By Jamie Douglas
Siberia Moved to Europe for the Season
First off, I apologize to all my loyal readers who may have followed my advice on how to culturally enrich yourself as a nomadic expat in the winter. All of those lovely destinations, museums, opera houses, and low rates I was telling you about are still awaiting your arrival. …Friendly people everywhere, ample parking day and night.
But something happened along the way. The normally bearable winter temperatures of Central and Western Europe have been spoiled by no less than BMW, the Bavarian Motor Works, in an evil plot dreamed up by the meteorological department at Berlin’s Free University along with BMW in Munich. For a fee of £165, payable in advance of course, the mad scientists at the Free University have created a Siberian cold wave and named it ‘Cooper,’ after the formerly British little cute car used by James Bomb not so long ago to save the free world (again). Dog bless Mr. Bomb. read the full article

by Julie R Butler
For those U.S. citizens living abroad who still believe in participating in their country’s representative democracy, now is the time to submit your Overseas Absentee Ballot Request. Although the Expat Diaspora does not enjoy any real representation as citizens of the United States, federal laws such as those governing taxation, communications, privacy, commerce, copyrights, and transportation, along with foreign policy, affect us all. A case can certainly be made that we should have some kind of official representation in Congress!
Even though we all know that voting machines are vulnerable to manipulation and election fraud occurs and even steals elections (as opposed to voter fraud, which is not very common and is not actually addressed by voter suppressing I.D. requirements), it's a bit like the lottery: if you don't vote, then your vote definitely won't count. If you do, then at least it's a crap shoot. 
read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
Angela Merkel and the EU Summit
For all the expats living in different parts of the globe, our financial problems are sort of shared. While some of us, like myself, have had to adjust to live more frugally, struggling with Argentina’s real inflation being around 23%, some are much better off at the moment, those of you who have sufficient assets to weather this and the next few crises. But there is no doubt that the Eurocrisis, as it is presently unfolding day by day, has worldwide effects, and what will happen in real time, in the real world remains to be seen.
While members of the European Parliament were warm and cozy inside the EU council building in Brussels, outside in the bitter cold, freezing striking Belgian workers opined early about the outcome, which once again is raising fear over German dominance. The banners flying in the cold air were pretty unanimous in their condemnation of the accord reached by 25 of the 27 member states. (The UK and the Czech Republic refused to go along.) The strikers shouted “No to the Savings Pact – Yes to solidarity! The workers of course will once again bear the brunt of their government leaders’ fiscal follies over the past decade, when it seemed that the economic engines would run forever on the artificially created wealth of not just the Euro Zone, but the whole civilized world.
read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
First off, I would like to thank all the readers who responded so positively to yesterday’s article, and those of you who were rightfully outraged at the slap of the wrist punishment meted out to the Marine who was responsible for the murder of 24 Iraqis. And I also want to thank the handful of vitriolic “patriots” who attacked me for bringing up the court martial of the young airman in Wichita. Those asking for proof should instead ask proof of their usual news sources such as the New York Times, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Times etc.
Now on to a subject affecting nearly all of us expats, at least all those of us using cell phones or “handy’s,” no matter what part of the planet we live on. Those of us living in the Americas are victims of one of the biggest commercial frauds ever perpetrated on the world’s consumers, and it all started when, in the 1990’s, Mexico’s ruling party, the PRI, sensed that they would not be able to hold on to power much longer, and went on a privatization binge that included the outmoded national telephone monopoly, Telmex.
The then 50 year old PRI-connected Carlos Slim Helú, the son of Lebanese immigrants, had positioned himself to acquire the company by means of leverage and heavy borrowing from the government of Mexico itself. Today he is the richest man in the world, and he did it mainly on the backs of the poor citizens of the Americas, having deliberately overcharged his customers by US$13.4 billion per year in Mexico alone between 2005 and 2009, stealing the equivalent of 1.8% of Mexico’s GDP. read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
Election Economics
And yes, those two are joined at the hip. Whenever we enter an election year, partisanship overrules common sense; which is probably the main reason why so many of us have become expats, and why so many of you are still struggling with the direction the nation has taken while looking for an escape to a better situation.
It becomes a free for all for anyone who can get a reporter and his notepad to pay attention for a fleeting moment. Many of the most ridiculous utterance of course come from those running for election, or better yet, re-election. Headlines sprout like mushrooms after a rain in a cow pasture, and just like those mushrooms, they wilt and disappear after a couple of days, and only fake news shows like the Daily Show with Jon Stewart are there to call out the various liars about what they did and did not say. read the full article

OK, so we got a bit excited about joining forces with the Overseas Radio Network and taking the Expat Daily News live on air.
We wanted to let you know what we were doing and it seems some of our postings upset a number of our regular readers, in particular the “in your face” image of the Obama birth certificate.
The last thing we want to do is annoy and alienate our loyal readership and so we have set up a completely new website where we will be posting our activity regarding our radio broadcasts. So, if you want to know what we are doing on the air please visit www.expatdailynewsradio.com, if you don’t, then just stick around here for a lot more great editorial and commentary about living, working and retiring overseas.
Susan Beverley – Editor


See more expat articles at Expat Daily News

By Jamie Douglas 
Trouble on Australia Day
Australia day, January 26 is to Australians what Fourth of July is to U.S citizens. It is a wild celebration of the nation’s short history, based on the genocide of the aboriginal inhabitants, “Christianizing” the survivors, stealing all their land, and creating a white country, but in the Australian case, white was made out of white prisoners from England, where people were “shipped out” for major criminal offenses such as stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family. read the full article

By Jamie Douglas

In the so-called Uniform Code of Military Justice, there is one word that absolutely does not belong, and that word is Justice! Justice in the United States military is a long running joke.
I will give my readers a little sample of common military injustice before going to the bigger injustices. A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine was being transferred to Japan from McConnell AFB in Wichita, Kansas. We’ll call him Ken, because that really was his name. After making his way from Wichita to the port he was to depart from, I believe it was near San Francisco, he was denied boarding, arrested, put in chains, removed from the airport, and held in confinement for several weeks, before being returned to Wichita, shackled and accompanied by two air policemen on a military aircraft commandeered for this sole purpose.
read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
Greece and the Currencies
The writing is now on the wall, sky written and all over the financial pages of the world. According to most knowledgeable economists, Greece is set to implode, regardless of its inability to reach an agreement to restructure its debt.
Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, stated in a Bloomberg interview that “...the game is completely over. All the calculations are nonsense and have been since day one. Since the crisis began the money supply has been shrinking and the economy is going to implode, no matter what they do in the short run.” read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
American Oil companies, with the aid of the U.S. government, have been circling the globe like vultures since the dawn of the motorized society, in search of that black gold, crude oil.
One need only look at the damages done in the jungles of Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, as well as all other locations where crude has been extracted, with the subsequent ecological disasters left behind. Never mind the Santa Barbara catastrophe, the Exxon Valdez, and more recently the Gulf of Mexico disaster, where they are all so busy trying to blame each other that the victims are overlooked and abandoned by Big Soil.
Now enter Cuba, the small island nation just south of the Florida Straits, which has the potential to become an oil-exporting nation if prognostications of the size of the deposits sitting offshore are to be believed. The deposits have the potential to earn sizeable amounts of money for the communist nation that has so long been a thorn in the side of the U.S., reducing Cuba’s reliance on the subsidized oil coming its way from crazy old Uncle Cesar from Venezuela.
read the full article

The debate goes on.  Was Barack Obama born in the US or not?  Are you convinced by the birth certificate issued to prove he was?  


There are several errors on the birth certificate pictured below to suggest it is a fake. (Here is a link to give you a clue  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kenya )


Join us on the Expat Daily News Radio show today on the Overseas Radio Network to find out what they are.


We are on between 9am - 11am Eastern Time and you can listen for free by clicking "Listen Now" on the Overseas Radio Network website  click here.  No sign in required, just click and listen.










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The stories we will be covering today are:

When NatGeo talks, people listen - DOOMSDAY PREPPERS - new series airs 2/7/12 Will Obama Show Up At Eligibility Hearing?  The saga of the authenticity of "the birth certificate" continues.
See these links to validate the argument that the birth certificate is indeed a fake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kapiolani_Medical_Center_for_Women_and_Children http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kenya

by Julie R Butler

On January 9, the IRS re-opened its Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program (OVDP), offering a reduced penalty framework to encourage taxpayers with overseas accounts who have been delinquent in their tax reporting to fully disclose their accounts and come back into tax compliance. According to the IRS news release, IR-2012-5, “This program will be open for an indefinite period until otherwise announced.”

The IRS has instituted two similar programs in the past, one in 2009 and another in 2011. This time around, there is no deadline for applying. The catch is that the IRS reserves the right to change the terms of the program at any time, meaning they could increase the penalties or decide to terminate the program.   read the full article

By Jamie Douglas

Airbus A-380 Cracks
If you are reading this, while getting ready to take a trip on the world’s largest aircraft, the Airbus A-380, you can do one of three things:
1.       Keep reading and call me a paranoiac 2.      Stop reading and ignore the article 3.      Read this then immediately re-book onto a different  type of aircraft (suggested)
It was exactly two weeks ago that I alerted my readers to a problem concerning cracks in the ribs of this airborne behemoth. Now come new warnings, this time issued by EADS, the parent company of Airbus, announcing that in all probability, by the week’s end or early next week, the European Air Safety Agency (EASA) will issue directives to the type operators requiring more frequent inspection cycles and repair/replacement guidelines for the affected parts, which are apparently used on every hull manufactured so far.
read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
Yes it really is a nation all of its own! Charming, historic, and in spite of its name, it is still considered a Western European nation with Eastern European traditions and customs dating back thousands of years. It is located at the uppermost reaches of the Adriatic Sea, bordering Italy, Croatia, Hungary, and Austria.
This small republic is a member of the European Union as well as the Euro currency zone, which of course also makes it a member of the Schengen accord, which limits your stay to 90 days during any 180 day period, but residency is available, best obtained through an attorney knowledgeable in the language and the necessary bureaucratic hurdles you will have to jump through.
read the full article

By Jamie Douglas

First off, I apologize for this brief post today. I have been suffering from severe Internet constipation all day. My normally speedy dongles have let me down, offering up some of the strangest error messages. There is no time to be wasted, so let me get on with the subject to be discussed today.
The twin Austral nations of Australia and New Zealand consistently be at the top of the lists of the best places to live, the friendliest places, and the greatest places on earth to be an expat!
That is true, if you already are an expat there, because if not, migrating to either of these countries as a retiring and even well off individual is not easy at all. read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
Loaded question: Where can expats go and enjoy life, make new friends, be accepted as regular people, and feel safe?
If you are white, European, North American, Australian, or New Zealander, the answer is: Almost anywhere where you will be surrounded by people who appear like you and the only difference is the way you dress and your type of English accent.
If on the other hand you may be a native from the above named regions, but you are not one of the “lucky chosen” ones with Lilly-white skin and light colored eyes, then a large part of the world will be a difficult place for you to settle. Take for instance the U.S., a country that gained its self proclaimed “best country in the world” status by first conquering a huge region of the North American continent, then systematically going to war with the aboriginal owners of said lands, wiping out whoever they wanted, and finally bringing in slave labor to help make it the greatest nation in the world.
Assuming you arrive, or your family originated from the “other America,” the one that goes from the U.S.-Mexican border all the way to Tierra del Fuego, and you live in the USA, you are still treated, in many instances, as an expat in your own country. Just go to Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County, and you will see what I mean when you get stopped for driving while looking Hispanic. read the full article

By Jamie Douglas
In what may be excellent news for U.S. expats and other holders of U.S. dollars, Standard and Poor’s rating service on Friday downgraded nine nations of the Euro common currency zone. Most important of them all is France, which has been in the crosshairs of the ratings agencies for several months now, so much so that when the actual downgrade came, it almost seemed like a relief. Austria also lost its precious AAA rating, like the U.S. did last August, and Slovakia, Malta, and Slovenia were downgraded by one notch each while Cyprus, Italy, Portugal, and Spain lost two marks each. This singular action by the ratings agency probably most responsible for the U.S. mess created when they gave AAA ratings to what essentially were junk bonds sold by the Lizard of Lies, Angelo Mozillo, of Countrywide Mortgage Company, and his unindicted but willing Wall Street co-conspirators, will have widespread consequences for the future of the financial outlook of not just Europe, but the entire world, while temporarily helping to stabilize the dollar. read the full article

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Today's Stories -  Monday 16th January 2012

LIBYA and the NTC: 12,000 U.S. troops to Libya ‘US builds hospitals in Georgia, readies for war with Iran’ Monsanto Now Owns Blackwater (Xe)
Today’s topic:  Calling 9-11 at home and overseas
Dave and Susan discuss their thoughts and experiences of interaction with the emergency services in their home countries and overseas.

For anyone interested in the Chile Start Up program as mentioned on today's program, the link to follow is http://www.startupchile.org 

The world is in a slowly recovering recession where living standards have been reduced through little fault of those who are suffering the consequences of the actions, mistakes and greed of a minority of the rest. That is the political situation and truth about the situation from which there is no escape. Luckily for me I have recently retired after completing 44 years of working worldwide, having sampled the conditions and cultures of many of the countries of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas (north and south), the Indian subcontinent and the Far East. My retirement came just after the financial collapse of 2008, which was also a blessing. read the full article