Safe Dividend Investing
In 2000, I lost $300,000 in mutual funds that an investment advisor had put my lifesavings into.... I lost it because I had entrusted it to an industry that does not educate investors nor encourage them to look closely at what that industry is doing with their money..... I set out to find a better, safer way to invest..... My podcasts relate to what I learned in creating a generous, reliable income and in growing my wealth.... A few of the more important lessons I learned and explore are:.... (1) It is critical that you become a self-directed investor.....(2) If you can not easily measure the risk and potential in an investment, then do not invest in it. This excludes from your portfolio bundled investment devices, like mutual funds, ETFs and Index funds,..... (3) Financially strong companies who have paid “good dividends” for decades will continue to stay strong and continue to pay good dividends because it is both part of their "character" and in their executives selfish interest.....(4) Diversification is critical. Investing equally in the best 20 strong dividend stocks is the ideal.....A portfolio of 20 limits your risk in any one stock to 5% of your wealth..... No matter how strong you think a stock is, do not fall in love with it..... I have lived very well off my steady dividend income for 18 years, through two market crashes and one pandemic. I have watched my portfolio’s capital more than triple from where I started, despite taking out a generous dividend income every year to live on... In charts, for my second investment book,(Safer Better Dividend Investing), I spent months scoring all 628 dividend stocks paying dividends of 6% or greater traded on the TSX, NYSE and the NASDAQ. I discovered dozens of stocks that can provide not only a generous dividend income but outstanding capital growth.....Financial independence is realizable for careful, patient, dividend investors.
Safe Dividend Investing
Podcast 286 - A SAFE PORT IN A STORM - BUYING A SECOND CITIZENSHIP & GOLD
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Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast #286 on August 1st of 2026.
The current threats by the US to invade Canada encouraged me to reissue a book with the new title of "The Fifty-First State - A Lost Alliance". I wrote this book 10 years ago when a devastating drought in the American Southwest was going to trigger the invasion of Canada to reroute the water in the Great Lakes. Now, the threat of turning North America into a battle ground no longer appears to be just an excuse to give fiction writers something interesting to write about.
In this podcast, I have a short excerpt from that book describing plans to repel the invasion but the main theme is showing you how to protect your life and your wealth by purchasing a second citizenship in a safe nation. If you were required to escape to a safe haven, it would also be wise to have converted part of your wealth to gold that could be drawn upon when you might not have access to income from your stock portfolio.
Ian Duncan MacDonald
Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
President of Informus Inc
2 Vista Humber Drive
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M9P 3R7
Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
imacd@informus.ca
SAFE DIVIDEND INVESTING
GOLD A REFUGE IN A STORM
Podcast 286
August 1, 2026
Greetings to investors all around the world. Welcome to Save Dividend Investing’s Podcast #286, recorded on August 1st of 2026. My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald. I am the author of seven investment books.
To learn more about my investment books visit www.amazon com and do a search for “Ian Duncan MacDonald books”. At Amazon you can find sample chapters and reviews by investors who have benefited from the books. More information is available at my website, www.informus.ca.
About 10 years ago I wrote a novel about a fictional invasion of Canada by the Americans. Recently, because of the latest US invasion threats in 2026, I decided to reissue that predictive book with the new title of “The Fifty-First State – A Lost Alliance”.
Insecure investors hold onto cash instead of buying stocks. Turmoil can be bad for your investment portfolios.
The following excerpt from that novel is followed by insights as to how you might consider protecting your wealth if North America were turned into a battle ground. Stock markets and financial institutions could be destroyed. Not being able to access your wealth is no longer a remote possibility left to the imagination of fiction writers.
The following excerpt, from the novel has the Prime Minister of Canada in a strategy meeting with department leaders. The leader of the Canadian armed forces addresses the threat. He keeps military jargon to a minimum:
“The American forces outnumber us at least twenty-five to one. Our total armed forces are less than fifty thousand and theirs are over two million. Our plan is, to screw up their plan. In their arrogance, they think everyone in the world wants to be a citizen of the United States and that Canadian’s will just stand aside and let them walk in and have their way. We need to show them that we will not greet them with open arms….. Our objective is to convince …. American capitalists that invading their closest ally is bad for their businesses…. and to show the American public that this invasion is immoral and just plain wrong.”
The Prime Minister nodded and said, “That sounds good but how do you stop a military force that size?”
The General continued, “The one big thing we have going for us is that along the entire thousand-mile length of the Ontario-US border you have to cross the border on a bridge, a boat or go through a tunnel. There are fewer than twenty border crossings….
“The trick is to plug up all these Ontario entry points with the American’s own assets. Everyday thousands of American trucks are hauling hundreds of millions of dollars in goods through these entry points. What I propose we do is to plug these entry points by disabling all these American eighteen wheelers at both the border entry and exit roadways. Almost immediately, things will be plugged up for miles on each side of the border.
Those just-in-time deliveries that the U.S. owned automotive plants are expecting on both sides of the border will not make it….. We can count on the American auto companies immediately raising all kinds of hell with their state governors and senators in Washington. Hundreds of thousands of American auto workers will be out of work…. when they must shut down assembly lines.”
T “The big American retailers, like Costco and Walmart, have huge warehouses in Canada being replenished, the president and every politician in Washington will hear the screams from farmers and truckers. …. Thousands of the largest Ontario corporations are American owned and these corporation have assumed there would always be an open border. When the border closed for several days during 9/11 within hours corporate America was screaming for the border to be reopened. Toronto is the fourth largest city in North America. They have too much money invested in it to risk losing it.
“If they cannot cross on the bridges, wouldn’t they bring in ships to move the troops across the water.”
“Treaties that have been in place for a century do not allow naval ships in the Great Lakes…. It’s winter. The locks are iced in until April….
“Wouldn’t the troops just move aside the vehicles plugging the bridges?
“We’ll be loading those bridges and tunnels with explosives… If they try to remove our barriers, we will blow up the bridges.
The Premier interrupted, “Destroying the bridges would destroy our own economy.”
“Yeah, and allowing them across the bridges will destroy the country. It’s a last resort, but the Americans have billions of dollars of assets in Ontario. Those bridges go down and they lose just as much as we do. It is a bluff. They won’t think that we would do it, but they would not be certain that we wouldn’t
…. Wouldn’t they just airlift their troops in?”
…. Troops will secure every airfield in Ontario, just in case
The General… continued, “A threat of an invasion meets the criteria for implementing the Emergencies Act of 1985. It allows the Canadian government to appropriate American properties, search properties without a warrant and jail high profile American executives”.
While the general described how Canada would repel an invasion, he does not describe the damage that the invasion could do to the United States. Canadian companies have investments worth close to 700 billion dollars in the US and employ almost two million Americans. Over one million Canadians who live almost invisibly within the US could aid in a Canadian retaliation. The source of electricity for much of the eastern United States is from Canada, as is much of the natural gas heating their homes.
So how do you avoid such a catastrophe? Faced with threats of armed conflict and disruptions to their comfort, it is not unusual for wealthy individuals around the world to establish safe residences and citizenship in an uninvolved country to wait out any possible threats . There are about one hundred countries in which you can quickly purchase citizenship for yourself and your family. The following are five cash-for-passport Caribbean countries accessible, within a few hours, by Canadians and Americans. They are former British colonies with parliamentary democratic governments:
- Dominica: Requires a $200,000 donation or an approved real estate investment. Population 66,000.
- Antigua and Barbuda: Costs $230,000, allowing up to 4 family members to be included. Population 94,000.
- Grenada: Starts at $235,000 for a National Transformation Fund contribution. Population 117,000.
- St. Lucia: Requires a $240,000 minimum donation. Population, 180,000.
- St. Kitts and Nevis: Starts at a $250,000 donation or $325,000 in real estate. Population 47,000.
Over the last twenty years, for a few months each winter, I have rented a large furnished condominium apartment in St Kitts. It is owned by a Russian who purchased the apartment to obtain Kittitian citizenship. However, it is also a source of tax-free income for him. Visitors, like me, pay a few thousand dollars a month in rent. A local management company handles the rental of the units for non-resident condo owners.
I understand the Russian has never visited the island However, at the first sign of danger, he can fly to St Kitts and immediately take up residency in one of his units as a Kittitian citizen.
If you are curious as to what such a condominium complex would look like, visit https://silverreefsstkitts.com. One-bedroom condos cost around $250,000 US and 3 bedrooms $450,000.
In St Kitts a good, island wide internet service would provide instant access to your finances. Friendly, English-speaking Kittitians, well stocked stores, medical services, lawyers, accountants, international banks and entertainment make it a safe, comfortable, tax-free refuge.
An internet search will bring to your attention many companies who specialize in processing citizenship applications. You will also find that these countries have websites that can walk you through the process without engaging the services of these processing companies.
While having a second country to escape to may remove you from physical danger, you must consider where the money to pay your living expenses is going to come from during a long term crisis if you no longer have access to your financial institutions.
Storing physical gold in a safe foreign country for emergencies is a form of income insurance. Gold should be stored in a special gold vault where it can be insured. The typical bank safety deposit box does not insure its contents.
Services that would lump your gold in with gold from other investors and give you a certificate that says you are entitled to withdraw so many ounces of gold are not as safe as a gold vault where you withdraw exactly what you put into the gold vault.
While gold has appreciated over long periods of time, about 10% a year, you do face the expenses of paying for the vault storage as well as paying a sales commission of between 1% and 5% when you buy or sell your gold. The value of gold fluctuates constantly. It’s is usually priced in US dollars per ounce, which is a Roman (Troy) ounce, slightly heavier than a standard one.
Banks in Switzerland have the best reputation for their gold vaults. Banks in Lichenstein and Singapore also have a good reputation. FedEx has a service of picking up and delivering gold between owners and the bank gold vaults. They fully insure their shipments.
Expect better gold pricing from dealers who deal in large volumes. Large bars (1 oz to 10 oz or larger) have a lower markup of 1% to 2.5% because manufacturing and handling costs are spread across more metal. Popular gold coins like Canadian Maple Leafs or American Eagles have a higher markup of 3% to 5% due to extra minting costs and public demand.
Volume discounts can be negotiated with bullion dealers when more than $100,000 in gold is being purchased. Always confirm that insurance, shipping, storage and payment processing charges are included in your total transaction price.
The value of an ounce of gold has risen more than 5,000% since the 1970s. It is a long-term safe investment whose value rises quickly when economic uncertainty like and invasion occurs.
That’s all for this week folks.