by Jeff Thomas, International Man:

International Man: What types of risks — financial or otherwise — should people be aware of today?

Jeff Thomas: Well, much of the former free world, as we once knew it, is on the verge of collapse economically.

You have the U.S. after World War II suddenly taking over the world in production, and they were the future. A lot of countries got onboard: Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan. All those countries got on that particular train and did very well.

But the U.S. went from being the greatest nation in the world in terms of manufacturing to losing almost all of that and became the foremost debtor nation in the world. Now, the U.S. is in financially a worse place than possibly any country in the world. It’s just that whatever collapse is going to occur, it hasn’t happened yet.

So, that shoe hasn’t dropped, but when it does, it won’t only be the U.S. that goes down, it will be all the other countries that are on that particular train.

So, what that means is that if you want to come out of this well, then you try to diversify yourself into those countries that are not going to be as directly affected.

For example, if you wanted to leave the U.S., you wouldn’t go to Japan because it’s going to give you just as much trouble. You might choose to go to Thailand, or you might choose to go to Uruguay. There are a number of places that you could choose where you’re still going to have quite a good life and, going forward, possibly an even better life than exists in those places now.

Historically, this is always true. If you look at history over thousands of years, there’s always some country going down and another country coming up. It’s just a question of timing; when something is about to collapse, you want to get out.

In 1938, for instance, many people left Germany. It’s the same thing now. It’s hard to accept that this is about to happen to the great US of A since it’s been number one for so long, but it’s reached its sell-by date.

International Man: What is it exactly that you are looking at that might lead to a collapse?

Jeff Thomas: Well, there’s going to be a major debt collapse. It’s inescapable at this point. You get to a tipping point where, even if it hasn’t occurred yet, it’s too late to fix it.

When you get countries at the point where they’re borrowing so much money that they can’t even pay the interest any longer yet are moving headlong to borrow more and offering their people increased entitlements, the money isn’t going to be there. It simply doesn’t exist. In that regard, it’s really a question of simple arithmetic. Do the numbers add up, or do they not?

We see that in the US, where it’s rapidly moving in the direction of far greater entitlements and more Americans who are demanding much more in the way of entitlements. Somebody’s got to pay for this.

Historically, the same thing happens in every empire.

Every empire ends in the same fashion because human nature remains the same in any generation, in any era. The same mistakes end up being made by those in charge. So, you can look at what’s happened elsewhere.

For example, just in recent history, we can look at 2001 in Argentina and examine that. Or, you can visit Zimbabwe and research what happened there in 2008 and watch those that collapsed, how that unfolded. Or, we could take a trip right now to Venezuela and watch that in its collapsing stage.

I started warning about Venezuela, I think about eight years ago and, ever since then, in articles that I’ve done, since this is where they are now. They’re right in the middle of their collapse and nearing the end of it, at this point.

So, you can kind of watch the movie as it’s played out in other nations and say, “This is the pattern.” You can examine the pattern, and it’s almost always the same. So, you follow that, and you say, “Well, this is what potentially is going to be happening in the country that I live in.”

It’s not a question of trying to change the country because, historically, it doesn’t work. What you do, instead, is you step aside, you simply let it go past you by being in another jurisdiction.

International Man: You’ve written extensively about international diversification. What is the basic concept behind it?

Jeff Thomas: It’s a process of diversifying yourself amongst several jurisdictions so that no one jurisdiction can dictate to you.

It’s a known fact that countries tend to treat their guests a lot better than they treat their own citizens. Once they feel that they own you, they can be a lot rougher on you and make greater demands.

What you would ideally hope to do would be to have your citizenship in one country, probably have your residency in a second country or even more than one country, have your income in a third country, and even have your banking or wealth storage in a fourth country.

International Man: How difficult is it for someone to go about doing this?

Jeff Thomas: Well, it certainly does take some planning. But what it really takes is researching some places where you’d be happy being or where you feel that you’d be better treated and where the laws would treat you better.

For example, if you happen to be a U.S. citizen, which is one of the most difficult countries to be a citizen of right now—they tax their citizens worldwide, and other countries don’t do that—what you’d want to do is find the country that you could either be a citizen of or at least be a resident of or have investments in that has either little or no direct taxation.

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