Bubbles, Tariffs & General Chaos | From The Trenches with James Boyle (We’re The Brits In America S1:E42)

The ‘Magnificent Seven’ (that’s Alphabet, NVIDIA, Amazon and the rest of the tech giants) currently make up over a third of the entire S&P 500. This is a problem for long-term investors because – as we saw when Chinese GPT DeepSeek got released in January – billions can be wiped off their valuation overnight. Are they overvalued as it is?

To discuss this and all the market movers from the start of 2025, Richard Taylor and James Boyle are back in the trenches. They talk about the importance of diversification: ‘if you want to grow it, diversify. If you’re out to make money and you’re willing to lose it all, concentrate”, says Richard.

James shares insights on the current market volatility and what it means for your retirement planning. Plus, as always, how to ensure you stay tax compliant as an expat in the US.

We’re the Brits in America is affiliated with Plan First Wealth LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Plan First Wealth.

Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Plan First Wealth does not provide any tax and/or legal advice and strongly recommends that listeners seek their own advice in these areas.

About Richard

Richard Taylor is a British expat, dual citizen (UK & US). Originally from Bolton, he now lives in Greenwich, CT, where Plan First Wealth has its head office.

As the firm’s leader, Richard launched Taylor & Taylor, now Plan First Wealth, and continues to fuel the firm’s growth. Richard is a Chartered Financial Planner (UK – CII) in addition to holding the IMC (CFA UK) and Series 65 (US – FINRA).

Connect with Richard on LinkedIn

Transcript:

Richard:

[00:00:03 – 00:01:33]

Welcome to the We’re The Brits in America podcast, a Plan First Wealth podcast dedicated to helping ambitious expatriates and first generation immigrants thrive in America. I’m your host, Richard Taylor, and Plan First Wealth is the business I founded and run today. We work with successful American and international families living across the US Helping them to make the most of their opportunity living and working in America. However, while Plan First Wealth LLC is an SEC registered investment Advisor, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of Plan First Wealth. Information presented is for educational purposes only. All right, let’s get back to this week’s show. Welcome back to another episode of from the Trenches, where myself and my esteemed colleague and partner, James Boyle get together and bring you behind the curtain of Plan First Wealth. Share with you what we’re talking about, what we’re doing, what we’re seeing, in the hopes that it will better equip you as an expat to thrive in America. So let’s get into it. So we’ve actually got a lot to talk about this one, so we’re going to try and keep it relatively brief. But it’s been a wild time since we last met, so let’s start there. What. What’s happened since we last chatted, James?

 

James:

[00:01:33 – 00:01:42]

What hasn’t happened? It feels like every day is a new headline, new excitement, which I would anticipate continuing for the rest of the year and potentially longer.

 

Richard:

[00:01:42 – 00:01:45]

Do you remember Deep Seek that. That happened a decade ago, right?

 

James:

[00:01:45 – 00:01:50]

It feels like ancient. That was written in the, in the scrolls now.

 

Richard:

[00:01:50 – 00:02:28]

Yeah, right. I, at the time, that was like the what that we woke up on a Monday and the market just fell off a cliff because Deep Seek apparently been out for a while, but everyone kind of got wind of what it meant. And for anyone doesn’t know it, AI industry is spending billions and billions and billions of dollars on AI infrastructure. And then, and like large language models and all this stuff. And then Deep Seek, this Chinese company, basically put out a, what I understand is a very workable model for a fraction like 5% of the cost. And everyone freaked out that all this money was wasted and it could be easily copied. And the Chinese are going to take over everything. And the market fell off a cliff. Fell off a cliff in the moment and then steadily recovered for the rest of the week.

 

James:

[00:02:28 – 00:03:08]

Massive cliff, too. It shouldn’t be overstated. Nvidia’s drop on that Monday was just a hair under $600 billion, was the largest dollar figure market cap loss of all time for any company. So I think it goes to show how vulnerable these stories can be. Right. And that’s what they are at this point. I think investors are looking for profitability or will be for all the capital spending going on. And if there’s any hint that the basis of that story is not true or may turn out to be less than promised, I think we’re going to see a lot of volatility, as we did.

 

Richard:

[00:03:08 – 00:03:30]

We’re going to talk about this later, so let’s not spoil it. But when investing looks too easy, you’re usually about to get slapped on the face and found out that, oh no, there’s more to this than we had deep seek. And then that was quickly forgotten because we had the first announcement of tariffs. He’d not even been in office a month and he was threatening Canada and Mexico and China with tariffs.

 

James:

[00:03:30 – 00:05:11]

And just today. So for those listening, we’re recording this on the morning of Thursday, February 13, it was announced that there will be a press conference at 1pm from the White House on tariffs. I don’t think they specified what it is exactly. As it stands, the president announced global 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. Those are meant to take effect on March 12, but then there was some confusion and said it could be implemented as early as today. 25% on Mexico and Canada are set to come next month. 10% on China has already been implemented. So Wednesday CPI, right. That’s the big one that everyone kind of looks at. Increased 3% over the prior year. It’s an uptick from December’s 2.9. It’s 0.5% month over month. It is the largest Since August of 2023, a slight acceleration from December. Is this enough to be concerned about? I think it’s going to be an ongoing story. Right. The core CPI, which is X food, no eggs involved, ex gas, increased 0.4% monthly. It’s still 3.3% over last year. So it is above the Fed’s target. It gives them room. Powell was given testimony this week. Gives them room to be patient with rate cuts. Right. So that is going to be an evolving story throughout 2025, I think. Are we going to get a cut in 20, 25. And if so, will it be one, will it be two? And when will it happen? I think the bond markets right now are pricing in one cut, but not until October, So we expect to stay at these rates for some time. Unless something else breaks, which it very well could. Employment’s holding up for the moment. Could that change? You know, we’ll have to see. But the Fed remains.

 

Richard:

[00:05:11 – 00:05:20]

Question. It’s such a circus. It’s such a circus. It’s just, it’s, it’s denigrating to America. It’s embarrassing. The whole Senate approval stuff is embarrassing.

 

James:

[00:05:21 – 00:05:29]

And it’s a fairly new development. Right. It wasn’t always, I don’t know, Fed heads were. Feds weren’t so. Oh, weren’t made to be quite so vocal.

 

Richard:

[00:05:29 – 00:05:29]

No.

 

James:

[00:05:29 – 00:05:29]

Yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:05:30 – 00:05:33]

Greenspan famously never gave anything away. Yeah. I don’t know about the Senate.

 

James:

[00:05:33 – 00:05:36]

You wonder if that wasn’t better in some ways.

 

Richard:

[00:05:36 – 00:06:50]

I really don’t know. You just. Just been around this part about market. So. So it’s been a really tumultuous start to the year. It’s been a really, really tumultuous few weeks. But then it always is. Right. Although it’s definitely heightened. I just want to remind people, December 31st s P500 closed at 58815881 according to my stocks app. Today we’re at 6090. It’s been slightly above that. It’s gone down, it’s come up. You’ve just got to tune out everything we’re talking about. We talk about it because it’s interesting, because it’s relevant, because it’s happening right around us and because despite our constant entreaties to, for people to tune out the noise, none of. No, no, none of us do. We’re all susceptible to it. And yet real companies managed by real people doing their best striving are just going to keep doing what they do and then that’s reflected in the market price. So tune out the nose, keep the faith. And I must say, as well, I don’t know if you’ve seen, but Europe’s doing okay year to date. Europe is up, really up. The economy’s not doing great, but the stock market is. And also, I’ve checked the footsie before as well, and that’s also having had a good start to the year, it’s a cacophony of noise to. To abandon everything. But the US reaches its zenith. That’s probably the time to do exactly the opposite.

 

James:

[00:06:50 – 00:06:59]

You’re right. And it’s easy to get caught up in this fervor when the S and P is up something like 20 odd percent year on year for two years in a row.

 

Richard:

[00:06:59 – 00:07:06]

Once you factor in 2022, it’s only like 7.8percent a year, which is kind of normal. Yep.

 

James:

[00:07:06 – 00:07:30]

It is amazing how people hear 7, 8% and think, oh great, I invest in a broad basket of stocks and I get 7, 8% a year and I go on my merry way. What that means in reality is similar to what we’ve seen over the last couple years, right? A really pain year followed by a rebound. Maybe another good year, maybe we get a correction this year or next. It’s part of the toll you pay.

 

Richard:

[00:07:30 – 00:07:54]

To invest in equities, invest in real companies run by real people, harnessing the immense and unstoppable power of human ingenuity. We’ve tried to crush human ingenuity. Case in point, Russia, China, in the, in the past, not so distant past. You can’t crush it forever. And the US frankly, has been the best at harnessing it or the best in recent memory.

 

James:

[00:07:54 – 00:07:59]

Should we, should we talk about concentration in large cap us since that’s in the news?

 

Richard:

[00:07:59 – 00:09:16]

Well, this was triggered by the fantastic Jason Zweig. He has a newsletter in the Intelligent Investor in the Wall Street Journal and he’s just put out a piece talking about how the Mag 7 are completely dominating the S P500 and therefore a lot of people’s portfolios, because a lot of people are vested in the S P500. And a lot of people, even those who are diversified, have a big concentration in the S P500. And this whole piece is about, is this concentration a problem? And it turns out that just the pure fact that the S P is so concentrated in itself is not a problem. It’s not even historically abnormal. And in fact, during periods where a certain sector or a cluster of companies didn’t dominate to such an extent, the stock market in the US historically hasn’t performed that well. So no, we shouldn’t be afraid of a few very good, very successful companies dominating the S and P. We shouldn’t be afraid of that. That is a feature of indexing, not a bug. What is a problem is how expensive those seven stocks are and as a result, how expensive The S&P 500 is overall. He’s ringing the bell. He’s saying, guys, watch out here. We’ve got a problem.

 

James:

[00:09:16 – 00:10:05]

It’s an important nuance there, and I’ll just repeat it. The top 10 companies in the S&P 500, so obviously to the layman, that’s the 500 largest cap companies in the U.S. the top 10 of those made up just about 37.5% of the index’s total market value. So that’s over a third held by the top 10 companies. It is not necessarily that concentration level in isolation that may cause a problem. What is much more important is the potential for overvaluation. Right. Too expensive. So the S and P, those Mag 7 companies which everyone knows the names, right? Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Nvidia, they are trading at about 22 times earnings expectations for the next year. That is above the average since the 90s, which I think is something like 16.

 

Richard:

[00:10:05 – 00:10:55]

Now let me just jump in a second James, because I don’t think the average person on the street, particularly Brits, think when you hear earnings, I don’t think they necessarily understand what we talk. That’s just profit. So stock price is often measured as a function of profit. So if you make how many times annual profit would you someone willing to pay for this company? That’s a, it’s a really simple concept. And historically looking at the S P as a whole, James is saying investors will on average are willing to pay about 16 point something a multiple of current profits to buy the S P500. But right now, because of the concentration in these particular stocks, it’s 22 times profits that people are willing to pay. And that is right at the top historically.

 

James:

[00:10:55 – 00:12:21]

Now it’s not actionable advice, right? Because we don’t know there’s that old saying the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. So we’re not saying, you know, to time and we’ll talk about diversification and the importance of diversification. But when people, we start to field questions from our clients and even people who don’t work with us yet about they look and see the headline numbers, right? And what is shorthand for the US we’re guilty of it here on the podcast the s and P500. So when there’s two years in a row of 20 plus percent returns on the S and P, everyone wants to pile in, everyone wants to performance chase. They don’t realize they’re doing it, but they look and see, hey, the S and p has done 50% over the last couple years. Why aren’t I all in that? And that is arguably the precise wrong time to make that decision, right? You want to be in the business of buying low and selling high. What you are doing intrinsically when you see a run like this with one segment of the market is Buying high and selling low effectively. So you have to be really conscious of that as an investor, that you’re not taking on more risk, that animal spirits, quote unquote in the market aren’t leading you down the path that could overexpose you and lead to losses that you weren’t prepared for? I think that’s a key distinction when we talk about the S and P as shorthand and something that it’s easy to get wrapped up in a period of frenzy like this.

 

Richard:

[00:12:22 – 00:13:33]

James, the, the seven stocks we’re talking about, the people are paying on average right now. Was it 44 times or 42 times? Yep, 40 something times profit. And that’s what’s dragging the S and P as a whole up to the 22 times that we mentioned. Is it possible we’re on the cusp of an AI revolution that’s going to, it’s going to book 100 years of history and we’re entering into a new era? Yeah, I guess it is. Is it more likely, and this is what Jason Zweig is saying, is it more likely though that the US has had a magnificent run, but the future might not be so magnificent if the historical average is. I’m just making this up. The historical average is 10 a year and we’ve had 15 years or 15 a year or whatever it is, some had some magnificent returns. And that means that in all likelihood the future will be somewhat muted in comparison to the. Into the recent past. And therefore, rather than concentrating in an already highly appreciated asset, people should start to think about diversification. If they’re not already diversified, it should think about where the puck is going, not where the puck is.

 

James:

[00:13:34 – 00:14:05]

It’s easy to say tune out the noise, right? Even though we talk about it. And to some people it’s entertaining, I’m sure a lot of our listeners. But having a plan in place, having that diversification in place helps you to do that very thing, right? So if you are overexposed tech, if you’re heavy in the queues and you’ve made a play on Nvidia and you’re looking at Apple, maybe you are overexposed. And maybe you should consider, are you appropriately diversified for your goals? That key diversification being the tool with which you can ignore the noise, you can tune out the noise.

 

Richard:

[00:14:05 – 00:14:41]

You know as well you’ve heard concentration gets you rich, diversification keeps you rich. And I think concentration, what people are really meaning, there are traders, people who set up their own company and concentrate in a single stock, or people who work for a company and Accumulate stock through that. That’s concentration. I think the mistake is when regular people take their retirement money. Money that’s their mark for their future, even if it’s not in a retirement account. And get. And get concentrated because you can really blow up your savings that way. Really blow up your savings.

 

James:

[00:14:41 – 00:15:22]

And unwittingly. Right. It can be an innocent oversight. It’s easy to get caught up, like I said, when the headline shorthand of the S and P is doing well, it is human nature’s instinct to say I should be on all of that. And we could see, we saw it with the deep seat thing. Another stat that caught my eye. In 2024, Nvidia alone produced more than one fifth of the S&P’s entire return. So again, to your point, not making predictions, but we know that potentially they’re in a vulnerable position. If there is something that derails this AI story, as you’re saying, overexposing yourself to that segment of the market could prove dangerous.

 

Richard:

[00:15:22 – 00:16:03]

Let’s look back to 2007, 2008. I know Lehman’s brothers did go down. And we’ve recently watched Too Big to Fail. I’ve read the book and we watched a movie again recently. It’s a good movie, takes you, takes me back in time to that period of time. But they, it turns out letting Lehman Brothers go down was a mistake. But that’s kind of immaterial because the rest of the banks cratered and they created for years and years and years. So what we’re. Yeah, James and I aren’t talking about them, any of the Mag 7 failing. We’re talking about the Mag 7. We’re just talking about them not doing unfathomably well for the next 15 years as they have for the last 15. And that is very, very possible.

 

James:

[00:16:03 – 00:16:37]

You could come up with any range of hypothetical situations. Right. One of which you could argue, and we’ve seen some of this in the last, I would argue six to eight weeks, a rotation out of the heavily dominant stocks, Right. Tech stocks, into other segments, other companies within the S and P or international or Europe or uk. You may see that maybe the AI story starts to falter and that capital moves to elsewhere. So there is no predicting what’s going to outperform this year, five years from now, ten years from now. The best you can do is diversify.

 

Richard:

[00:16:38 – 00:18:50]

And James, this is a very unfashionable thing to say right now, but if we look at 100 years of research and data, small caps, small companies outperform, large Companies now they haven’t for the last 15 years. And you can take that one of two ways. That either means abandon small caps forever and just only invest in large or maybe there’ll be a rotation, maybe the time of small caps will come back tbd. What we’re saying is don’t make a bet. Diversify. That’s always if you want to grow it and, but protect it as well, diversify. If you’re just pure out making money and you can, you know, you’re willing to lose it all concentration, go for it. That’s not what we do, that’s not what our listeners do, that’s not what our clients do. Sometimes the lines get blurred and people get mixed up. But again that’s part of what we’re here to. That’s a part of what we’re here for. So we were going to talk about a couple of situations that have arisen recently. One with a prospective client we’ve been talking to and another I received an email. We’ll start with the email one. Right. Shall we? So I received an email from someone asking for an introduction to a tax advisor who could in the U.S. turns out who could help with a UK property sale. And I said UK property sale there. So someone asked me, I sent them a list of UK US tax advisors that we work with, all of whom are in the uk. Specific UK US experts are the people who can do both tax returns. There’s some good cross border ones in the US but they’re kind of a bit more generic. Whereas if you need to, if you need to be doing both US and UK tax returns and you need really specific UK advice, you need someone, the best one in the UK and this person came back to me and said, oh that’s great, thanks, but I’m looking for one in the, in, in the U.S. because we’re U.S. people now, we’re going to pay tax in the U.S. and I had to go back and say, look, I mean I can, but my understanding of this is your UK property is a UK Citus asset. You have to do a UK tax return and pay tax in the uk I believe then you’ll have to still report it in the US and there may be more tax to pay or you’ll probably get a credit for it, you know, but I think your foremost obligation is in the UK and they had no idea. And it just goes to show I think most people would have no clue about that. And this person was trying to meet their US obligations, not realizing that actually they had UK ones as well. So I just thought that was quite an interesting.

 

James:

[00:18:51 – 00:19:39]

We, we get, we get these kind of questions in that vein a lot and we hear what you just mentioned, right, this desire to have a tax adviser in the country, in the U.S. essentially if you’re living in the U.S. which, which like you say is, is a valid instinct, right. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that necessarily. I think the, you know, the point we try to get across is making sure, understanding what you need first in this case it would be cross border tax advice and then understanding which professional or which team is, is has the expertise and knowledge to, to do that, to enact that. If you have like you say uk, UK property, you are going to have obligations in the US of course, but you’re also going to have UK obligations and you want to make sure that you’re spending the effort and time on both of those and not foregoing one for the other.

 

Richard:

[00:19:39 – 00:21:19]

What we see is like clear cross border situations, people don’t see it and I think that’s one reason why for, for a huge amount of non compliance and I’ll say it a million, I’ll say it again, I’ll say a million times, the vast majority of expats in the U.S. those who moved here mid career and had stuff in their original country are in non compliance absolutely without and most haven’t got a clue. It’s unwitting. And because people don’t realize if you’ve, people with cross border situations don’t realize it’s cross border. So there was that and then we’ve, we’ve been meeting with someone recently who’s been in the US for a couple of decades, has a financial advisor, not, not really. They have someone managing a chunk of their investments that’s, there’s nothing else going on there. It’s just a pure investment advisor over there doing their thing. Meanwhile we, they come to us, this is Brits in the US and we dig into the situation and we immediately spot pfix. You know, if those who don’t know non US investments, non US collective investments, ETFs, mutual funds are looked upon unfavorably, let’s say by the US and they come with a whole host of reporting requirements and some really punitive tax consequences. And they’ve been here two decades, they’ve had tax advisors, they’ve had investment advisors. Within 30 minutes we’re spotting these cross border problems that are going to cost thousands to resolve. Not just in reporting but in unnecessary taxes and interest that could have been avoided. And the sooner we’d have this conversation, the sooner we could have resolved this and the sooner, the less tax and interest they would have paid.

 

James:

[00:21:19 – 00:21:33]

You make a good point there. So it is complex, right? The industry we work in and it can be overwhelming. And this is going to sound like I’m tooting our horn as the American on the pod. I guess people will expect that from me.

 

Richard:

[00:21:34 – 00:21:37]

Toot away, my friend, toot away. We’ve earned it.

 

James:

[00:21:37 – 00:22:51]

These problems are to anyone working in the industry with a knowledge of this space, which again is complex, is overwhelming. These problems are immediately self evident. And you say 30 minutes. I would imagine by the time we opened up this document it was within 30 seconds, honestly, because these are common problems we see time and time again, the heartache, the penalties, all of that can be mitigated and resolved by getting to these things early. And if that’s not done then getting the right team in place. Now obviously we have a vested interest in knowing that we can do it, other people can do it. I’m sure that are out there. It takes an understanding or working with the professionals with an understanding to know that these problems exist. Because very often people have held these things pfix in this case for decades when it’s a very easily avoidable problem that like I say, anyone with the knowledge within 30 seconds, two minutes are going to spot those and say these are a problem, these need to be dealt with. So to anyone feeling overwhelmed or listening and thinking, does this apply to me? Potentially yes. But I would make sure you have your ducks in a row and if there could be lingering issues, speak with someone, start to address it. Because it doesn’t help to put it off.

 

Richard:

[00:22:51 – 00:24:10]

No, it really doesn’t. I don’t expect domestic professionals, and by this I mean financial tax and estate planners, estate attorneys. I don’t expect them to become cross border experts. Although if they want to, they should check out the Global Financial Planning Institute. There’s a great, they can learn a lot there and they can meet some great fellow cross border professionals. But what I wish we get the message on is that the moment, the moment you get a hint of non US stuff, accounts, assets, investments, trusts, beneficiaries, properties, businesses, family, anything. Stop calling the cavalry. But that’s not what happens. What happens is they go, oh yeah, okay, we kind of can’t deal with that. I call it a tumbleweed moment. And then it just gets put in a drawer, forgotten about. This is an example when there’s going to be a very, very real financial cost. Another example is Estate planning attorneys, just setting someone up with a living trust, well that might be fine. Or for someone with foreign non US beneficiaries or other stuff, it can be an absolute nightmare. It can result in masses of additional taxes. So I just wish there was a way to like it was like in the professional code of conduct, like the moment something non u S pops up, you have to call in a cross border specialist. So much anguish could be averted and so many dollars could be saved.

 

James:

[00:24:11 – 00:24:46]

Absolutely. And one last point there. Just because we’re pretty plugged into the industry, right. And are seeking to increase networks, certainly this is a venue to do that. If there are tax preparers out there in the US who have specific cross border experience, certainly US UK is something our clients can always use. Don’t hesitate to reach out. Right. We say that all the time. We want to get this information out there. James@plant first wealth. Richardfirstwealth.com Send an email, send a note and we’re happy to have a chat. We are constantly fielding inquiries, questions from this podcast and we love that we want to keep hearing those messages.

 

Richard:

[00:24:46 – 00:24:48]

What’s next?

 

James:

[00:24:48 – 00:24:57]

Well, we had a somewhat special edition of the podcast, I would say last I thought it was a really good story.

 

Richard:

[00:24:57 – 00:26:27]

This podcast has three formats. We have this from the trenches where you and I are trying to bring about the curtain, hold back the curtain on plan first wealth. We have the other one, the more common one, ask an expert where I’ll bring in fellow cross border professional. I’ll bring in a tax advisor, someone who has some really good technical information to share to help Brits and other expats thrive in America. And then always an expat, which is what this podcast originally started at, is when we’ll, I’ll have someone who’s got an interesting, important, relevant story to share with the world. And I had Keith Hunt on and Keith is going through something, going through something real. He’s battling cancer twice. First pancreatic and now brain. And he’s just doing it with like courageously and he’s just tackling it with such stoicism and, and, and courage. And he’s also clearly reflecting as I imagine is entirely natural. Right. He’s reflecting on, on his life and his family and what it is all meant to him. And I saw him on Facebook post something basically just this, this is, this is after the pancreatic cancer but before the brain cancer. He was out walking somewhere. He just said, people live your life, you don’t know what’s around the corner. And that chimed with our message of like, you get one shot at this one life, live it deliberately. We’re all just going through the motions, we’re all guilty of it. So I asked him to come on and, and, and share his story, share his message. And I think it’s powerful. I think, I think he’s powerful.

 

James:

[00:26:27 – 00:26:39]

I think it’s powerful that, that conversation you had about the, this idea of one shot at this. Right. And, or what we call. Sometimes you’ll hear us use the phrase lifestyle, financial planning. It can feel abstract.

 

Richard:

[00:26:39 – 00:26:39]

Right.

 

James:

[00:26:39 – 00:28:03]

It can feel ambiguous. But that is, I mean, obviously a very unfortunate circumstance. But it is such a reminder. Lead with that why we’re called Plan first wealth and why we think that’s core to everything that we do. And these aren’t easy questions, right. If we’re lucky, a lot of the people we talk to, they’re wrapping up a career, a very successful career, 30, 40 years of doing something and they’re now faced with this next phase of having the time, health and wealth, if you’re lucky, to do what they want to do, to organize and structure their life, to really enjoy those years. It’s such a key piece that’s easy to sleepwalk by. Right. And frankly, we have conversations all the time with people who are either forced into that position before they had a chance to think about it or plan for it or come to the end of that career and think, I don’t know what that next phase will look like. I don’t know where we want to travel, I don’t know where we want to land or be or where home is. So these are big questions and they should be the bedrock of all the decisions downstream of that. Investment management and income planning and tax planning should all be in service of that central lifestyle plan. And I thought last week’s episode or the last episode was such a good reminder of that demonstration of that and a really good story. And you know, appreciate Mr. Hunt for joining us and being on the show and sharing.

 

Richard:

[00:28:03 – 00:29:12]

Yeah. And you know the, the part where he talks about for all its faults, the American healthcare system which have kind of been reframed me after I listened to this fantastic podcast. Peter Attia had a, his ex McKinsey colleague on. They did this deep dive on the American healthcare system and essentially Americans are prioritizing access and choice, whereas the European Canadian single payer systems are prioritizing like free, the point of service or something else. But essentially it made sense to me was like, oh yeah, American. I can imagine that Americans that is the American way. They are, they are prioritizing access and choice and, and they’re going to pay for it an awful lot. It turns out it’s like 5 trillion a year. But the point is, I’ve had other clients say this to me. I had a client whose wife went through breast cancer. But Keith is convinced that if he’d had this in the uk, he wouldn’t be here now. The pancreatic cancer that is, it wouldn’t have been diagnosed as quickly, wouldn’t have had as positive an outcome. And he’s not just basic, this is not just his intuition. He, he’s in contact with people in the uk. That’s, that must really get you thinking.

 

James:

[00:29:12 – 00:29:51]

One of the early conversations we have with people always entails where will you end up? Right? Where will you be? And for, for our audience, for the people we work with, that’s a big question to ask and answer, right? Because you’re globally mobile, you travel, you live different places. To hear him say before landing, where they landed and they felt like it was home, that was an open question. Right. And it’s okay to be adaptable. And then when you do land somewhere that, that I think he mentioned, you know, him and his wife feeling like this, this sort of sense of comfort and peace, having found landed somewhere that, that they could see as being home long term or for the foreseeable.

 

Richard:

[00:29:52 – 00:30:35]

It’s a weird feeling, James, like, so I’m an expat and an immigrant. I’m a dual citizen. I’ve got an American business, an American house, American kids, American dog. It’s my home. But you just never know, you’re never quite sure. My hope is that it, all of us don’t have to go through something that Keith has gone through to have a sense of, I don’t know, permanence and, and an awakening that he’s had. But maybe we do. That’s why we’re always an expat. Even when you’re 10 years in another dual citizen and you’ve got way more life and family here than you have elsewhere, you’re still always an expat. And then incidentally, if you go home or go back to where you’re from, you’re an expat there now, you can never go home. Right.

 

James:

[00:30:35 – 00:30:38]

That’s the, to tie it into.

 

Richard:

[00:30:38 – 00:30:39]

It’s also exciting though.

 

James:

[00:30:39 – 00:30:50]

Yeah. There’s a way to incorporate that into the plan. Right. And that level of flexibility, adaptability, mobility, it is exciting. It keeps things, keeps things fresh, which is always good.

 

Richard:

[00:30:51 – 00:31:03]

I love expats they’re the best people. Not just British expats and not just ones in America. Globally, you’re bold, you’re adventurous, you’ve taken risks, you’ve expanded your horizons. You done stuff. I love them.

 

James:

[00:31:03 – 00:31:04]

Absolutely.

 

Richard:

[00:31:04 – 00:31:16]

People. Next up on the podcast we have my friend Aiden back from Colia Bristow and he’s updating us on. So we did Raiden. I did a. One of our most listened to podcast. It’s.

 

James:

[00:31:16 – 00:31:18]

We got a lot of engagement out of that one.

 

Richard:

[00:31:18 – 00:31:49]

Yeah. The domicile system in the UK and cross border UK US estate planning and labor government upended it changed 250 years of domicile rules. So we’ve got Aiden back on to talk us through those changes and what they mean. Spoiler alert. It means I, I think it’s mostly good news. It means more options and I think it’s a while since I recorded it, but I think more clearly defined outcomes under the old system. There was, it was a very gray area and no one likes gray areas. We know that. This is a bit more definitive now.

 

James:

[00:31:49 – 00:31:49]

Good.

 

Richard:

[00:31:49 – 00:31:55]

So I think, I think positive stuff. But this is a really good one. This is a great one for Brits in America.

 

James:

[00:31:55 – 00:31:59]

I bet that will generate again a lot of interest and questions which is always good, how that can illuminate.

 

Richard:

[00:32:00 – 00:32:05]

And he’s great. He’s super charismatic and good to talk to. So.

 

James:

[00:32:05 – 00:32:18]

Excellent, excellent. I have an eye on the time here, but we have to, we’d be remiss not to end on pick and mix because as we know that’s our listener’s favorite section here. Are you still working through Power Broker?

 

Richard:

[00:32:18 – 00:32:37]

No. Right. So I finished Power Broker. It’s gotta be in top, top 10, probably top five books I’ve ever written. It’s a masterpiece of investigative journalism. It was spectacular. And I finished it and I just. After I’d read that I just wanted to read something a bit easier and I read.

 

James:

[00:32:38 – 00:32:38]

I can’t.

 

Richard:

[00:32:38 – 00:32:56]

Did I, did I say I read the Eric Larsson Lusitania1? Oh no, you didn’t tell you that one. So, so I read that. That was good. But you know, once you’ve gone for. I mean, it’s really good but once you’ve gone from that masterpiece. It was. And then I read. Have you heard of the Ken Follett? You had a Ken Follett? He does historical fiction. He’s done like. Yeah, World War II series.

 

James:

[00:32:56 – 00:33:01]

I think you recommended me the World War II one, which is the, the one I read, I think. What was that one Called.

 

Richard:

[00:33:01 – 00:33:02]

Well, that’s a series of three.

 

James:

[00:33:03 – 00:33:03]

Okay.

 

Richard:

[00:33:03 – 00:33:06]

That’s a series of three. I can’t remember what they call. But this is a series of three, so you should read all three.

 

James:

[00:33:06 – 00:33:07]

Yeah, yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:33:07 – 00:33:28]

But then he has this like King’s Bridge series, which Pills of the Earth one is set in like medieval times. Anyway, I just read the third in that series. It’s in a make believe village called Kingsbridge. It’s set during Elizabeth the First reign. So it’s all about the Catholic versus Protestant shenanigans. Should we go as a.

 

James:

[00:33:29 – 00:33:42]

He is a prolific writer too because not only does he have these multiple series, but they’re. I mean, I know you just off of Power Broker, which was a doorstopper, but these are not insubstantial books. Right. They’re, they’re fairly lengthy.

 

Richard:

[00:33:42 – 00:34:21]

It’s a really easy to read story. You know, just. I enjoy historical fiction for, you know, I’m, I’m aware of Elizabeth the First’s reign. I know about the, the, the tug of war between Catholics and Protestants. I know about the Bloody Mary burning everyone. And then what happened under Elizabeth when, when he creates a story and you see it from ground level and through the eyes of the humans and the participants, it gives it a whole another perspective. And I, I really enjoy that. I enjoy both. I enjoy biographies for period, when you, you really get into the, the history of the thing. And I enjoy historical fiction which, which brings a different dynamic of it up to life. But I’ve also got to tell you one more thing.

 

James:

[00:34:21 – 00:34:21]

Yeah.

 

Richard:

[00:34:21 – 00:37:22]

I’ve just listened to this. Do you remember when we were in New York and I recommended the history hit yes podcast, but I talked specifically about American history here. Right. I’ve just listened to. They’re doing a series on Jamestown. I know very little about Jamestown and I’ve just listened to it this morning and I did not know this. So you know how there’s Plymouth, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and then there was Jamestown and these, these two colonies were, they’re now, they’re now there’s like some rivalry between them. But that, that’s a product of the American Civil War. These were two colonies at the same sort of time and, and indeed colonists went between the two at the time. But obviously New England has turned out incredibly different to Virginia and essentially Virginia. What happened in Virginia, the antebellum south, that’s all a product of Virginia. And it turns out that, that really. And I’m, I’m sure I’m not doing justice to this because I’ve just Learned it. And even the guy who was. Who was talking about it was said, this is incredibly complex. But it turns out that really, the antebellum south was a product of the English Civil War. So Jamestown became like the aristocratic center, and then everyone spread out away from that, and there was a. The rural urban tension that we have today. A lot of British royalist refugees had come over the Lee family, the Carter family, which I assume is that. When he says Carter families, is that President Carter? I don’t know. But the Washington family. Yeah. What. So they. They were. These families were refugees from the British Civil War and to the point where the University of Virginia are called the Cavaliers. It’s after the British Cavaliers, the Royalist Cavaliers, that it’s called. The state is all dominion. And apparently that’s because Charles II said, you guys are loyal, and it became Old Dominion. There was this tension between the rural, rural Virginia and the. The kind of the. The growing aristocratic center in Jamestown. There was this a rebellion, and they were looking at the English Civil War, thinking, he can rise up and behead a king, then why can’t we rise up and behead a governor? Then there was this Bacon rebellion after a human being, not after food stuff. Yeah. And. But the aristocrats won. And then the. There’s a whole chain of events, but essentially this led. It’s the opposite. What happened in the British in the English Civil War, the aristocrats won, and the antebellum south was born. And then you have this. This wildly different outcome from the Puritans up in New England and the. The aristocrats planting their tobacco and cotton in the antebellum South. Absolutely fascinating When. When he. When you. When these pieces of jigsaw come together, I absolutely love it. Because you never think. I never thought. It’s so obvious that south and the north are different. And if you had sat down and thought about it, I’m sure you could. You’d realize that is an explanation for it. But I’d never thought about it, and I found it fascinating.

 

James:

[00:37:22 – 00:38:04]

And ripples. I mean, arguably to this day. Right. I mean, that. That will be forever more. Yeah. I always find music, that kind of music heritage fascinating, too. And I am nowhere near a scholar on this. But, you know, you always hear about Appalachian sort of. You call it like American folk music is descended from, I think, in parts, England and Scotland and Ireland, even. Even down to instruments like the fiddle and the banjo. And when you know those connections, you can then hear it and how it’s been preserved and things like that. It’s it’s fascinating to think about, you know, those through lines that otherwise wouldn’t be obvious. But afterwards you look back and think, oh yeah, that makes sense.

 

Richard:

[00:38:05 – 00:38:11]

Do you know? I know because I always go on about books and podcasts. I’ll give one TV recommendation as well. The Day of the Jackal.

 

James:

[00:38:11 – 00:38:16]

Ah, I’ve heard this is fantastic. What like what’s that streaming on? Is it?

 

Richard:

[00:38:16 – 00:38:20]

Great question. Not sure. Hulu maybe.

 

James:

[00:38:20 – 00:38:21]

Okay, okay.

 

Richard:

[00:38:21 – 00:38:31]

It’s a remake of a 70s movie which is I think itself is a remake of a Frederick Forsyth book. And Eddie Redmayne is fantastic in it. It’s just, it’s just top quality tv.

 

James:

[00:38:31 – 00:39:52]

Nice. I think my last pick in Picket mix here and we’ll wrap up here, I promise was Slow Horses which we ripped through. Absolutely loved it. Waiting desperately for. I guess it’ll be season five now is coming up next couple books here. So I have been stuck in this time of year. We talked about the weather, we talked about being gray and cold and dreary every day. I find that this time of year I get stuck into series. I’m not a usual, I don’t know if you’d call it a thriller, mystery type guy, novel guy, but I have been devouring this series called the Dublin Murder Squad series by a writer called Donna French. They’re all set in Dublin. She does a really fascinating structural technique where it’s a six book series. I think I’ve read about three or four. I have never seen this done before. She’ll take an ancillary character from one book and make them the main character in the next. So it’s not quite one to one a continuing story, but you start to see little overlaps and connections between characters you hadn’t noticed before. So really excellent especially I’m sure if you’re into that genre. They’re really good books here. She’s another one that’s really prolific. I started to look at her bibliography and she’s got outside of the series another like 10 books or something. So if you’re looking for some, I wouldn’t say light hearted escapism considering it’s called the Mortar Squad series, but it’s, it’s very entertaining.

 

Richard:

[00:39:52 – 00:39:54]

Ready? Ho. Thank you mate.

 

James:

[00:39:54 – 00:40:08]

Thank you all for listening. We always say it but send in questions. We’re getting more and more and we can always work them into the topics of the day, as it were. We want to make sure that this is relevant and helpful for everyone listening. Maybe the next time we get together it will be a little bit warmer and sunnier out.

 

Richard:

[00:40:09 – 00:40:10]

Fingers crossed.

 

James:

[00:40:10 – 00:40:10]

Take care.

 

Richard:

[00:40:10 – 00:41:13]

All right, bye. Cheers. All right, folks, that’s another episode of we’re the Brits in America Under Our Belt. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it. And I appreciate you. If you’re enjoying the show and would like to support the mission, which is to help ambitious expats and immigrants thrive in America, I’d ask you to subscribe to the POD wherever you listen and also consider leaving a rating and review. This stuff really does matter. Please help us get this information to the people who need it. That is your fellow expats. Just a quick reminder that this show is brought to you by Plan First Wealth. We are a US Based lifestyle financial planner and wealth manager and we help successful American and international families living across the US to make the most of their opportunity and ultimately to retire happier. If you’d like to know more about how we might be able to help you, you can find us on our website, planfirstwealth.com or you can look me up on LinkedIn. Do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you. As always, thank you to the podcast guys for their help producing this episode and the entire show. See you next time.