A new government land grab enhances the importance of multi dimensional lifestyles.

We’ll see how this land grab has the potential to cause long term food price shock.

First, let’s look at the problem of food prices even before the land grab.

An orange from our grove.  Could orange be better than gold?

A December 17, 2012 Fortune article at www.finance.fortune entitled “What about food inflation, Bernanke?” by Nin-Hai Tseng shows the problem.

Here are excerpts: The Federal Reserve wants to prioritize jobs over inflation. How will Americans feel about that when they’re paying more for groceries next year?

In an unusual move, the U.S. Federal Reserve last week signaled it would put its focus on jobs ahead of inflation next year by buying up billions of dollars worth of bonds until the unemployment rate falls to at least 6.5%.

But while the Fed moves on with its bond bonanza assuming rapidly rising prices won’t be a problem, or at least not any time soon, it will be hard to convince shoppers at the grocery aisle.

It’s true overall inflation has been mild thanks in part to lower prices across gas stations nationwide. The seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index dropped 0.3% in November from October, the Labor Department reported Friday. This comes as gas prices saw the biggest drop in nearly four years, falling 7.4%, during the same period.

Food prices are telling a different story, however.

The producer price index, which tracks how much wholsesalers pay for goods, fell 0.8% in November. However, the price for food rose 1.3% — the biggest increase since February 2011, according to a report released Thursday by the Labor Department.

Producer food prices are up 2.6% from a year earlier, compared with an annual gain of just 1.5% for all goods. In particular, chicken prices have surged 14.3% during the last year and wholesale beef and veal prices rose 8.2% in November, the biggest monthly gain since 2008.

For months, the US Department of Agriculture has warned about higher food prices. Next year, U.S. consumers may pay 3% to 4% more for food, the agency forecasts. The price of beef may rise as much as 5% amid tighter supplies of corn, which is used to feed cattle. Since June, the price of grain, the country’s biggest crop, rose by more than 50%.

A growing growing global population calls for growing supplies of food.

Investor interest in agricultural commodities has been spurred over the past decade by the rise in global population.

The world population has risen from 3.2bn towards 8bn in the 75 years and is projected to reach  9-10.5bn by 2050.

A 2011 study by the University of Minnesota suggests that global food demand will double by 2050.

Source Iowa State University: 2011. (click on photo to enlarge).

This chart by from Iowa State University shows how agricultural demand will rise in three different ways.  Starting in 1966  the bottom line estimates the increase in food demand. The middle line shows how  calorie consumption has increased by 23% since 1966.

The top lines shows what will happen to food demand by 2050 if people in China and India eat as much meat and dairy per person that was being consumed in the US and Europe in 1966.

Land Grab

Interestingly if you live in North America, this land grab is thousands of miles away in Africa.

The Financial Times reported in the September 2012 issue that $83b would need to be invested in agricultural in developing countries.

This need clashes with the need to reduce intensive farming that depletes soil and water and big agriculture business that puts a huge chunk of the world’s population out of work.

In the Economist article, “Land scramble jeopardizes years of agricultural investment” by Irungu Houghton, Pan-Africa Director, Oxfam, Nairobi, Kenya he wrote:   The scramble for land is the latest challenge to Africa’s development.  More than 50m hectares of Africa’s productive agricultural land, equivalent to an area the size of Kenya, have been turned over to foreign investors for biofuel and food exports in 10 years.

Driven by cash-rich countries, western agribusinesses and equity firms, the trend threatens to reverse the progress being made by many African governments to modernise agriculture and support the livelihoods of millions of small farmers. For a continent in which 40 per cent of its people barely gets enough to eat, this is scandalous.

When presented with the facts last year, Africa’s highest legislative body, the Pan-African parliament, was so alarmed that it called for a moratorium on all new large-scale land acquisitions until laws and policies have been put in place to regulate land and water use.

This land grab by the Pan-African Parliament may have good ethical and long term social underpinnings.  However it could turn out to no good as well depriving both the small farmer and emerging markets a huge source of arable land.

The Western world is no longer immune to inflationary forces from the emerging world.  If there is a food shortage…  emerging countries will compete right along with the industrialized nations.

Three Ways to Beat Rising Food Prices

The basic answer is obvious… hedge your investments again rising food prices by investing in food.

#1:  Create all or part of your own food.    Our business associate, webmaster (and son in law) has done this.  Our recent post “Water the Roots” examines this idea. Read this post at 13 reasons to own a farm.

#2: A second way is to invest is in food related ETFs

One Agricultural ETF is the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (MOO).

Five year share price chart of MOO.

Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF tracks the DAXglobal Agribusiness Index and aims to invest 80% or more of total assets in equity securities of U.S. and foreign companies primarily engaged in the business of agriculture, which derive at least 50% of their total revenues from agribusiness.

Here is the current main investments in MOO shown at www.finance.yahoo.com. (See link below).

The poor performance of MOO… a share price down 4.57% over five years in a sector strongly supported by rising revenues is suggestive of a build up in value.

I won’t invest personally in this type of ETF as I dislike the idea of investing in GMO and chemical companies.  However I feel obligated to show you all possibilities.

Another way to use ETFs is by investing in  ETFs & ETNs that invest in agriculturally based commodities using futures.

These are not perfect hedges because there can be differences between commodity prices and “real life” food prices.

The following ETFs offer this potential.

PowerShares DB Agriculture Dble Long ETN (symbol DAG). This ETN  is 200% Leveraged (Double Long) focused equally on Wheat, Corn, Soybeans.

Dow Jones-UBS Grains Total Return Sub-Index (symbol JJG).  This unleveraged ETN invests solely on grains, currently Corn, Soybeans and Wheat.

AB Svensk Ekportkredit MLCX Grains Index Tracker  (symbol GRU).  This unleveraged ETN invests in Wheat, Corn, Soy Meal and Soybeans.

iPath DJ-UBS Agriculture TR Sub-Index (symbol JJA).  This unleveraged ETN is more broadly invested commodities such as Soybeans , Corn, Wheat, Coffee, Soybean Oil, Cotton and Sugar.

PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (symbol DBA). This is an unleveraged ETF with broad exposure to agricultural commodities. The base index weightings are: Soybeans, Live Cattle, Sugar #11, Corn, Coffee , Cocoa, Lean Hogs, Wheat, KC Wheat, Feeder Cattle and Cotton.

AB Svensk Ekportkredit ELEMENTS Rogers Intl Commodity Agri ETN (symbol RJA).  This unleveraged ETN invests in a broad commodity index compiled by well know investment analyst Jim Rogers.

These ETFs again are fixed to big agri business which many of our readers dislike (as do we) so the first alternative (grow your own food) or the alternative below are more environmentally sensitive.

For more details on ETFs contact Morgan Hatfield an investment adviser at Ruggie Wealth at mhatfield@ruggiewealth.com

#3:  Do as I have done… buy some food producing real estate.

I like this option because I can use Bio Wash to make the land less pesticide and chemical intensive… hopefully eventually free.

Plus our experience in agriculture has been quite good.

Our farm and home for multi dimensional living.

We just harvested our third crop and it looks better than last year.

The year we took over the grove there were 1,500 trees and they produced 1801 boxes of oranges.

We removed one third of the lower producing trees in a grove management plan. We sprayed the remaining 2/3rd with Bio Wash.

With 500 fewer trees, the grove produced 2,484 boxes of oranges that year!

So we doubled the Bio Wash spray and the next year harvest was over 3,400 boxes still with a third less trees than we started.

We increased the spray again and this year and the harvest looks even better.  I’ll know shortly and will report.

Plus like food prices… the price of oranges has risen. Our first year we received $8.50 a box. Last year prices rose to $10.20 and this year our grove manager is talking of $12 to $14 a box.

We have planted 500 new trees so this should add quite a boost beginning in two more years.

Each time I visit the super market and am hit by sticker shock… I just remember these facts and it makes the high cost of food a bit more digestible.

During these times of rapid change it is hard to rely on old social economic promises.  This makes any certainty increasingly more valuable.  One reliable fact about humans is we have to eat!

As food prices rise… you can hedge this inflation by investing in food in one of the three alternatives above.

Gary

Join us to learn about multi currency investing… investing in agriculture and multi dimensional real estate in the USA and Ecuador at our February 1-2-3, 2013 Super Thinking + Investing and Business Seminar.

Read Fortune article on food inflation

Read FT article  Land scramble jeopardizes years of agricultural investment

See more on Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF at www.finance.yahoo.com

One way to have everlasting wealth that overcomes never ending risk is with your own micro business.

Merri Scott speaking at the October 2012 Super thinking + Investing & Business seminar on how in the 1970s she created an export business in Central America to earn business there.

Yesterday’s message “neverending risk” looked at risk through erosion of pension purchasing power.  Businesses fight inflation by their nature.  They raise prices as costs go up.

There is a growing trend of North Americans on the move.  Many are moving to Ecuador… one of our main areas of focus… yet many are moving back from Ecuador to the USA.   This is an area of new focus in our business.

As we spotted this trend growing we started posting messages like the one entitled Never Say Never .   This urges those on the move to not let problems (such as unreported income to tax authorities) grow after leaving a residence behind.  Don’t burn bridges.   We never know where personal circumstances and events beyond our control will lead us!

Create a mobile source of income.   Whatever happens to the global economy… recession… depression… inflation… or expansion… if you can serve for a profit you’ll always be able to pay your way in the world.

This is also so satisfying… doing what you love… being fulfilled and filling a purpose while getting paid for it.

Here is a great example of a reader who moved to Ecuador but has returned to the USA… but brought an income producing business along.

This reader wrote:  I lived in Quito, Ecuador for 3.5 years and recently moved back to the US this last January.  While there, I started exporting jewelry to the US.  I found a lady who helps me manage artisans and production.  However, she can only manage and produce a limited amount of product.  As I am now in the US, my role has changed to more of a broker than an exporter.  I have two large wholesale clients whose goals are to purchase between $100 and $200K of product per year.  So, I am now looking to see if there are other “producers” or cooperatives that can help me get product to the US.

Wherever this reader goes the income potential of the micro business follows and… jewelry is in demand everywhere.

Export businesses are good earn anywhere you go businesses.

Our Ecuador export logistic service helps readers create micro exports businesses.  This service is available to all Ecuador Living Club members.  See details on how to export Ecuador honey and more at “Honey of a Deal”.

See how to be an Ecuador Living Club member here.

Learn how to earn through writing and self publishing.

Gary

Our February 1-2-3, 2013 Super Thinking + Investing and Business teaches how to create a global micro business.

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See about Ecuador and US Inflation below… plus why the Mexican peso may be a good place to invest now.

There is not much tide on Ecuador’s Pacific but the tide is rising for Ecuador inflation.

There is a big inflation problem in the USA.  Statistics say prices are not rising but they are in two of the areas where people spend most… food and gas.

Plus investments in the bank return almost nothing and share prices are at scary highs.  What is one to do.  More on this in a moment.  First…

Ecuador Inflation

A March 6, 2012 Bloomberg article entitled Ecuador February Consumer Prices Rose Most Since September  by Nathan Gill said:

Consumer prices in Ecuador, which uses the U.S. dollar as its official currency, rose at their fastest pace in five months in February, led by increases in food and health costs, the statistics agency reported.

Prices climbed 0.78 percent last month and increased 5.53 percent from February 2011 (EDCPYOY), the National Statistics and Census Institute said today in a report on its website. Producer prices fell 0.57 percent in February and increased 1.94 percent from a year earlier, according to the report.

Food prices have risen this year as record rainfall in coastal areas damaged crops and disrupted supplies, according to today’s report and data from the country’s National Meteorology and Hydrology Institute. Bad weather, minimum wage increases and higher prices for imported commodities are pressuring costs, according to Deloitte & Touche LLP.

“Inflation this year is expected to rise,” the company’s Quito office said today in a report published before the data’s release. “It’s probable that there exists a scarcity of some products because of the effects of the winter, which could increase their costs.”  See a link to the entire article below.

Our messages at our two sites (the other site is www.ecuadorliving.com) are mostly about Ecuador, real estate and international investments and business.

Ecuador real estate has been one of our big recommendations… but now one has to be careful as prices in some parts of Ecuador have risen… a lot.

I hope our daily messages help you make and save money because money is energy and energy fills our needs but because the US stock market has recently experienced a boom when many indicators suggest great market risk and because Ecuador real estate has risen dramatically, I would like to share a reminder.

Investments are stored energy… like a battery that continues to fill our needs when we do not work.

The analogy however can be carried further.  Too much energy forced into a battery too quickly can cause it to explode and burn.

Let’s look at the importance of spurts in international investing and Ecuador real estate.

International investments… property in Ecuador… or other countries… multi currency stocks and bonds… all… can help fight inflation IF we do not get too caught up in  spurts.

All markets rise…  and fall… in spurts.  This fact kills the returns of most investors.

The odd fact is that upwards spurts can do more damage than the drops.

Be careful of spurts!

The key to all successful investing is the protection and increase of purchasing power.

International investments can help you achieve this, but attaining and keeping success can be trickier than it might seem.

Let’s hear (from the voice of experience) why the art of keeping wealth may be more elusive than just making a profit.

As mentioned all markets bubble up and bubble down in spurts.

The problem is that many, especially inexperienced (as in they have not yet been burned), investors who start investing when there is an upward spurt, take the instant profits they make seriously and spend them!

They forget… or do not realize that there are down cycles too.

This means they have not learned the most important part of how to survive cash spurts and sudden wealth.

I learned this lesson the hard way as a young executive, (just 25 years old). Back in the late 60s and early 70s.   I worked my heart out for four years, almost sacrificed my family and ended up divorced by trying to build a financial future.

I thought it was worth the stress. The stock market had been rising for decades. The bull market was all I knew, shares rising, IPOs were coming out every day-almost guaranteed success. The industry I worked in (overseas mutual funds) was in a hot sector and the company I worked went public.

My compensation was generous, a stock option for 50,000 shares at a dollar each. The shares were issued to the public at $20. At 25 I was already a millionaire and those were the days when you could buy more than a house for a million dollars! In fact a million then was worth about $12 to 15 million now.

I had not learned any lessons about locking in profit nor the downsides of markets.

I had never made more that $750 a month so this wealth was bewildering.

I bought everything I could, a new Mercedez 280 SL, a new house and I ran up some nice credit card bills.

But I bought all this on credit and kept my shares. Why would I sell?   They just kept rising! Right.

Then the stock market collapsed. The sudden drop caused a run on the shares of the company I worked for and it, with many similar firms, collapsed. The entire industry tanked and the company went broke. I ended up unemployed, with no money… zero income and in debt.

My stock options weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.

The moral…when you invest to make money be careful. You may make it! If you do not respond correctly, the sudden wealth can make life worse rather than better.

Most wealthy people receive their income in spurts. We saw this process regularly during the internet craze.

Merri and I have been lucky.  Our business has been solid and steady for 40 years. Yet when I look back… at least half of our assets and savings came from just a handful of deals… where we picked exactly the right thing… at just the right time and then cashed in on a spurt.

Fortunately I had also learned that you not only buy… but you also sell.  That Hong Kong experience and the observation of thousands of investors over 40 years suggests that sudden financial success creates disaster as often as not.

Investors all too often make one of three mistakes.

The first mistake is to believe that this is the only time there will be such an influx of cash. This tightens a person, so they can’t enjoy spending. They become afraid. Life becomes filled with paranoia. Unhappiness sets in. If money doesn’t make life better, what’s the use?

The second mistake is to think that these large chunks of cash will continue to come easily again and again without working. This thinking creates unrealistic lifestyles and work ethics that lead to disaster.

I first observed this ironic fact while living in England.  A happy, financially responsible middle class family won millions in the lottery. Just a few short years after reaping this spurt of cash through supposed good luck, the husband and wife were bankrupt, divorced and no longer speaking to their kids.

I have seen example after example, of people, who received a sudden chunk of income made very unhappy by this large inflow of wealth. This is why it is a risky time when investors make a big sudden profit. The proud owner of new found wealth, buys new cars, houses and becomes very spendy. They create overhead and debt. If there is a single reversal, they are wiped out.

The third mistake is to pyramid the success especially with debt. You can ask many US real estate investors about that as they continue to try and work their way out of negative equity housing.  This builds on a weak foundation and when the spurt turns creates a faster and often horrendous collapse.

Now the stock market has had a spurt and performed incredibly well over the past six months. We cannot depend on this trend to continue.  Look at the chart for the last year. Do not ignore the sharp drops!

Dow Jones one year chart March 2012 from www.google.finance.com

How much is a big hit anyway? How much is enough to throw a person off track?

One measure is a ten times increase in wealth.

This normally is enough to make a significant difference in a person’s life. For someone with a thousand dollars in the bank, $10,000 seems like a lot. The extra money can make a difference. For someone who already has a million dollars, another million doesn’t make such a significant shift. Ten million does.

The reason spurts create problems is because they disrupt our discipline.

Money is discipline and our financial affairs have some form of economic routine, either self imposed or not.

We have a set of mental standards that makes us think, “I can afford this, but can’t have that”, etc. Spurts of wealth demolish these standards. Suddenly we can have many things we previously could not. We become, once again, kids in the proverbial candy shop.

Yet much of the Western world spends their lives trying to become and stay independently rich. If succeeding in this process can ruin happiness, what can we do?

First, realize that quantum wealth… which is independent, permanent never-ending, fearless wealth, is a process, (not a state) of a continual series of reasonable risks, mistakes, refinements, lessons and actions that culminate in getting it right. When success arrives, there is a huge income (or capital) spurt.

Understand that this is not just one time when you can make a huge wad of cash.

Impose discipline.

Here is a simple formula for dealing with spurts if you cannot create your own.

First immediately spending ten percent of the new money on your dreams.

Buy, the Porsche.

Take the world cruise.

Build the new eight bedroom house. Do whatever you want that does not cost more than ten percent.

Second, give ten percent to a worthy charity.

Take a little time, find a need in this world you feel really should be filled and truly give the ten percent away.

Third, invest the remaining eighty percent very conservatively. Use the PIEC system.  Hire a good, conservative investment manager such as Jyske Global Asset managers or Jyske Private Bank.

Finally be grateful every day, not for the lump of cash, but for all the important things in life.

Thomas Fischer and I have been especially concerned about spurts since the stock market has risen so handily at the end of 2011 into 2012.

When these types of results are obtained, inexperienced investors (and even many pros) begin to ignore the risks.

Having been involved with equity and currency investments for so many years, Thomas and I never forget the downside!

Dollar Dilemma

There are also several reasons to be especially concerned about the US dollar as well as Ecuador real estate and US shares.

There is every reason to believe that the US dollar will fall long term.   Despite all the problems in parts of Europe… the fundamentals for the euro as a whole still look much better than in the USA.

I certainly am shorting the greenback long term myself.

First, the world has become addicted to US spending. Americans consumers are spoiled. They continue to remain wealthy.  First there was the stock market bubble, followed by the US real estate bubble. These artificial wealth creators were spawned by a flood of liquidity that allowed people to borrow more and more.

When the correction came… the government bailed everyone out and create a monumental debt… an almost guaranteed reason for the buck to fall and that debt continues to grow.

Yet everyone wants the strong dollar to continue. The Asians want it to continue fueling their export sectors and to maintain the value of their investments in US dollar bonds.

Oil sellers want it to prop up their investments in the US . Europeans want a strong dollar to keep their exports competitive as well.

Next there are no strong alternative reserve currencies. Other western nations and Japan are riddled with debt as well.

Plus, and this is perhaps the most difficult factor to discern, other governments have created massive debt as well.  So the dollar is less likely to fall versus other currencies… but all currencies will suffer a loss of purchasing power.

There is one more problem about profits made by just holding non dollar assets.

Profits created by a falling US dollar will almost certainly be reduced by rising costs of living. A falling USA dollar almost certainly will increase inflation in the US . So your profits may look great but won’t buy anywhere as much as expected.

The best you may do is keep up, unless you invest and manage your spending well.

This brings us to the final dilemma, the Fed which aims to keep inflation down. They have reached that proverbial rock and the hard spot.  If there is inflation, they need to raise interest rates. This will push US real estate prices down further and perhaps stall the economy again.

Yet a run on the greenback may force rates up anyway.

So beware… of yourself and currencies.  The dollar is most likely to continue its decline. I am betting it will myself but I know it is likely to do so in spurts. How you handle these spurts can make the difference between wealth and poverty!

Diversify in Mexican Peso

Knowing where the US dollar will fall is one thing. Knowing which currencies to hold is another!  This is why I follow Jyske Global Asset Management’s Forex pooled account closely.

Thomas Fischer who heads the management of this account just wrote to me:

Gary, We have taken a new position in our managed FX portfolios. See below.

In order to fully utilize the difference in the interest rates you could also buy a Mexican Government Bond (Bonos) maturing in 2015 yielding approx 5.25%

Should our research partner BCA by right and we see new highs for the MXN against the USD you could pick up FX gains of 15-20% also.

Tuesday 6 March we opened a new position in our Managed FX portfolios.

Short USD/MXN

The Mexican peso (MXN) is cheap by almost 13% against the US dollar (USD) based on key measures of relative prices according to our research partner Bank Credit Analyst (BCA). As the US economy is gaining momentum this will be supportive for the MXN as almost 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the US.

The interest rate differential between the US and Mexico will remain in favor of the MXN as the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) is committed to keep its policy rate near zero through late 2014.

Position taken:
Short USD/MXN 12.8807
Size 20% of AUM
Stop Loss 13.5500 (-5.20%)
Target 10.9000 (+15.38%)

You can see our existing and closed positions in JGAM’s FX Positions 2012.

As outlined at our February 2012 International Investing & Business seminar we already hold a strong position in the 2015 peso bonds but I added more on this advice.

If you are interested in learning more about this investment Americans can contact Thomas Fischer Sr. VP at JGAM fischer@jgam.com

Other nationalities should contact René Mathys at mathys@jbpb.dk

Investing globally… living in low cost locations like Ecuador but investing outside the US dollar makes a lot of sense at this time.

Join us for our portfolio update at our June Quantum Thinking + International Investment & Business Seminar.

Until next message, may all your spurts be good!

Hear the entire February 2012 International Investing…. business and Quantum Thinking seminar on MP3.

Gary

Read Bloomberg article Ecuador February Consumer Prices Rose Most Since September

What are you going to do with your future?

Having a fulfilling activity… a reason to get up in the morning…  makes your life better… keeps you living healthier, longer… and maybe of economic necessity as well because of doubts on debt.

When I rise in the morning I really look forward to sitting on my front porch and…

working with this view in front of me.

When I get up in the winter I love working out here!

Loving to work or provide some form of service may grow in importance because the global economy has been driven since the early 1900s by the expansion and spending of the USA. Now fiscal numbers no longer make sense. This mathematical imbalance could cause a rewrite of the global social economic contract.

According to Federal Reserve figures, the value of all US assets just before the late 2000 recession was $56.5 trillion. The value of American liabilities, if unfunded Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are included was $56.4 trillion. $40 trillion of the $56.5 trillion in liabilities is the unfunded future Medicare and Social Security benefits. $34 trillion of it is Medicare alone.

This means with reduced real estate prices, the numbers could show that America… on a balance sheet basis… is broke.  In short the Federal government has spent and/or pledged all our wealth.

Of course balance sheets are only pictures frozen in time. They miss important parts of the whole.  Plus by the time much of this 40 trillion comes due… we, the American people, will have created more wealth… hopefully a lot of it.  Even so, these numbers do suggest that there is a problem.

We can benefit from anticipating how this problem will be worked out.

If the Federal government has 40 trillion short in unfunded obligation… where will it get the money… or how will it sort this shortfall out?

Retirement and health benefits have to be one of the huge targets.  This shortfall is an entitlements nightmare… the type of difficulty that is creating riots in Greece right now and that difficulty threatens the stability of the Euro and Europe’s unity.  The US reckoning could threaten America’s stability.

If the current entitlement promises are real government debts, they are also real assets for the people who will enjoy them. If they aren’t real for the future recipients, then they aren’t real for the government either.

The country has elected politicians who have spent, borrowed and made promises irresponsibly on their behalf.

Will the debt be paid?

Will the promises of future Social Security and Health Care be kept?

If so, from where can the money come?

There are five typical avenues used to resolve this type of fiscal pinch.

Economic Resolutions

#1:  Increased production. Everyone makes more. Everyone earns more.  Tax rates remain stable but everyone pays more and solves the problem.  Remember in the late 1990s the Federal budget was in surplus!  All it takes is a boom… usually driven by some new unexpected technology.

#2: Increased income tax. The US has one of the lowest real tax rates of any industrialized country… so taxes can rise via increased income rates or reduced loopholes.  Everyone will moan and gripe… but this is likely… and could also solve a lot of this economic dilemma.

#3: Increased estate tax. The average US couple (age 65-74) has accumulated a net worth (not counting entitlement promises as either assets or liabilities) of over $500,000.  Normally when these retirees die this wealth would pass to their children and grandchildren.  But much of this wealth has been gained because these people received money from Social Security and Medicare.

The government might take the attitude, “If Medicare and Social Security are supposed to be insurance against the perils of old age: poverty and illness and not supposed gifts or subsidies to the children of retirees (who will receive money not spent on retirement and medical care) society, having kept its promise should get at least part of that money back.”  this would come in the form of increased estate tax.

#4: Reinterpret the promise. The letter below sent by two US Senators gives an example of one way this happens via… recoding.  A lot of coding is above my pay grade but bottom line recoding means a reinterpretation of procedures or work that means less pay for the same work.

#5: Renegotiate the promise. Expect reduced benefits… later retirement dates, etc.

#6: Default. A horrible option for everyone at this time.

#7: Deflate the benefits through inflation. The unfunded promises have been made in US dollars are may be kept in dollars but due to lowered inflation increases real benefits decline.

The risk of inflation especially is one reason why having a way to earn some extra income will become a financial necessity.

If… taxes rise… inflation eats savings and investments earnings.  Then we have five options that I have written about often.

#1: Move to less expensive areas within the US. This is why we have our Smalltown USA focus.

#2: Export retirement to lower cost countries. This is why we offer our Ecuador Living service. See Ecuador on TV and two ways to earn in Ecuador here.

#3: Live in near poverty.

#4: Die.

Options #3 and #4 are not good options and we have no service for these!

#5: Keep working. This can be a good… fulfilling option if your doubts on debts make you feel that your economic future could be in peril.  The ability to provide an elastic (price can rise with inflation)  service that you love makes sense wherever you are… right where you live now… or in small town USA or abroad.  This is why we offer numerous courses on how to earn extra income doing something you enjoy.  We are working here to provide lots of ideas/help so that you can achieve this happily and easily…

Gary

See details about our: Online Course on how to have an Internet business

Online course on how to have a self publishing business.

Online course on how to have a seminar tour business.

Here is an excerpt from our latest lesson of “Event – Full Business – How to Profit From a Seminar, Tour and Events Business”. This excerpt outlines why events can create profits but why to be careful if you make them free. 

“At that time the US seminars were free.  That was a double mistake…  triple actually.

Free Event Error #1: People appreciate what they pay for. A fee makes an events worthwhile. Because the delegates who enrolled had not made a financial commitment they were far less likely to show. In fact about half those who enrolled did not show.  This left our meeting rooms half empty (bigger rooms cost more empty or not) as it wasted a lot of donuts and coffee (which still had to be paid for)… not to mention the cost for the left offer handouts I was lugging around.

Error #2: Free events put people on guard. Everyone… well almost everyone… knows there is no free lunch.  This reduces the effectiveness of an event when delegates have their defenses up.  They are waiting for the penny to drop. They are suspicious… as they should be.  This reduces their receptiveness and diminishes the effectiveness of the event to complete its purpose.

Error #3: Free seminars do not create revenue unless the sell something that generates revenue. Events can be used to sell. Many are. Most of us have been invited to free lunches… free dinners… and free seminars. We expect a slaes pitch if we go and if the seminar is to sell… the sales pitch has to be good.

The idea I was selling was too new and had too many obstacles to close on the spot.  So there was not enough mutual funds sold to cover the costs and make the seminars profitable.  There was not enough time in one day to establish the problem… show the solution, gain the delegates trust and close the sale.

Here is the crux of the one day, free USA seminar error and how I made it. The crux was that I was trying to run an idea driven event into a  location driven event when I was not in the locale.

Recall back to lesson number two.  I started conducting free seminars in Hong Kong… to avoid traffic… in the process of selling mutual funds.  The purpose of those Hong Kong events was to present a problem and solution… not to close a sale. I was resident in Hong Kong at the time. The event gave a presentation… but left the sale for a later personal meeting with those who were interested.

In the US events I zoomed around the country giving presentations… showing delegates what to do. Then I left before they had a chance to take action!  I lacked a structure for follow up.

After doing this for awhile, I (or my bank manager at least) realized that this packaging was not sustainable.  I made two changes.  First I began charging $99 for the one day seminar.  This would pay for the coffee… donuts… room and part of my travel.  Second, I wrote my first book, “Passport to International Profit”.

The plan was to gain some extra income from the book sale and that the book would fortify the problem and solution so delegates would be more likely to buy overseas mutual funds.

Then came the education! That year when doing my accounts, I saw that book sales and seminar fees created greater revenue than mutual fund commissions.  I stopped selling funds (the hard part) and began focusing just on education through books, reports, courses and events.  I have never looked back.

This was a good shift for several reasons. First not long after this the regulatory agencies around the world all tightened up making it really hard to sell mutual funds from other countries.   That would have put me out of the mutual fund business, had I not already quit.

Second the tightening of regulatory agencies as is the norm when governments get involved in business created an extra need for information. This expanded our publishing and events opportunity.

Third, when we had no fund sales agenda… when we were just providing information we became better… taking a broader view and our events delegates became more trusting.  This made our events much better and developed a loyal list of delegates who attended our events again and again.

Up to that time I was operating totally as a one man show… marketing… research… arranging my flights… booking the hotel… getting the room set up… presenting the seminar.

Fortunately there were two big benefits that came from those seminars. One is I met Merri who also had publishing and events experience so now we had a team… of two.  The second benefit is I met another writer Doug Casey who was involved in conducting some three day international investing seminars (for Americans) in Switzerland.

Remember from above “Packaging involves pulling all seven of these factors together in the the most balanced way with your abilities and desires”.

Having two of us working on packaging and organizing the events helped a lot.  The first seminar Merri organized was a one day event at $99. She was able to attract 100 delegates strictly on a location basis (Naples Florida).  This fact and added experience I had gained with Doug Casey led us to try some different packaging combinations.

The added experience showed me that three day seminars based around the problems of the falling US dollar could be organized.  Doug invited me to speak at several such seminars promoted by the Kephart Communication. They were filled with hundreds of people.  This helped me understand that a repackaging could take place if I focused my target market.

Up to that point my marketing had been focused in the Wall Street Journal.  I learn that events based around the problem of the falling US dollar were better focused in subscription based specialty newsletters.

Based on this growing knowledge, Merri and I first tried a one week long seminar with a $1,000. This was a modest success… but then we tried a three day seminar at half that price and sales skyrocketed.  The gross increased dramatically since the number of delegates more than doubled. Expenses dropped (hotel rooms, coffee etc. for three days cost a lot less than for five).

We settled into a Friday, Saturday, Sunday (finish around 3pm) schedule that has remained our matnstay packaging formula for 30 years. Our prices have risen from $499 to $749 but otherwise this formula has remained pretty much the same.

Here is why this packaging works for us.  First most delegates can scoot into and out of our events losing only one day of work.  They can travel in Thursday evening and leave Sunday afternoon.

Second we have been able to keep our fees down (for reasons – such as the internet – we’ll review in upcoming lessons).

Third three days gives us a chance to teach a lot… but not so much it overwhelms  the delegates.

Part of our packaging includes a fairly easy 9am to 5pm schedule with half hour coffee breaks (10:30 and 3pm) plus a social get together on Saturday night.

This is the Program which is based on “How much time the potential delegates have to solve the problem covered in the event.” We expand our program definition beyond time to include how much ability does the potential delegate have to solve the problem. In these three days we are providing 15 hours of seminar content which we find is as much as a delegate on average can absorb.

There is a great temptation in packaging to cram in more than a delegate can hold… to go from early morning to late at night… and leave the delegate exhausted so they feel like they got their money’s worth.

A busy program can create overload and leave a delegate confused and scattered rather than informed.   This is an ideal package for some events… especially exhibitions with dozens or hundreds of  exhibitors.  The Purpose is to expose the delegates to a maximum number of contacts and a minimal amount of information.  The Purpose of many exhibitions is to help exhibitors pass out business cards and make contacts that can be  followed up later after the exhibition.

The purpose of our seminars is to give new delegates some global economic background… then share with them ways they can diversify their portfolios and share ideas on how they can earn income globally though their own micro business.  If the seminar crams their head with so much information they cannot even store… much less process and incorporate the information… our purpose has failed.

Plus we find that the social periods… the coffee breaks and social evening are valuable valid educational tools. They are enjoyed (fun is a vital part of the educational process) and delegates share their thinking and act as sounding boards for each other.

End of excerpt

Learn more about

Online course on about our online course on how to have a seminar tour business.

Or attend our next International business and investing seminar in North Carolina October 7-8-9, 2011.

Stay on October 10, for training to earn extra income as a Jyske Global Asset Management Agent.  See details here.

Extra Export Earnings II – Renting Inflation

Merri and I have rental units in four places to fight inflation. This unit is a loft with wonderful views.

Inflation is heating up globally and there are serious debt and economic problems everywhere.  Extra Export Earnings can help overcome this risk. This message looks at another form of exporting: low cost rentals.

Hopefully inflation will not get anywhere as bad as after WWI, but a look at inflation at its worst can help us see ways to invest and do business in times of more modest price increases.

Germany  borrowed heavily to pay WWI costs.  Heavy borrowing almost always leads to inflation and this did then.  In the USA and UK too.  Right after the war there was some stability, before inflation began to run wild.  By 1923, it reached the worst  in history. Prices sometimes doubled in hours. By late 1923 it took 200 billion marks to buy a loaf of bread.

Hard-working people with modest spending habits could not even buy a postage stamp with their life savings.   All debt was wiped put but so too were all savings.

Businessmen quit and speculated in stocks and goods instead. Small businesses survives holding material things such as : clothing food,  anything people could consume.  Salaries were paid three times a day yet shops were empty. Food riots raged. Businesses closed down, unemployment soared. The economy collapsed.

Anyone on a fixed income was destitute. They sold everything just to buy food.

One of our mountain creek rentals in North Carolina.

Now comes the question, what happened to rents?

A good book to read about this is entitled “Exchange, Prices, and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920-1923″ by Graham, Frank D.  Here is an excerpt from Google.books:

Tenants were protected from eviction so long as they paid rentals officially determined on the basis of prewar charges.  The amount collectible was occasionally raised as inflation proceeded but the increases always lagged far behind the existing depreciation of the currency and were quickly rendered nugatory by the further loss of value of the monetary unit.  At all times after 1920 rentals were more or less nominal, and, in the period of hyper-inflation housing was obtained practically f ree of charge.  Except for a possible reversion when financial order should be restored, the property of the landlords was to all intents and purposes confiscated.  The regulation of rentals had wide repercussions.  It reduced the cost of living and diminished the pressure for wage advances to compensate for the rise in commodity prices.  It was thus a factor in keeping those prices below what they would otherwise have been and in widening the differential between the domestic price structure and that of the outside world.

In other words during inflation expect this message from governments to landlords… “Screw you!”

A reader sent me a note regarding this saying:  Very good analysis of why hyperinflation is on the horizon.  Well worth the read. I’m not sure about this part:  “Considering that we just came out of the largest Real Estate bubble in world history, there is a glut of homes available to rent on the market. NIA has been saying for years that being a landlord will be the worst business to be in during hyperinflation, because it will be impossible for landlords to increase rents at the same rate as overall price inflation. Food and energy prices will always increase at a much faster rate than rents.

“If you have rental homes with fixed rate mortgages/PITI of, say $600/mo., and your tenants are responsible for paying their own gas and electric, and you’re renting the houses at $800+/mo, then to my mind it won’t matter that you can’t ‘increase rents at the same rate as overall price inflation’.  As long as you can continue to rent for more than the PITI (principal, interest, taxes and insurance) then you’re okay.  And if overall prices are going up, up, up, so will rents, though they may lag.

“Some will say that the real threat to the real estate rental market is government-mandated rent controls.  And of course, that’s true.  But you can say that about anything.  The real threat to the food commodities market is government-mandated food price controls.  The real threat to the gold market is government-mandated gold price controls.  The real threat to the stock market is government-mandated stock price controls (or mandated market closures during which you can’t buy or sell).  The real threat to the energy market is government-mandated oil price controls.  In short, the government can mandate whatever price they want for anything.  So that can’t be your primary reason against investing in something, to my mind.  There will be the government price, and the black (free) market price.  S.B., NV

Our Central Florida

rental.   Outside and…

in.

This process of renovation fills part of Merri’s and my creative desires as it…

creates income and inflation fighting potential… if… inflation does not run too wild.

Those of you who have read this site for awhile know I like and have plenty of fixer uppers to rent.

I agree with the ideas above but always like to own rentals without mortgages or debt. They will then more likely to be a dependable store of value.

I am actively looking for more in the Mt. Dora area now.  However the note above is correct… if inflation becomes serious, the profit will come from capital appreciation after stabilization… not rental income during the inflationary sprint.

This is why my portfolio also has rental fixer uppers in Ecuador as well as the USA.  As strong inflation grows in some parts of the world, there are always other parts where more people will move (Ecuador for instance) and this will increase the rental demand there.

Inflation is with us. About this there is little we can do.  We can arrange our affairs to be protected and prosperous during inflation.  Real estate is a good hedge against inflation. Rental fixer uppers even better and best of all real estate in two or three different places.

Gary

Our Ecuador beach rental.

Our rental casita in the Prima Vera I complex.

Gary

Learn more on how to develop Extra Export Earnings at our International Business and Investing Seminar in West Jefferson, North Carolina June 24 to June 26, 2011.

Surviving International Investing Shifts Part VII – Using the Frequency We Call Taste

Inflation is a major issue in our lives today and there are many ways to deal with this loss of purchasing power.

At this site we are focusing on five ways to profit in growing inflation: real estate… multi currency investments…. commodities… equities and by having your own micro business.

An underlying basic that overlays all five approaches to beat rising costs is to spot shifts before they fully occur.  Understanding what is likely to happen next allows us to place our investments and our activity whether it be a job, business or an investment, in the path of progress.

This means we need to think outside the box… look ahead… eliminate the tyranny of reason…as taught in an educational system that’s always looking at the past… not what’s ahead.

One way to get a feel for how the global social-economic trends are flowing is to observe new technology and how it affects the five senses… taste, touch, sight, feel and hearing. Stimulating and maintaining these senses is what a great deal of all economics is about.

This philosophy is the root of these “Surviving Shifts” and this portion looks at the sense of taste.  (See links to the entire series below.)

Faith Popcorn is a famous futurist and she has a firm, Brain Reserve, that releases predictions each year.  One of her predictions was food coaches.

Her belief was that as Americans grapple with eating habits, a new business opportunity for food coaches would emerge.  This business would offer psychology, therapy and nutrition.  This new emerging industry will emerge as a help in controlling obesity.

Popcorn predicted that food coaches would work with individuals and families to develop customized and achievable healthful eating lifestyles factoring in the client’s age, work, cultural background, genetic makeup and emotional state.

Popcorn’s vision has become reality.  British blogger Karen Knowler calls herself “The Raw Food Coach.” Susan Marque is a food and life coach to the stars. ABC’s Los Angeles affiliate, KABC-TV Channel 7, employs food coach Lori Corbin as a reporter. Hillary Marra blogs as a family food coach.

This helps explain why (according to Zimbo.com) Jamie Oliver, an English chef known for food-focused television shows is also an active opponent of good nutrition as well as taste and is a leader in opposing the use of processed foods in national schools.

Jamie Oliver photo at Zimbo.com

How can this help us fight inflation?

Using the “Turn your Passion into Profit Philosophy”, let your interests and those of the future converge.  If you like food and or health and nutrition… consider a micro business as a food coach or conducting food preparation workshops or classes, etc.

This basic business tenant has legs and resists inflation because… the higher cost of good food is nothing compared to the costs of health care.  Spending a bit more to eat well and right… can save a fortune!

One fact we know… all economics are ultimately based on food, clothing and shelter.  After these basics, the five senses kick in and refine and expand the drivers of economics:  desires.  Eating and food will always be an important part of every economy.  As our world shifts faster and everything including our food sources become more complex, confusing and frightening… help… real authentic… help with how to eat enjoyably, affordably and healthily is a business idea that is real.

Tomorrow, let’s see how “Business Tadding” can fit into business ideas of food.

Gary

See how to make your own International Business EZ

Meet Gary & Merri Scott this June 24 to 26 in West Jefferson, North Carolina and learn how to create your own international business.

See surviving shifts

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Here is a Swiss franc update.

Why we need to invest in strong currencies like the Swiss franc… 100% cotton…100% price increase.

Inflation is global.  This poses a great threat to our purchasing power…wherever we live. The global economy is now so interconnected that a tsunami makes the cost of used cars rise in Ecuador or the USA.  SLR camera prices skyrocketed all over the world.  A political struggle  in China can mean it costs more for air conditioners in Florida.  A flood in India can make your next cotton shirt or blouse cost much much more in your local store.

February 2011 Wall Street Journal article said: Cotton for March delivery touched $1.9445 a pound in InterContinental Exchange trading on ongoing concerns that demand will outpace supplies. Prices settled up 1.3%, or 2.39 cents, at $1.8997 a pound as some speculators locked in profits.

Clothing retailers, including Hanesbrands Inc., Jones Group Inc. and Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. are passing on the higher fiber costs with price increases for consumers this year.

Strong demand, particularly from China, and tight supplies have pushed cotton prices up 31% this year. The price has more than doubled over the past 12 months.

Heavy rains in India and flooding in Australia and Pakistan have pressured global supplies this harvest season, driving up prices. On Thursday, a panel recommended to the government of India, the world’s second-largest grower nation, to keep its export cap at the current 5.5 million bales, further fueling the rally.

Price tags may be marked even higher in the coming months since the cotton in garments on the racks now was harvested six months ago, when the fiber cost less than half the current price.

One way to combat rising prices is to hold investments in strong currencies like the Swiss franc.

Each month International Living publishes one of my short columns on international investing.

Here is part of an article that appeared last month in IL about the Swiss franc.

My first investing profit in the 1970s came when Swiss francs cost about 25 cents. The franc rose to 75 cents by 1980. This hooked me on investing in strong currencies.

Yet for 20 years I have advised against having too many Swiss francs. Swiss franc returns were lousy.  Other types of investments in other currencies were better.

Switzerland struggled transforming from a private domain in an increasingly unprivate world.  Plus the Swiss National Banks intervened any time the franc really strengthened.

The Swiss could not allow an overly strong franc. As a small nation without natural resources it must export to survive. The franc could not appreciate much versus the euro or Swiss exports would be slaughtered.

Now three events have diminished these barriers to Swiss franc appreciation.

First, German firms have created the most competitive industrial sector of any advanced economy. German exports jumped 18.5% in 2010, far higher than most of the developed world.

This German strength means there is a 50-50 chance the euro will split into the Euromark and the Eurosouth. The euromark would likely jump 20% to 30% against the eurosouth and rise 15% to 20% versus the US dollar.

The Swiss franc has needed to remain linked to the euro because such a large portion of Swiss European exports go to Germany. If the Euro splits, then the Swiss franc will be able to rise with the euromark.

Second, Switzerland’s export problems have become its strengths. Swiss exporters faced problems with the strengthening franc and a weakening of their most important market – the European Union. Many small and medium sized Swiss businesses were frightened that the European market would become closed to Switzerland.

Switzerland’s response was a steady diversification of exports away from the EU towards emerging economies in Asia and South America.

This export shift has paid off. 60 percent of Swiss exports still go to the EU but 2010 trade figures show the growth of goods and services to emerging economies outstripping those to Europe.

2010 exports to the EU grew 4.2 per cent, compared to an increase of 25 per cent to China, 46 per cent to Singapore, 26 per cent to Russia, 21 per cent to Brazil and 19 per cent to India.

A potentially new stronger euromark, the Chinese yuan, Brazilian real and Singapore dollar are all strong currencies. This export growth to these areas gives the franc room to soar without killing Switzerland’s ability to export.

The growing strength of China and Asian economies coupled with structural weaknesses in Europe have helped Switzerland gain a position of relative competitive strength over European firms.

Third, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, like the global economic setbacks in 2007 and 2008, will be inflationary. Inflation is too much money for too few products and services.  Japan’s natural disaster destroyed a huge amount of capital. If Japan borrows and prints money to restore the loss, as the world’s third largest economy, the amounts could be enough to expand inflation everywhere.

This will increase Japan’s debt so the yen, like the US dollar will be weakened versus currencies of countries like Switzerland which have lower national debt.

Investors are especially looking for strong currencies just as Switzerland is enjoying comparatively strong economic growth and low unemployment rates. This along with the franc’s reputation will enhance the franc’s strength.

However, just holding francs still does not make sense. Interest rates are essentially zero. This is not enough… even with currency appreciation.  Swiss shares offer greater inflation protection and have shown great strength over the past five years.

We know that the euro has been a strong currency compared to the US dollar. The chart below from www.finance.yahoo.com shows how the dollar has risen and fallen versus the euro over the past five years.  Though there have been moments of strength, the dollar is now near an all time low versus the euro.

Despite the dollar’s fall versus the euro, the euro has fallen steadily against the Swiss franc for a half decade also. Here is a chart of the euro’s fall from finance.yahoo.com.

Here you can see the greenback’s five year drop versus the Swiss franc in clearer detail.

Inflation is with us and remains so for at least awhile. Inflation could become serious.  Choosing to invest in currencies that maintain purchasing power makes sense. The Swiss franc has been and remains likely to be a strong currency for some time ahead.

See two Swiss franc equities and how to get updates on our portfolio decisions for the next year FREE. This is a $79 value, but you’ll be put you on a special list to receive all my personal portfolio updates for the next 12 months at no extra cost.  When I buy or sell something in my portfolio, you’ll immediately know about it… plus get exclusive access to telephone conferences with global investing experts.  For details Click here.

Gary

Learn more about investing in the Swiss franc and other strong currencies at our June 24 to 26  International Investing & Business Seminar in West Jefferson, North Carolina.  For seminar details, click here.

See how to attend this seminar FREE plus save $300 below.

Prosper From Forces of Inflation

Join Merri and me as we look at ways to prosper from the forces of inflation.

International Club 2011-12 Membership special until May 7, 2011 $1,499. Enroll here.

Inflation is here and the US dollar will fall. This fact is conformed in an April 12, 2011 Wall Street Journal article by Cynthia Lin “Inflation Concerns Weigh on Treasurys”. Here is an excerpt:  Worries that the central bank may be falling behind the curve on inflation weighed on U.S. Treasurys on Monday, even after a senior Federal Reserve official signaled that interest rates could stay low for longer.

The prospect of $66 billion of note and bond auctions also dragged prices lower, strategists said.

“The bottom line is that the current perception has subtly shifted toward the view that global central banks are in monetary tightening mode,” said Andrew Wilkinson, senior market analyst at Interactive Brokers. “Even though the Fed appears to be nowhere near that point, U.S. yields have been dragged higher by surrounding fears of inflation.”

Highlighting those fears, the 10-year breakeven rate—which measures the difference between 10-year Treasurys Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPs, and nominal rates—hit 2.655% on Monday, the highest since May 2006. That signals the market’s annual inflation expectation over the next decade.

As other central banks begin to tighten—including the European Central Bank, which raised rates by 0.25 percentage point Thursday—the fear that U.S. officials may be lowering their guard against global inflation has been a headache for bondholders. It has been especially  troubling for investors holding 30-year bonds, those most vulnerable to inflation eroding their value.

Government bonds were also under pressure from the prospect of supply.

The Treasury is scheduled to sell $66 billion in notes and bonds this week, comprising $32 billion in three-year notes, $21 billion in 10-year notes and $13 billion in 30-year bonds.

With a government shutdown averted, “the focus is back on how well these auctions will go and who will participate in the face of what appears to be future inflation,” said Kevin Giddis, president of fixed-income capital markets at Morgan Keegan.

Still, the policy debate underscores an increasing focus on inflation.

This means that while the US government continues to borrow to spend, other governments are cutting back… a sure sign of US inflation and a weakening greenback.

We consider this risk so high that we have taken the unusual step (the first time in our 43 years of business) of setting our 2012 Spring schedule.Then we created a new option so you can participate in all these seminars and course into 2012.

There are five ways to combat the destructive inflationary forces that will raise havoc with your purchasing power.

#1: Multi Currency Investing through US brokers and bankers abroad.

#2: Commodities.

#3:  Real estate.

#4:  Living in lower cost zones.

#5: Having your own micro business for extra earnings, freedom fulfillment and fun.

We have specialized for over four decades in helping our readers excel in these five inflation beating opportunities.

The big benefits of belonging to the International Club is the power of repetition, updates and international friendships.  As a club member you become friends with other members as you meet again and again.

International Club members are invited to our Florida home during the winter seminars.

Your first savings is $7,690 in 2011 and 2012 just on waived seminar fees.

As you will see below you can attend 11 Florida & North Carolina seminars that would otherwise cost $9,189.  The $1,499 membership saves you $7,690.

Join us and our International Club 2011 – Spring 2012 and enjoy this savings plus much more.

The International Club brings together experienced, like minded souls, who take a positive view and think outside the box..in a constructive…thoughtful way.

Merri and I are in our 43rd year of organizing courses, seminars and newsletters about international and quantum lifestyles. The importance of this sharing…by like minded souls…was reinforced when a delegate from a course sent an email that said:

My Dearest Merri and Gary, Thank you for your most gracious hospitality last weekend. I am just thrilled at being a part of your group. You and Gary were exactly as I imagined you to be, warm friendly, kind, considerate, genuine, helpful, fun, sincere, what else can I say……I felt so comfortable in your presence and learned so much in your course. I was sad to leave the farm that Sunday afternoon. You made us all feel so welcome and cared about. You were so kind to make arrangements for a ride with the other delegates from the Charlotte airport. They were so nice to me and so helpful, by the time the weekend was over I felt like they were my long lost brothers. Monday morning we all had breakfast at the airport together and I was so sad to see them go, I was sad the weekend was over, perhaps sad is not the right word for how I was feeling perhaps Gratitude is a better way to describe it. Grateful for having the opportunity to share the weekend with such wonderful, like minded Human Beings, in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. Thank you Merri and Gary.

Thanks to you I now have new hope and a new direction to move forward in my life. Thanks to you I am so ready to move to Ecuador and begin a new life. I just have to figure out what I am going to do and how to do it.

I know by attending your classes and conferences that through education and due diligence I will make the right choices.

This delegate’s comments about “belonging and feeling like a brother” to the other delegates is a wonderful refrain we have heard from our readers, year after year.

21 years ago Merri and I created a way that readers can join us to be immersed in a year-long learning program through our International Club.

The ideas behind this program began all those years ago in Vienna, Austria while we were conducting a course there. One of our older delegates, had some sort of attack. The first fear was heart trouble. Several delegates took him to the hospital. Others stayed with him there. I don’t think that delegate was alone for a minute!

What impressed Merri and me was that no one asked the delegates to help this man.

The friendships of delegates sharing many courses had just grown so strong that it was a natural reaction, just as if a family member was ill. Fortunately, it was only travel fatigue and the delegate didn’t miss a session of the course!

When you join our International Club 2011- Spring 2012 you become part of a special family. The very first member to join the club all those years ago wrote, Thank you for the enjoyable and informative courses. I am pleased to be part of your international family and look forward to continuing my education at the next course.

His feeling struck a familiar chord. It has always been one of my greatest satisfactions to see how much fun delegates have getting together, sharing information and making friendships.

These courses somehow draw together like-minded souls. For this reason some delegates come back again and again. They come to learn, but also to be with their many friends made at the courses. When like-minded souls get together again and again to discuss a common purpose, magic happens! I can’t explain it in any other way-but it is true.

In a way our meetings are almost like family reunions. Perhaps it is getting together and reflecting on what has been said and what has been happening.

Learning with those who are also interested in the world creates thoughts that multiply the value of what we gain. This is hard to describe but results are most powerful and wonderful! This is to me is as important as the great financial benefit of attending many of our courses.

See our 2011 – Spring 2012 schedule below.

We started and have continued this program for 21 years because there are wonderful benefits from having repeat delegates at courses. Having repeat delegates makes the whole course somehow more exciting for all. Being a repeat delegate makes it easier to make and keep wealth and to lock in the knowledge you gain. It’s an exciting lifestyle. We have fun, gain adventure, discovery and friendships and share ways to improve our health and wealth!

Normally we only accept membership at the end of each year… but due to the unusual risk we see now, we added this new option to club membership that entitles you to all US courses in 2011 and the Spring of 2012…  in the cool Blue Ridge of North Carolina and  in Historic Old Florida.

The next saving is Seminars via MP3 (or disc) and one Ecuador tour fee is waived as well.

You’ll see a very busy 12 month schedule below.  Very few club members actually attend every course and tour…  but certainly some attend almost all of them!

If you attend even a few of the courses, you gain considerable savings… PLUS we record the investing and business seminars so you can have the course downloaded on your computer to listen on MP3 or on disc when you cannot attend in person.

This means that you stay in touch with all the business and investing ideas we develop at each of the investing and business seminars you cannot attend.

Here are the courses and tours where your seminar or tour fee is waived.  Then see more savings below.

May 7-8  Imbabura Real Estate Tour ($499 or couple $749)

May  9-10   Shamanic Mingo Tour  ($499 or couple $749)

May  12-13-14   Cuenca Real Estate Tour  ($499 or couple $749)

May 17-18-19   Coastal Real Estate Tour   ($499 or couple $749)

June 24-25, 2011  International Investing Made EZ,  Jefferson NC. ($499 or couple $749)

June 25-26, 2011   International Business Made EZ,  Jefferson NC. ($499 or couple $749)

International Club members are invited to our farm during June, September and October seminars in North Carolina.

June 16-17-18   Coastal Real Estate Tour   ($499 or couple $749)

January 12-15, 2012  Super Thinking + Spanish, Mt. Dora Florida ($749 or couple $999)

Feb. 10-11, 2012  International Investing Made EZ.  Mt. Dora FL ($499 or couple $749)

Feb.11-12, 2012   International Business Made EZ,  Mt. Dora FL ($499 or couple $749)

March 8-11, 2012  Super Thinking + Spanish, Mt. Dora Florida ($749 or couple $999)

Schedule subject to change. Always check final schedule at www.GaryAScott.com/catalog

International Club 2011 Membership $1,499. Enroll here

There is even a third saving:  $897 more!

When you join the club, I’ll email you our online course “International Business Made EZ”, a $299 value, plus four bonuses.  You receive the bonus course “Self Fulfilled – How to be a Self Publisher”. which also has a $299 value.

Plus I email you the bonus course “Tangled Web – How to Have Your Own Web Based Business” which also has a $299 value.  Because our self publishing business has become totally online, I am send you this extra course free as I think it will help you have greater success.

In addition you’ll receive the 52 lesson course on how to create your own website using sitesell and finally I include an internet video on how to set up a website presented by our webmaster David Cross.

These courses are valued at $897… in addition to all the US seminars you can attend.

You may well wonder why I would make such an offer and ask why the cost is so low?

Let me answer this question frankly and from the heart. First, it helps us do a better job for you. We feel greatly enriched when we can really help our clients improve their lives. We have learned through years of experience the best way to do this is to meet with you regularly. We can best help you learn how to improve your health and wealth through continual expansion of knowledge.

Second, we gain enormous fulfillment from the many friendships we form through the years. Our friends have enriched our lives tremendously. Let me explain this in more detail.

As a member, you will be part of our international family that meets intensively over the next year to examine ways we can make our lives better. Our goal is beyond just having money. Our goal is to have quantum wealth… good health… wealth and fulfillment through service.

Though we give all course delegates our very best, we cannot help but to do a better job for those who come again and again. As we meet often; your particular wants, needs and desires become clear, and it is easier for us to help you find the right direction.

Another phenomenon is that repeat delegates help each other! They get to know one another, help each other learn, share their insights, make contacts, become friends and gain more wealth.

The fourth savings: Lifestyle for Two.

There is still more!

We have learned at our courses that many repeat delegates were couples.

We want couples! As a member of the program, you are entitled to bring another person to every single course or tour. The cost for that extra person will be ZERO!  You can bring whomever you wish. Bring your spouse, a friend, son or daughter, partner, accountant, adviser. You can bring the same person each time or a different person, whomever you choose to accompany you. (Accommodations and air fares relating to the courses are not included for members, delegates or their guests.)

Won’t you join us in this exciting club and share Merri’s and my lifestyle for the next year?

We look forward to seeing you at as many courses as possible and sharing this wonderful world of abundance and well being with you!

The fifth savings:   You gain Ecuador tour savings as a member of the International Club.

International Club members can benefit in Ecuador in the mountains or…

on the sea.  Delegates and International Club members on tour at Land of the Sun Inn.

View shot by an International Club member of real estate for sale on an Ecuador Pacific real estate tour.

The International Club offers this benefit… as a gift in Ecuador from the organizers of  Ecuador Discovery Tours.

The International Club fee is normally $1,799 yet during this Spring offer which ends May 7,  I have reduce membership to $1,499.  You save $300 more.

Take for example if you plan to attend our Super Thinking + Spanish, $999 for a couple and one International Investing and Business program, the normal cost would be $1,998.   International Club members attending just these two programs would already save… plus could attend all the other  Florida and North Carolina seminars plus receive $897 worth of emailed courses.

Our seminars and the Ecuador tour schedule is shown above.  You can attend all the Florida and North Carolina seminars and choose to accept an Ecuador’s savings.  Morya Ecuador Discovery SA has agreed to let International Club members attend one Ecuador tour in the schedule above for just $40 per person per day internal transportation cost.

This is a savings of up to $599.

I invite you to be a member of the International Club which allows you and your guest of your choice to attend all of these courses and tours.

Savings #6:  YOU SAVE EVEN MORE if you take a Galapagos Cruise.

We work closely with Haugan Travel which have expanded their fleet so club members can enjoy a Galapagos cruise for as little as $509 per person.

Haugan Cruises has added three new vessels so they have a  broader range of cruises to suit all budgets. They now have 5 vessels and are offering several special introductory tours.  This creates special savings up to $1,000 for all our readers and provides club members an extra savings of up to $554 more…. a total of $1,554 saved.

Savings #7: Membership is normally $1,799 – save $300 more. International Club 2011-12  Membership $1,499 until May 7.

Add all the savings together!

You can calculate the savings as our schedule of all 2011 courses.

Florida & North Carolina seminars you can attend or receive in an MP3 file worth $9,189.

emailed courses sent to you worth $897.

Ecuador Tour Savings up to $599.

$300 membership discount until May 7, 2011.

Total Savings from your $1,499 club membership fee.

You Gain $10,985 of benefit for just $1,499.

Plus more if you take a Galapagos Cruise.

Lock in savings!

Here is one final benefit. When you enroll… we automatically lock in this low fee for next year so your savings are automatically renewed in 2012 and 2013 at $1,499. Of course if you choose not to renew, just simply cancel membership at no cost.

Let’s beat inflation.  Won’t you join us in this exciting club and share Merri’s and my lifestyle for the next year? We look forward to seeing you at as many courses as possible and sharing this wonderful world of abundance and well being with you!

Gary

International Club 2011-12 Membership $1,499. Enroll here.

Links to the “Surviving Shifts” series.

See surviving shifts

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Read US economic growth slows, inflation surges

 

One of the best ways to beat inflation is to live in low costs areas like the coast around Bahia Ecuador.

Here’s an update on this area beginning south of Bahia starting at San Clemente.

Beach at San Clemente.

Two days left to order Fedex delivered Mother’s Day roses from Ecuador

The map below shows why San Clemente (marked with A), which is just a bit south of Bahia, was the first place on the coast where I bought Ecuador beach real estate.

San Clemente is a small village almost equidistant to the two airport access points on Ecuador’s coast, Manta and Bahia, plus it is on the coastal highway just before it veers inland behind a strip of low lying hills.

These hills run along the coast from San Clemente to Bahia and further north separating the highway from the beach, discouraging over development and encouraging quiet hidden beach opportunities.

In addition San Clemente is almost equidistant to Quito and Guayaquil, the two largest population centers, and is accessed by major roads also shown on this map.  This creates holiday opportunity for the big city folk.

San Clemente is itself a tiny… dusty village so the attraction here is peace and quiet.  This is what Merri and I love.

However, those who want to live in a lively town will do better living just a bit further north in or closer to Bahia.

Our Ecuador beach penthouse is at Vistazul. This community is nicely protected by those hills.

Vistazul is right on the beach and protected by these low lying Manabi hills behind.

Here is the view from our penthouse so you can see…

why we love it there.

Now Vistazul is about to get even better.

The developer of this project, Kjetil Haugan, recently sent me this note.

Gary,   This email is to inform you that we will close the hotel from next week on and until late June for renovation.   We will change the location of the kitchen, increase the capacity of the restaurant, redo the swimming pool (partly infinity pool), put A/C in all rooms, put in new beds and mosquito nets, fix all the sliding doors/windows, put in concrete walls around the hotel, fix the gardens, make more family suites, paint the hotel and change and redo everything from the dining tables, to the outdoor furniture.  Most of this will be done during these 6 to 7 weeks but the rooms will be done throughout the year.

We will also start to sell club memberships to local people with a point system plus offer this to the ex pats living in Cuenca.

We are adding new administrators at the hotel; Edwin and his Canadian wife, Cris. They used to run our yacht operation in the Galapagos. She will also help out at Vistazul being the contact person for the residents and helping out with decoration, purchase of furniture and rental management.

So hopefully you will have time to come down to San Clemente later this year to discover the new Palmazul!

Vistazul is also doing well right now. The electricity work, water plant and gardening should all be ready by the end of May. Then I will help the residents start to form the HOA. I have also contracted all the doors/windows so the remaining units will be completed within 4 to 6 months depending on the workers.

I had a lot of interest in the one level units and we continue to offer finance. Regards, Kjetil

See more details on these condos here

For answers to specific questions contact, Kjetil Haugan, at kjetil@haugancruises.com

This is an exciting evolution for the smal community and remains a great bargain… the $79,000 price includes club membership which includes use of all the improved facilities.

Hostal for Sale

Many readers ask for Ecuador real estate listing on hotels, hostals and B&Bs.  One small hostel near San Clemente is now for sale.

Don’t miss this listing tomorrow on our MLS.

Gary

Learn more about Ecuador at our June 24 to 26, 2011 International Investing & Business seminar in North Carolina.

Learn how to have your own Ecuador business online and save $268.

Better still enroll during the month of May for any of the Ecuador real estate tours below and save $567.

2013-2014 Super Thinking + Spanish – Writing to Sell Business Course Schedule

Schedule 2013-2014  Super Thinking + Spanish  – Writing to Sell Business Courses.

Join us.  Learn how to have better retirements with international investing and pinnacle careers.

We meet in Smalltown USA.

Here are photos I took of Mt. Dora…

There are numerous ways to fight food inflation.

Inflation is here… maybe… even most likely stagflation.  Most worrying is the fact that the biggest price rises are in items most of us cannot do without:  energy and food.

An April 16, 2011 article in the Seattle Post entitled “Consumers feel the pinch of pricier gas and food” says (bolds are mine):  Americans are paying more for food and gas, a trend that threatens to slow the economy at a crucial time.

So far, the spike in such necessities hasn’t stopped businesses from stepping up hiring or slowed factory production, which rose in March for the ninth straight month. Still, higher gas prices have led some economists to lower their forecasts for growth for the January-March quarter.

Consumer prices rose 0.5 percent last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Nearly all of the gains came from pricier gas and food.

When taking out those two volatile categories, core inflation was relatively flat. But at the same time, employees are only seeing small, if any, pay increases.

“People have less money to spend on goods other than food and energy and that is going to cause the expansion to slow,” said economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors.

One way to battle the rising cost of nutrition is to live in a country where food is cheap… plentiful and the quality is good… such as Ecuador.

This photo was taken by a recent reader who was traveling in  Ecuador. See more Ecuador food photos by clicking here.

A reader responded to a recent article at our Ecuador Living site entitled Ecuador Food Photos and wrote:

Gary:  Recently, I was in Ecuador for the International Living Conference, and Jean Marie was our guide for the Cotacachi and Coastal Real Estate Tour.  In fact, I was the one who posed the question to the mayor of Urququi about how much time he had remaining in his administration and what assurance we had that his successors would follow his agricultural land sale program.  However, my question here is in what village/city was this photograph (huge and varied fruit/vegetable selections) taken?  These selections are just mind boggling.  I would certainly consider living in this town given the selections and abundance of these health-enhancing foods.

Fruit and vegetables are crucial to my health (I cured myself of colon cancer without chemo by concentrating on fruits and vegetables).  One morning in Cotacachi, I went around the block from your hotel to buy some fruits to gorge on.  I bought 4 (Hawaiian-Solo type) papayas, 2 huge mangoes, 2 limes to squeeze over the papayas and about 12 bananas.  I gave the plastic bag to the vendor, he took a moment to compute the price, and when he told me $1.50 for the lot, I almost fainted.  I thought I was dreaming.  This was absolutely too good.

When I returned home to Los Altos, CA, I went to a fruit/vegie stand and picked up a Hawaian-Solo papaya (from Hawaii, of course), noted that the price per pound was $2.69, weighed it @ 1.5 lbs. and computed it in my mind @ approx. $4.00 for this 1 piece of papaya.  I immediately put the papaya back.

The above price comparison just speaks volumes for moving to Ecuador, in my humble opinion.

This reader expressed a fact that Merri and I have outlined many times. “Food is much better in Ecuador than in the US and incredibly inexpensive!

These food photos above were taken in Cuenca one of the two fastest growing areas in Ecuador.  To help readers understand the fast changing pace in Ecuador I recently added a four part series on Cuenca.  Read that series here.

Another really fast expanding part of Ecuador (with incredible seafood) is Bahia on Ecuador coast.

See a Bahia San Vicente Ecuador airport update here.

Gary

Join Merri and me in a one year program to learn how to prosper from the forces that create inflation.  See below how to be with us in person all the upcoming year.

Prosper From Forces of Inflation

Join Merri and me as we look at ways to prosper from the forces of inflation.

International Club 2011-12 Membership special until May 7, 2011 $1,499. Enroll here.

Inflation is here and the US dollar will fall. This fact is conformed in an April 12, 2011 Wall Street Journal article by Cynthia Lin “Inflation Concerns Weigh on Treasurys”. Here is an excerpt:  Worries that the central bank may be falling behind the curve on inflation weighed on U.S. Treasurys on Monday, even after a senior Federal Reserve official signaled that interest rates could stay low for longer.

The prospect of $66 billion of note and bond auctions also dragged prices lower, strategists said.

“The bottom line is that the current perception has subtly shifted toward the view that global central banks are in monetary tightening mode,” said Andrew Wilkinson, senior market analyst at Interactive Brokers. “Even though the Fed appears to be nowhere near that point, U.S. yields have been dragged higher by surrounding fears of inflation.”

Highlighting those fears, the 10-year breakeven rate—which measures the difference between 10-year Treasurys Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPs, and nominal rates—hit 2.655% on Monday, the highest since May 2006. That signals the market’s annual inflation expectation over the next decade.

As other central banks begin to tighten—including the European Central Bank, which raised rates by 0.25 percentage point Thursday—the fear that U.S. officials may be lowering their guard against global inflation has been a headache for bondholders. It has been especially  troubling for investors holding 30-year bonds, those most vulnerable to inflation eroding their value.

Government bonds were also under pressure from the prospect of supply.

The Treasury is scheduled to sell $66 billion in notes and bonds this week, comprising $32 billion in three-year notes, $21 billion in 10-year notes and $13 billion in 30-year bonds.

With a government shutdown averted, “the focus is back on how well these auctions will go and who will participate in the face of what appears to be future inflation,” said Kevin Giddis, president of fixed-income capital markets at Morgan Keegan.

Still, the policy debate underscores an increasing focus on inflation.

This means that while the US government continues to borrow to spend, other governments are cutting back… a sure sign of US inflation and a weakening greenback.

We consider this risk so high that we have taken the unusual step (the first time in our 43 years of business) of setting our 2012 Spring schedule.Then we created a new option so you can participate in all these seminars and course into 2012.

There are five ways to combat the destructive inflationary forces that will raise havoc with your purchasing power.

#1: Multi Currency Investing through US brokers and bankers abroad.

#2: Commodities.

#3:  Real estate.

#4:  Living in lower cost zones.

#5: Having your own micro business for extra earnings, freedom fulfillment and fun.

We have specialized for over four decades in helping our readers excel in these five inflation beating opportunities.

The big benefits of belonging to the International Club is the power of repetition, updates and international friendships.  As a club member you become friends with other members as you meet again and again.

International Club members are invited to our Florida home during the winter seminars.

Your first savings is $7,690 in 2011 and 2012 just on waived seminar fees.

As you will see below you can attend 11 Florida & North Carolina seminars that would otherwise cost $9,189.  The $1,499 membership saves you $7,690.

Join us and our International Club 2011 – Spring 2012 and enjoy this savings plus much more.

The International Club brings together experienced, like minded souls, who take a positive view and think outside the box..in a constructive…thoughtful way.

Merri and I are in our 43rd year of organizing courses, seminars and newsletters about international and quantum lifestyles. The importance of this sharing…by like minded souls…was reinforced when a delegate from a course sent an email that said:

My Dearest Merri and Gary, Thank you for your most gracious hospitality last weekend. I am just thrilled at being a part of your group. You and Gary were exactly as I imagined you to be, warm friendly, kind, considerate, genuine, helpful, fun, sincere, what else can I say……I felt so comfortable in your presence and learned so much in your course. I was sad to leave the farm that Sunday afternoon. You made us all feel so welcome and cared about. You were so kind to make arrangements for a ride with the other delegates from the Charlotte airport. They were so nice to me and so helpful, by the time the weekend was over I felt like they were my long lost brothers. Monday morning we all had breakfast at the airport together and I was so sad to see them go, I was sad the weekend was over, perhaps sad is not the right word for how I was feeling perhaps Gratitude is a better way to describe it. Grateful for having the opportunity to share the weekend with such wonderful, like minded Human Beings, in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. Thank you Merri and Gary.

Thanks to you I now have new hope and a new direction to move forward in my life. Thanks to you I am so ready to move to Ecuador and begin a new life. I just have to figure out what I am going to do and how to do it.

I know by attending your classes and conferences that through education and due diligence I will make the right choices.

This delegate’s comments about “belonging and feeling like a brother” to the other delegates is a wonderful refrain we have heard from our readers, year after year.

21 years ago Merri and I created a way that readers can join us to be immersed in a year-long learning program through our International Club.

The ideas behind this program began all those years ago in Vienna, Austria while we were conducting a course there. One of our older delegates, had some sort of attack. The first fear was heart trouble. Several delegates took him to the hospital. Others stayed with him there. I don’t think that delegate was alone for a minute!

What impressed Merri and me was that no one asked the delegates to help this man.

The friendships of delegates sharing many courses had just grown so strong that it was a natural reaction, just as if a family member was ill. Fortunately, it was only travel fatigue and the delegate didn’t miss a session of the course!

When you join our International Club 2011- Spring 2012 you become part of a special family. The very first member to join the club all those years ago wrote, Thank you for the enjoyable and informative courses. I am pleased to be part of your international family and look forward to continuing my education at the next course.

His feeling struck a familiar chord. It has always been one of my greatest satisfactions to see how much fun delegates have getting together, sharing information and making friendships.

These courses somehow draw together like-minded souls. For this reason some delegates come back again and again. They come to learn, but also to be with their many friends made at the courses. When like-minded souls get together again and again to discuss a common purpose, magic happens! I can’t explain it in any other way-but it is true.

In a way our meetings are almost like family reunions. Perhaps it is getting together and reflecting on what has been said and what has been happening.

Learning with those who are also interested in the world creates thoughts that multiply the value of what we gain. This is hard to describe but results are most powerful and wonderful! This is to me is as important as the great financial benefit of attending many of our courses.

See our 2011 – Spring 2012 schedule below.

We started and have continued this program for 21 years because there are wonderful benefits from having repeat delegates at courses. Having repeat delegates makes the whole course somehow more exciting for all. Being a repeat delegate makes it easier to make and keep wealth and to lock in the knowledge you gain. It’s an exciting lifestyle. We have fun, gain adventure, discovery and friendships and share ways to improve our health and wealth!

Normally we only accept membership at the end of each year… but due to the unusual risk we see now, we added this new option to club membership that entitles you to all US courses in 2011 and the Spring of 2012…  in the cool Blue Ridge of North Carolina and  in Historic Old Florida.

The next saving is Seminars via MP3 (or disc) and one Ecuador tour fee is waived as well.

You’ll see a very busy 12 month schedule below.  Very few club members actually attend every course and tour…  but certainly some attend almost all of them!

If you attend even a few of the courses, you gain considerable savings… PLUS we record the investing and business seminars so you can have the course downloaded on your computer to listen on MP3 or on disc when you cannot attend in person.

This means that you stay in touch with all the business and investing ideas we develop at each of the investing and business seminars you cannot attend.

Here are the courses and tours where your seminar or tour fee is waived.  Then see more savings below.

May 7-8  Imbabura Real Estate Tour ($499 or couple $749)

May  9-10   Shamanic Mingo Tour  ($499 or couple $749)

May  12-13-14   Cuenca Real Estate Tour  ($499 or couple $749)

May 17-18-19   Coastal Real Estate Tour   ($499 or couple $749)

June 24-25, 2011  International Investing Made EZ,  Jefferson NC. ($499 or couple $749)

June 25-26, 2011   International Business Made EZ,  Jefferson NC. ($499 or couple $749)

International Club members are invited to our farm during June, September and October seminars in North Carolina.

June 16-17-18   Coastal Real Estate Tour   ($499 or couple $749)

January 12-15, 2012  Super Thinking + Spanish, Mt. Dora Florida ($749 or couple $999)

Feb. 10-11, 2012  International Investing Made EZ.  Mt. Dora FL ($499 or couple $749)

Feb.11-12, 2012   International Business Made EZ,  Mt. Dora FL ($499 or couple $749)

March 8-11, 2012  Super Thinking + Spanish, Mt. Dora Florida ($749 or couple $999)

Schedule subject to change. Always check final schedule at www.GaryAScott.com/catalog

International Club 2011 Membership $1,499. Enroll here

There is even a third saving:  $897 more!

When you join the club, I’ll email you our online course “International Business Made EZ”, a $299 value, plus four bonuses.  You receive the bonus course “Self Fulfilled – How to be a Self Publisher”. which also has a $299 value.

Plus I email you the bonus course “Tangled Web – How to Have Your Own Web Based Business” which also has a $299 value.  Because our self publishing business has become totally online, I am send you this extra course free as I think it will help you have greater success.

In addition you’ll receive the 52 lesson course on how to create your own website using sitesell and finally I include an internet video on how to set up a website presented by our webmaster David Cross.

These courses are valued at $897… in addition to all the US seminars you can attend.

You may well wonder why I would make such an offer and ask why the cost is so low?

Let me answer this question frankly and from the heart. First, it helps us do a better job for you. We feel greatly enriched when we can really help our clients improve their lives. We have learned through years of experience the best way to do this is to meet with you regularly. We can best help you learn how to improve your health and wealth through continual expansion of knowledge.

Second, we gain enormous fulfillment from the many friendships we form through the years. Our friends have enriched our lives tremendously. Let me explain this in more detail.

As a member, you will be part of our international family that meets intensively over the next year to examine ways we can make our lives better. Our goal is beyond just having money. Our goal is to have quantum wealth… good health… wealth and fulfillment through service.

Though we give all course delegates our very best, we cannot help but to do a better job for those who come again and again. As we meet often; your particular wants, needs and desires become clear, and it is easier for us to help you find the right direction.

Another phenomenon is that repeat delegates help each other! They get to know one another, help each other learn, share their insights, make contacts, become friends and gain more wealth.

The fourth savings: Lifestyle for Two.

There is still more!

We have learned at our courses that many repeat delegates were couples.

We want couples! As a member of the program, you are entitled to bring another person to every single course or tour. The cost for that extra person will be ZERO!  You can bring whomever you wish. Bring your spouse, a friend, son or daughter, partner, accountant, adviser. You can bring the same person each time or a different person, whomever you choose to accompany you. (Accommodations and air fares relating to the courses are not included for members, delegates or their guests.)

Won’t you join us in this exciting club and share Merri’s and my lifestyle for the next year?

We look forward to seeing you at as many courses as possible and sharing this wonderful world of abundance and well being with you!

The fifth savings:   You gain Ecuador tour savings as a member of the International Club.

International Club members can benefit in Ecuador in the mountains or…

on the sea.  Delegates and International Club members on tour at Land of the Sun Inn.

View shot by an International Club member of real estate for sale on an Ecuador Pacific real estate tour.

The International Club offers this benefit… as a gift in Ecuador from the organizers of  Ecuador Discovery Tours.

The International Club fee is normally $1,799 yet during this Spring offer which ends May 7,  I have reduce membership to $1,499.  You save $300 more.

Take for example if you plan to attend our Super Thinking + Spanish, $999 for a couple and one International Investing and Business program, the normal cost would be $1,998.   International Club members attending just these two programs would already save… plus could attend all the other  Florida and North Carolina seminars plus receive $897 worth of emailed courses.

Our seminars and the Ecuador tour schedule is shown above.  You can attend all the Florida and North Carolina seminars and choose to accept an Ecuador’s savings.  Morya Ecuador Discovery SA has agreed to let International Club members attend one Ecuador tour in the schedule above for just $40 per person per day internal transportation cost.

This is a savings of up to $599.

I invite you to be a member of the International Club which allows you and your guest of your choice to attend all of these courses and tours.

Savings #6:  YOU SAVE EVEN MORE if you take a Galapagos Cruise.

We work closely with Haugan Travel which have expanded their fleet so club members can enjoy a Galapagos cruise for as little as $509 per person.

Haugan Cruises has added three new vessels so they have a  broader range of cruises to suit all budgets. They now have 5 vessels and are offering several special introductory tours.  This creates special savings up to $1,000 for all our readers and provides club members an extra savings of up to $554 more…. a total of $1,554 saved.

Savings #7: Membership is normally $1,799 – save $300 more. International Club 2011-12  Membership $1,499 until May 7.

Add all the savings together!

You can calculate the savings as our schedule of all 2011 courses.

Florida & North Carolina seminars you can attend or receive in an MP3 file worth $9,189.

emailed courses sent to you worth $897.

Ecuador Tour Savings up to $599.

$300 membership discount until May 7, 2011.

Total Savings from your $1,499 club membership fee.

You Gain $10,985 of benefit for just $1,499.

Plus more if you take a Galapagos Cruise.

Lock in savings!

Here is one final benefit. When you enroll… we automatically lock in this low fee for next year so your savings are automatically renewed in 2012 and 2013 at $1,499. Of course if you choose not to renew, just simply cancel membership at no cost.

Let’s beat inflation.  Won’t you join us in this exciting club and share Merri’s and my lifestyle for the next year? We look forward to seeing you at as many courses as possible and sharing this wonderful world of abundance and well being with you!

Gary

International Club 2011-12 Membership $1,499. Enroll here.

Read more about food inflation at  Seattle Post article”Consumers feel the pinch of pricier gas and food