RPF0639-Friday_QA
00:00:00.000 | - Big Boyz Comedy Kings is coming to Yamaha Resort and Casino
00:00:03.200 | Saturday, December 9th with D.L. Hughley.
00:00:05.840 | - That sweater so tight, it look like a snap between the legs.
00:00:08.240 | - Cedric the Entertainer.
00:00:09.540 | - Once we stop running, I'll find out what it was we was running about.
00:00:13.080 | - And Paul Rodriguez.
00:00:14.340 | - What is it about old Mexican men?
00:00:15.980 | They could be missing a leg, they still want to get into a fight.
00:00:18.480 | - Hosted by my man Eric Blake and a special performance by Mario.
00:00:21.880 | Big Boyz Comedy Kings, December 9th at Yamaha Resort and Casino.
00:00:25.320 | Tickets can be purchased at AXS.com.
00:00:27.920 | This is a 21 and over event.
00:00:30.900 | - Today on Radical Personal Finance, it's live Q&A.
00:00:33.600 | ♪ [music] ♪
00:00:36.600 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the
00:00:52.120 | knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich
00:00:55.280 | and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years
00:00:58.880 | or less.
00:00:59.720 | Today on the show, we do Q&A.
00:01:01.880 | That's a...been missing these.
00:01:03.960 | Understandably, is how I hope.
00:01:05.680 | But I'm glad to have an open phone line today.
00:01:07.360 | And so far, we've got one caller on the line.
00:01:09.400 | So we'll start there and see how it goes.
00:01:12.200 | ♪ [music] ♪
00:01:15.200 | Any Friday that I can arrange an internet connection and a quiet place to record
00:01:25.080 | and all of the appropriate technical details, I open up the phone lines to do a
00:01:28.720 | Q&A show.
00:01:29.800 | These shows are open to patrons of the show, people who sign up to support the
00:01:33.440 | show on my Patreon page.
00:01:34.760 | You can do that at patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance.
00:01:38.720 | That gives you access to the shows and you can call in and talk about anything you
00:01:42.240 | want to do, want to talk about.
00:01:43.920 | Sometimes they're wide open, sometimes they're very full, but today they're wide
00:01:47.640 | open.
00:01:47.920 | So we begin with Ryan in Florida.
00:01:49.880 | Ryan, welcome to the show.
00:01:50.720 | How can I serve you today, sir?
00:01:51.720 | - Hey, Joshua.
00:01:55.520 | My question was about...it was kind of hoping to have you elaborate on a previous
00:02:01.280 | Q&A show that you did.
00:02:03.200 | I don't know.
00:02:04.120 | It was a few months ago now.
00:02:05.920 | And it was basically you were talking about the state of the United States and I
00:02:12.560 | think it was called the Growing Debt Bomb.
00:02:14.440 | And then maybe you tied it into a Q&A later.
00:02:17.760 | But anyway, I've been thinking about some of your suggestions as far as preparing for,
00:02:23.680 | you know, a financial crisis and talking over with my wife.
00:02:27.720 | And she actually thought of this question and it was about how you or what type of
00:02:34.480 | solution you would use for medical insurance.
00:02:37.400 | We have two kids, another one on the way.
00:02:39.160 | And so that's a big deal for me.
00:02:42.320 | Not that I'm necessarily considering moving or, you know, doing, you know,
00:02:47.960 | three months in, you know, one country and three months in another.
00:02:52.160 | You know, whatever situation you find yourself in today, it's probably not going
00:02:55.480 | to be for me anytime soon.
00:02:56.680 | But one of the issues that we thought about was, you know, we have great medical
00:03:00.160 | coverage here in the U.S.
00:03:01.640 | And, you know, being able to find a good doctor in another country,
00:03:07.000 | first, how you would even go about...
00:03:09.280 | You know, I don't know anything about the health share ministries.
00:03:11.440 | And I know you use one.
00:03:12.560 | And so I thought maybe you could elaborate on that and the solution that you came up
00:03:17.440 | with for yourself and your family.
00:03:18.760 | - Sure.
00:03:19.840 | Do you and/or any of your family members have any significant ongoing health
00:03:26.400 | conditions, any major chronic diseases or acute illnesses that you're facing?
00:03:34.920 | - No, we don't.
00:03:37.880 | We actually happen to be pregnant right now.
00:03:40.040 | - Congratulations.
00:03:40.760 | - But no, thank you.
00:03:43.160 | Nothing that we're concerned about right now.
00:03:46.040 | I have some back issues that I've had for a while, but I don't intend to have surgery.
00:03:49.800 | I hope that I never have to.
00:03:51.040 | But it's in the back of my mind that someday that could be the case.
00:03:55.040 | But no, to answer your question, there's no cancer, you know, heart issues,
00:03:59.640 | anything like that.
00:04:00.280 | We're healthy for the most part.
00:04:02.160 | - So the reason I want to begin with that question is because most of the time,
00:04:07.160 | people who ask a question related to health insurance, especially on a show like mine,
00:04:12.840 | are simply very thoughtful, careful people who like to be prepared for all situations.
00:04:17.920 | And I like that, right?
00:04:19.480 | That's a great character trait to have.
00:04:21.320 | It's a great quality to have.
00:04:23.760 | But what I have observed over the years is, I don't know why, but there just seems to be
00:04:28.840 | this almost obsession with being protected from any kind of medical issue that could
00:04:34.560 | happen, and I have observed that sometimes it keeps people from doing things that could
00:04:40.160 | otherwise be done.
00:04:41.360 | For example, I have a friend of mine who, in his case, he does have significant medical
00:04:46.080 | issues, but he has worked for 15 years at a job that he doesn't like, that he isn't well
00:04:51.400 | suited for, and he works there exclusively for the medical insurance because it's a good
00:04:55.360 | government job.
00:04:56.600 | Meanwhile, he's miserable and he's going to die because he has no quality of life.
00:05:01.080 | And I'm convinced, not being a medical professional, I'm convinced that if he would just simply
00:05:07.600 | quit his job and pursue an alternative path, that he could improve his health so much that
00:05:15.000 | he wouldn't need his extremely expensive ongoing health care stuff that he has.
00:05:21.760 | Now, he isn't interested, and so he doesn't do it, and I think all of us should be free
00:05:26.800 | to make our own choices.
00:05:28.520 | But I've just observed so many people make life decisions that really don't make much
00:05:33.020 | sense all around this idea of having medical coverage.
00:05:37.200 | And I've especially observed this among healthy people, healthy young people who have an idea
00:05:41.600 | for something they want to do, for that job they'd like to change, or a business they'd
00:05:46.120 | like to start, and they can't figure out, "How do I afford the health insurance?"
00:05:49.800 | And I have to concede, although I will never be advocating for governmental solutions,
00:05:56.720 | I have to concede that one of the arguments that really I think is compelling in favor
00:06:01.480 | of the government-provided health care options is simply that it can free people up from
00:06:08.120 | worrying about chasing their, from worrying about trying to do something so that they
00:06:13.400 | can maintain health coverage.
00:06:15.080 | So statistically, if you are young and healthy, and statistically if you're in good shape
00:06:20.800 | and you don't have any ongoing major health issues, you're probably not going to need
00:06:25.280 | anything significant.
00:06:26.840 | I mean, it's probably not, you're probably not going to have major health expenses.
00:06:32.200 | Now that would be different if you were 75 years old and you had a whole bunch of risk
00:06:36.080 | factors, but most young families don't have a lot of health expenses.
00:06:40.440 | So that's a little wordy, but I want to put things into perspective that chances are you're
00:06:45.520 | probably going to be fine even if you didn't have any kind of health coverage.
00:06:50.520 | And even if you didn't have any health insurance, you didn't have a plan, you didn't have anything
00:06:54.240 | in place, you're probably going to be fine.
00:06:57.920 | Legally speaking, in today's world, in the United States, you're still going to be especially
00:07:01.760 | fine because now that there's no pre-existing condition clauses for any official health
00:07:07.760 | insurance policies, as long as you can make it to an open enrollment period, no matter
00:07:11.840 | what happens with your health, you can always sign up.
00:07:14.760 | And if you have a fullness of understanding of the law, of everything that I talk about
00:07:19.000 | in this show, then going without health insurance is not that big of a risk.
00:07:23.600 | Now, being a cautious person, being the kind of person who always wants to pay my bills,
00:07:30.760 | being that kind of person and wanting to give that good kind of advice, I'm not advising
00:07:34.040 | to just say, "Throw caution to the wind and dump the health insurance."
00:07:38.000 | Who cares?
00:07:39.040 | But I am trying to get people to think about it because for whatever reason, I've heard
00:07:43.760 | so many people that live in fear of losing health insurance and it doesn't seem that
00:07:47.080 | big of a deal to me.
00:07:49.560 | At least if somebody doesn't have an ongoing condition or some other major risk factor
00:07:56.280 | in place.
00:07:57.280 | Now, secondly, I would point out in what you're alluding to of a discussion around the subject
00:08:04.200 | of having an economic crisis, I'm not advising people to leave the United States and go elsewhere
00:08:12.840 | unless they want to.
00:08:13.920 | I can tell you how to do it if you want to do it.
00:08:15.840 | It's what I've done, it's what I think is a good idea for many people, but that's not
00:08:19.920 | my major focus.
00:08:22.000 | My major focus in what I've talked about in the past is to be prepared to survive an economic
00:08:27.960 | crisis and there could be many reasons why somebody would face an economic crisis.
00:08:32.920 | One reason could be a health condition.
00:08:35.360 | Many people face personal economic crises because they get sick, they get hurt and they
00:08:41.600 | can't work.
00:08:42.600 | So, I want you to be prepared for that and one way to be prepared for that is to have
00:08:45.960 | good health insurance, which is why in the course that I have called How to Survive and
00:08:50.840 | Thrive During the Coming Economic Crisis, we talk a lot about that and it's not all
00:08:54.440 | about leaving.
00:08:55.440 | It's not all about running away and going somewhere else.
00:08:58.160 | So maintaining good coverage is important, but it's also important to have backup plans
00:09:02.440 | in case you can't maintain good coverage.
00:09:04.560 | The most likely economic crisis that many people are going to face is simply the loss
00:09:08.000 | of a job.
00:09:09.680 | Economic goes up where you live, you lose your job, your industry goes into a slump,
00:09:13.760 | your region goes into a slump, etc. and you've got to pick up and move somewhere else.
00:09:18.840 | And so, if you face something like that, you're going to be facing it no matter whether you
00:09:23.000 | go to the next state over, the next town over or the next country over.
00:09:27.200 | So these are normal common problems and there are solutions to them along the way.
00:09:31.960 | I would not recommend somebody that you just leave a disaster zone, you leave where you
00:09:37.200 | are just for fun.
00:09:38.760 | So if you actually are facing a crisis, it's going to be apparent.
00:09:42.640 | And one of the crises that many people are going to be facing is the loss of healthcare
00:09:49.360 | payment systems, healthcare coverage.
00:09:51.840 | That is a basic component of what I talked about in the shows that I did on the debt
00:09:57.960 | bomb, basically.
00:09:59.240 | The fact that no one wants to talk about the debt crisis.
00:10:02.040 | Especially for older people.
00:10:03.960 | There are three big entitlement programs that the United States government runs.
00:10:08.360 | They are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
00:10:12.120 | Social Security is currently the one that is making the news.
00:10:15.240 | Various articles in the past months about the future insolvency of Social Security.
00:10:20.640 | But Social Security is the most solvent of those three big entitlement programs and Social
00:10:26.160 | Security is the most easily solved.
00:10:28.880 | Meaning that what they will do, in my opinion, this is not a guarantee, this is just my guess
00:10:33.840 | on what they will do, is they will institute a number of different changes to try to bring
00:10:38.480 | Social Security back towards actuarial solvency.
00:10:42.320 | They will raise the retirement age, they'll do means testing if you have over a certain
00:10:46.760 | amount of money you can't get it, they'll change the benefit structures.
00:10:50.320 | So that's fairly easily solved.
00:10:52.560 | What's not easily solved is Medicare and Medicaid.
00:10:56.280 | Medicaid is kind of a different animal, let's just focus on Medicare.
00:10:59.160 | The basic problem of Medicare is that retirees are given massive health benefits that are
00:11:06.640 | not paid for by the retiree and there aren't enough current tax revenues to provide the
00:11:11.640 | health benefits.
00:11:12.640 | So you have people living extremely long lives but yet paying massive amounts of medical
00:11:18.000 | expenses throughout those long lives.
00:11:20.240 | And that can't continue, it can't be sustained.
00:11:23.560 | And so even people who have a government paid system like Medicare, they're going to, in
00:11:29.240 | my opinion, face the problem of decreasing coverage.
00:11:33.480 | What that looks like I don't know.
00:11:35.040 | Maybe it looks like more stringent scrutiny of bills, maybe it looks like fewer things
00:11:40.160 | covered, maybe it looks like just decrepit government run hospitals is the only place
00:11:45.340 | you can get care and nobody goes to them because they don't function.
00:11:48.600 | I don't know what it looks like.
00:11:50.920 | But the crisis could be caused by lack of health care.
00:11:54.240 | Now that's a little far afield from your question.
00:11:57.280 | So I'd bring it back and say today, the cool thing is in today's world there are enough
00:12:02.680 | tools that nobody's life decisions should be frozen because of lack of access to health
00:12:11.000 | care coverage.
00:12:13.200 | I just, I can't comprehend why anybody should have their life choices frozen due to lack
00:12:18.800 | of health care coverage.
00:12:21.600 | There are so many different ways that we can exploit the system that we can figure out
00:12:25.560 | a plan for you and me as individuals to do well.
00:12:28.640 | Even if you were chronically sick, we could work on a plan to allow you to do almost anything
00:12:34.480 | you need to do even if you're chronically sick by exploiting some of the things that
00:12:37.680 | we could figure out in your context.
00:12:40.400 | But for just an average person, there are really neat options available.
00:12:45.340 | So first, since some of the liberalization that has happened in the last year or two,
00:12:50.760 | once again you can purchase high deductible health plans that have very high deductibles.
00:12:58.480 | This is really important.
00:13:00.160 | And this is, they're marketing these.
00:13:02.940 | So to back up for a little bit, prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the health
00:13:07.240 | insurance industry could offer different types of medical insurance plans.
00:13:12.200 | You could purchase Cadillac policies and you could purchase stripped out lien policies.
00:13:16.540 | For people who are healthy, what I always like people to do was just to get a high deductible
00:13:21.360 | health plan that had a very high deductible but had a large coverage limit but that would
00:13:25.240 | be very cheap.
00:13:26.520 | So a few hundred dollars a month, you would get something that had an unlimited or a million
00:13:31.040 | dollar cap on the total benefits that the policy could get.
00:13:34.440 | But then you had a 10,000 or sometimes hopefully you could get a 20 or 30,000 or higher deductible
00:13:41.120 | up front.
00:13:42.460 | That covers you from the really catastrophic risk of a catastrophic health condition.
00:13:47.200 | A person who is healthy and who is financially prudent should be able to, in an emergency,
00:13:52.440 | pay out of pocket 10 or 15 or 20,000 dollars for health expenses in an emergency.
00:13:57.960 | What they can't pay out of pocket for usually is a million dollars of health expenses.
00:14:01.980 | So those were available.
00:14:03.440 | Then when the Affordable Care Act passed, it completely disrupted the individual health
00:14:07.320 | insurance marketplace with all of the mandates that had to be paid for, all of the care,
00:14:13.600 | etc.
00:14:14.600 | Those policies basically got removed from the marketplace.
00:14:17.880 | It was when those policies disappeared that I actually got out of the health insurance
00:14:21.880 | business.
00:14:22.880 | I previously had a health insurance license.
00:14:24.360 | I would sell some individual health insurance and I just got out of the business because
00:14:29.800 | nobody was happy, the premiums were skyrocketing, etc.
00:14:33.640 | So you couldn't really get those.
00:14:35.520 | Now I have not stayed super in touch with the marketplace, but a few months ago I started
00:14:42.400 | pricing again.
00:14:43.400 | I started talking to health insurance brokers to see if in the wake of some of the liberalizations
00:14:47.540 | that happened when the Republicans took control of the Congress and President Trump was elected,
00:14:52.840 | I started checking to see.
00:14:54.320 | And yes, again, you're starting to see those kinds of policies available.
00:14:58.160 | So I priced one out to see what they were and it wasn't unreasonable.
00:15:00.600 | It wasn't as good as it was before, but you can today get a policy from some of the big
00:15:06.880 | major insurers that gives you basically that catastrophic coverage.
00:15:11.040 | And I think that's something that a lot of people could find useful.
00:15:13.800 | Now what it'll be labeled as, I think they call it a short-term health plan.
00:15:17.880 | It was previously kind of a stopgap plan and they did that to come around some of the rules
00:15:22.080 | of the ACA and they're still marketing it, I think, as a short-term health plan.
00:15:26.640 | But with policies like that, most people can afford to keep health insurance in place.
00:15:31.360 | Now you alluded to the fact that I don't use health insurance myself.
00:15:36.240 | I use a healthcare sharing ministry and I really, really love the concept of the healthcare
00:15:41.480 | sharing ministries.
00:15:42.480 | I really would like to promote them more in the future because I believe that they provide
00:15:46.520 | a very useful alternative for people to look at.
00:15:53.480 | I like them from an ideological perspective because first, they rightly align the incentives
00:16:00.080 | of the consumer with the medical industry.
00:16:05.360 | So I don't have health insurance.
00:16:07.440 | I always say I don't have health insurance.
00:16:09.680 | I tell a doctor or someone, I don't have health insurance.
00:16:12.600 | If I have health needs, I simply pay cash for them and then I take those expenses and
00:16:17.880 | then some of those expenses may qualify for reimbursement under the terms of my healthcare
00:16:22.200 | sharing ministry program.
00:16:23.960 | I also really want to support them because they give people the right of choice.
00:16:27.080 | You get to choose the types of procedures that you're involved in.
00:16:30.280 | You get to choose the type of people you do business with and that's extremely valuable.
00:16:34.120 | It's a totally different experience working with a healthcare sharing ministry than any
00:16:42.600 | insurance company.
00:16:43.600 | My wife and I just had a baby.
00:16:45.520 | This was our second baby that we've had using a healthcare sharing ministry and I actually
00:16:49.840 | literally at this moment have sitting on my desk a big stack of cards from all the people
00:16:55.520 | who sent us money for all of the medical expenses.
00:17:04.960 | I've got this handful of cards here and I wasn't planning this.
00:17:08.120 | I was just sorting through paperwork here but this is the kind of notes that we got.
00:17:11.800 | We got Paul and Karen wrote us a note with a card with their check.
00:17:15.680 | Praise God for new life.
00:17:16.720 | We pray for you that you're doing well and that God's precious gift to you will be such
00:17:19.920 | a blessing and they go on.
00:17:22.400 | There are other cards here.
00:17:24.200 | Greg and Janet wrote us a note with congratulations saying they were praying for us with the arrival
00:17:28.240 | of our baby.
00:17:29.400 | One of our fellow healthcare people wrote us a whole long page long letter with all
00:17:35.880 | kinds of resources that they'd found helpful and parenting tips and some books and things
00:17:40.080 | that they'd really liked and they wanted to share some of those ideas with us.
00:17:43.720 | I find that refreshing.
00:17:45.840 | It's so different than our first child I had on a health insurance policy and it was just
00:17:52.160 | dealing with the billing department all the time.
00:17:54.000 | It was brutal.
00:17:56.040 | It's really, really wonderful.
00:17:57.040 | Now to expenses.
00:17:58.440 | One of the nice things about Samaritan Ministries that I use and I assume the other healthcare
00:18:03.840 | sharing ministries is you can do some things.
00:18:07.000 | They have a little more leeway sometimes than the health insurance companies seem to do.
00:18:11.600 | For example, we did birth tourism.
00:18:13.800 | We didn't have the baby in the United States.
00:18:16.320 | With birth tourism there are various reasons why you can do birth tourism but one of the
00:18:20.200 | things you can do with birth tourism is you can save massive amounts of money.
00:18:23.720 | If I didn't have health insurance paying for bills in the United States, I don't know why
00:18:28.520 | I would have a baby in the United States.
00:18:31.200 | The medical system in the United States is so broken especially around childcare.
00:18:35.220 | It's insanely expensive.
00:18:36.720 | You can go to Mexico and you can have a baby for a hospital birth or even if you had a
00:18:40.840 | cesarean in Mexico your total fee is under $3,000 versus $15,000 to $30,000 in the United
00:18:47.040 | States.
00:18:48.040 | Well, under Samaritan Ministries all of my expenses are covered no matter where in the
00:18:54.640 | world I happen to give birth.
00:18:55.760 | They don't care.
00:18:57.960 | There's some details there in terms of they don't cover – you have to work out the cost
00:19:02.760 | comparisons and things like that but there's a lot more leeway with things like that.
00:19:06.920 | So I can use Samaritan Ministries, I can submit my bills for reimbursement no matter where
00:19:11.240 | they are.
00:19:12.240 | And then I would finally point to just one more factor.
00:19:15.880 | Don't forget that when traveling you have access to totally different medical systems.
00:19:20.200 | The US medical system is broken.
00:19:23.640 | It's absolutely broken.
00:19:25.320 | Now we can argue as to why we think it's broken but I think most of us would agree that it's
00:19:29.680 | largely broken.
00:19:30.680 | I guess that the people who wouldn't say it's broken would say, "Well, you can get decent.
00:19:35.260 | You can get really world-class medical care."
00:19:38.120 | And I think that's true.
00:19:39.480 | You can get really world-class medical care.
00:19:41.840 | But in terms of the feasibility of that, the costs are so astronomical and it seems like
00:19:47.480 | every time a new thing develops, a new opportunity where expenses can be saved, it seems like
00:19:51.900 | another bureaucrat comes in with more regulation that messes up that part of the market as
00:19:56.200 | well.
00:19:57.200 | But the rest of the world is not like that.
00:19:59.560 | There's a massive booming medical tourism business in Mexico.
00:20:02.560 | There's a massive medical tourism business in Central America, in Asia.
00:20:06.520 | You can get world-class medical care.
00:20:08.680 | You can save so much money by going abroad to have procedures done.
00:20:13.520 | Now that doesn't work really well if you were just in a car accident and you got to be stitched
00:20:16.900 | together by a surgeon.
00:20:18.520 | But it does work really well for any kind of elective procedure or any procedure where
00:20:22.400 | you have advance notice.
00:20:24.180 | So just because you leave the United States doesn't mean that you can't get good medical
00:20:28.160 | care and in fact I'm more and more a proponent and an aficionado of people leaving the United
00:20:35.360 | States to get their medical care.
00:20:37.560 | And if you're paying out of pocket for it or you're using some kind of useful interesting
00:20:41.480 | arrangement that provides for medical tourism, you can get it cheaper, better, abroad than
00:20:46.880 | in the US.
00:20:47.880 | So it's just not a concern.
00:20:50.560 | There are doctors everywhere in the world and I think most of us who've traveled reasonably
00:20:54.840 | extensively would say there are some places where we really don't want to get sick, where
00:20:59.600 | things are just primitive.
00:21:01.080 | Nobody denies that.
00:21:02.400 | But in many cases there are many times I think many of us would say if we're going to get
00:21:06.320 | sick we'd rather get sick outside the United States than inside the United States because
00:21:10.520 | for every place that's primitive and really really rough there are equally a number and
00:21:15.560 | perhaps more places that you can get world-class care and not have your finances ruined by
00:21:21.560 | it.
00:21:22.560 | You got some response to that Ryan?
00:21:28.680 | Follow-up questions?
00:21:29.680 | I kind of gave you a little monologue there.
00:21:31.680 | Yeah, yeah.
00:21:32.680 | So that's great and I actually do have a follow-up question if you have time to take it.
00:21:40.480 | It's related to the Defon that you've talked about before.
00:21:45.560 | I think we can pretty much all agree that something more than likely it's going to be
00:21:51.400 | the tax man coming after you and I don't necessarily think it's going to be coming after your paycheck
00:21:55.640 | but rather your overall wealth and so I think that retirement plans, pensions, everything,
00:22:03.720 | anything that could be considered your wealth is probably going to be taxed in order to
00:22:07.560 | pay for all of these liabilities that we can't afford.
00:22:10.720 | And so my question is about avoiding some of that taxation not necessarily on your income
00:22:18.280 | because on one of your previous podcasts, you talked about doing tourism or perpetual
00:22:24.760 | tourism or whatever in countries that won't tax your income or tax your business or whatever
00:22:30.800 | but what about taxing your assets or what about if you want to do perpetual tourism
00:22:37.200 | and you just want to live on say a combination of your retirement accounts, your savings
00:22:43.000 | account and a pension that you formerly had in the United States and then what countries
00:22:49.840 | would be on the Joshua Proof list to consider for doing something like that?
00:22:56.480 | Well so I think let me just clarify a couple of things because part of the problem that
00:23:04.120 | I have is I taught through this stuff systematically in my course but I didn't do it on the show.
00:23:07.800 | I kind of just alluded to ideas.
00:23:09.360 | So first, perpetual tourism, the way that I define perpetual tourism is a strategy of
00:23:14.360 | moving from country to country and not becoming a resident and specifically not becoming a
00:23:21.320 | tax resident of any one particular country.
00:23:25.080 | That's the concept of perpetual tourism.
00:23:27.120 | Now for some people that seems really exciting.
00:23:29.700 | For other people that's not really exciting.
00:23:32.640 | You know the phase of life that I'm in for example and that you're in Ryan it sounds
00:23:35.900 | like when you've got two young children and you've got a third on the way, I would guess
00:23:41.000 | that your wife is probably not too thrilled about the idea of hey let's pick up and get
00:23:45.680 | on an airplane every three months and move from country to country.
00:23:50.120 | Most of the time in our stage of life that's not usually a very conducive idea.
00:23:55.200 | Now there are people that go do it.
00:23:56.200 | They go to spend a year with their kids traveling but just in terms of planning on that as a
00:23:59.880 | long term plan it's usually not very exciting.
00:24:04.000 | That's different than a lot of times single people they want to go out and live that kind
00:24:07.280 | of strategy and I've interviewed people on the show who've done it and you can do it.
00:24:12.420 | How I alluded to that in the context of economic crisis was probably simply to say that if
00:24:17.540 | your home country is going through a massive global worldwide, sorry not global, countrywide
00:24:25.020 | economic crisis.
00:24:26.020 | Like let's say that you were, Venezuela is a bad example because it's just so dire there
00:24:31.660 | but let's, I don't know a better one right now so let's just go with that.
00:24:37.340 | You're from Venezuela and a year and a half ago, two years ago before the government ran
00:24:42.460 | out of passports, passport paper and stopped issuing passports you got your passports together
00:24:48.140 | and you left the country.
00:24:49.860 | Well as a Venezuelan maybe you don't have easy access for a residency permit in another
00:24:55.100 | country but if you just spent your time traveling among a group of countries that give you access
00:25:01.460 | as a Venezuelan with a Venezuelan passport then you could just simply keep moving from
00:25:09.180 | time to time and stay outside of Venezuela thus avoiding the starvation and the violence
00:25:14.060 | and all of that while simultaneously being able to stay within the law of other countries
00:25:19.000 | until you could ultimately get a residency permit in another country.
00:25:22.540 | So I don't know all the Venezuela passport restrictions but if you put together a little
00:25:26.700 | tour of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and you know that's enough and you just spent
00:25:33.660 | three months in each of those four countries then you would not violate any visa agreements
00:25:38.660 | and you would be able to live.
00:25:40.100 | So US Americans could have this as a good backup plan.
00:25:43.140 | So hey if there's a problem in the United States of America I can get out and I can
00:25:47.540 | go to Canada, I can go to England, I can go to New Zealand, I'm focusing on English speaking
00:25:54.420 | countries here and I can just kind of bounce between those using just simply tourist visas.
00:25:59.340 | So that's what I alluded to with perpetual tourism.
00:26:02.060 | Now from a tax perspective let's come to taxes.
00:26:05.460 | One of the advantages that US Americans do have with a US passport is you don't have
00:26:09.860 | to become a tax resident of a certain country in order to qualify, in order to activate
00:26:18.480 | the foreign earned income exclusion as we talked about for US taxes.
00:26:23.480 | Other countries do.
00:26:24.480 | So if you're Canadian and you want to leave the Canadian tax system you have to go and
00:26:27.180 | become a resident of another place.
00:26:29.260 | You can't just bounce around the globe but US Americans don't have to do that.
00:26:32.900 | Americans are going to simply be out of the country and as long as you're out of the country
00:26:37.080 | more than 330 days per year you can qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion and
00:26:41.740 | you can avoid the US income taxation on about your first hundred thousand dollars of foreign
00:26:46.500 | earned income for the US tax code.
00:26:48.940 | So you can go and set up in another place.
00:26:51.140 | Now that doesn't solve the wealth problem because you're still going to pay capital
00:26:54.180 | gains taxes, you'll still pay dividend taxes, etc. and if there are changes in the US tax
00:26:59.940 | code then you would be subject to those and you cannot avoid those as a US citizen.
00:27:05.360 | You cannot avoid those simply by changing your residency.
00:27:08.580 | Even if you moved from Florida to the Bahamas which has no income taxes, which has no wealth
00:27:14.020 | taxes, which has no inheritance taxes, even if you did that as long as you retain your
00:27:19.380 | US citizenship you will still be subject to US income taxes, US wealth taxes if new ones
00:27:25.700 | are instituted, inheritance taxes such as the estate taxes, etc. as a US citizen.
00:27:31.780 | So your only pathway to avoid wealth taxes is, well let me say, your only legal pathway
00:27:39.140 | you could always do tax evasion and play the game of they're not knowledgeable about my
00:27:44.540 | assets that's a risky game but probably doable to some extent.
00:27:48.300 | But the only legal way to do it is going to be to renounce US citizenship.
00:27:53.140 | So what I would say is this, I don't think that the fear of going and I don't think that
00:27:59.620 | the fear right now of moving abroad and the fear that in the future the United States
00:28:08.100 | will impose wealth taxes and start taking more tax money from your IRA and from your
00:28:12.180 | Roth IRA, I don't think that the fear of that should be sufficient for you to say well that's
00:28:16.900 | it I'm done being a US citizen.
00:28:18.860 | But I do think the potential of it should have you working on a plan to make sure that
00:28:24.260 | if you ever did want to renounce US citizenship you have that as an option.
00:28:29.580 | And I would say that this is the only practical solution that I see for avoiding the taxes
00:28:34.220 | and for helping your children.
00:28:36.260 | Because at this point in time what do people say?
00:28:38.580 | Nobody thinks that you and I are going to pay the bills of the United States, unless
00:28:42.540 | we're young.
00:28:43.700 | But most 50 year olds say well it's obvious to us that the United States government is
00:28:48.100 | deeply in debt, it's obvious to us that we're never going to pay this debt back.
00:28:51.620 | But we're putting it onto our children and our children's children.
00:28:54.420 | Well my solution Ryan, if you want your children and your children's children to have a choice
00:29:00.540 | you've got to set them up so that they can move themselves out of from under the US tax
00:29:05.460 | system in the future if taxes become onerous into another tax system.
00:29:11.780 | And there are, if you study the tax systems to your question of jurisdictions, depending
00:29:16.360 | on the makeup of your wealth there are many jurisdictions that you could choose that would
00:29:20.580 | be favorable to you.
00:29:21.580 | Let me give you a couple of examples.
00:29:23.320 | In the three part series that I talked about I alluded to choosing different jurisdictions
00:29:28.460 | based upon income.
00:29:30.060 | If somebody earns, I don't know, a modest amount of money I think they would be well
00:29:34.800 | served, just a little bit of money, I think that they would be well served by staying
00:29:38.260 | in the United States because everything is cheaper in the United States generally than
00:29:43.300 | most places around the world.
00:29:45.100 | And so somebody earning $40,000 or $50,000 is going to probably be better off in my opinion
00:29:49.380 | in the United States than moving to another country.
00:29:52.940 | Unless they have an affinity for that and they can live cheap in the other country.
00:29:55.660 | But most people, you can get things so much cheaper in the United States that quality
00:29:58.900 | of life is probably going to be higher.
00:30:00.940 | So but there's no reason not to move to a no state income tax jurisdiction if you can.
00:30:06.980 | Now then I talked about going international.
00:30:08.540 | I said if you're earning, I don't know, a few hundred thousand dollars of taxable income
00:30:14.580 | then going outside the United States is a really good solution to save you on taxes.
00:30:19.400 | Then I went one step further with the Puerto Rico taxes and I said going to Puerto Rico
00:30:23.700 | is not good if you make $100,000 a year but if you make a million dollars a year then
00:30:28.000 | Puerto Rico could serve you really well.
00:30:30.540 | Now I didn't go on with the series and assume that it's for non-US citizens but if you go
00:30:34.640 | on one more step and you start to look around the world then you can find other jurisdictions.
00:30:39.740 | There are jurisdictions that tax income but don't tax capital gains or don't tax dividends.
00:30:44.360 | So if your income is primarily capital gains income and not earned income you can do very
00:30:50.900 | well as a resident there.
00:30:52.660 | Think Singapore here for example.
00:30:55.160 | Or if your income is largely earned income but not capital gains income then you need
00:30:59.320 | to go to a destination that doesn't tax earned income.
00:31:03.420 | My action step for you Ryan is simply this.
00:31:05.580 | I don't think you should worry about it.
00:31:07.300 | I think what you should do and you and your wife should talk about is let's say that our
00:31:11.820 | children, our two young children and soon to be born third, if our children are in a
00:31:17.360 | situation where their taxes are doubling and tripling and they're connected to it with
00:31:22.500 | a country that has a military empire that can follow them to the ends of the earth then
00:31:27.300 | how do we set them up so that they can move abroad, so that they can move to another citizenship
00:31:32.980 | and so that they can renounce their US citizenship and eliminate the tax net.
00:31:37.020 | Now that's not to say that taxes can't change right now.
00:31:39.620 | You owe exit taxes.
00:31:41.060 | If you haven't, there are a few different triggers but the big one is if you have a
00:31:44.500 | net worth of more than two million dollars the US government will impose exit taxes on
00:31:48.160 | you when you renounce citizenship.
00:31:50.620 | But at the very least Ryan, go have a baby in Canada or go have a baby in Mexico and
00:31:56.220 | make sure that you're on the track.
00:31:59.020 | Your baby has a second citizenship from birth.
00:32:01.820 | Put your other family on track for a second citizenship.
00:32:06.980 | Have you ever thought about this or researched this area of line of thinking Ryan?
00:32:10.180 | Ryan Neuhofel I mean it's entertaining to me to think about
00:32:15.980 | but honestly I couldn't see my wife signing up for having a baby in another country.
00:32:21.340 | I mean just with our parents alone they'd probably, who knows.
00:32:26.740 | So it's fun to think about.
00:32:28.780 | It's a great thought experiment but I can't see it happening.
00:32:31.780 | Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah.
00:32:32.780 | Well, I think a lot of people are in that situation and I don't do it if she doesn't
00:32:36.900 | want to.
00:32:37.900 | But let me just give you just a couple of thoughts on it.
00:32:42.500 | So first of all, it is possible.
00:32:44.520 | People go and have babies all the time in other places and depending on the type of
00:32:50.500 | birth experience that you and your wife like to have, that can put you in different jurisdictions.
00:32:59.100 | If you, for example, like to have a hospital birth, hospitals all pretty much look the
00:33:04.180 | same no matter what country you're in.
00:33:05.460 | It doesn't look, you know, a hospital in Florida looks about the same as a hospital in Toronto.
00:33:10.940 | It's a hospital.
00:33:12.420 | But the only difference is if you have your baby in Toronto, then that baby is a Canadian
00:33:16.820 | citizen by birth.
00:33:18.620 | That doesn't do anything for you immigration-wise to Canada for you but it does mean that your
00:33:22.820 | child can have a Canadian passport or Mexico if you have your baby in Mexico.
00:33:28.780 | Mexican hospitals, you might need to speak a little Spanish.
00:33:31.460 | That's different than the Canadian hospital but if you have your baby in a Mexican hospital,
00:33:36.900 | then your baby will automatically qualify to be a Mexican citizen by birth and you can
00:33:40.900 | think and register him as a dual citizen.
00:33:42.700 | And the advantage of a Mexican, if you have a Mexican baby is if you're the parent of
00:33:46.820 | a Mexican baby, then you can apply for Mexican residency and be issued a resident permit
00:33:53.300 | for you and your wife and your other children as well without any other tests necessary
00:33:59.580 | simply due to their reunification of family theory.
00:34:02.180 | And there are other countries around the world that you can look at as well.
00:34:04.980 | Now I will be the first to concede it's not easy.
00:34:07.600 | So if you're in a town where everyone is there, you know, it's not easy.
00:34:11.940 | But it is doable and it's something that I think I want to encourage more and more people
00:34:19.220 | to pursue it and to research it and to think about it because I think it's really, it's
00:34:23.020 | the only practical solution that I can see is to help your children develop secondary
00:34:28.180 | citizenships so that if in the future they need to leave a confiscatory tax regime, then
00:34:34.060 | they have already in place a second citizenship so they can renounce their primary citizenship.
00:34:39.060 | And it's not anything against the US or any other country, it's just a reality.
00:34:43.820 | In the United States, most US Americans don't think much about it, but much of the rest
00:34:46.660 | of the world does because they've seen the value of it.
00:34:49.620 | But it's really the only solution that I see.
00:34:52.660 | The most famous big money example of it was Eduardo Saverin, one of the early employees
00:34:57.540 | at Facebook.
00:34:58.540 | He was Brazilian, dual citizen by birth, born in Brazil, became a US citizen and then was
00:35:05.860 | able to renounce his citizenship from the United States and in his case I think he became
00:35:11.900 | a Singaporean citizen.
00:35:13.740 | Now he had to pay a lot of exit taxes on the way out.
00:35:17.100 | He was taxed very heavily by the United States, but he still saved, I don't know if it was
00:35:21.820 | tens of millions or hundreds of millions, but he still saved a massive amount of money
00:35:25.340 | by renouncing his US citizenship prior to the IPO of Facebook.
00:35:30.340 | And so I think of it like that for children.
00:35:31.900 | If they have the choice, they may never need it, but they're not hurt by having it.
00:35:36.740 | But you don't have to just do birth tourism, you can buy second citizenships, you can go
00:35:40.500 | and establish residency abroad and work on a residency program and I think it's just
00:35:44.220 | well worth having in the back of your mind because in my opinion the only answer to your
00:35:48.700 | question of how do I avoid a wealth tax, if you live in a country that taxes you on your
00:35:53.740 | worldwide income and your worldwide wealth like the United States does, the only solution
00:35:58.300 | is to simply leave and get yourself out from under their taxing authority.
00:36:03.180 | >>TED: Okay, I mean that makes sense.
00:36:09.660 | >>STEVE: You don't sound super excited.
00:36:13.860 | I don't think you're going to successfully convince your wife, but that's okay, you don't
00:36:17.140 | have to.
00:36:18.140 | But I'm sure there are other listeners who will be interested.
00:36:21.140 | >>TED: Yeah, so it's not something that I'm thinking of imminently.
00:36:26.300 | I mean you mentioned in your podcast you see the debt bomb exploding in your lifetime.
00:36:32.660 | Well, I kind of feel the same way.
00:36:34.180 | I don't feel like, I mean I think we can do QE four, five, six and seven before truly
00:36:41.020 | no one's going to extend us any more credit and the debt bomb's going to explode and who
00:36:43.980 | knows how many years that could be.
00:36:45.260 | I just want to be thinking about these options as maybe I'll be in retirement by the time
00:36:51.740 | that happens.
00:36:52.980 | I just want to be somewhat prepared, at least have some of the stuff before it comes due.
00:37:00.740 | >>STEVE: Yeah, I agree with you.
00:37:02.300 | And so I don't see, and I think the fact that you are thinking about the solutions is probably
00:37:08.100 | about all you need to do at this point in time.
00:37:10.900 | And I think there are some basic things, as I talk about in the course that I made, there
00:37:16.540 | are some basic steps that can be taken and should be taken.
00:37:19.680 | But just simply thinking about it is more than most people.
00:37:22.620 | Most people are not thinking about it.
00:37:24.380 | They're not considering it.
00:37:25.980 | So I'm not worried about anything in the near term.
00:37:30.940 | Certainly I think we always face the potential for short-term economic problems.
00:37:35.460 | But I think more likely is just kind of a slow malaise and a long, slow period of not
00:37:43.740 | much fun and excitement happening.
00:37:48.380 | But I don't see any kind of short-term scenario.
00:37:51.660 | So I would just say, as your wealth grows, just keep an eye on it.
00:37:54.940 | If you have $100,000 of net worth, there's no point in doing much other than focusing
00:38:00.400 | on building your net worth.
00:38:01.940 | When you have a net worth of a million dollars, just start to look at it.
00:38:04.860 | I think by the time you get to a net worth of a million dollars, a good portion of your
00:38:09.100 | assets should be internationalized.
00:38:12.020 | But that's not as hard and fast rule.
00:38:14.620 | As you start to get to a couple of million dollars, I think you should be looking carefully
00:38:18.140 | at it.
00:38:19.140 | Even at a couple of million dollars, I wouldn't do anything.
00:38:21.020 | But if you start to get much more than that, you should be paying attention.
00:38:23.980 | And in my mind, the only thing that we can do at this point is just watch the news, watch
00:38:28.560 | the tone in the country, and see what people start to do.
00:38:33.140 | Now I don't have much optimism that things will change, because as best I can see, it
00:38:39.700 | seems like in the United States we have developed a citizenry of people, or a voter base at
00:38:46.260 | least, of people who believe that what belongs to other people belongs to them if they can
00:38:52.180 | just vote for it.
00:38:53.580 | Now at the moment, it seems like it's just more talk than it is action.
00:38:59.740 | You know, it's watch the 2020 presidential elections, watch the next few election cycles
00:39:04.380 | and see what happens.
00:39:05.900 | But I do think that if you live in a citizenry of people who are greedy and jealous and think
00:39:10.140 | that it's all your fault just because you're rich and all they have to do is get together
00:39:14.460 | with a few million other neighbors and take from you, then that should be illustrative.
00:39:18.700 | Now if we see somehow some kind of principled resurgence of a live and let live and, you
00:39:24.780 | know, I'm not going to steal from my neighbor some kind of conservative political revival,
00:39:29.500 | I don't see any way that can happen.
00:39:32.460 | But if that happens, then I would be less worried.
00:39:34.900 | But in your own personal decisions, there may come a time when you have a job option
00:39:38.420 | and you're looking at taking a job in Jacksonville, but you're also thinking about taking a job
00:39:42.580 | in Zurich.
00:39:44.020 | And you look at it and say, you know what, I'm going to pursue the job in Zurich.
00:39:47.180 | There's no reason to stay.
00:39:48.500 | Go to Zurich and start setting up a life there and just start the process little by little.
00:39:54.660 | My hope is that just by exposing people to the ideas and the concept that they'll start
00:39:58.600 | to look and then if the cost for you becomes significant, that's when you start acting.
00:40:05.180 | I don't think it makes sense to take big decisions if you're not actually paying a personal price.
00:40:11.220 | If you don't have a big tax bill or they're not coming after your wealth, then why go
00:40:17.100 | through all the expense of leaving?
00:40:19.360 | But if you do start to develop significant assets, then keep in the back of your mind,
00:40:24.060 | how would I get out if the climate becomes worse?
00:40:28.540 | Your guess is as good as mine.
00:40:29.540 | I think we just watch and see what happens.
00:40:31.380 | >> Ryan: Great.
00:40:32.860 | Thanks.
00:40:33.860 | That's very helpful.
00:40:34.860 | >> Chris: Any other questions, Ryan?
00:40:36.300 | Any other comments or questions?
00:40:37.300 | Did I clarify the stuff on the medical tourism thing?
00:40:40.660 | >> Ryan: Yeah.
00:40:41.660 | I think that makes sense.
00:40:42.660 | >> Chris: Here would be my only comment.
00:40:48.500 | My only comment is you're talking maybe with your wife and for anyone else that's in the
00:40:53.740 | situation.
00:40:54.740 | I have a lot of good things to say about the United States of America and I think we should
00:40:59.980 | be cautious about thinking that it's just better other places.
00:41:04.780 | It's easy to think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence until you actually
00:41:07.580 | go to the other side of the fence and check out the grass.
00:41:10.740 | I would just say on some metrics, there's another place somewhere in the world that's
00:41:14.580 | usually better on almost any one thing.
00:41:17.660 | But if your wife is, let's say that you could probably as you talk with your wife, try to
00:41:23.380 | figure out what the things are that would be important for her.
00:41:27.020 | I would just say the first thing is that most Americans can do is most Americans should
00:41:31.420 | go and just simply travel a little bit more.
00:41:33.500 | I don't know.
00:41:34.500 | Have you traveled a lot internationally, Ryan?
00:41:36.340 | Not internationally, no.
00:41:38.900 | Okay.
00:41:39.900 | So what I would recommend...
00:41:40.900 | I've been to Canada.
00:41:41.900 | That's it.
00:41:42.900 | Yeah.
00:41:43.900 | So that doesn't...
00:41:44.900 | It counts a little bit, I guess, but not much.
00:41:46.540 | So here'd be my recommendation.
00:41:49.660 | Don't go to Mexico.
00:41:52.100 | I like Mexico, but don't go to Mexico.
00:41:54.520 | Don't go to South America.
00:41:58.260 | Schedule a family vacation to Asia and take a little tour of Singapore and Hong Kong and
00:42:05.660 | Kuala Lumpur.
00:42:08.740 | Schedule a...
00:42:09.740 | Go to Dubai.
00:42:11.140 | Schedule a family vacation to Dubai.
00:42:14.740 | Go to China.
00:42:16.020 | Go to Shanghai and start to see what's happening in the rest of the world.
00:42:21.100 | The first time I went to Hong Kong, I had never been to...
00:42:25.580 | As I can remember, I'd not really been to a big city outside the United States.
00:42:29.380 | And I always thought that the United States was great.
00:42:31.300 | I thought that New York was great.
00:42:33.860 | And then I had been to England, I'd been to London, but it didn't do anything for me.
00:42:39.940 | But I remember the first time I went to Hong Kong.
00:42:42.340 | And I got on the Hong Kong Metro.
00:42:44.980 | I can't remember what they call it, the subway system.
00:42:48.500 | And I was just stunned at how incredible the subway system was.
00:42:53.340 | And I walked around downtown Hong Kong on the island, and I could not believe what I
00:42:59.180 | was seeing.
00:43:00.300 | And it made New York look like the armpit of the earth.
00:43:03.620 | It just was terrible.
00:43:05.120 | Everything was bigger, everything was nicer, everything was fancier, everything was cleaner,
00:43:09.060 | everything was faster, everything worked better.
00:43:11.380 | And then it just went on from there.
00:43:13.060 | I haven't been to Dubai yet, but it's on my list.
00:43:14.780 | I'd like to get to Dubai.
00:43:16.280 | But I've seen the pictures of Dubai, and you look at what's happening in some of these
00:43:19.500 | centers, and it's very hard to go back to the United States and make the argument that
00:43:23.140 | the future is in the United States.
00:43:25.100 | Now I think that it would be false to do it just based upon the cities.
00:43:29.140 | But if you are impressed by big cities and things, just get a plane ticket, schedule
00:43:32.860 | family vacation, and don't go to a beach.
00:43:35.380 | Go to some place where you start to see, wait a second, the rest of the world hasn't been
00:43:40.540 | sitting around doing nothing.
00:43:43.260 | I could live very happily in Singapore.
00:43:46.100 | I could live very happily in Kuala Lumpur.
00:43:48.220 | I could live happily in a lot of places.
00:43:50.660 | But in Mexico City, there's so many wonderful places.
00:43:54.160 | And I think that's the big thing that you can start to do, is just start to travel a
00:43:57.380 | little internationally, pay the money, and it'll probably start to change your perspective
00:44:01.540 | on the United States.
00:44:02.660 | I think the United States is going to be in a long, slow decline over the coming decades.
00:44:07.260 | That's the best I can see.
00:44:08.260 | I don't see any reason for kind of cultural optimism.
00:44:12.500 | Basically we have developed a citizenry of people who are, in my opinion, fairly lazy,
00:44:18.180 | fairly entitled, have this concept that basically everything, we're the best in everything.
00:44:25.580 | And I don't see any foundational standpoint for a lot of optimism.
00:44:31.100 | But that doesn't mean that the rest of the world is standing still.
00:44:33.660 | So get out and travel, and see if you agree with me, see if you disagree with me.
00:44:36.940 | But that's what I would do.
00:44:38.620 | Probably not the best time to start, but research, at least think about birth tourism, but at
00:44:43.660 | least get out and travel, and see what you guys think about the rest of the world.
00:44:47.140 | - Great, yeah, thank you.
00:44:51.980 | - I hope, it's always troubling to make broad sweeping statements like I've just made.
00:44:59.260 | I hope I've given enough caveats and such to say, when I'm talking about this stuff,
00:45:03.460 | I don't mean anything acute, I'm talking about long term.
00:45:05.860 | I guess I just want to point out one more thing.
00:45:09.340 | The key is you as an individual.
00:45:12.580 | Question is, where can you succeed?
00:45:14.820 | Because what I think is happening in the United States, you can succeed like crazy in the
00:45:19.700 | United States.
00:45:20.700 | There are so many opportunities for so many people to be successful in the United States.
00:45:28.620 | That's different than the general population.
00:45:31.660 | I think if you go back and you look at Charles Murray's book, Coming Apart, he traced this
00:45:38.220 | out so perfectly, I don't know what other resource I could cite, where he clearly, and
00:45:44.140 | in my opinion, overwhelmingly demonstrated the fact that the upper class elite in the
00:45:50.020 | United States are doing better than ever before.
00:45:53.300 | And frankly, that's probably who you and I are.
00:45:56.540 | But that doesn't mean that the country is necessarily going to do better than ever before.
00:46:01.140 | So you try to figure out where do you succeed.
00:46:04.860 | Good chance for many of us, most of us, that's in the United States.
00:46:08.780 | But you got to work within the system and recognize that just because you're doing well
00:46:12.300 | doesn't mean that everybody's doing well.
00:46:15.340 | And that could be dangerous in a population where you're doing well, but the people are
00:46:20.780 | not doing well in general.
00:46:23.100 | That could be very dangerous, could be dangerous to your health and wealth.
00:46:25.980 | But you might not want to live in Dubai, you might not want to work in Singapore, you might
00:46:30.220 | not want to go to some of those places.
00:46:33.260 | In which case, just enjoy the lifestyle benefits of where you are.
00:46:36.460 | So I made some big sweeping statements.
00:46:38.500 | I think they're right, but time will tell.
00:46:40.420 | We watch over the coming years and see what happens.
00:46:43.300 | But my only thing, I love the United States, I wish nothing but good things for the United
00:46:48.180 | States.
00:46:49.180 | I just don't see the source of those good things on a large level.
00:46:53.540 | I think that small groups of people who live very counter-culturally can do very well.
00:46:59.220 | But on a broad basis, I don't see the reasons for optimism on the broad basis.
00:47:06.140 | Hopefully that was enough backpedaling and whatnot to make it come through.
00:47:09.300 | Thank you all for listening.
00:47:10.580 | I'll be back with you very soon.