Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Thoughts On Privacy............


It is quite disconcerting to me to see that 7000 safety depository boxes in Great Britain were opened and invaded without a court issued search warrant.
That in a practical sense places all safety depository boxes in full view, removing the aspect of both privacy of any asset and security.
Not that any reader is storing items that would be of interest to homeland security of any country, but legal and once constitutional privacy is the matter.
I have cautioned you that unless you already had the then legally available routes to financial privacy in place, actions taken today to pursue such ends might cause you serious repercussions.
Now we can eliminate local safety depository as legal means to a degree of financial privacy along with financial security. Whatever occurs in Great Britain will migrate elsewhere in the West.
Having lost this avenue of legal privacy, it brings into focus the necessity of holding paper certificates or being a book entry at the transfer agent of non-US securities.
Paper certificates are just what the words indicate. Rather than being a computer entry from a broker to computerized settlement systems, you actually hold a paper certificate with your name on it.
The other alternative is to become a book entry at the transfer agent of the non-US public company.
The value of either method of ownership is that these shares trade on many international exchanges, giving you the alternative of liquidation via other locations in the world in other currencies, which does now and will probably continue to be a worthwhile option.
This argues for the selection or retention of non US public entities in the investment group of your preference.
The ownership of a base or precious metals situation that does its business in a non-US country with its legal domicile in another non-US country as a paper certificate or as a book entry at the non-US transfer agent offers one of the very few legal and ethical alternatives for privacy protection and international asset transfers.
I am not suggesting anything here but the expansion of legal and ethical privacy and international asset transfers that will stand up in the light of day.

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