Riding the Tides and Suggesting Solutions Here at the Daily Bell

Like most people, I have lived my life swimming through tides of confusion, tides often created by others who desire to control us for their own desired purposes. I have, for whatever reason, a burning desire to "know" the world around me.

It has led me to visit dozens of countries on every continent in the world and to do business in many. And always to ask questions ... many questions ... of those with whom I interact on my journey through this "life maze" of ours.

I first confronted this desire directly while sitting on a beach on Little Palm Island Resort. I remember telling this story to the late, great, libertarian Harry Browne – a mentor and dear friend who participated in my first free-market publishing venture.

I told him how I suddenly felt the need for a pen and paper, yet I had not written anything in years – since business school, to be exact.

I had no idea what was propelling me to desire that pen and paper. After all, the sun was shining on the private beach I was on with my wife and everything was so serene and relaxing. Why would anyone want pen and paper? Especially someone who doesn't or didn't write?

Still to this day I do not know the answer. But what I do know is this. When the pen and paper were in my hands I wrote 11 pages without raising my head or even thinking, for that matter.

The whole experience was very surreal. I ended up writing what became the blueprint for FMNN and The Daily Bell and several books, some ghost-written and some under my own name.

Whatever it was that spawned that moment, it has never subsided. In fact, the understanding of the way the world works and the clarity of vision I have developed on a macro level is clear. Not always comfortable, I will admit.

But with this understanding I have been able to live and work and travel in many countries around the world and do so with "eyes wide open." I have little time for the trivia ...

One thing I have learned throughout this journey, and as a 43-year-old man with a wife and kids, is that there is still much to learn. Many things to uncover and many opportunities that lie hidden beneath the surface of countries and places most people may have read about but rarely visited.

These days, I fall into the camp of believing anything is possible – regardless of birthright circumstances. And throughout my life, perhaps despite the acceptance of the world around us, I have fought to enjoy whatever life's offerings brought.

And believe me, I learned early on what life's offerings can bring ... both good and bad.

See, there was an earlier period in my life when I believed that the world was a "fair" place. It is not. I get quite annoyed at my children when they suggest to each other in friendly squabbles that life isn't fair or this or that isn't fair.

My response is... LIFE IS NOT FAIR!

Get used to that.

I learned the hard way by stepping on the toes of "the banksters" in pursuit of opportunities I felt deserved rightfully to be pursued. I learned rather quickly they yield power beyond their collective checkbooks and that the power was enough to bring the full weight of the state to bear upon anyone who dared compete with their interests.

After a seven-year long battle with mounting legal bills, I was able to come to a "draw" and declare "no fault and no wrongdoing" and pay a US$35,000 fine, along with accepting some time-limited bans.

All this after spending more than US$1 million to defend my innocence and watching the very "smear bandits" that manipulated my accusation end up walking off with assets worth some 100 million!

Good things come from bad. Out of the lessons I learned, I launched Free-Market News Network (FMNN) with a group of willing colleagues.

We all believed in the mission then and today, having found out so much more about what we face, I have to say my determination to reveal how we're being manipulated, impoverished and slaughtered has only increased my desire to spread the word.

First FMNN and now the Daily Bell. An aggregate of up to a million visits a month or more. By sharing these global networks with likeminded people, I've had the privilege of learning and growing – thanks to each and every one of you.

Whether it is for financial preservation purposes, capital growth, or just general lifestyle ideas, I believe that I have a network of ongoing intelligence of likeminded relationships that can benefit all of us.

I will continue to support The Daily Bell and hope you will, too. It will continue to focus on identifying the elite control mechanisms that are designed to enslave our lives and enrich theirs.

But as we go forward, we'll increasingly emphasize solutions. Some will be obvious, some "pragmatic" and some entirely out-of-the-box. You may be surprised! The advisory service we're launching will focus on the solutions side of the equation.

The problem side will continue to be discussed and debated daily in the Daily Bell but it's my hope the global network of "free-market" thinkers we've assembled over this past decade will work together to add value to solutions discovered in these pages.

Over the next weeks and months we'll be announcing exciting opportunities for free-market thinkers ... for those generally who want to make a qualitative difference in their lives and the lives of their loved ones. If you want to join my inner circle of free-market thinkers built up over this past decade, you'll have the opportunity to do that.

The gift of security and financial awareness is the gift of freedom. As the world turns less free and more dangerous over the next decades, freedom will become your most precious legacy.

We've pioneered free-market publishing efforts with a decade-worth of highly successful websites. We've never sought publicity the way some in this business have. But we've had a significant impact and we can see it just in the terminology we've coined – terms such as "free-market thinking," "dominant social theme" and "Internet Reformation."

We've concentrated on being a thought leader, a publishing effort that influences culture from the top down by making predictive and thematic observations about the Way the World Works in the 21st century.

If you are one of the hundreds of thousands that turn to the Daily Bell every month, I think you'll find considerable merit in the solutions we'll be offering. Our increased focus on solutions is simply the other side of the analysis we offer now, and I promise you'll find it intriguing and likely rewarding as well.