Ever heard about the concept of international diversification? What about sovereign diversification?
Sovereign diversification is a relatively new concept to the masses, although it has been know and utilized for a long time by affluent people. When we talk about diversification in general, stocks for example, it’s all about not putting all your money into one stock, or ”Not putting all your eggs in one basket”.
Sovereign Diversification
Sovereign diversification is just the same, but instead of stocks or companies, it’s about countries. See, if you have all your assets in one country and that country goes down the drain, or the government of that country decides it want to take your assets, you’re screwed. Just as companies can go bankrupt countries can also go bankrupt, just look at Argentina and how it has fared since it deteriorated.
When the turmoil comes to your country, which it will sooner or later, it’s a bad idea to have all your savings in your country, depend on an income only from within the country, expecting your family to be safe in your country.
So what can you do to diversify internationally? You can build sources of income overseas, skip the domestic stock market and invest in better stores of value outside of your country, storing gold for example, you might buy a small plot of farmland in a safer country, and find countries with cheaper yet better healthcare.
Here are three steps you can start taking right now to get started with sovereign diversification:
Step One: Second Passport
A second passport is a very useful insurance policy in case of political turmoil, social unrest or if someone sues you for all you’ve got. If you only have one passport and one citizenship you
are at the mercy of that government. If they decide to jail you or confiscate your assets there’s not much you can do about it, and other countries will certainly not care about you unless you’re Dalai Lhama or Madonna.
As soon as you get your second citizenship though, things change. If a government wants to jail you they not only have to answer to you but also to the government of your other citizenship. Goverments tend to mostly go after their own citizens, because then they don’t have to worry about international relations as much, so if you can show you’re the citizen of another country chances are they will be easy on you and go after another ”easy target” instead. That’s one of the reasons why as a tourist you’ll almost always get treated nicely by government officials.
The revolution in Egypt caused many people to want to leave, but with an Egyptian passport they could only go to countries like Syria, which was also in political turmoil. If they’d had a second passport from let’s say Latvia or Paraguay, they would have been able to pick and choose from a range of countries that gladly would allow them entry into the country.
Step Two: Offshore Bank Account
Opening an offshore bank account is the second step to internationalization. Having all your savings in the same country is a gigantic risk, because literally with the push of a button the government can have all your assets froze without having to explain themselves for a long time. In the US for example the Federal Government can easily freeze and confiscate your assets without having to prove their case first. Even if they’re wrong, they can hold your assets for several months, if not years, before you get it back. Good luck hiring a lawyer when all your money in the bank are froze.
Now, let’s say you have a part of your savings in a foreign bank account overseas, your government can not freeze it with the push of a button, they would have to go through far more trouble if they want your money.
You can open an offshore bank account without having to leave your country, and while some banks require you to deposit $5000, you can in many cases get away with depositing a few hundred dollars. There are banks that offer offshore internet banking, which is a very convenient way of managing your foreign accounts from all over the world.
Step Three: Offshore Company
Building income streams outside of your home country is a great diversification strategy, and an offshore company is the perfect medium for doing this.
Imagine for a second that you lived in Germany during the Second World War when inflation was rampant and the price of a bread of loaf doubled from one week to the next. If you earned 100% of your income from within Germany you would have been screwed by inflation, but if you made only 20% of your income from a stable economy outside of your country you would have been better off than 95% of Germans. This would have been hard back then, but they didn’t have the internet.