International Man: Today, political risks around the world are growing rapidly.

Aside from acquiring a second passport or residency and diversifying yourself financially, what are the benefits of physically diversifying yourself and where you live?

Doug Casey: Political risks are indeed growing very, very rapidly. The COVID hysteria is international and has greatly amplified political risk everywhere.

By far, the most important reason to diversify remains getting a second passport, or at least legal permanent residency. It's perverse, but only by becoming the de facto property of another government can you insulate yourself to some degree from the depredations of your home government. It's a sad testimony to the state of liberty on planet Earth.

There are, however, plenty of advantages besides the political and financial ones to diversifying physically and geographically. The weather and the local culture can only be improved by moving physically to another place. Personally, I prefer mild warm weather to nasty cold weather. Culturally, I wouldn't want to live in a place like North Korea or Saudi Arabia. Or a war zone. Or a police state.

It's better to locate where not only the weather suits your clothes but the way people think and act also suits you. Foreigners are more likely to allow an expat his eccentricities than his own countrymen.

It can be psychologically as well as politically and financially liberating to expatriate. Most people have the mentality of medieval peasants, who felt that if they wandered over the next hill, there might be dragons. The only way you can overcome that psychological attitude is by proving to yourself there really aren't dragons over the hill.

International Man: For years, you've recommended that our readers find a second crib outside of their home country as a form of diversification.

In light of the current global hysteria, what other things should people consider?

Doug Casey: Governments are unpredictable, much in the way a demented individual is. You can't be sure exactly what they're going to do, simply because national leaders are almost necessarily psychopaths. As a consequence, the situation is constantly changing.

For instance, when I lived in Hong Kong in the 1980s, the place was great; it was a really free, wide-open international city. It was exotic but low cost—before property prices moved up 10-fold. Since the Chinese government forced the British out, however, it's become much more constrained. Most recently, with political violence and the COVID bugbear, Hong Kong has become a much less desirable place to live. It's gone from being one of the freest places in the world to one of the more locked-down places in the world. And that can happen absolutely anywhere. A word to the wise.