Alright. Stop what your doing, because I’m about to ruin the image and style that your used to.
It is time again for The G Manifesto “Best of 2011″ Awards.
Once again, these Awards are places or things that I have been to or experienced in 2011. So don’t get itchy if your local dive bar in Denver or favorite P.F. Wang’s in Poughkeepsie didn’t make the list.
Here are the rest of the Best of 2011, G Manifesto Awards:
Best International Nightlife City: Montreal, Canada. I am in love with this city. I am not sure of too many things, but this I am sure of: I will spend at least two months this summer in Montreal. Honestly, I think I can swoop a fly girl 8 out of 10 nights I go out there. It is probably closer to 10 out of 10, but I don’t want to sound like I am bragging. I almost slit my wrists for not coming sooner.
Honorable Mentions:New York City. I had too much success there in 2011 to leave it out.
Most Overrated US Nightlife City:Los Angeles. California has become a Police State, and Wessyde nightlife has gone down the tubes with it. California nightlife needs a whole new start like a person with a severed arm needs a tourniquet and a shot of tequila.
Best US Nightlife District: Brickell, Miami. Quality of girl is off the charts.
Best US Restaurant for Fly Girls:Cipriani’s. No single restaurant in America holds as many stunners.
Best International Nightclub:Andre Carne de Res, Bogota. I don’t get impressed by nightclubs any more. Well, that’s until I stepped into Andre Carne de Res in Bogota. Place is sicker than a cancer victim.
Best High-Action City:Abidjan , Ivory Coast. It went off the rope earlier this year. I hit a decent Cocoa trade playing the political takeover as well. To be frank though, the time I spent on the horn and researching that trade, it wasn’t that great.
Best Day Game City: Miami Beach. Lincoln road. No question.
Best Beach: El Sardinero, Santander, Spain is more breathtaking than northern California’s coastline. And more striking than La Jolla, California.
Best International Restaurant:La Taberna del Gourmet, Alicante, Spain. The food is so good it made old E-tab and Cocaine buzzes hit me. Seriously, my nose got sweaty while dining here. Ate here three nights straight at one point.
Honorable Mention: Toque and Au Pied Du Cuchon, Montreal. Both these restaurants are straight crack.
Best Trade: The Silver trade. I rode the silver miners up and sold out earlier in the year. And unbelieveably sold out of my paper silver near the top. Super lucky. Now I buy physical on the dips.
Best US Restaurant: Joe’s Stone Crab. Miami Beach’s answer to former G Manifesto “Best of” winner, Galitories. Illmatic. I even got a table on the last day of Stone Crab season with two fly Latinas.
Best International Hotel: Hotel Maria Cristina, San Sebastián, Spain.
Best US Hotel: The Plaza Hotel, NYC.
Worst US Hotel: Shore Club, Miami Beach. Place has slipped. The service is a joke compared to Las Vegas. Place kind of made me edgy. And that is not easy to do.
Quote of The Year:“It’s so crazy. I am in America. The country that I represent, the Red, White and Blue. I make money in America. I feed the American citizens, I feed the people that are less fortunate in America. Even when I make it rain, I am still throwing money to Americans!.”By Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the post Victor Ortiz Fight presser.
That quote would have been hilarious alone as a joke. But the fact that Floyd was dead serious when he said it not only makes it the “quote of the year” it makes it the funniest thing said all year as well.
Best Movie:The Business. Finally a real International Playboy in a movie. Of course, it wasn’t a Hollywood movie, but that is to be expected.
Best Actress: Don’t know. Probably some P0rn girl.
Best Hip-Hop Album: Oneirology by CunninLynguists
Best Hip-Hop Track: Pusha T- Don’t Fuck With Me (Drake Diss) Someone had to destroy Drake. And who better to do it than Pusha T?
“Rappers on their sophomores, actin’ like they boss lords Fame such a funny thing for sure
When n*ggas start believing all them encores I’m just the one to send you off, bonjour“
Best Break out Hip-Hop Artist: Action Bronson. Bringing back those hard New York Street bangers for your ear drums.
Best Soul Track and Album: Raphael Saadiq, Stone Rollin
G’s of The Year: Miguel Cotto and Nicolas Berggruen. Cotto is an obvious choice. If you are not familiar with Berggruen, you should be. This guy is the ultimate International Playboy/ Perpetual Traveler. Peep the Data Sheet on the cat:
Long before dabbling with blank-check companies, Berggruen had already made enough money to buy all of the trappings of the ultrarich: a Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan, a mansion on a private island near Miami, the Gulfstream IV and artworks by Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol. Berggruen says that living amid all of that luxury turned into a burden and didn’t make him happy.
Buffett Pledge
“I understand the human instinct to want to create a nest and possess things, to show them off,” he says. “But for me personally, it became less and less interesting.”
So in 2000, Berggruen sold his houses, put his art collection in storage and gave away or sold most of his possessions, including his car. He says his decision to live a rootless existence wasn’t a means of dodging taxes; he says he pays them in the U.S.
The investor, who signed a pledge promoted by fellow billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to donate at least half of their wealth, says he’ll give away all of it eventually. “Everything I do now is about growing the pot to have more to give away,” he says.
He has never married and says he is not interested in having children. Berggruen has been photographed at charity and fashion events arm in arm with a series of actresses and models, including Gabriella Wright, a British actress.
It looks like his Wessyde Base of Operations is The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills. A place I am not all that unfamiliar with for knocking back some early night cocktails.
He still should bust a pocket square, but no one did it bigger and better than Berggruen and Cotto in 2011.
Already making heavy, and I mean heavy moves in 2012. Should be an even better year.
I have never made it down as far as Marbella, but it is on my short list (although I don’t think it will happen this year).
Here is a good video, worth watching on Marbella, Spain. The jury is still out on this Piers Morgan guy, but still, a good video.
Peep it:
It goes without saying that when I hit up Marbella, Spain, I am going to do it on a way more smooth tip than shown in this video.
But that is neither here nor there.
Here is a little Data Sheet on La Costa del Crime a while back:
This is Puerto Banus, a luxury suburb of Marbella in southern Spain and truly a millionaire’s paradise.
But who are these people and where does their wealth come from?
The majority are legitimate businessmen, but Britain currently has a list of 230 known criminals sheltering in Spain and many of them are believed to live in and around Puerto Banus.
The Costa del Sol has seen an upsurge in violent crime in recent years with British, Irish and Russian gangs vying with local Spanish criminals for command of the lucrative drugs trade.
Morocco is only 40 miles away across the southern horizon.
The profit margins for smuggling Moroccan cannabis and Colombian cocaine are too tempting for many ex-pats, even when threatened with imprisonment or death.
A Briton was arrested in April this year in nearby Fuengirola after a consignment of cannabis and cocaine was discovered.
And drug dealer Scott Bradfield, from London, was murdered in October 2001.
His limbs were found in a suitcase on wasteland near Torremolinos in December and his head and torso were discovered in another case nearby.
Roberts returned from Vietnam to New York with screws and a metal plate in his head — the aftermath of an explosion. By the time he was 20, he was one of New York’s biggest nightclub impresarios, rubbing shoulders with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to John Lennon.
But after a business partner turned up dead and an informant told the police Roberts was involved, he hightailed it to sunny Miami. The year was 1975.
“When I first came to Miami, I wasn’t smuggling: I was like all the other dealers on the street just trying to make a living, and it got to a point where I had so much business that these people just couldn’t supply me,” he says.
That’s when Roberts shifted from being a drug dealer to a drug importer for the Colombian Medellin cartel.
Importing paid well: By the end of 1976, Roberts says he was moving 50 kilos of cocaine worth $500,000 or more a month. Roberts was living it up: He had half a dozen servants, a Porsche, multiple houses, dozens of race horses and friends in high places, including the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The U.S. government labeled Roberts the “American Representative” of the Medellin cartel; he became known as “the bearded gringo” on Miami’s streets.
Roberts and a few American partners created a highly advanced drug-smuggling system that included secret airfields, listening posts to eavesdrop on Coast Guard communications, and homing beacons for tracking cocaine shipped by sea.
“We ended up getting, up by Tampa, a 450-acre farm and it was all surrounded by trees and we put two runways in there and we put hangars in for the planes to go in,” Roberts says.
Their drug-smuggling schemes stymied the U.S. government for nearly a decade.
Death came for Jon Roberts, the infamous cocaine cowboy, on Dec. 28 at age 63, after a long battle with cancer. But his public career as a charming monster is just beginning
A true-crime memoir, “American Desperado” (Crown; $28), written with journalist Evan Wright, has just been published. In Hollywood, director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg are developing a movie based on his exploits.
Dying at his ease in Fort Lauderdale in the company of a devoted younger spouse and his 11-year-old son Julian, product of an earlier marriage, was an improbable end for a man who never repudiated his lifelong philosophy that “evil is stronger than good.”
“How many times have I encountered a crooked politician who wants to establish he’s a nice guy, or a killer who wants you to think he’s a good guy at heart,” says Wright. “I was fascinated because here is a guy who has done monstrous things and he’s not trying to portray himself as a nice guy or a victim.”
As Roberts tells Wright in “American Desperado,” “I might be a sociopath. Most of the time I’ve been on this earth I’ve had no regard for human life. That’s been the key to my success.”
If “American Desperado” is to be believed, Jon Roberts beat people to death in New York, skinned enemy POWs alive in Vietnam, and helped a future CIA agent murder famed mobster Meyer Lansky’s stepson in Miami – with Lansky’s approval.
Roberts first came to national attention as one of the stars of “Cocaine Cowboys,” a Miami-produced documentary that was a surprise hit in 2006. The film details the early 1980s, when Miami became a nearly lawless place awash in cocaine, violence and corruption.
As an American representative of the Medellin Cartel, Roberts helped import some $2 billion worth of cocaine into South Florida, working with infamous figures like Albert San Pedro, Pablo Escobar, Bobby Seal, Max Mermelstein and Bobby Erra.
“He’s a killer,” says Wright, author of the acclaimed Iraq War book, “Generation Kill.” “The notion that Jon is a monster because he kills people doesn’t disqualify a person in my code of life. He’s a killer — let’s move on from there. Let’s find out more.”
Last night, I spoke to Roberts’ smuggling partner and costar in Cocaine Cowboys, the laid-back and quirky Mickey Munday, with whom he had epic disagreements. The last time Munday saw Roberts, he recalls, was at a Miami restaurant with Peter Berg — where the cancer-stricken old criminal vowed to kill Munday before he kicked the bucket: “Before I go, I’m going to get you.”
“I told him: ‘If I had a bucket list, I might put that blonde over there on it,’” Munday says. “‘But not whacking somebody who’s known me for 25 years.’”
“I always thought that he would beat this, I really did,” Munday told me. “If anybody could, it was him, because he’s the meanest son of a bitch I knew. If cancer could get to him it could get to anybody.”
Munday later texted me, referring to Roberts’ nemesis Mermelstein, who also died of cancer: “I hope Jon is kicking Max from one end of Hell to the other.”
With his usual holiday cheer Marc Faber’s most recent interview had him slamming the derivative markets. In an interview with Reuters he went over his predictions for 2012 which calls for more monetary easing, QE 3 etc. He also continues to worry about the growing EU sovereign debt crisis and the lack of real solutions. This was confirmed today after the ECB announced more banks than previously known tapped liquidity lines to the tune of $600 billion.
Of course his long-term views are decidedly bearish. He thinks people in 5 years time will have maybe 50% of their money. This wealth loss will be due to either equity collapses or inflationary pressures due to monetary easing. Obviously political solutions are out of the question at this point. One can look at the US government and see utter dysfunction. The GOP led house has refused to extend a tax cut due to lobbyist pressures on certain pet projects. Then in the EU you have France and the UK with increasingly cold diplomatic relations.
“I am convinced the whole derivatives market will cease to exit. Will become zero. And when it happens I don’t know: you can postpone the problems with monetary measures for a long time but you can’t solve them… Greece should have defaulted – it would have sent a message that not all derivatives are equal because it depends on the counterparty.”
Looks like 2012 is shaping up to be another interesting year. The Mayans may be wrong about the end of the world, but if Marc Faber is right we won’t be able to tell the difference.
Jim Rogers thinks Marc Faber has got it wrong about China, when he says the country is possibly headed for a hard landing, which would lead to a devastating impact on commodities around the world.
“Marc still does not understand China. There are going to be several hard landings in the next few years, but China’s will be less hard overall than others such as Greece, U.S., et al,” Rogers told CNBC in an email.
Rogers says some parts of China’s economy will have a “hard landing” but other parts will continue to boom. He says the commodity market will have a correction, but rebutted Faber’s view that it would be devastating.
“Yes, there will be consolidations in the commodity bull market just as all markets have consolidations,” he said. “In 1987, stocks declined 40-80 percent worldwide, but it was not the end of the secular bull market in stocks.”
Rogers said he was still long commodities, adding that gold went up 600 percent in the 1970s and then corrected by 50 percent scaring a lot of people. “It then continued its secular bull market and rose 850 percent. Corrections are the normal way of all markets.”
According to Faber, Rogers’ bullish call on commodities is misplaced. “If I was always bullish about commodities and completely missed out on the crash in 2008, then obviously, having tied essentially my reputation to commodities, I’d continue to be bullish,” Faber said.
But Rogers said Faber had got it wrong when it came to his call in 2008. “I proclaimed repeatedly far and wide that one should not buy commodities in the run up phase. I also explained that I was not selling mine since we were [and are] in a secular bull market,” Rogers said.
“I explained that my shorts of Citibank, Fannie Mae, all the investment banks and homebuilders, plus my long position in the Japanese yen would protect me in any sell-offs. When one’s shorts decline 90-100 percent, it is a good year even when one’s longs decline,” Rogers added.
According to Rogers, Faber is the one who has made many wrong calls, arguing that he “totally missed” the secular bull market in commodities that began in early 1999.
“Also back in those days, he and his friends proclaimed often that China was a mess and would continue to be so,” Rogers said. “They all were wildly excited about Russia. Some of his friends even left China to start operations in Russia. We all know how that resulted.”
Mr Rogers, the respected currency trader and hedge fund pioneer, cautioned that when the downturn takes hold “the world is going to be in worse shape because the world has shot all its bullets.”
Speaking in an interview with business television channel CNBC, the septuagenarian investor said that “since the beginning of time” there has been a recession every four-to-six years, and that’s mean another one is due around 2012.
However, he said that due to the extraordinary measures already adopted by central banks and governments around the world, the arsenal of available tools to combat the next recession is somewhat lacking.
With reference to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, he said: “Is Mr Bernanke going to print more money than he already has? No, the world would run out of trees.”
Meanwhile, Robert Shiller, co-creator of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller house price index, warned that the next downturn may come even sooner.
“For me a double-dip is another recession before we’ve healed from this recession. The probability of that kind of double-dip is more than 50pc. I actually expect it,” he said. His prediction came despite the S&P/Case-Shiller index for May showing a 4.6pc year-on-year increase in house prices in 20 major US conurbations.
A few days ago, all the locals were surfing the main beach break.
I decided to take a long walk around the point and take a look at this cove beach I spocked a few days earlier on a jog before the swell came. (I have a unique ability to find secret spots and set ups).
I anticipated correctly as I was able to surf this perfect right hand tube off the rocks to the head. No one out. (Took a picture from high above on the cliff after the session. It was bigger/better earlier, when I surfed it.)
What’s up now?
Now, you ask, “Where exactly is that spot?”
Do me a favor.
But I will say it is kind of near here:
Or maybe not.
In Gold News:
The gold bug has hit the shopping center.
Gold Max — said to be he largest chain of jewelery-purchasing stores — says it’s on track to open 100 gold-buying shops in Southern California within the next year. It already has seven Orange County stores.
Custom Suits and Dope Shoes: Save Money by Spending Money
When I posted this, Undefeated Gucci Loafers, a lot of people asked me, “But what if I don’t have the money for Gucci Loafers and Custom Suits?”
Here is the thing most people don’t realize: Custom Suits and Dope Shoes actually save you money.
Let me break it down:
You throw down 5 G’s for a Custom Suit.
If you take care of it, you can have it for minimum 10 years (if not a lifetime and hand it down to your little baby G’s if you go that route).
$5,000 / 10 = $500 per year.
Pretty damn cheap.
Now ask yourself, what would you rather have, a Custom Suit, or some crappy off-the rack job by Hugo Boss for $500 where the buttons will pop off after a heavy night?
Same thing with Gucci Loafers, let’s break it down:
Now ask yourself, what would you rather have, a dope pair of Gucci Loafers or some weesh Kenneth Cole’s that will fall apart in 6 months?
Side note: It’s a little harder to pencil out handmade shoes, but they are worth every penny.
And here is the kicker.
With all the money printing that Bernake is doing, investing in Custom Suits and Dope Shoes is investing in real assets. So you are actually hedging against inflation.
Trust me, when the apocalypse comes, you are going to want to have some silver, some gold, some emeralds, some diamonds and shooting it out with an AR-15 and taking Thorozine while Custom Suited Down.
For Style Points, of course.
International Playboy of The Apocalypse.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK, Jr.
AKA The Sly, Slick and the Wicked
AKA The Voodoo Child
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
Yesterday Marc Faber first made a guest appearance at the Ira Sohn conference, warning his audience to prepare for war, then promptly shifted to Bloomberg’s offices where he discussed his outlook primarily on China, but also on the US, with Carol Massar, once again warning about war. As usual, he did not mince his words, warning of a “recession”, and predicting that China is simply not growing fast enough in real terms. Nothing new. He did however branch out into the topic of class divergence in both emerging and developed economies: “in front of far too many luxury hotels there are far too many Ferraris, Maseratis, Bentleys… I see a boom everywhere, except for the working class, except for the lower, middle class. But among the well to do people the wealth that is floating around and the prices you pay for high end properties is incredible, and I think that will come to an end, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money… I was in La Jolla, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, I was in front of a restaurant smoking and I’ve never seen so many Ferraris, Maseratis, Bentleys and fancy cars anywhere in the world, and this is in America. I am not saying this is wrong, but there is an opulence among a small group of people that is huge when there are lots of people that are struggling. This gives me a bad feeling because I’ve seen so many emerging economies when they were booming, that was the time to get out.” As for the US economy, Faber agrees that the only thing that can help is a massive crisis (or “conflagration” as David Stockman calls it) that jars America out of its hypnotic state. And, sure enough, it will come.
