Speculator

[Backlighting]

Looks like this may be a good read. Anyone out there read it?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L83YEX6?tag=lewrockwell&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B01L83YEX6&adid=1DBB700B6R48BJW1WK6Z&#customerReviews

[turkeyfoot]

Been getting Casey's Daily Dispatch for years. He's a big league investor selling the idea of a 5 star safe haven in Cafayate, Argentina.

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/seeking-galt-s-gulch

https://issuu.com/elestanciero/docs/estanciero_-_ed_5_-_final_-_pages

I may give it a serious look.

First line is an unmistakable allusion to Rand.

"Charles Knight stood tall at the edge of a precipice."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, turkeyfoot said:

Been getting Casey's Daily Dispatch for years. He's a big league investor selling the idea of a 5 star safe haven in Cafayate, Argentina.

Geoff,

I don't know the people involved, but I do know a little about the government of the country where they are proposing to settle.

I'm trying to imagine how a Galt's Gulch in Argentina would work. So I respectfully ask the following:

Have they lost their fucking minds?

Michael

[william.scherk]

4 hours ago, turkeyfoot said:

Been getting Casey's Daily Dispatch for years. He's a big league investor selling the idea of a 5 star safe haven in Cafayate, Argentina.

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/seeking-galt-s-gulch

https://issuu.com/elestanciero/docs/estanciero_-_ed_5_-_final_-_pages

We have at least touched on the Cafayate venture, in the context of failed and/or fraudulent "Gulchish" communities past, one of which was in Costa Rica, another in Chile. 

The Argentina venture is the most solvent and prosperous of them all. It is a kind of gated/private golf community that is not uncommon in the western world. Here below is a Google map of the area, with the estancia pinned in red.  Lots of plots for building your fabulous home.

It is interesting that the Argentina venture bloomed during the years of Kirshnerism under the husband-wife team that headed the Justicialist forces (the party remnants of Juan Peron).  That was one whacked-out regime in terms of rational economics.  The manipulation of exports, quotas, exchange rates, debt instruments, contracts, prices ... was fierce, unlike the relatively staid and straightforward economic regimes in Costa Rica and Chile. Argentina went exactly nowhere in terms of growing and expanding real domestic product.

But Argentina is a special place -- they live on illusions of first-rank national prosperity even as their economy went through five major crises in the last twenty years. That Argentina has the full trappings of a first-world country -- ie, state of law, civil procedure, land rights, navigable bureaucracy -- is perhaps key, and so the developer of the Cafayate 'Gulch' did neither lose his own investment nor decamp with other people's investments. The other two utopias were deceptive or rotten with fraud and mismanagement of funds, and the inability of marks to operate in a Spanish legal realm meant they had no means to interpret the documents involved. 

So, clear ownership, non-corrupt management, actual built infrastructure?  Just shows you how wise the actual fictional Gulchers were. 

-- the town of Cafayate is just off to the northwest in this Google map, You can zoom in and explore. They have roads and electricity and industrial farming there, even environmental regulations. Who knew?

From the fab magazine promoting the  Estancia experience ...

 

Edited November 3, 2016 by william.scherk
Cafa YAH tay

[turkeyfoot]

 

 

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Geoff,

I

I'm trying to imagine how a Galt's Gulch in Argentina would work. 

Have they lost their fucking minds?

Michael

How it would work? July 25, 2011 they broke ground. 

Interesting notes from Casey.

"The problem — your problem — is that any country can turn into a 1970s Rhodesia. Or a Russia in the ‘20s, Germany in the ‘30s, China in the ‘40s, Cuba in the ‘50s, the Congo in the ‘60s, Vietnam in the ‘70s, Afghanistan in the ‘80s, Bosnia in the ‘90s. These are just examples off the top of my head. Only a fool tries to survive by acting like a vegetable, staying rooted to one place, when the political and economic climate changes for the worse."

in Salta, Argentina. For those who may not be familiar with it, it is well away from the capitol, Buenos Aires, and therefore, hopefully, removed from much of the political influence of Argentine governments, which have been serially corrupt and dysfunctional.  Surely, if an individual seeks to expatriate himself, he is likely to want neighbours who share his point of view and choice of lifestyle. If such communities are to be successful over the long haul, they will need to either include locals, or, at the very least, have a symbiotic relationship with locals – an interplay in which both groups benefit significantly. (History has shown that isolation from indigenous people breeds resentment.)

My guess is he has accumulated much wealth and staying mobile is a part of his plan.  La Estancia de Cafayate may simply be a summer home.

Then again maybe theres a  camouflage solution made up of a screen of heat rays and reflectors designed to project a false image of a rock-strewn valley in an attempt to keep the federales away. ;)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Geoff,

Their only shot is to bribe the politicians. They know that and everybody else knows that.

And building Galt's Gulch on a foundation of bribes...

What could possibly go wrong?

Michael

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Their only shot is to bribe the politicians. They know that and everybody else knows that.

Is the Them who have only one shot the same Them who know that?  And what about me, ain't I a part of Everybody?

Even a cursory inspection of the Cafayate project shows a success.  Is their (They 1) success only possible by 'bribery' according to your knowledge of Everybody Else's  (Them 3) thinking?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 minute ago, william.scherk said:

Is the Them who have only one shot the same Them who know that?  And what about me, ain't I a part of Everybody?

Even a cursory inspection of the Cafayate project shows a success.  Is their (They 1) success only possible by 'bribery' according to your knowledge of Everybody Else's  (Them 3) thinking?

William,

It's just hyperbole for emphasis, not a scientific measurement.

If you want to do business with a Latin American government and not traffic in bribes, by all means be my guest. It's your money to piss away, not mine.

 

This is an area I know a lot about. Brazil, where I spend 32 years, might be next door, but I knew plenty of Argentians, enough to know the same rules applied.

Michael

[turkeyfoot]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Geoff,

Their only shot is to bribe the politicians. They know that and everybody else knows that.

And building Galt's Gulch on a foundation of bribes...

What could possibly go wrong?

Michael

"Galts Gulch", 2nd home w/amenities, hacienda grande. The first reference was made by a third party not Casey.

The idea of a privatized gulch closed to all but producers is only a plot point and idea romanticized by Rand, not by Casey.

Casey is simply an Ayn Rand admirer.

Its kinda of funny hearing this because my sister in law and husband travel agents built a place in San Martin de los Andes, Argentina. They describe it as a nirvana for fishing, hunting and trekking, delight with the locals and return every US winter. They did mention inflation and tax on foreign travelers. Ill take it as one more example that their view is in the eyes of themselves and leave it at that.

I wouldnt go even if invited. )

[william.scherk]

I noted we had been to the Bingo parlour with Cafayate before, earlier misspelled as Cafayete by yours truly ...

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

We have at least touched on the Cafayate venture, in the context of failed and/or fraudulent "Gulchish" communities past, one of which was in Costa Rica, another in Chile. 

Here's a snippet with links for those who like to chase monkeys.

On 10/5/2015 at 3:58 PM, william.scherk said:

On 10/5/2015 at 9:43 AM, Brant Gaede said:

On 10/5/2015 at 9:26 AM, Peter Taylor said:

I understand the appeal of the siren's song. Dagny crashes into Paradise, meets her dream boat, transacts with actual gold coins, meets the most interesting people in the world, separate from the disintegrating infrastructure of Socialist America, and then you hear about this real place that sounds like Shangri La . . .

On 10/5/2015 at 11:12 AM, Wolf DeVoon said:

You gotta be kidding. LFC was paradise? All these libertarian escapist fantasies crashed and burned. I think LFC was the last. Those libertarians took the ball and ran to the wrong goal.

The "Galt's Gulch Chile" fiasco was more recent than LFC. We have covered that fiasco here (and here). One successful libertarian subdivision/gated community was established in Cafayete Argentina. It looks like it is prospering.

 

I think what our Wolf described as the failure in Costa Rica was within the ball-park, when he suggested it was the lack of transparency, rule of law, which doomed that venture. I added the lurid details of the scamming and bullshitting that went on. The other place in Chile -- "Galt's Gulch Chile" -- also lacked transparency and rule of law in tandem. The shysters and scammers did not play open business with their would-be investors. They lied.

The advantage of Chile, Argentina and Costa Rica are their quasi first-world infrastructure, among which is actual legalities, hoops, fine print and judicial review. That is why Mexico does not have five Gulches and America a hundred more -- its culture of corruption and its legalities play against the ability to amass enough land for a community apart.

If you want to do something like that, then it has to be on Mexico's terms, and that means conformance with their plans. That is why there are actually ten thousand Galt's Gulches around the world in the class of reserved, private, off-limits to the ordinary Communities. In the case of Cafayate, ultimately, the difference between its success and the other two fumbles was indeed 'corruption,' but not in the sense of bribes.

Their corruption was in the builder/promoter/bullshitters/scammers themselves. And of course the nice community there in Salta Province, Argentina is a classy and attractive and relatively prosperous  kind of place. People can buy in and build and not get fucked over big league. The permits are in, the water system is assured, the golfing is good, the environmental considerations have been met -- and peace and productive engagement has been made with the larger community in which it finds itself. It sort of sounds like a Trump project, without the Trump, and without a lot of extra gilding, scams, licensing fees and The Greatest.

In other words, Coral Gables.

So, I agree with everybody, even Them. My own notion of a Galt's Gulch is like an invisible Business Class, hidden away, far from the madding crowd. A tiny, perfect place to plot and regroup, a kind of reverse-siege. Like a nicer Bilderberg gathering.

[turkeyfoot]

On 10/31/2016 at 2:22 PM, Backlighting said:

Looks like this may be a good read. Anyone out there read it?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L83YEX6?tag=lewrockwell&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B01L83YEX6&adid=1DBB700B6R48BJW1WK6Z&#customerReviews

Im about half way through the book, Joe. The main character is a twenty something that another twenty something ish might want to read about. The writers paint him into a corner where he acts in his own interests, actual interests (hes a speculator on site of his investment). Its a broad realistically detailed look into the worlds underbelly, an eye opener for someone who likes to vicariously learn about investment, politics, peoples sordid character and enjoy a good plot at the same time.

[Backlighting]

I'll look forward to your review when you finish it. Thanks.---J

[Jules Troy]

Jeez if you want a nice 3rd world country to live in that has the trappings of the "rule of law" you can always come up to Canada!