Have Kids, Travel the World, and Build Wealth

Almost anywhere in the world can be family friendly from the perspective of inviting children. Children open up the world in many cultures in a way that adults can't do. If you have children, people can strike up conversations with you. They can open up opportunities for you. One of the best ways that you can go where you're treated best is to go to where your family legacy is likely to continue.

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Hello everyone. I hope you're doing very well. This is Javier Kareah, the tax terminator, live from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with our very own special guest, Joshua Sheets. How are you? Pleasure to have you.

>> Very well. Thank you for having me.

>> Oh, thank you for being with us. So, we're going to be discussing some very interesting topics today with Joshua. We're here, like I said, in Kuala Lumpur. The energy is absolutely fantastic here at Nomad Capitalist Live, and we hope you find this informative and interesting, especially if you're thinking about starting a family in the near future or you have a family right now. This is especially going to be of interest to you. So, first of all, thank you again for joining us and congratulations on your sixth child, right?

>> My pleasure. Yeah. Three weeks ago. So, uh, it was I had to leave my wife and children at home in Brazil and fly straight here. So,

>> Oh my god. Well, congratulations again. A healthy, beautiful baby boy. Right.

>> Yes.

>> Right. Well, fantastic. Number six. So, the first obvious question I think in everyone's mind is, how do you handle it? So, six children, that in of itself is an achievement in the 21st century. I think one of the most important things to recognize about children is that generally normally they come one at a time, and so any kind of lifestyle can be built, but you build it slowly, and your skills adapt and grow with time. I tell new perspective parents that I vividly remember my wife and I when we had our first baby, and I remember how hard it was. It was so difficult. And yet now, I had an experience some months ago where two of our children were off at camp, and we were home with three children, and it just felt like, what is there to do? We had nothing to do. But I remember when we had three children, it didn't feel that way. And so, every aspect of parenting is like that. You start off, and it's difficult. It's hard. You're worn out. You don't know what to do. But then, over time, you develop skills. You develop strategies. And if you engage with those, then you do that. And the same thing applies even to internationalization. So, it becomes easier with each child. You would say?

>> Easier is a loaded word. I don't know that I'd want to say it becomes easier. You become better, and you become more capable of doing.

>> I like that perspective. Okay.

>> The point of life is not to do easy things. All of us, the point of life is to grow in our capacity. So, I would never say that having six children is easier than having one child. Of course not. But as your skills grow with one child, then you're prepared for two. And as your skills grow with two, then you're prepared for more. And then when you have six, it's still difficult, just like it was with one, but now six doesn't feel, it's not six times more difficult. Your skills have grown. And even if we talk about various aspects of, for example, international living, I remember the first time we took a trip with one child, that was difficult. Now, last year, my wife and I took five children to 16 countries around the world for about three months traveling. And so, it can build over time.

>> Okay, well, that's absolutely fantastic. So, one of the things that I really want to touch upon for everyone to listen back at home is that obviously, you're very famous for what you've just mentioned. You have a big family, you travel around the world with them, and not only have you been able to basically plan around having multiple citizenships for your children, but you've also talked a lot about the culture of each place and how your children interact with these different cultures. What can you say about that? Because a lot of our clients, I, I work with a lot of guys who will be like, "Yeah, I have my girlfriend or I, you know, I just have my wife, whatever, but we're looking to travel, and that's why we have to postpone having kids." And you obviously prove that it is definitely possible to have a large family and to travel around the world to do it successfully. And also, you have proven that your children can also get the best of each different culture. What can you say about that?

>> It's probably not possible for everybody. That's the first thing to note. And even as I said in my presentation here at this event, it's more important that your children be born than where your children are born. So, if I had to give up everything international and just live in the United States, where I'm from, but that allowed me to build a family that will endure and will impact the world, that's a choice I would make in an instant. But if you're able to do both, then I think it really is possible in a lot of ways. And so, one of the things that I have tried to do is I've tried to see how internationalization can make my family better, and how my family can make my international plans better. So, for example, a lot of my internationalization plan has been built around birth tourism. We went abroad to have a baby. We didn't do it with the first baby. We weren't ready then, but after a couple of babies, we went abroad to have a baby and then use the baby as a pathway towards getting a residency permit, towards getting ultimately a citizenship.

>> So, some of them born in the US and others born abroad.

>> Exactly. Exactly. And that grew with time. You know, the first time we went abroad, we didn't have a clue what we were doing. Now, we're a little bit more experienced. But then, the other side of it is that I've tried to use the world to improve my family life. So, the reason I travel with my children is I like traveling with my children. I like the challenge of it. I like the difficulty of it.

>> Listen to that back at home. It's traveling with your children. Now, a lot of people avoid that and say it's a nightmare. But here you have Joshua saying it's possible, and not even that you actually enjoy it. That's actually great. Okay. I do. I, I look at, I look at Instagram influencers where there's a guy out there of just him or he, two, you know, a young couple traveling the world, and they're all about, well, this is why we don't have children so that we can travel the world. And to me, that's fun and all. I like to travel myself sometimes. I like to take my wife to cool places, but it's way more fun to take four or five children with you and show them the world and see the wonder that comes through their eyes. And so, I look at that and I think, honestly, if people had the experiences that I had, most people would be jealous of me because it's more fulfilling to show those things to a child than the other things.

>> I love, I love that word, fulfilling, because you know you're training the new, the next generation, the new generation, and you're leaving behind a beautiful legacy of travel, of languages, of culture. And I would like to ask, in, in all these places you've been to, like, which have been the most family-friendly in your experience?

Almost anywhere in the world can be family friendly from the perspective of inviting children. Okay, children open up the world in many cultures in a way that adults can't do. If you have children, people can strike up conversations with you. They can open up opportunities for you. The difficulty of traveling with children comes down to infrastructure. So, I'll give an example. Okay, the hardest place that I have traveled in the last few years has been Cuba. Okay, I took my family to Cuba.

>> It was brutally difficult. Not because of the Cuban people or anything. It was, we had a lovely time with the Cuban people. Everyone was very nice. We got stared at everywhere we went. We had conversations everywhere. But because the infrastructure of Cuba is so difficult, it was very, very difficult to find a place to stay. It was very, very difficult to find a place to eat. It was very, very difficult to negotiate things because you have to show up in Cuba with piles of cash in your pocket. And so, everything was hard about that. Uh, obviously, also with a larger family, things like transportation are difficult. The best place that we've traveled in the last few years was Hungary. And the reason that was, it was Budapest.

>> Yeah, in Budapest.

>> Um, so, one of the reasons why I loved traveling in Budapest so much was that the transportation was super easy. Transportation logistics around the world can be very difficult. We need two Ubers everywhere we go. How are you going to communicate that? How are you going to stay together? In Budapest, the trains, the buses, the subway, everything is fully integrated with Google Maps. I got a family pass. I think I paid €15 a day for all of the day's transportation. And all you had to do if you wanted to go see something was pull out Google Maps, type in where you wanted to go. It told you whether to take the train. It had live updates, and that made everything easy. So, everywhere can be family friendly. At least everywhere I've been.

>> You made everywhere family friendly. Basically, the logistics, of course, can vary. And so, the other question there is, for example, you talk about this family pass in Hungary, and you went to Cuba. How much time do you spend with your family in each destination? Do you have destinations where you say, like, "Okay, let's say you talk to your wife and say, 'Okay, honey, this place is, I'm more interested here, so we're going to talk, we're going to stay here for about, I don't know, three, four months,' and then other places, maybe just go for a week?" How do you decide that?

>> I decide it primarily based upon the cost of airplane tickets.

>> So, remember, every time I take a trip, I buy seven airplane tickets.

>> So, you take all the costs of traveling and multiply everything times seven. Okay.

>> So, the secret to inexpensive travel, right? I'm a personal finance guy. The secret to inexpensive travel is this: find out where it's cheap to go and when it's cheap to go there, and then figure out what's interesting to do.

>> Gotcha.

>> So, that matters if you're a solo traveler, but it matters even more if you're buying airplane tickets seven or eight at a time.

>> So, what I've developed is I've developed a skill of basically saying, "Where's the broad structure of the place that we want to go? We'd like to go to this region." So, first, I find my ticket from where we are to that place, and then I start browsing around what's, what would be interesting, and I try to bring in a couple of interesting transfers. So, for example, when we went to Budapest, we came to Budapest, uh, or we left Budapest and went to Belgrade, right? And took the bus, super easy, simple bus, showed us off. I didn't want to fly if we could have taken the bus, a four or five-hour bus ride. That was a great way. So, I look for some connections, and then I structure the trip around basically airplane tickets, trying to spend enough time in each place that you're not feel like you're always on an airplane, but not so much that you're just living there for weeks and weeks. Then I'll go back and try to fill in, all right, we have three or four days in Budapest, so what should we do over the course of three or four days, and then kind of fill in the activities. The other thing is, of course, trying to figure out what kinds of actual activities are going to make a family trip good. So, you might have a school or a camp or something that you're trying to do. So, for languages, for example, one of the things I like to do is try to say, "How can I enroll my children in a summer camp in the foreign language?" So, if you're traveling to Germany and you find a really great German language summer camp, and you're going to enroll your children in that, then use that as the structure, and then plan a couple of of.

>> Your children speak multiple languages at this point.

>> Yeah, that's been a huge passion of mine. So, they're all at different levels, but, uh, over the last few years, I feel like I've cracked the code on teaching languages to children.

>> Oh my god. Okay, this is a big one, folks. So, in today's interconnected world, this is extremely valuable. Recommend you take notes on this one. So, what is the code? How, how did you crack it?

>> All right, so I'll explain. So, so five years ago, we were a monolingual family. Okay.

>> Today?

>> Just English.

>> Just English, right? Today, my oldest child and eldest children, my oldest is 12, my next child is 10,

>> Are doing homeschooling in five languages. So, they're at grade level.

>> Five languages. Very impressive. Congratulations.

>> And then learning some more. Thank you. Um, it's been an interesting challenge. But the key thing that I've learned with languages is how to engage children. I'll tell you the secret. Um, children don't care about learning languages.

>> Okay?

>> Anybody can learn any language if they have two things. Number one is they have what's called in the, in the space, comprehensible input, which means some kind of language input that they can understand.

>> Like inputting data, basically.

>> Right. So, you need to have something that you can understand, right? So, some kind of context. And so, in language space, they do this sometimes with simplified stories or with lots of movements and expression where you use the context of the situation to make it understandable. So, you need some kind of language that you can understand, and you need it for lots and lots of time. So, the key thing to understand about languages is that anybody who spends enough time in a foreign language is eventually going to learn the foreign language. It might be hundreds of hours, it may be thousands of hours. Every language varies, but if you spend enough time in the language, you're going to learn it. And so, with children, if you can just arrange to get them into a scenario where they're exposed to the language for lots and lots of time,

>> Kind of like a full immersion kind of thing.

>> Immersion can be helpful if you have that. I, I have not been able to use full immersion significantly, although I, there's a bunch of ways that you can do that. The key variables, however, is language you can understand and time. So, what I've done is I've used bilingual translation. I read my children's stories. And so, I'll read them stories in a foreign language. So, if I'm reading a story, I would say, "Once upon a time," you know, um, so they would say, so we read the story and we translate it phrase by phrase. And so, when we translate it phrase by phrase, then they are able to understand. And I use translation as the tool to make the input comprehensible. And then the key insight that I've had is that children engage with stories. They don't care about the language, but they like stories. So, if I can find enough interesting stories that will suck them in, then I'll suck them in for 100 or 200 hours in the language. And then, at that point in time, all I need to do is give them an audiobook in the foreign language. Especially helpful if I can give them an audiobook where they have a matching book they can read with their eyes and listen to, and helpful if it's a story they already know. So, if they know "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" in English, and I can play "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" in Spanish now, then they start to fill it in. Then you just repeat that process over the course of hundreds of hours, and then when there's an opportunity to activate the language with them, to have speaking partners, and them to express writing and other things.

>> And then travel goes into that equation because when they travel, they can speak with native speakers in the different languages. And would you say, as a finance person, and as somebody who, doubtlessly, has, you know, investments around the world, etc., how strategic do you think it is for your kids to be learning all these languages in the world for the world of tomorrow, even for the world of today, when it comes to investing in future business and, you know, employment options down the line?

>> I found in my life that 20 or 30 words in a foreign language,

>> Just memorized.

>> Can open up doors that nothing else does.

>> Okay. That's very powerful. I love that. It really does make a difference. And you're never going to access a region or the heart of a person unless you can communicate in that language to some degree.

>> I think we're living in a world in which it's increasingly possible to get by without foreign languages, but the person who knows foreign languages is always going to have an advantage. And I think it's especially important that we teach children a couple of languages when they're young so that they understand what it's like to be multilingual. Because I don't know what all the most important languages are going to be for my children 40 years from now. But what I do know is that once you master one second language, you have the confidence to be able to go on and build from there and to learn any other language. And so, even in the expat space, as I talk to people, they say, "Well, I moved to this place, but I just couldn't handle language." There is no doubt in my mind that I could move to any city in the world and within six months or a year or three years, I could be functional and and good enough in that language because I've learned other languages. And so, because I've learned other languages, I know how my brain works, and that instills an enormous amount of confidence. Because what's likely to be the key is not that any child who speaks Chinese is going to be successful in the world. Right? There's lots of people who speak English and Chinese at a level that I'll never speak or my children will never speak. But the key is going to be somebody who is able to go and learn a local dialect in Kenya somewhere and then be able to be a specialist in that particular region or that particular industry. And he's the guy. He's not the one of a bazillion English and Chinese speakers. He's the guy who speaks this local dialect and can communicate that to those local people.

>> Exactly. All right, I see what you mean. Now, all this is very interesting, and it ties into the broader concept of education, right, for your kids. So, a lot of, for example, Nomad Capitalist clients when they move to, let's say, a tax-friendly place like Panama City or Dubai, if there's a family involved, which unfortunately, it is becoming more and more rare, and we'll touch upon that in a sec, but they usually, especially the wives, will come in and say, "Okay, what are the international schools like?" So, they'll want to look for maybe the American or the British, occasionally the French curriculum, you know, things like that. But in your case, you and your spouse have decided to do a lot of what you call world schooling. So, you kind of like homeschool as you travel. Uh, how does that work? How do you plan the dynamics? Because obviously, it's not just languages, it's math, it's science, it's history. I mean, how do you make that work? Traveling with a family of now, uh, seven, eight, eight, six children.

>> Six children, and then eight with you. Okay. So, a family of eight in total. How do you do that?

>> All right. So, the most important thing to understand in almost all of life planning is that needs are going to change as children grow and as people grow. So, we can talk about the subject generally, but the most important thing I would say is, do you have a five-year-old or do you have a fifteen-year-old? Because there's a whole lot of options that for a five-year-old are awesome that are totally different than the options for a fifteen-year-old that are awesome. And so, for example, we do a lot of homeschooling and world schooling. That doesn't mean that I'll always do homeschooling and world schooling, and I'm much less, it might be temporary, then.

>> Right, right. Because if you think about it, so at five, what does a child need? Child needs lots of reading, lots of interesting input and languages, math, reading, really languages and reading, but math can come into play when you're five. Okay?

>> You don't need a lot of social dynamics. If you have brothers and sisters, that's it. Five-year-olds don't particularly need that many friends. Their playmates can change. They don't need access to the community. They don't need mentors. They don't need a network. When you're 15, one of the most important things that you have is your network. And so, you've got to be building a network. And so, it can be very difficult if somebody, if a student is not self-motivated and is sitting at home just homeschooling and doing everything on the computer. That student may have excellent academic knowledge because all he does is read and all he does is do math,

>> Zero social skills.

>> But he has no social skills and no network. Whereas the school can be a very valuable tool to then help the child to gain the network,

>> And to meet, you know, the children of other expats, and potentially your first relationships, which are also very important, as it'll tie into, you know, future potential marriage and all of these kinds of things, right? So, that's, that's very interesting. And, uh, you say it's temporary, so are you looking to maybe put your kids back into the school system at one point?

>> What I mean is that a parent should always look at this child and this year and say, "What is best for this child in this year?" And do the best thing now. And so, that means that the full array of tools should be known and should be considered, and then you simply do what's best for this year. So, up till now, I have never, I have never enrolled my children into a traditional institutional school. But I can give you a long list of reasons why I may do that in the future. And it has to do with, how is this child doing at this particular point in time, and what does this child need? That's how we should look at it.

>> Interesting.

>> International schools are powerful. They're wonderful. World schooling and spending all kinds of time on an airplane can be wonderful. But everything has its advantages and its trade-offs. And so, you have to say again, what does this child need at this particular point in time?

>> All right. No, that's, that's extremely interesting. And have you, maybe with your wife, met other couples that are maybe more located in one specific jurisdiction, and would they use international schools, and would they be happy with kind of like the service that is being provided? I mean, how do they usually feel, like, in your experience?

>> Yeah, I say that international schools are a wonderful hack into the international world. So, not everybody is going to build a lifestyle like I have with an online business where you can live in multiple countries and travel a lot. But you might enroll your children. You might be living in Panama City, and you enroll your children into the French school or the German school, and now you're opening up pathways to your children that they're having language immersion. They're having access to the International Baccalaureate curriculum and the local curriculum. They're having access to these things. And so, these are things that I have looked seriously at and that I constantly consider. All right, I've helped my child to develop a disability. Is there a local school that I can enroll him in and gain access to this? And what's really important also is that these are ways of opening up the world. So, um, we as Nomad Capitalists often think about ourselves, right? We're super rich, and we're old, and we have it all done.

>> Exactly. We don't want to pay taxes.

>> And we want to, we're six and seven-figure entrepreneurs or seven and eight-figure entrepreneurs, right? So, that may be, or maybe it not be true. But our children are not that. But there's a whole world of planning of international planning that children can engage in. So, things like college, there are many countries around the world that for highly qualified students will give them full-ride scholarships. Japan has a great program. China has a great program. Germany actively courts international students. There's all kinds of countries in the world that are competing for a child.

>> For the brightest minds, basically.

>> Right? These kinds of things can help a student who has developed a language ability to become an internationally interesting person. Last week, I was talking with a friend of mine, and he got a bachelor's degree in the United States, and then he went and got a master's degree in Switzerland at the ETH, uh, I can't remember what it's exactly called, but the, he got a bachelor's, a bachelor's degree at the Swiss Technical Institute. And he was recounting to me that one of the big benefits for him was that because he went and got his master's degree in Switzerland, he was viewed as being a little bit exotic, right? He was the American. And so, being an American studying in Switzerland on a full-ride scholarship allowed him to be exotic enough that it opened up doors for him. So, he built this powerful network. He then later finished his PhD in the United States. But he now has this powerful network in the world that he can grow from.

>> Yeah. And plus, a great experience, right? Being the expat, you know, your first experience as being the international guy makes it interesting. People talk to you, you generate some interesting social interactions. Well, that is pretty cool. The other thing that I find very interesting is you were mentioning before culture and education together. So, we were talking off-camera, folks, about how different cultures can impact your children. And one of the things that Joshua mentioned that is very interesting is that you've also said that it's important to select which cultures your children will be immersed in or will at least have contact with, because this can play a vital role in their development and how they will be as adults, right? So, we obviously have an idea of what we want our kids to be, and we have to strive to put them in the right path forward. So, in your case, can you share a little bit about which culture you want your kids to, or you have chosen for your kids to grow up in, and why, and what values exactly do you think these cultures are bringing to your kids?

>> Yeah, I think that the broader point is the most important thing that whatever culture you want your children to have, there's an age in time at which you need to make sure that you are there. I can't cite the details of the study, but there was a study that some sociologists did with Japanese businessmen who were located in the United States, and they carefully tracked basically how did the Japanese children feel, did they feel American, did they feel Japanese? And at what age were they able to go back to Japan and successfully integrate back into Japanese society? In more broadly, there's a lot of research that's been done about third culture kids. So, these are children of expats or missionaries or military personnel who grow up always living abroad, never in their home culture. And they're called third culture kids because, let's say they're Americans, right? They're never, they never lived in the United States. They don't feel genuinely American, but they spent most of their career living in Japan, but they're not Japanese. And so, they're kind of third.

>> But the household is American.

>> Right. So, they're, they're, they're kind of third culture, and they don't really fit into either, but they kind of are a chameleon, and they fit into both. So, that can be a pro, and it can be a con. There's a lot of stories about it, and I'm super interested in it. What I would say is the most important thing for parents is to say, "I want my children to be in the culture that has the values that we want to emulate." So, culturally, I'm an American. I'm through and through. I really, really appreciate many of the American values. And so, for me to move my children into a culture that doesn't value individual accomplishment, that doesn't value freedom, and particular freedoms, conformity rather than individuality, a culture that doesn't value entrepreneurship and values everyone lining up and and kind of doing the same thing. That would be very difficult for me because my children would turn out differently than I do, and I would lose these cultural values. The exact opposite can be true. Somebody who comes from a collectivistic culture and doesn't want to raise an individualistic child. So, I would not try to impose upon someone and say, "This is the culture where you need to be." What I would say is, don't sacrifice your children and their cultural knowledge and connection on the altar of your international adventure. You can have international adventures, but pay attention to where you are in the life cycle of children. And to, to expand on that point for just one moment, up till now in my life, with my eldest child being 12, I've not really paid any much of any attention to what's best for my children in the context of the culture because wherever I go, that's where my children are. And again, since we homeschooled, it's a little bit easier. I don't have to worry too much about that. But I'm very conscious of it at this point in time. And I would not want to live in a place where I could not effectively launch my teens into the world at this point in time. So, if I needed to choose to live in this place where I can accomplish that successful launching sequence, and then come back in 10 years and then fulfill my dream of moving to that cool little tax haven where I can sit on the beach, then that's a point in time at which I want to do that.

>> No tax haven. All right. You know, that's, uh, that's very, very interesting. And what you say there about, you know, not sacrificing your values as parents, right, whatever they may be, right, Western, non-Western, etc., is definitely very interesting because ultimately, it's also about creating legacy, right? We want our kids to also carry the torch of whatever our values are and make sure that that, you know, continues. And actually, now that I'm bringing up legacy, I wanted to briefly touch upon the point of demographics. You know, we were talking off-camera, folks, about the fact that, you know, we're getting fewer and fewer families, more people are staying single for a longer period of time, or even young couples are delaying having children or delaying marriage altogether, you know, more and more. And so, you have people in their 30s and their 40s that are, you know, not having children, especially in Europe, North America, maybe doing slightly better in that regard, but still not trending in the right direction. So, as a person who's had multiple children, do you see this as something of a contribution to the bigger picture? Like, do you think demographics, how is that shaping the world? How do you view this in the global context today?

>> I'm deeply concerned with it. As far as I'm concerned, this is the issue that during this decade and for the decades to come is going to be the most talked about crisis and issue of our time. And let me just put a point on it with regard to the actual numbers and why this matters so much for for us as individuals. One of the best ways that you can go where you're treated best is to go to where your family legacy is likely to continue.

>> So, I love that. Say that one more time. I love, I love that. One of the most important ways that you can go where you're treated best is to go where your family legacy is likely to continue.

>> So, I have a saying, I have a saying for this, right? The future belongs to those who show up.

>> Okay. The future belongs to those who show up. Now, that can have an impact in our own lives, but it also has an impact through the generations. And let me give you an example. Okay? Right now, given the current birth rate in South Korea, which is one of the countries with the lowest rates for which we have good data, we're not sure if they're actually the lowest reproduction rate in the world or not, but it's one that we have good data for.

>> Trustworthy data.

>> In South Korea, the fertility rate, the total fertility rate for the nation is about 0.7, something under one.

>> Way under one. 0.7 something. In Seoul, it's 0.5 something. So, I think it's 0.71, 0.72. What that means is for every 100 South Koreans alive today, if the birth rate doesn't decline further, if it just stays at 0.7, for every 100 South Koreans alive today, there will be fewer than five great-grandchildren.

>> Wow. So, they're basically disappearing.

>> Basically disappearing. Okay. So, my wife and I have more children than the average 100 South Koreans are going to have, unless they can figure out how to reverse this multigenerational change.

>> Which is going to be tough because they've been in that pickle for years.

>> It's a problem that no one has yet solved. Now, let's compare this. So, I'm using this because I have good data. South Koreans who move abroad out of South Korea, for example, the United States, we can get this data from the United States and a little bit from Australia and Canada, but the United States, where we have the best data. South Koreans who move from South Korea and are first-generation immigrants to the United States have a total fertility rate of 1.4.

>> Which is already significantly better. Not replacement, but significantly better.

>> Exactly. Which means for every 100 South Koreans who move from Korea to the United States, there will be 35 great-grandchildren.

>> A lot better.

>> Way better than fewer than five,

>> Of course.

>> So, doing something like moving from a city to a place that is more conducive to your family, or from one country to another, may be the only way that your genes and bloodline can continue, and even your culture. Right? Because if we look at this from a legal perspective, right? I comment this as a lawyer, and I'm like, you know, the original definition of nation under Roman law was a people that shared common ancestry, common mythology, common values, common foundation, basically, right? So, as we see, like in the case of South Korea, people that are disappearing, that means fewer people remembering their stories, their languages, their mythology, everything. And it's kind of sad to see it go. But it's not just a South Korean issue, is it? Because a lot of people say, "Well, but, you know, the Latin Americans are always having more kids. We can always import people from there." But the reality is that, you know, I'm from Latin America. You've spent a lot of time there. The reality is Latin America may be doing slightly better, but it's, you know, just a couple of years behind. That's it.

>> It's really not. Right now, in basically all of the Americas, in the Caribbean, and there are minor exceptions of one particular country in a year, but basically, it's basically true to say that all of the Americas, which includes South, Central, and North America, and the Caribbean, is below Canada to Argentina.

>> Canada to Argentina, and include the Caribbean, is all below replacement rate.

>> Okay. Wow.

>> So, people talk about immigration to the United States from Latin America. They say, "Oh, well, there's going to be Latin American immigrants." No, they're all done. They're all gone. There's no more big waves of.

>> Those who are going to go there, went there. They're done. They're done. And the people are running out of, running out of babies. And so, all the big nations in the Americas, same thing. The only region in the world there, first of all, there is only one developed wealthy country in the world that has dramatically above replacement rates.

>> Really? Okay.

>> Only one.

>> Which one? I'm, I'm discovering this with you folks.

>> Israel.

>> Ah.

>> Israel is the only wealthy country in the world that has figured out how to get rich and still have babies.

>> That is very. Are they well above replacement?

>> Well above replacement. Yes. Yes. All right. That's good.

>> It's the only one. Okay.

>> The only region of the world that is still having babies.

>> Would that be Africa?

>> Right. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world that is substantially above replacement rates, as best people can tell, basically because they're poor.

>> Right. So, basically, they don't have the problem, but not for the right reasons.

>> Right. So, all around the world, as wealth has increased, fertility has decreased, and we're running out of people.

>> And what is Israel's success? I mean, uh, not their success, but what has been the reason behind their success?

>> I would not say any one particular thing. I have listened to many insightful people argue about this, discuss it. Uh, I would just commend people to the research. If you look at it,

>> What Israel has accomplished is basically building a culture that encourages childbearing. And I think there are a lot of things. So, again, the people who are very involved in the space have a lot of really good arguments. Is it housing? For example, cities are deathly for procreation, and yet cities are very good for relationship formation. And so, when I'm coaching young people, I probably give some advice that says, you should have a plan to move to the city to find a wife, find a husband, and you should then have a plan to leave the city to have children. So, is it apartment size? Is it cities? Is it.

>> Suburbs equal family, or rural areas?

>> Exurbs and suburbs equal family, cities equal more like childless relationship.

>> It's a pretty clear trend. Yeah. But Israel denies that because Israel is very urban, very urbanized. But Israel, Israeli apartments tend to be larger than they are in some other countries. So, I, I'm not expert enough to say exactly why. There are about a dozen factors that are all looked at that we can be testing. We should be testing to see what works and what doesn't. All I know is that if you and I, as individuals, want our people to continue, and I want your people to continue, and I want my people to continue, then we're the ones who can make an individual choice. And that's the key, because this stuff is not forced upon you, right? Your procreation is due to your individual choices. Your individual, your choices to go and find a suitable spouse, to get married, to have children, and to build the culture, and that's something that's available to all of us.

>> Of course. And now, I would like to go back to, you know, Joshua, the finance guy, because this is something that is really interesting because people say, "Well, you know, I'm not having kids, but that's my individual choice," etc. And to an extent, I can respect that. But at the same time, if enough people do it, like, even without coming at this from a religious or moral or cultural perspective, I think there's going to be a real economic impact, right? You have fewer workers, fewer consumers, you have labor shortages potentially coming in. I don't know to what extent AI and robotics can offset that, but also from a national security perspective, fewer young, especially young men to serve in the respective militaries, etc. So, I view this from an economics perspective, I'd be worried. I'd be planning my portfolio around major demographic shocks in basically the entire world, save a couple of pockets. What do you think about that?

>> I think it's absolutely true. So, those of us who come from, like, for example, I'm from the United States. United States doesn't have great fertility rates,

>> But it's much better than a lot of other places.

>> And so, the more difficult countries are those here in Asia, especially countries like Japan and China, where they're going to be basically paving the way, and Korea, and saying, "Is there a way to figure this out?"

>> Um, we don't know what the impacts of this are. Maybe there'll be, it'll probably be a mixture of good things and bad things across the board. What I would say is, it does, it is something we need to pay attention to. And if you're looking for vitality and energy, you don't want to live in or invest in a graying, aging country. You want to be in a place where it's youthful and energetic. And so, I think you could take that as an investment thesis. And I think you could take it as a personal thesis. A lot of the issues that we fight about, a lot of them are just due to demographics. Is this country old and gray, or is this country young and enthusiastic?

>> Yeah. And then obviously, uh, grayer countries, that means less entrepreneurs, less innovators, because obviously older generations tend to be more focused on preservation than creation. So, obviously, that generates some economic stagnation, and that can also be problematic. Now, the interesting thing is, you know, this ties into more or less the welfare state, right? One of the main reasons why, especially European countries, and I would say the US to a lesser extent, but the problem is still there. One of the reasons why an aging population is also a huge problem is because we've created a system whereby the government is supporting, you know, a large percentage of the population, healthcare benefits, this and this and that. And then that also creates some tensions visa vie immigration. You had some interesting thoughts regarding that. What do you think? How do you see the, the panorama?

>> The welfare state was basically predicated on having lots of workers paying lots of taxes to support a small number of retirees. By the way, I want to insert, as I, as I answer your question, I want to insert one thing that people need to be aware of. Two things that seem contradictory are both true and will continue to be true over the coming years. The first thing is that we have a population crisis.

>> The second thing is that global population is continuing to rise and will continue to rise for the coming years. Both of those things are true simultaneously. And so, you can open up a newspaper and on page one, you can say, "We have a population crisis," and on page two, you'll see, "The world has hit a record large population," and that creates a lot of cognitive dissonance for people. But the basic reality is, we have lots of old people that we're keeping alive for longer.

>> Life expect, life expectancy is increasing, and we don't have enough babies. And more importantly, in many countries of the world, it's not that we don't have enough babies. It's that we don't have enough young women who can have babies. So, one of the things about demographics is that it is highly certain and extremely slow-moving. We know today exactly how many 25-year-old, um, French women there will be

>> In 20 years.

>> Exactly.

>> Because we know exactly how many 5-year-old girls there are, correct?

>> In the world, in, in France.

>> And so, we can calculate that with certainty. But the impact of those women and the babies they can have won't be even seen for another 20 years. So, we can predict these things, but yet the crisis kind of takes a long time. So, with demographics, the same thing. We know that all around the world, most countries that have robust welfare states are running out of money and running out of people, and they're making enormous changes, and those changes are, you just expect them to continue, and expect them to continue to create enormous unrest.

>> Gotcha. Well, it seems like, unfortunately, we're moving into a bit of a "Children of Men" type scenario. Have you ever watched that movie?

>> I haven't.

>> Uh, you should. It's all about. So, for anyone watching at home, it's a good movie. I don't know if I can advertise this on YouTube. It's a great movie. So, it opens up, just to give you a little teaser, 18 years into a global fertility crisis. Humanity has not been able to have children for 18 years. Societies have collapsed. And you're, so you're introduced to like a dystopian version of the United Kingdom, where it's graying, it's decaying, and then basically your protagonist goes through a couple of adventures in that decaying world. Uh, but basically, it's the representation of everything you're saying could happen, turned up to 11, because obviously it's a movie. So, highly recommend it if you're interested in the topic. Well, Joshua, it was an absolute pleasure to have you on board. I think everyone watching at home, around the world, in your office, in your car, wherever, I think this was an interesting topic for you to take into consideration for your investment portfolio, for your plans moving into the future. Bottom line, definitely possible to have a family and live an international lifestyle. 100%. You agree?

>> 100%.

>> We're good. Joshua Sheets, thank you so much.

>> My pleasure.