Postcards: Don’t Move To Portugal

Dear Fellow Expat:Do you get these emails?The ones telling you about a wonderful discount on real estate in Portugal? depositphotos That you can live in Portugal for half the price of America?Yes.You can live there.But then you’d be in Portugal.Do you know what is happening in Portugal?No, I’m asking you. What happens in Portugal?I’m not picking on a business model, but I’ll tell you…Getting me all riled up about U.S. inflation… getting me to move across the Atlantic… selling all my stuff… putting my dogs in quarantine… and then… living in Portugal.To likely DIE in Portugal.No.Even if you make it there… most people in Portugal don’t want us there.That place is massively bureaucratic, making America look lean and agile like a startup.There’s no stable water supply.Americans pay higher prices than the locals (this also happens in many South American places). I could go on and on.I know these nations… very well.I also know way too much about how these things end.Sir Gregor MacGregor – the original “king of the Florida Republic” sold jungle land in the 18th century on the Mosquito Coast. It wasn’t paradise.During the Mississippi Company bubble in 1720, the company’s stock shares had pictures of mountains and people mining gold in those mountains.There are no mountains in Mississippi.PORTUGAL!?!?! Stay Here, Join the RepublicWe aren’t bailing from the United States. We’re biding our time.The United States is a mess.Right now, people are asking the President to pardon the former Baltimore prosecutor Marylin Mosby, who committed financial fraud and perjury (twice)… all while engaging in a complete show trial of a former President in New York.We’re bailing out students of their college loans… but still incentivizing colleges to RAISE their prices because no changes have occurred to the loan program.We’re raising taxes on capital investment… but still increasing regulations on the things that Americans need to invest in: energy, food, and housing.We’re run by people who have little idea of what they’re doing except for winning the worst popularity contests in the world. BUT AT LEAST IT’S NOT PORTUGAL!Do I worry?Hell no. Not over the long term.What do we do?We invest and hedge accordingly. We tap into simple metrics that apply to finding excellent companies at great prices. We see names like Ardmore Shipping (up 56% since our recommendation in January).Don’t move to Portugal.They don’t have the NFL, Major League Baseball, Deion Sanders, Detroit-style Pizza, or the New York Rangers.You don’t want to watch professional sports at 3 in the morning.Healthcare is bad. Corruption is worse.I also don’t want to live in a nation that got Catholicism banned in Japan… and thought they somehow had the mineral rights to half the world in the 16th century.Most of all… you don’t want to learn the Portuguese language…Portuguese is a language that sounds like a loud, drunken Spanish grandmother falling down a flight of tin stairs while carrying silver candlesticks. (Don’t worry. I’m not going to Brazil anytime soon.)Stay here. Be smart. Know your rights.Live your life.Most of all..Stay positive.More By This Author:What Isn’t The Fed “Breaking?”Reuters, Musk, And Emotions Russia, Risk Off, And Republic Rules