Yet More "Financial Advice"

I have written previously about "financial advisors" who are actually the worst sort of pitch men out for nothing more than emptying your pockets to line their own.  Lately I've been tracking yet another one:  Mikkel Thorup and his minions at ExpatMoney.

This outfit raises every red flag possible.  No one has a license to provide investment advice, which is unsurprising given Thorup is a Randonazi libertardian who claims Adam Smith was opposed to all government regulation, ignoring Smith's clear statement that, if government did not stop the natural, bad acts of entrepreneurs, capitalism would collapse.  So either he's never read Smith, or he's read him well enough to lie as facilely about him as the Cato Institute, the AEI, the Universities of Stanford and Chicago, the von Mises Institute, etc.  No license means they can't give actual financial advice, they can only sell stuff, typically the worst sort of barn stuff (BS).  They also engage in circular promotion.  This week they appear on a friend's podcast where their friend declares them the greatest thing ever, and they make a sales pitch for some raging pantsload of an "investment".  Next week their friend appears on their podcast where they call their friend the greatest thing ever, and their friend makes a sales pitch for some raging pantsload of an "investment".  And the spin keeps spinning.

Specifics?  The major investments they're shilling are 1) real estate developments in Ambergris Cay in Belize, and 2) teak in Belize.  They also have a couple other pieces of "advice" I'll get to.  I'll get to Ambergris Cay in a bit too.  First, teak.  I will grant you, teak is a valuable wood.  So long as squillionaires keep ordering yachts, there will be demand for teak.  And it's really nice to work with.  But none of their pitches for investments in teak plantations in Belize disclose that a commercial crop requires at least 20 years from planting to logging.  That means you need at least 20 years of political and economic stability in the country where your plantation is.  Belize has had at least five bond defaults or restructurings in the last 15 years.  The most recent was last year, which was so bad Belize engaged in open extortion, threatening to stop all environmental protection, especially of its coral reefs, unless it could renegotiate its foreign debt.  The debt was rewritten last September, underwritten by, get this, the Nature Conservancy, and the bond holders still took a 60% haircut.  Reeks of stability, no?

Ambergris Cay.  Oh man.  About 20 years ago the usual sorts started promoting a luxe development on the coast of Belize.  Funds were raised funds went down a rat hole, and about 15 years ago it all collapsed.  You can read the details in a lawsuit a guy named Haugen brought against the principal finance company, Caye International Bank, Ltd. (CIB).  Haugen invested in Ambergris and thought CIB had ripped him off.  That's probably true, although I can't sympathize much with Haugen, who probably thought he'd found a way to rip a bunch of people off and ended up being the rippee instead of the ripper.  Unfortunately for Haugen, the investment disclosure laws throughout the libertardian paradise that is the Caribbean are nonexistent.  Caveat emptor, baby.  The history of the case would be a great law review article since the Caribbean Court of Appeal (aka Caribbean Court of Justice or CCJ) dumped the Belize trial court's opinion and came out in favor of CIB in a demonstration of pretzel logic worthy of Injustice Alito.  The presiding justice was Justice Wit.  You can't make this stuff up.  It's further evidence you should never expect an honest court ruling in the Caribbean (and you may largely thank the ever-corrupt UK crown for that).

Oh, and the main hawnyawk for CIB was a guy named John Nagel, who was also sued.  Aside from misrepresenting on his website that he'd been completely cleared (No, CCJ remanded to the Belize trial court for a determination of damages and costs.), he was Belize's ambassador to Austria during all this.  That is until 2017 when Austria kicked him out for doing damn all in the way of ambassadorial duties and spending all his time on private deals.  So apparently he was too much of a libertardian even for the land of von Mises and Hayek.

The point?  ExpatMoney is promoting a revival of the Ambergris Cay development.  And who's banking it?  Yep, CIB.  Anybody disclosing the prior collapse, or the lawsuits, or Nagel's issues?  Are you kidding me?  If anyone wants you to invest in this, take your money and run before they do.

And then there's their other "advice".  First, you need to run off to someplace like Belize or Panama.  Because they won't "regulate you to death".  Which is code for "you can exploit the living Hell out of them".  You can bring nothing, soak up resources while paying no taxes, and ultimately contribute nothing.  In other words, you can impose neocolonialism.  Ayn Rand wonderland.

And then there's the unregulated paradise they're promoting: The Free Republic of Liberland.  They're trying to convince you to get your second citizenship from there, touting it as a bastion of freedom.  The problem is, it doesn't exist.  It's a scam by the Czech crypto-fascist Vít Jedlička, who grabbed a slice of vacant land in one of the areas in dispute between Croatia and Serbia and called it his own.  No place recognizes Liberland or its "citizens".  But if you want to blow your money on, that's your call.

One other thing.  ExpatMoney is based in Panama.  Which means if you make the mistake of taking their "advice" and lose your shirt and your shorts, which you will, don't expect to be recover your losses.  Panama has a paucity of those pesky regulation things for you to recover under.  You'll just be another sap who broke on a Caribbean rock.