store them right there in a personal safety deposit box in the bank’s vault. Due to bank secrecy laws, the safe deposit box won’t be reported, and there is no VAT on gold in this country. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Switzerland or Luxembourg! It’s a more discreet alternative, one of the mini-states of Europe.
If you would like to know more about this bank with a view to setting up an appointment to visit them, then contact me via info@petermacfarlane.net please.

Panama vs. Andorra for Offshore Banking: Why You Shouldn’t Believe Everything you Read on the Internet!

An email in over the weekend from a long-standing client caused me to revisit that familiar theme, “which jurisdiction is best?” I had recommended to him a Panama offshore structure but to do the banking in Andorra. He wrote me:

From my reading about it, having a bank account in Panama is more reputable.

Now, it’s very clear that the client has been looking at the website panamalaw.org. I’m familiar with this law firm, run by an aggressive young lawyer in Panama City (nothing wrong with that so far.)

But on their website they go on to trash a whole chain of competitive jurisdictions, including Andorra. That’s just not cricket!

Besides conveniently providing a list of hotels for anyone interested in visiting Andorra, the Panama Law website makes some comments which are at least highly negligent. For example:

The Bad – Andorra having sold out entered into tax information exchange agreements (TIEA) with the EU on tax matters. This is the European Union Withholding Tax Treaty. This is supposed to only apply to fraud pertaining to savings account interest paid in Andorra but it seems it could apply to tax fraud pertaining to this savings account interest income received by someone from other than EU countries.

What a load of bunk. It shows they clearly don’t have even the most basic understanding of the European Union Savings Tax Directive. (Those of you interested may find a decent article about the said directive here: http://www.lowtax.net/specials/std.html) It is not about tax investigations. It is about routine reporting of tax information and anyone taking time to read the treaty will see that Andorra did not sign up for the information exchange part.

Panama Law goes on to say:

A EU government could always say your name or your corporate name came up in an investigation involving an EU person or entity and we do not know how much time and energy Andorra would put into questioning the request or if they would just honor it. It would be up to an Andorra Judge and does that make you feel safe and secure at night when your privacy is at stake…

Well, er, actually yes! One hopes it never comes to that. But take this from somebody who has slept soundly many nights in both those countries, as well as choosing them both to do business on a regular basis. At the end of the day, I would trust and Andorran judge much more than a Panamanian judge. Andorra is one of the few countries with bank secrecy written into its constitution. Panama: well bank secrecy is fine as far as it goes but wasn’t it just last year, PanamaLaw, in a case involving HSBC Bank that the Foundation’s supposedly unbreakable corporate veil was pierced by a Panamanian judge?

Plus, if you happen to be American, as this client was… the US is known to have much more influence in Panama than in Andorra.

At the end of the day, we have to remember Andorra is a first world country with hundreds of years of tradition of respect for law, private property, and business confidentiality. Panama is still a third world republic which, er, produces bananas!

But there’s more. Not just the bad but…

The Worst - Andorra has been blacklisted by the OECD. This is a private agency like FATF in a sense and being black listed by them for failure to cooperate is going to make using their corporations and banks difficult if not impossible and of course will raise all sorts of red flags.

Just in passing Panama has no tax treaties at all of any sort or format, this is exactly what one should look for in an offshore jurisdiction. Panama has 150 large multi-national banks. Panama banks, hotels, corporations, etc speak English.

Regarding the OECD blacklistsing, well, we might wonder why the OECD blacklisted Andorrra. Would it be for non-cooperation with other countries in tax matters by any chance? Just what they were accusing Andorra of doing a few lines up the page? No-one ever recommended using Andorran corporations (I agree their use in tax planning is almost impossible) but that’s no reason not to use their excellent banks.

Oh, and Andorra doesn’t have any tax treaties either. It also has some banks and hotels and maybe even corporations where English is spoken!

That’s not to say Panama is insecure. Panamanian law is great and much of what Messrs Panama Law writes makes good sense. As I said, I choose Panama as the base for a lot of business.

But I always people in my presentations to “beware of biased advisors at home and abroad.” Panama Law appears to be the classic example of the latter. Instead of trying to understand what each individual jurisdiction can bring to the privacy planning table, they go out and push their own jurisdiction when it really might not be the best for the client.

WSJ Says Major Banks may be Falsifying Reports to hide Desperation

A worrying but informative article by Carrick Mollenkamp (Wall Street Journal, April 16th) about how “one of the most important barometers of the world’s financial health could be sending false signals.”
LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate, is becoming unreliable because, so the article speculates, banks are sending in false reports. In other words, banks are providing misleading information to Reuters about their financial situations.
For those readers not famililar with LIBOR, it’s a measure of the average interest rate at which banks make short-term loans to one another. Banks typically set their lending rates at a certain “spread” above Libor: A company with decent credit, for example, might pay an interest rate of Libor plus one-half percentage point. A risky “subprime” mortgage may carry an interest rate of Libor plus six or more points. If you check the small print on your loan agreement, most likely it makes reference to the LIBOR rate.
LIBOR is set every morning for ten different currencies. Although the actual rates at which banks borrow from each other are known only to the lenders and borrowers, every morning before eleven o’clock coffee, London time, “panels” of banks send data to Reuters, on what it would cost them to borrow a “reasonable amount” in a designated currency. The USD Libor panel, for example, consists of 16 banks, including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, HBOS and HSBC. Reuters uses the reported borrowing rates to calculate Libor “fixings.” As Reuters’ spokesman is quoted as saying, “It is their data alone we distribute. Reuters is purely the facilitator.”
LIBOR is trusted implicitly in the financial community… or should I say, it was been truisted implicitly until late last year. The concern expressed in the WSJ article is that,
“Some banks don’t want to report the high rates they’re paying for short-term loans because they don’t want to tip off the market that they’re desperate for cash. The Libor system depends on banks to tell the truth about their borrowing rates. Fibbing by banks could mean that millions of borrowers around the world are paying artificially low rates on their loans. That’s good for borrowers, but could be very bad for the banks and other financial institutions that lend to them.”
The article goes on to quote Chris Freemott, a Naperville, Illinois, mortgage banker who depends on Libor to tell him how much his firm, All America Mortgage Corp, owes First Tennessee bank for a credit line that he uses to make loans. As Mr Freemott says, concerns about LIBOR’s reliability are “actually kind of frightening if you really sit and think about it.”
Of course, if this info makes the public newspapers, that means the cat is out of the bag. We can be sure that the banking community no longer trust LIBOR. Fundamentally, this translates into what we already knew: banks can no longer trust each other.
We live in interesting times.

How safe is your government-insured bank account?

Maybe not as safe as you imagine. That’s the message from an interesting page appearing here by Dr Chris Martenson :
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4335.html
Your bank account may not be as safe as you think (or hope). Taking a deeper look at the legal details and the financial depth of the FDIC reveals several troubling details that call into question how the FDIC would fare during a true banking crisis. The US is coming out of a period of unusually low banking stress and failures. Since it is typical human behavior to let one’s guard down during tranquil periods, we might legitimately ask if this has happened with respect to the FDIC..The two most common methods employed by FDIC in cases of insolvency or liquidity are the: Payoff Method , in which insured deposits are paid by the FDIC, which attempts to recover its payments by liquidating the receivership estate of the failed bank or The Purchase and Assumption Method , in which all deposits (liabilities) are assumed by an open bank, which also purchases some or all of the failed bank’s loans (assets)..In short, if your bank gets in trouble, the FDIC will ride in and either pay off your account (up to $100k), or sell your bank off to another bank which will then assume the usual duties of your bank. Under normal circumstances, a bank failure should not impact you in the least. But these are not normal times. We might reasonably ask how the FDIC would respond during a major banking crisis. After all, this is our money we’re talking about. Faith and hope are great at weddings and sporting events, but they should not form the basis of our strategy for handling our finances. How many bank failures could the FDIC handle at once?.The 1.22% Reserve Ratio means that for EVERY DOLLAR in your bank account, the FDIC has 1.22 CENTS IN RESERVE ready to cover your potential losses. This has proved to be an ample amount during the period of stability we’ve recently had, but it doesn’t seem particularly significant, considering the recent headlines about banking losses (Spring of 2008). Consider, for a moment, the collapse of Bear Stearns. In order to assume that bank, JP Morgan asked for, and received, a special waiver from the Federal Reserve to keep $400 billion of suspect of Bear Stearn’s assets off the books of JPM (page 4 of the linked document). While JPM may have been padding the books a little bit here, due to the uncertainty of how bad the wreckage might turn out to be, $400 billion dwarfs the $52 billion reserves of the FDIC..If one medium-large bank collapse could wipe out the FDIC by a factor of nearly 8, what do you suppose would happen if there were multiple, simultaneous bank failures? At this point, my guess would be that Congress would be sorely tempted to borrow additional funds to remedy the situation, but I worry that hardship and losses might result while the laws were amended and sufficient funding avenues identified. So how many bank failures could the FDIC endure? The data suggests slightly fewer than one big one!
Read more at http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article4335.html
Tags: bank failure, Chris Martenson, FDICPosted in Currencies and Cash Edit No Comments »
The Caribbean Mortgage that can make you money!Saturday, April 26th, 2008
A number of my clients have expressed an interest in what I have called the “Caribbean Back-to-Back Real Estate Loan”
This report I prepared earlier this year for a Panamanian publishing company shows how any individual or offshore company can arbitrage two separate contracts with separate maturities to create a back-to-back loan secured on beachfront property in the Dominican Republic. The net result is that the lender ends up actually paying you interest on the money they are lending to you!
Yes, that’s right, effectively the finance company lends you money and pays you interest at the same time! Besides that, you get to keep income from a rental management program plus all capital growth related to the property (that’s the most valuable upside), and you can use the property yourself for vacations if you wish at no extra cost. There’s even a way you can partially benefit from this deal even if you have very little money to invest; or you just want to test the waters with as little as $5,000. All structured completely offshore and anonymous but backed up by titled property (US title insurance is available too)
You won’t see this program advertised anywhere, because obviously they finance company arranging it have as much business as they can cope with anyway from referrals. We came across this deal completely by accident while researching something else. Even to those who know about it, not everybody who walks through the door will be approved. But in this report we tell you who, where and how to ask so you can be 100% sure to get in on this deal while it lasts. Note: this has nothing to do with tax savings. You can be a prior or zero taxpayer and still make money on this program.
If you’re interested, contact my assistant first of all, info@petermacfarlane.net

A Delicate Affair - Part II

From the case files of Peter Macfarlane:
A DELICATE AFFAIR - PART II
In the second of our series, our non-resident banking consultant, Peter Macfarlane, writes in-depth about real life case studies from his files, and real life solutions to difficult problems, implemented for clients. Of course all identifying details have been changed to protect the clients’ confidentiality, but the essential facts are here.
Having covered legacy IBCs (International Business Corporations) in the last article of this series, we move on to modern solutions and which jurisdictions are best for IBCs today. Then, we look at an asset-protection structure that’s much more low profile and at the same time highly respectable: the New Zealand Trust.
When it comes to forming an IBC, international tax planners have dozens of jurisdictions to choose from. If you’re thinking of forming a new offshore company, you, too, may be overwhelmed by the numerous options.
Many islands and small countries around the world passed IBC legislation in the 1980s and early 1990s. A few examples include the Bahamas, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks and Caicos, St Kitts, St Vincent and Vanuatu.
In the majority of cases, these jurisdictions have legal systems based on British common law, which traditionally served to inspire confidence. More recently, however, close relationships to London have become something of a burden in the offshore industry. The British government has been under significant pressure from two powerful forces, the USA and the European Union, to increase ‘transparency’ in the islands. Although some of the jurisdictions are independent states no longer tied to the old colonial master, in practice they still tend to rely heavily on aid payments, trade agreements and other forms of indirect support from the UK. Therefore, they have had little choice other than to cave in to demands from Whitehall.
An example is the Bahamas. Like many jurisdictions, they have now effectively outlawed bearer shares. Although the right to issue bearer shares still exists in theory, there are so many restrictions and legal complications that they can no longer be used for the purpose for which they were originally intended - passing ownership of shares in an easy, anonymous and tax-free manner. (In case you are not familiar with bearer shares, they are simply anonymous share certificates where whoever holds the physical certificate is regarded as the legal owner of the shares represented by the certificate). Killing off bearer shares was not a popular move in the Bahamas, but was regarded as something that ultimately had to be done.
More interesting for our purposes - which jurisdictions refuse to play ball with the tax-harmonizers and still allow traditional privacy tools like nominee directors and bearer shares?
One is the Republic of Panama. Panama is the grandmother of all offshore centres. Having been in the offshore business for nearly a hundred years, Panama can be credited with inventing the concept of tax-free companies for use in international trade. When the OECD came knocking, Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso was not about to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
So, even today, Panama offers totally anonymous companies. I sell several a month to my private consulting clients who are very happy with them. You can buy a company off the shelf without even having to provide a name. I buy all mine through a law firm in the Dominican Republic which adds yet another layer of privacy, as the company information is then protected by Dominican attorney-client privilege as well as Panamanian privacy laws.
You then operate the company through a power of attorney, which comes to you blank for you to fill in yourself. The secret of who controls the company therefore stays between you and whomever you choose to show the Power of Attorney (generally your bank). If anybody would like to acquire one of these anonymous bearer share companies, the cost is under $2000 and the Q Wealth Report office should be your first point of call. Just ask for a referral to Peter Macfarlane.
Another jurisdiction that has been through more than its fair share of difficult times, but has not swayed over the years, is Liberia. Liberia, in an interesting and very libertarian system, privatized its international companies registry. So when I want to form a Liberian IBC, I just call the office of the companies registry in Zurich, Switzerland.
As you would expect of a private company, they are friendly and super efficient. The business is run by Americans with a libertarian bent (their main business is actually ship registrations, with IBCs being something of a profitable sideline). They are fully authorized by the Liberian government to register the IBC there and then in Switzerland or at their other offices in Greece and Virginia. They can email the valid certificate of incorporation and other corporate documents with apostille within the hour. The office manager in Zurich has official diplomatic capacity as a “Special Agent” (don’t you just love the term) of the Liberian foreign ministry.
What does Liberia offer which Panama doesn’t? Well, apart from being faster, I believe Liberia offers the most flexible corporate form in the world. There are very few restrictions, unlike Panama which tends to be slower and slightly bogged down by Latin American bureaucracy. Panama has recently introduced a lot of restrictions on business names related to financial services, for example. Words like credit, finance, trust and suchlike are now banned in Panama company names. Liberia still allows you to call your company anything you like.
Both jurisdictions have their uses. A lot depends on what kind of business you are planning to run, and also in what part of the world you want to do your business and banking.

THE NEW ZEALAND TRUST
However, considering options for international tax planning purposes, the traditional IBC jurisdictions are no longer the only places to look.
Savvy international investors these days are quietly moving their offshore business to countries traditionally regarded as onshore. (Remember, ‘offshore’ really just means anywhere outside your home country).
One of my clients, Mr P.T., recently took my advice and decided to do exactly that. This American citizen had been running a telecommunications business for some years from the offshore island of Niue. He had experienced, first hand, the problems of the offshore financial system there. So I sent him in a totally new and different direction - 2,400 km southwest to the land of the kiwis and the All-Blacks: New Zealand.
As you have doubtless read, the forces of Big Brother have cracked down hard on jurisdictions that participate in what has become known as ‘harmful tax competition’. This campaign has achieved varying results - but it has quite noticeably brought many so-called tax havens unwelcome scrutiny. Transactions to or from jurisdictions with low or zero tax will often raise red flags to various authorities and may be earmarked for further investigation. Even though your transactions are totally legal, official scrutiny is certainly something to be avoided where possible.
New Zealand is a politically-stable, economically-advanced country and boasts membership of various international bodies including the British Commonwealth, the OECD and FATF. So, not only is it not ‘blacklisted’ by any country, but it’s actually a member of the organizations that do the blacklisting - so it can practically be considered immune from such problems! New Zealand is normally considered a high tax country taxing both profits as well as world wide income.
The New Zealand legal system is very advanced, as is the banking and accounting infrastructure.
Together these make New Zealand a very attractive base for international business.
All in all, it is probably one of the least conspicuous jurisdictions for effective international tax planning today.
What not many people know, though, is that formation of trusts in New Zealand is extremely interesting for the following reasons:
Offers an effective tax elimination structure on world wide income (the foreign trust)
No capital gains taxes
No stamp duties
No tax reporting required in New Zealand
No disclosure is made of the existence of a trust
No disclosure of your involvement
No registration or filing of the trust is required in New Zealand
Contemporary company and trust law designed to accommodate international commerce

Combine these features with the use of an extensive network of double taxation treaties and you have a very interesting tax elimination opportunity!
What is a New Zealand Foreign Trust? Simply, it is a trust where, from the latter of 17 December 1987, or the date upon which the first settlement was made to the trust, no settlor of that trust was a tax resident of New Zealand. (The ‘settlor’ is the person who originally gifts the assets to the trust - usually the client seeking offshore protection is the settlor)
A Foreign Trust is exempt from taxation of income and capital gains in New Zealand, always provided the settlor remains a non-resident, no income is earned in New Zealand, and no beneficiary of the trust is a New Zealand resident.
To qualify as a tax elimination structure in New Zealand, certain criteria must be met, which differentiate it from a regular IBC. The typical structure consists of two separate entities that essentially work together:
1) A so-called ‘foreign trust’, also known as an ‘offshore trust’, where the trustees have discretion over the assets held in trust.
2) A regular New Zealand onshore company. This company is formed for the sole purpose of being the resident trustee for the foreign trust.
Companies can be readily and cheaply incorporate in New Zealand, at short notice, with very little formality. It’s much like incorporating in the USA or the UK. Directors and shareholders are not required to reside in New Zealand, and everything can be done over the internet.
Assuming the company does no business of its own, meaning it only ever acts in its capacity as trustee, then that company will be exempt from the requirement to register and file returns with New Zealand’s Inland Revenue.
Providing that all income earned by the trust is sourced from outside New Zealand, then the Trust is not required to register with the New Zealand’s Inland Revenue or file annual tax returns either.
Another good thing is that the structure can open a bank account at a New Zealand bank, completely tax free, and still without reporting requirements, of course. Generally, the bank account will be given either the name of the trust e.g. “XYZ Trust” or include both the name of trustee as well as the trust’s name e.g. “ABC Limited as trustee for XYZ Trust”. The second option provides greater flexibility allowing deposits to be received in either the name of the trust or the trustee. It is also possible to open an account for the trust in the sole name of the trustee providing this is properly documented in the trust minutes. This latter option works at banks in countries where trusts are not recognised (for example Latvia and Lithuania).
This New Zealand Foreign Trust structure is therefore an excellent (if rather more expensive) alternative to a regular IBC. If you’d like more information, you can get in contact me through the Q Wealth Report office. Because every situation is unique and everyone has his or her own particular goals and objectives, I don’t send out any general information. Instead, I like to look at each client’s case individually. You tell me your circumstances and I will tailor design a structure to suit your personal needs. The fee for this initial consultation by email is nominal, and is fully refundable provided you decide to proceed with the recommended solution.

A Delicate Affair - Part I

A DELICATE AFFAIR - Part I
Beginning a new series where our own offshore banking consultant, Peter Macfarlane, writes in-depth about real life case studies from his files and real life solutions to difficult problems implemented for clients. Of course all identifying details have been changed to protect the clients’ confidentiality, but the essential facts are here.
In this first case study, Peter Macfarlane covers legacy IBCs (International Business Corporations). What should you do if you are the owner of an older IBC but have done nothing to protect yourself against the new, intrusive laws coming into effect around the globe?
”Here’s my problem” writes the client, dated June 2004. “About seven years ago I had a big-shot solicitor in London set up a Turks and Caicos (TCI) IBC, which was to be the owner of a trust I set up prior to leaving my country of birth, Canada. The IBC was being administered by a large, well-known firm which runs a lot of ads in the Sunday papers.
“In the process, I realized that the London solicitor wasn’t much interested in helping me as I was just small fry. So after this deal was completed, I did not remain in contact with him.
“Anyway, that same year (1997) I flew to the TCI and got the IBC’s bank account set up with what was then known as Barclays Bank. I was the sole signatory. Additionally, I had papers drawn up making me signatory at another account at Barclays - this one in Douglas, Isle of Man.
“Everything rolled along smoothly until last year when the bank’s administration was taken off the TCI and moved to Barbados. Barclays joined forces with a Canadian bank to create a new bank called First Caribbean International Bank. Naturally, since I am a Canadian citizen, this was already bad news. I had gone to great lengths to open an account at a bank which would not be subject to Canadian government pressure, and here I, suddenly, was banking with a 50% Canadian-owned operation.
“But worse still, at this point they started emailing me questions about who was the beneficiary and where were the bearer shares. I demurred, of course, because the only reason for a bearer share company is for such information to be secret.
“Then, a couple of weeks ago, a letter reached me via a distant mail drop, giving notice that they had frozen the IBC’s bank account. I called them on my anonymous cell phone at great expense and talked with the guy who said he was in charge, but got no useful answers. He said he would check things out and get back to me by email the next day.
“That was about two weeks ago and I’ve now emailed him reminding him that he had not contacted me at all.
“Now what am I to do? I could contact those with the big advertising budget that were supposed to be administering the company, and ask what the hell is going on. Or I could try to get the big shot solicitor to intervene. I’ve already contacted the Caribbean branch of the management company, asking questions by email, and have gotten no response. They failed to cash the check I sent them for annual services back in July and just mailed me another notice that my account is past due. I feel that the goon I’ve talked to there a few times has no knowledge or authority whatsoever.
“I’m frustrated. About $300,000 has been commandeered and I’m afraid they are going to try to take over the account in the Isle of Man, too. I’m eager for any advice you have to give. And it’s urgent!”
Peter Macfarlane answers:
Unfortunately, these days, this client’s situation is not unusual. I receive many emails like this.
The thing to realise is that traditional offshore banking the way it was even back in the late nineties has gone out of the window. Of course, things were changing even then, but September 11th was really the catalyst - or, to be more accurate, the pretext that Big Brother was looking for. Anybody who made banking arrangements before 2001, and who has not reviewed them recently, definitely needs to contact, or preferably visit, their bank for a chat, before things get as bad as they have for this client.
In the old days, it was not the banker’s job to ask questions. It still isn’t, I say. But we have to be pragmatic. Undercover PTs don’t want to be seen to buck the trend. If you want to keep a bank account for an IBC at a bank in a first class jurisdiction, there is just one way to avoid having your accounts closed. That is via a personal relationship, with a regular two-way information flow between the banker and the client. No anonymous cell phones. The banker has to be sure that, if his compliance department or onshore correspondent bank has questions, he can immediately get hold of someone on the phone who will give him sensible, coherent answers.
In other words, you have to make sure you are up-to-date with providing your bank with all the information they need to comply with new regulations. If you appear to want too much privacy, that is defined as suspicious activity which is to be avoided at all costs. These days, ‘transparency’ is the buzzword in offshore banking.
Basically, they want to know everything. Who you are. What you do. What company you work for. How much you earn. Where you sleep at night (and proof of it). Who you sleep with at night. How many children you have. Then they move on to the IBC’s business: whom you are receiving money from and sending to? Why and what for? You are expected to write on the memo field of each transfer exactly why you are sending or receiving money, and be prepared to fax copies of contracts, invoices, etc. to back that up.
You really have to tell them the truth because even little variations can result in your account being blocked. If you tell them you are in the shoe business and then a payment arrives for a container load of socks, your bank will be unhappy. Why? Because you failed to tell them you are in the sock and shoe business. Many banks really are that strict these days.
As for bearer shares, in most jurisdictions they have now been outlawed. Nearly everywhere, they are history. Of course, the management company to whom our friend has been paying annual fees to all these years should have told him this and made alternative arrangements for the shareholding. But they didn’t.
In my experience, those that spend the most on advertising also offer the worst service. They are slick marketing operations with salesmen working on commission, rather than the qualified lawyers and accountants you really should be dealing with. At the beginning, they will be looking to sell you all kinds of expensive extra services. If you don’t buy, they will lose interest in you after a while. Some low-level secretary working for a third-world salary will be charged with the administration of your company.
So what is our friend to do, to get his $300,000 unblocked?
Well let’s look first and what he should absolutely not do.
First and foremost, he must not create ambiguities that will be difficult to wiggle out of later. A lot of clients faced with situation tend to tell outright lies, claiming that their money is from an inheritance or sale of property, for example. But that’s probably not a smart thing to do, because our friend will definitely be asked for documentation about what will doubtless be a long chain of requests for proof of original source of funds, who signed what and why, why ‘suspicious means of concealment’, like bearer shares, were used - etc., etc.
Secondly, he must be not be rude. Sometimes it’s hard to stay calm. In another case I know of, a client spent about two months of horsing around with a bank in one of the British Channel Islands. At one point, early on, he actually got so angry at the bank’s ‘compliance officer’ that he swore at her on the phone and she hung up on him. No doubt this made the task of recovering funds more difficult.
He was personally ‘interviewed’ by a local branch manager in another country from the same international bank. It was a close call because he was unable to renew the particular second passport that had been used to open the account some ten years previously. But, fortunately, he was able to waltz around that issue by showing plenty of proof that he was the original owner, including all past bank statements from the account. Finally, after the local bank manager called her himself and explained that ‘fiscal nomads’, like the client, owned big yachts, were not criminals and were common in his upmarket seaside catchment area, the bank finally released the funds.
As I see it, in our case, the client is left with two possibilities. One is to open up, come clean, and answer all the bank’s questions truthfully. The bank is looking for criminals, and even today, it’s not a crime in most offshore countries to hide money from tax authorities or ex-spouses, etc. If that’s what he was up to, it’s probably best to admit it. The bank will close the accounts, but he’s very likely to get his money back in full and his story probably won’t leave the bank.
The other alternative is much more complicated, much more expensive, and not recommended, except in exceptional circumstances. That is to find a straw man who will step in and act as a ‘professional director’ of the company. That will probably be a qualified, professional person who will be able to answer the bank’s questions, legally representing the company in its dealings. Probably this person will need to fly to the bank for personal meetings. We’re not talking about a dumb nominee or paper director here. We’re talking about a real, intelligent person who is experienced in dealing with banks and who is prepared to put his neck on the line by taking what is effectively personal responsibility for the company’s past dealings. It will be his job to tidy up the books, bring the share registers up to date, and generally make the company look as transparent as possible. And make it look like you are not the one in the driving seat.
Naturally, people like this don’t come cheap. So, it’s really only a solution of last resort where a lot of money is on the line.
Now, I know a few readers of this article might be in similar circumstances. I hope not too many. If you’re one of the many people who have similar arrangements but have not yet felt the heat from your bank, now is the time to anticipate it! It’s easier to make preparations and take the appropriate course of action before you have problems. In this case, what should you do?
Anticipate that your bank will require full disclosure, and paper evidence of past transactions. Decide on whether you want to be open and present a squeaky-clean image to the bank. If so, pick up the phone, make an appointment to meet, in person. Tell your bank manager you have heard about all the new regulations and you want to keep your account in good order. Ask what steps need to be taken. Banks love this proactive approach, and it will score you a lot of brownie points.
If, on the other hand, you decide that the above is not an option, instead start drawing down your account now through a series of withdrawals to another source. Read my past articles, the Q-File on Secret Banking, and any other good information you can get your hands on. If you can afford it, consult with one of the few experts in the field. You should be able to find plenty of solutions for anonymously stashing assets, even in this day and age.
In the next article in this series, I will cover, in a little more detail, some solutions which are still good. Panama and Liberia still allow bearer shares. New Zealand Charitable Trusts are a good, clean, low profile solution too. I recently ran articles about using other stores of wealth, like rare coin portfolios or diamonds and I have a few other Privacy Tools up my sleeve for the next article! Watch this space.

Peter Macfarlane

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

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A Delicate Affair - Part II

A Delicate Affair - Part I

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