On Darwinian Economics, Self Restraint and Keynesian prophesy.

Even if you have no connection whatsoever to the financial industry, you have some inkling that we’re in big trouble. It doesn’t matter if you are so far removed from the epicenter of Wall Street that you make your own butter on the commune. Point blank you are going to live through the biggest financial crisis since our grandparents generation.

So first let me issue out a few lines of pragmatic dogma.


1. Those views expressed in this essay are those of my own, not of my company or any organization that I may be affiliated with.
2. I am not an official economist, psychologist or theologian, but am absolutely intrigued by stochastic risk probabilities and the rapper Jay-Z.
3. The thoughts expressed are a mash of economic research papers, pop-psychology and macroeconomic theory.


Lets begin. In a recent issue of the “Economist” (one of the more venerable publications) they devoted articles to the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s magnum opus “On the Origin of Species.” In what seemed to have over stimulated the religious establishment of the time my views are more of a neo-conservative on the subject matter; choosing to accept God’s Creation first and evolution as a supplement to that end. As one of my biology professors in Catholic university once said: “I don’t know about you, but it’s damn hard to explain DNA without seeing that a higher “being” coded our DNA with design.”


So in light of Darwin what does his theories have to do with economics anyway? Plenty and in some camps everything. Let me quote the article: “Music, and also art, fashion and even literature, are reckoned by many Darwinists to be the human equivalent of the peacock’s tail; done well, they show off the genetic prowess of the creator. Similarly the impulse for self-improvement that creates economic growth comes from the need to be more attractive to the opposite sex than your rivals. And most profoundly modern Darwinists reckon that a sense of justice too, is probably an evolved phenomenon.” You are seeing around media outlets blasting the mantra “Greed is no longer good” a term of the times; changing the quintessential Wall Street identity of “Greed is good.” But what is impossible of our social matrix is our need for reproduction and attraction of the opposite sex being the engine of economic growth. Let me demonstrate and show you that it is wired in us no theory necessary. You get your first job and save up money to buy clothes (economic stimulus), why? In order to look good to impress and to climb the social ladder. Hierarchy as it seems is a function of primitive human genetics and cannot be disestablished. Guys, you go and start working at 16 save all your money to do what? To buy a 2nd hand set of wheels that will get you from point A to point B. But something just happened, you have just elevated yourself in the social order of Darwinian economics. You got the car to drive girls around or attend parties to improve your chances of mate selection. All of this is the economic engine that drives our Global economy.


Now think Wall Street. Don’t let the fancy computers, cars or lavish buildings devoid your eyes of anything but the truth, it’s the jungle. And in the jungle, it’s not just about survival; it’s about out competing your rivals. Use this example: “Would you rather make $100k when all your peers are making $50k or make $150k when all your peers are making $300k?” I can assure you that your answer in your heart of hearts was the prior, “make $100k when all your peers are making $50k.” Does the truth shock us? Not really, if we can “know thyself”, we can have some advances in the fight against our inherent social destructive traits. Now think this way, why would anyone want to work on Wall Street? If they tell you anything about how they love derivatives or valuation modeling or anything to that regard, they are lying. Now I’m not saying a person can’t love the process of working in finance, but essentially a person works on Wall Street for one reason and one reason only, to make money. The only difference I see between a Wall Street veteran and a Hollywood actor is that the Wall Street veteran can have his cake and eat it too. He/she doesn’t have to worry about the paparazzi (although these days that’s changing too). No other industry can reward bankers in their early thirties salaries in the millions and senior executives in the multiple millions. This jungle that is Wall Street is no different than the peacock spreading his tail. We create products so complex that it beguiles the most talented of financial engineers and economists. We are essentially trying to replicate the hunter mentality and exploit social economics.


On the last note Keynesian prophesies. If you don’t know my man John get to know him. He is behind almost every policy decision that Obama is making or will make and controls from the grave the actions of Paulson and Bernanke. Cambridge educated, Keynes’ contribution to society was his friendship to Roosevelt during the great depression and of course his: “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.” He is the father of modern macroeconomics and I pay ode to him each and every day. So what does Keynes have to do with you? A whole lot more than you think as of right now and I’m going to try and close the gap. In economic theory and I won’t make it sound too nerdy we have generally accepted relationships. What do I mean? For example in the long term when interest rates go up there exist an inverse relationship with inflation that says that it should go down. This is how the Fed manages through monetary policy. You have these relationships with lots of things like unemployment and inflation or other macroeconomic variables. But these “relationships” change in the short term and in the period of time that we’re in now, they are all converging. Meaning they are moving together when generally speaking what should invoke inverse relationships are now moving together. Now in 2009 when Obama takes his seat, he will be expected to have a playbook, a guide to exposit and rule from. The only similar economic cycle even close to what’s happening now is from the end of 1929 to early 1930. Keynes took center stage with Roosevelt and Roosevelt’s New Deal is a direct translation of Keynesian theory in action. Here’s the part that will frighten you even more. In the same period the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 48%, much like the 50% the S&P has fallen this year. But if we thought that was the end of the fall, boy were we wrong. The Dow went on to lose another 90% in value from 1930 to 1931. One out of every fourth person was unemployed; we had deflation of –22% and surprisingly the policy rate of 0.25% that the Fed just dropped it to is also the historical Fed funds rate during the great depression.


Taking a page out of history we would be inept if we didn’t consider the possibility of the same or worse happening. And we would be doubly ignorant if we thought that we were more evolved than our predecessors or that we could escape from the same Darwinian economics that govern our nature. However, there is something amazing that God endowed us with that animal’s lack, the ability to reason. Not reason in the sense of mediated negotiation, but reason in the Greek sense of logic. Plato, my favorite Greek philosopher said in metaphysics that the inherent nature of Man is to reason, but he could not answer why and for what cause. In other words: “Why did humans have the ability to reason?” His final conclusion was that it was to recognize that we were given this ability to understand our Creator, or as he put it, The Beautiful. Therefore if we are to survive through the perils of economic crisis, a level of self-restraint and humility needs to be enacted in order to understand the inexplicable predicament to which we now find ourselves. In a presentation that I was giving about a month ago, I used the example of using a financial tool called Stress Testing like a compass to navigate through the fog of perilous waters. After the adrenaline faded and the audience settled into the message, I kept thinking to myself: “Are we ready for this?” Well my friends I’ll have to break it to you and the answer is no we are not ready.


Advice for myself as well as you:


1. Trust in God, you’ve got nothing else.
2. Cash is king in deflationary period convert to cash. Personal opinion is to diversify into global reserve currencies. Dollar and Euro, maybe Yen.
3. Buy assets during deflationary period and hold during hyperinflation immediately following the economic stimuli.

The South has risen again.....

Indeed the Southland has prospered beyond the Yankee carpet baggers of the 1870's. But the South that I speak of is demarcated by the 38th parallel and not the Mason-Dixon. Very similar to our own civil war, Korea underwent a vicious war which now is buffered by the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ. As much as the U.S. civil war was about ideology the Korean War was all of that and more. The Korea that we know today is the only divided country left on this earth with the fall of East and West Germany. The sadness of Korea's story is that also of its ascension; the apotheosis of humanity, the rising Phoenix.

Throughout its 5,000 year history, Korea sat at the crossroads of incredible powers with tumultuous outcomes. Japan, China, Mongolia, modern day Russia and the U.S. all had a hand in shaping the South Korea that we know today. But in present terms, I personally believe that no other tragedy in it's history can compare to what happened on a day in late June 1950. Following a 35 year Japanese occupation, the victors of the 2nd World War, Russia and the U.S. took the impetus of imperial Japan's territory. Russia administrating the North while the U.S. administrated the South. Unable to agree on how to re-unify that country, Soviet backed Korean troops invade U.S. occupied South Korea. And what followed was a bloody war that took the lives of 50,000 Americans, hundreds of thousands of Mao's Communist Red Army from China, and of course the millions of Koreans killed as a by product of war.

From the ravaged death and putrid innards of a conquered nation; South Korea grew up in the shadow of giants to become a tiger in Asia Pacific. And to that tiger I make home for the next six months as I move from Toronto to Seoul.

What I'm looking forward to is the history of the land and not so much the modernity that it is now flaunting. To the eye of a westerner, Asian nations in general are eager to prove how modern they've become in relation to the western world with good reason. Most have been under the auspices of colonial influence with few exceptions to tout. Not even Imperial Japan can claim that they grew up without the antagonistic powers of colonial Europe and America. But what will become of Korea now that it lives in military scrutiny of Communist Korea the over arching dominance of China and the ever present American Military? Maybe nothing at all. Maybe the land will adapt just like it has for the past thousands of years in the face of danger and again summon the will to survive, to thrive and to let live.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I let the movers pack my belongings today to ship across the world, I sip my morning coffee and tend to a conference call. I use video conferencing tools, financial software and Skype married with blackberry. I survey the tools of my trade and bewilderment falls upon me at once and not at all. It is in one perspective necessary and in another breath incredibly beautiful. It never ceases to amaze me when I take off in a plane, look over the clouds and then land in one sustained movement. All of this for a person who takes flights at least once a week. I've been asked: "Do I enjoy travelling?" The short ans. to that is: "yes." Do I enjoy flight delays, weather cancellations and the such, of course not. But when the thrill of knowing that I can see family, my friends, my home town with a swift of nothing more than getting on a plane wherever I am in the world, that excites me. And it’s not even about the getting there, it’s the: “I can get home from anywhere in the world within a day.” Domestic coast to coast flights are more harsh than transoceanic flights because you can’t do it comfortably during the night. My suggestion to new comers of ultra flying, fly direct and at night. Let me demonstrate. I take the Sunday evening flight from New York to Dehli arrive Monday night, 13 hours. Take a night cap and call it night. Work the week and then take the Friday evening flight from Delhi back to NY arriving at the doorstep of dawn on Saturday morning refreshed to enjoy with family. Traveling is harsh if you don’t embrace it for what it is; a medium to which you can attempt to find balance.

I have flown back to NY from Toronto nearly every weekend available to me for the past six months. It takes me from my apartment in downtown Toronto to my apartment in Queens, NY door to door, roughly 2 hours 10 minutes, no exaggeration. When I lived in Fairfield, CT and went home for the weekend via public transportation it would take me approximately 2 hours 10 minutes. The distance between Toronto and NY is 600 miles and the distance between Fairfield and NY is 60 miles. The drive from NY to Toronto I did once took me 8 and a half hours and that was in the middle of the night. So if asked again do I enjoy traveling (via air), the answer is a resounding yes. As to my move to Korea, will I be able to come home every weekend, no. But if I wanted to could I, absolutely. There’s comfort in knowing that I can come home while you’re sleeping.

Torontonian Iconoclast

As much as I would like to continue from my last post, I realize that my readers that is you, would have to reconsider the thesis of my blog. I originally set this blog up to post about my experiences as an expat and the short-comings it brings. Instead sometimes I flounder in and out of my own recesses of contemplation and for that I digress.

I have been in Toronto all of 3 months now, having stayed the first two in a hotel and the prior in a lavish corporate apartment. The remainder will be spent in a equally accommodating habitat one block away from the original. My story takes place on the corner of King St. and Blue Jay's Way.

Toronto is a subtle more gentler New York City. Situated on the western banks of Lake Ontario it is a contradiction to the rest of Canada, much like how New York is a contradiction to the rest of America. Many of us who have lived or been brought up in large cities always compare a counterpart whether we consciously do it or not. For example if you grew up in London, you constantly compare NY to London, or if you were brought up in Shanghai, you try to compare that to Hong Kong. Vancouver to Seattle, Prague to Budapest, so on and so forth.

Given the geographical proximity of Toronto to Buffalo, should we compare those two? Both are located directly across from each other, but I'm sorry to say Buffalo is a sad comparison and a failure in cosmopolitan citizenry. A better comparison would be Montreal. Though on the surface Montreal is in the heart of Quebecois Canada, the urbanized class of gluppies are well represented in both cities. At first glance you would like to make parallels Queen St. in Toronto to St. Catherine in Montreal, High Park in Toronto to Mont Royale in Montreal. But after some careful exploration and a telling heart, Toronto can stand on its own and be used as a benchmark for its own right. It is a classy, left winged conglomeration of beautiful parks, people, buildings and public works. On any given day you can take a stroll down King St. in the heart of downtown Toronto where I live and never exhaust yourself with a myriad of attractions.

For the outdoor enthusiast, there is the entire lakeshore road you can bike, run, walk to your hearts content, or Kayak in the mini sea that is lake ontario. What makes Toronto able to stand on its own two feet is something that only a handful of cities in the world can claim. That is character, not just any but an Iconoclastic aperture to its charm. Just because a city has shiny new buildings doesn't give it the right be ranked among the greatest of the world. We must go beneath the surface just like in life to find out about our partner and to see what dangers, subtleties and fascinating epiphanies lie in the heart of our bewilderment.

Upcoming June trip: Travel along with me as I take another intrepid journey into the heart of the American legacy. I once sat atop Mt. Signal in the Grand Tetons contemplating the fissures on the horizon, thats how doped up one can get from Terra Opulence. Give me some expensive port and a fine cigar I could probably solve the world's problems through Jeffrey Sachs' model. This time I take a journey into God's country will keep a blog so stay tuned.

Preview: So where to next after Toronto? Seoul, South Korea. That is going to be one interesting place for work and travel. Will keep you all up to date as I go.

Terra Opulence

Many of you have had the opportunity to watch or even read the book "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. It's about a well educated guy who leaves on a two year sojourn meeting the end of his life in the northern outbacks of Alaska. He grew up in the well to do suburbs of Washington, D.C. and the book chronicles the questions that led to his final demise.

It's a pretty inspiring read and one that strikes a cord with me personally. Shortly after his death in August of 92' readers of the first article published in "Outdoor" magazine, gave harsh critique of his ancillary inexperience or what some might call misguided bravado. I won't go into depth with the story's disposition, instead I want to explore what I just coined "Terra Opulence." I googled the phrase and nothing came up so I'm coining it as my own. Terra opulence in my view is the intrinsic design of nature within man at its most voyeuristic extreme. In other words, the optical beauty of nature beckons us to return with polarity to whence we came.

I've grown up all my life in urban Brooklyn, NY. Discount education, travels, work and relocation I am and always will be a city boy. But yet, I have had incredible urges to return to a place I never knew. I have dreamt the forages of foreign mountains as if they were the subway lines of metro New York. I could not categorize this yearning as wander lust for The Expanse and not The Road was my home.

"An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is THE ROAD." - Roger Miller Song

This penchant proclivity has caused me no less than a handful of trips into the wild, no pun intended. I crossed The Grand Canyon alone in the heat of summer and promised myself I would never again subject myself to such torture. Two years later, I found myself in the valley of desert heat at the bottom of the Grand Canyon for a second crossing. I traveled into Wyoming to hike into the Grand Tetons, I've done the Appalachians and foreign mountains as well. What is this desire that has led men and women alike searching in wilderness the protagonist of oneself?

Enlightenment.

Enlightenment not in the sense of Thoreau. Let me eschew Descartes' most famous line: "I think therefore I am." The power inherent of knowing thyself. There is great power in knowing oneself. Shakespeare's Ophelia to Hamlet: "Know thyself." Let me exposit further the premise of self knowledge, it is the offspring of a fundamental theology that involves creation itself. Genesis 3:4 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Satan is speaking to Adam and Eve proposing that knowing good from evil will propagate the two as peers with God himself. Do I agree, of course not, neither does the billion plus Christians on this globe. But what Satan brings up though skewed, should not be overlooked. He is proposing that the knowledge of something, "good" or "evil" will produce power, that knowledge is almighty. Therefore, what is that knowledge?

To be continued......

Why they do that? The Levered Market

"Why they do that?" Was the question one of the students asked in the Junior Achievement class that I teach at Stamford HS on Wednesdays. The context of her question was about why people spend more than they have. And it all was in relation to my talk about the credit markets of today and how we got here. Simple I suppose, I could've answered her that not only do people overextend themselves but we have markets that make loans to companies/people who are already over levered. An entire market and sub-market exists in connection to leveraged loans and the CLOs (collateralized loan obligations) they generate. But I simply replied that greed and desire were probably the best examples of "why they do that?" We're greedy and we desire, therefore we create markets that allow us to buy things we don't necessarily have the money to buy.

So in practical terms, I explained the responsible use of credit and how to view risk management not the way I view it professionally, but how they can apply it in their everyday lives. Simple things like getting the best price for a student loan or building their credit history when they get their first credit card. Afterall, learning how to be a good user of credit might someday peak their interest to becoming investors and maybe even portfolio managers that they themselves can extend loans to other syndicates or businesses.

Renaissance

So for those who have been following up with me, I was suppose to have left for Taiwan 2 days ago for a duration of six months. That didn't happen. Instead I'm leaving this weekend for India for what will be the first of a few markets that I will be focused on.

I vagely recall one of my professors during my last semester of MBA adamantly train us on transoceanic flights. Strange I know, but it made a lot of sense because that class was focused on producing international business managers. Having to jet around the world in a relatively short amount of time, put on the A game face, come home and do it all over again does require some degree of finesse. Again this relates to the holistic approach of the new globally mobile yuppy, Gluppies.

Each gluppy as they travel more and learn more will devise their own set of rules. Gone are the days of the 9-5, the boring businessman. We as generation Y or the millenials are redefining what it means to be savvy. The generations before us laid a great foundation for us to build on, but we have our own flavor and our own drumbeat. Everything use to be so compartmentalized which inhibited the expressiveness of an individual; black and white with little shades of gray. Today we are not merely defined as "this" or "that", we are defined not solely by our occupations, but to the depth that one goes to reinvent the classical term, "Renaissance."

One can be incredibly career driven and still love the arts. We demand work/life balance because our generation has seen the scars left behind by our predecessors. Technology has allowed us to create a much better balance such as remote work agreements and the shift away from time oriented goals vs. task oriented goals. And let me ask you this, who's idea was it in the first place that your only source of income should come from one employer? Why should you not have multiple streams of revenue in order to offset an amazing but sometimes less paying job?

I challenge you to reconsider what you thought was the norm and then ask yourself, "Have I really tried to consider my options?" Think about it this way, we've been so use to putting all our hopes and dreams into one thing, i.e. our job, that we forget that nothing in this world can bare the weight of all our expectations. Its just not possible, not a spouse, a friend, not money. So in the plight towards Gluppy nirvana I wish you well and urge you to reconsider your current state of mind. Stay tuned as I report to you next from New Delhi, India.

Vail, Colorado

Ode to Tremblant 9/2007

"As we transition from this rainy summer day into fall, picture a
pristine white snow-capped mountain. Picture if you will all the
comforts of Mont Tremblant except a mountain that is a few times
larger with unbelievably wider trails.

Envision with me all the creature comforts that we have been relished
with, the beavertails, the jacuzzi's, fireplaces, and beautifully
furnished homes and of course the town itself. We have arrived at a
crossroads to which winter herself beckons us to bid Tremblant adieu.

Ladies and gentleman stand with me and give due homage in a moment of
silence. For to that gracious mountain we have called home shall sit
patiently awaiting our return.

O'Tremblant! Thou art fair and majestic. Laid upon the earth between
the Lauretian Mountains and blessed with the Francophonic tongue, you
have been the keeper of our snowboards for three seasons plight.
Remember us this season as we traverse Vail, Colorado."


That was in September 07', this week I return to tell the tall tails of Vail, Colorado.


Elevated beyond the reaches of mere mortals juxtaposing the Colorado Rockies lay a sheath of pure adrenaline.
To that of which my compatriots and I spent six consecutive days funneling in the regal granduer of Vail, CO.
No one can dispute the sheer vastness that makes up the Vail mountain range streching across seven miles. It is unadulterated snow bliss to the junkies for whom it matters most. I have never in my life experienced deep powder so deep as to wish for less snow. I felt for the first time alien sensations of riding down pure immaculate untamed terrain in wide open backcountry. And if the conditions were not perfect already, God called down snow from heaven to fill the mountain brims each and every night. And this Snow was awakened to the soft "swoosh" sounds each morning by my Shawn White Burton Board. Amen, Hallelujah!

It took two full days to acclaimate to the high elevation of 11,570 ft. Taking a shower was an effort at first, nevermind snowboarding. Each breath I took on the first day felt like my lungs were burning and it always took me a few seconds to gather myself after walking. Even with slight nausea, the experience was second to none. The advantages of having backcountry terrain available at Vail speaks volumes for its prestige. The experience could only be duplicated through Heli-skiing or backcountry outfits that lead those expeditions. When I say the conditions were perfect, I mean it. Getting from the base of Vail mountain to the backcountry range which was called "Blue Sky Basin" takes an expert roughly an hour on high speed lifts. On more than one occassion I had to reconsider my disposition because I was entangled in thick glades. So numerous were the trees in the backcountry that I had no choice but to take off my gear and hike to marked trails.

If you have any inkling of doubt regarding my excessively biased view of Vail; I invite you to consider my proposal and visit Vail for yourself and pray to God he bless you with the same conditions that he granted me.

Shedding Baggage

“One does not accumulate but eliminate.
It is not daily increase but daily decrease.
The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”

- Bruce Lee

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

- Philippians 1:21

-Warning: Long blog

It is unimaginable the stresses of constant moving while on expat assignments until you actually have to do it yourself. I’m already on my second move this year and there are at least two more to go before the end of 2009. Moving is tough enough as is, moving around the globe on multiple assignments for six months at a time really becomes an art of Zen. Luckily I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I become more savvy and join the ranks of the globally mobile.

Given the stresses of moving why do people do expat assignments? Actually expat assignments are considered career catalysts and in today’s global environment it becomes a requisite for senior leadership. Expat assignments are much more rare today than in the past because of the costs and fundamental shifts in management philosophy of empowering the local staff. It costs a whole lot less when managing your empire from your comfortable offices in Connecticut vs. sending all your executives overseas and having them manage the business. There are obvious cultural advantages in employing locals as well as shifting power from headquarters to the business in order to make fast market driven decisions. The traditional model of growth in new markets is to purchase a few businesses and then consolidate them into a platform that utilizes your firm’s distinct competitive advantages. When you first enter a new market that is when you have to “import” U.S. executives.

Of course many of you will go and start your own firms but I’m always of the adage that you should learn on someone else’s dime before you start making your own costly mistakes. Back to the “Expat blog”, I’ll probably have to find a better medium than xanga and facebook to track the changes to come. But I can begin sharing some of the things you will or already have encountered as you go through that process. I haven’t organized my thoughts for publishing yet (publishing doesn’t pay enough for blogs), but I will say that its one of my dreams to publish an expat/travel guide (I’m still working on the business book and fiction novel). For those doing assignments for large firms, you’ll probably have an army of folks helping you all the way from moving to visas to setting up internet at the local destination. Here are some thoughts to guide you along:

One point of Contact
Cartus International is the one stop shop for all my relocation needs. GE assigns me a partner which takes care of everything else. They are the gatekeepers which deal with every vendor that you do not want to deal with. If you’re relocating on your own because you have decided to quit your job and travel the world, look for other cost effective concierge services that you can call from anywhere in the world. They coordinate moving my furniture, shipping, storage, assigning me a local real estate agent, contact law firms, tax agencies, transportation to and from destination, car purchase (if you have that worked into your expat package), and insurance.

Visas
It pays to employ a professional agency to handle this for you. Time is money. CIBT is the firm handling all my visa apps.

Housing
Always look for housing once you have arrived locally. Refrain from trying to use the internet to search for a place. Employ a local real estate agent.

Communications
Use a quadband phone while traveling and sign up for Skype’s forwarding service. You then instruct your local wireless company to forward your calls to the Skype number and then have Skype forward those calls to your international number. This is the most cost effective method to have someone call you without knowing that you’ve ever left the country. The only phone on the market today that allows for both international calling and data is the Blackberry 8800 series worldphone which is unlocked.

Documents and files – Elect to have all your documents delivered electronically. Signup for a virtual drive such as Box.net and scan your documents to be uploaded to the virtual drive. This will eliminate having to carry hardcopies of any important documents while you travel the world. Make sure you scan all your travel docs, receipts, and tax information before you go because you’ll still have to file for taxes in the U.S. Eliminate all clutter by filing those scanned documents to your virtual drive.

Taxes
Don’t play around with this, use professionals. While abroad you still have to pay Uncle Sam and are responsible for local taxes. If you work for a multinational, your firm will pay the local taxes that you owe. Ernst & Young is the firm that will prepare my taxes.

Legal Matters
You absolutely want to employ the services of a well-known international law firm. Imagine you get into some fight in China and get sent to a local holding cell, you’re not going to receive the same treatment as in the U.S. You also have visa issues, resident and working permits that you need to worry about, or shall I say don’t want to worry about. I use Fragomen International for legal matters.

Insurance
Medical insurance shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re just relocating for travel on your own you can purchase local insurance and you can find out once you get to your destination how much the locals pay.

Emergency Services
Most of us will never have to employ the services of an emergency service provider, but God forbid something happens, you need to have it. Sign up for AMEX Gold or higher and you will receive the use of their travel centers which help in procuring emergency medical evacuation services. In the event of civil disorder or other emergencies it will be quite hard to procure private charter unless you already have that worked out in advance. Don’t laugh, situations like these really do happen. Think about the Philippines in the 80’s, Taiwan in the 80’s, China in 88’, the entire central and eastern European bloc during the late 90’s, Argentina in the late 90’s, and so forth. You may want more than the protection the U.S. embassy can provide you during that emergency. The number one priority of U.S. Marines are to evacuate diplomatic personnel first, and U.S. citizens second. I made sure that I had emergency Civil evacuation by charter built into the package.

Vaccinations
Get everything that is recommended for your local destination.

Get Organized
Consolidate all your contacts into one database, use Google Sync to synchronize all your work events along with your personal events. Use every google service available.

Personal Assistants
I don’t have a dedicated corporate personal assistant and even if I did most of us know they aren’t very helpful. So if you’re like me where you need a personal assistant but haven’t reached the echelons to receive one yet, hire your own. Go to elance.com or post a job description on monstertrak for grad assistants.


The idea of this whole process is to shed weight and travel light. Once you can have everything automated and electronic you can travel to any destination and truly enjoy your time abroad.

Stay tuned for the next edition of Gluppy!