Post: #1

Always good to hear the thoughts of worldly guys like this.

I like his anecdote about how he'd go to random countries and randomly call lawyers from the phone book to meet people. Big men like this just think so fundamentally different from us.

Post: #2

He is one of my all time favorite "red pill" thinkers.

Post: #3

Thanks for posting. Doug Casey is an walking storehouse of knowledge and experience that few human beings can relate to. Incredibly successful and smart guy with a certain avuncular charm. Good stuff.

Post: #4

He never said why Africa was a great place to make money, what did he mean by that?

Post: #5

You need to understand a little about Casey to use his advice.

First, he had a privileged upbringing. Casey was a classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown. After graduation, he did a grand tour of Europe. He bought a used Ferrari, brought it back to the U.S. when doing so was easier (fewer regulation), and sold it for a profit. He then repeated this several times.

Second, he is not an investor but rather a speculator. He looks for mismatches and temporary disconnects. In some ways this can be more lucrative, in other ways its more risky and less assured. He's made most of his money in commodities cycles - buying low and selling high.

As for Africa, its less developed than the west so he probably thinks you can show up and open a starbucks or whatever we have here. On some level he is correct.

I'm not anti-Casey. I like his political thoughts, and his political comments about the U.S. are spot on, even if a lot of Americans are in denial about it. But his investment advice is more theoretical than practical. If you are already rich, putting 10% of your money into his ideas and being patient will work. For regular joes, less so.

His broker is a guy named Rick Rule. Rick talks about buying low and selling high, which is the key but emotionally its hard to do. I have found his speeches and essays much more useful when investing. He's sometimes a guest on King World News which is a site that skews towards getting over excited about particular investment themes, but Rule is a guy who's thinking is always very sober.

Post: #6

(06-25-2017 10:21 PM)Phoenix Wrote:  I like his anecdote about how he'd go to random countries and randomly call lawyers from the phone book to meet people. Big men like this just think so fundamentally different from us.

Simon Black of Sovereign Man takes this a step further.
(He may have learned it from Casey)

Black says call up a lawyer.
If no one speaks English in the office, move on to the next lawyer.
and
If they don't send a car to pick you up, move on.

Post: #7

Quote:I'm not anti-Casey. I like his political thoughts, and his political comments about the U.S. are spot on, even if a lot of Americans are in denial about it. But his investment advice is more theoretical than practical.

Yeah, you won't get specific investment advice in a public speech. Things change quickly and you'd have to pay well for specific advice or be in the loop to know which is how it should be.

I disagree with him about Central America.
But I'm happy he said what he said.

The fewer gringos down there, the better...

Post: #8

Simon Black is a Casey protege.

I like Casey for his politics but his investing advice is not meant for everyone.

As for specifics he's talking about, don't know what he is referring to specifically. Generally, his Dominica example is a good example of what he is probably thinking. A lot of his speeches and essays are online for free, so google it. Some of his stuff is republished on other websites, like escapeartist.com/efam.com--I read a fascinating description of Mongolia there about 10 years ago. Separately, Jim Sinclair has spoken highly of Tanzania as a place to do business.

I subscribed to Casey's stuff for several years. I had some winners, some losers. His philosophy is to place 10 bets and expect to lose on 9 but look for a 20X return on the 10th. To do this, you have to speculate on some fairly iffy propositions.

One speculation he recommended many years ago in his paid newsletter International Speculator was apartments in Cairo, technically Africa. That one didn't work out so well.

Mostly he recommended junior mining stocks. He did this for 2 decades, then partnered with a bunch of guys called "Casey Research" but he mostly retired. The quality of the letters went downhill at that point.

The thing you need to understand about him is he is a dude that always had money behind him-he attended Georgetown at the same time as Bill Clinton and after he graduated he went to Europe and bought a used Ferrari. He was able to get it so cheap he started importing them into the U.S. This was back when you could do that with a lot fewer regulations.

I don't think his recommendation to go to Africa is a good one. When I was in business for my self, I did business with parts of the third world - middle east, asia, but not africa. Those guys are always looking to screw you. I'm talking private business men; the government is a whole another story. So that, on top of infrastructure limitations and lifestyle limitations would keep me out of Africa.

Instead of Africa, right now there are a lot of opportunities with the internet/idea economy so setting up in Africa is probably not worth it. Doing something like that is a lot more practical than going to Africa. You should check out James Altucher's website - he is an entrepreneur and talks more about thing you can actually do. Multiple streams of income, outsourcing, etc. Its a lot easier/more likely to pan out than going to Africa and getting ripped off or killed.

Post: #9

(06-27-2017 07:41 PM)Hypno Wrote:  I subscribed to Casey's stuff for several years. I had some winners, some losers. His philosophy is to place 10 bets and expect to lose on 9 but look for a 20X return on the 10th. To do this, you have to speculate on some fairly iffy propositions.

I wish I had known that. Often I would read his recommendations and just pick what looked like the best ones. I didn't know that nine out of ten should be losers. That's why I stopped paying money for his advice.