Grandpa says: Many years ago, back in the days when I was struggling to reorganize my life following a difficult and very expensive divorce, a pamphlet by Harry Schultz came my way, discussing PT. In those days, Harry called it "The Three Flag Theory". This turned out to be the greatest discovery of my life!

 

With a net worth as small as perhaps US$25,000, Harry said you may well be able to quit working, enjoy life and live on your tax savings alone. You can keep your capital and most of your interest and dividends, tax-free.

 

But before we launch into a full description of the PT philosophy, who is Harry Schultz? Harry Schultz, ageless editor/publisher of the International Harry Schultz Letter, is a classic PT who saidBye Bye Big Brother in his early twenties. But what are the facts behind the Harry Schultz legend? Many of our readers would like to know more about the man behind the masthead. Harry gave us this exclusive interview.

H.S. takes over:  My days as a thinking humanoid began and the seeds of PT were planted during World War II, when I was a soldier assigned to duty in Shanghai. Like anyone who has ever been in any army, I learned what it was to be under the thumb of a Big Brother Bureaucracy. I was a good soldier outwardly, but my mind was elsewhere. I used every off-duty hour to read voraciously and prepare myself for the newspaper I was determined to buy after discharge.

 

The war was winding down, and I was already a PT: a Part-Time soldier, Preparing for Tomorrow. I made some money trading shares in my off-duty hours on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. What a marvelous discovery it was for a boy from Milwaukee to see that it was possible to make money in a totally alien environment! It gave me a sense of confidence that most people never get. We all could earn a living almost anywhere, but there is this fear that if we leave the nest something terrible will happen. The truth is, more likely something wonderful will happen.

 

You will discover that there are many "mobile occupations" that you can do anywhere in the world. I discovered trading. I bought and sold silk, bank shares, currency and made a small fortune (very small) in a high inflation economy. I also bought and sold gold coins and bars. By the time my discharge came through I had turned US$500 of army pay into enough money to make a down payment on a weekly newspaper in Palm Springs, California. At the age of 22 I owned my first newspaper.

 

I turned this paper into the first daily the town ever had. It was later taken over by the Sun. This experience led me to the discovery that more money could be made and getting into ruts could be avoided if one bought a small or distressed operation, made it bigger and more profitable and then sold it. I became a different kind of PT then, a Publisher Temporarily, as I bought and sold newspapers, sometimes starting them from scratch. I had three basic skills: writing, editing and publishing. I found these could be employed anywhere in the world. A basic PT tool is figuring out how your skills or talent can be adapted to fill local needs.

 

My newspapers, thirteen in all, were in the United States though my wartime

travels in the Orient gave me the wanderlust. I started out, after selling my last newspaper, with the idea of taking a year-long trip around the world to see if there might be some place where I'd like to have a part-time residence.

 

I never moved back to the U.S. on a permanent basis. The world was just too exciting to commit myself full-time to any one place. I felt sorry for the 95 per cent of the world's population who never know anything but the immediate vicinity of their birthplace. Just because you were born someplace doesn't make it the best place on Earth, though most people are so provinicial that they think their home town is the center of the universe.

 

Excessive familiarity with surroundings kills your spirit and breeds laziness of mind. Worst of all, you don't grow up as much if you remain among school friends and family. They continue to treat you as they did when you were a child. They remind you of your limitations and "proper place." They pressure you and mould your life into conventional predictable patterns. The only thing you experience is growing older as all your friends grow older.

 

Army life had convinced me that I needed to be my own person, not under anyone's thumb. The excitement of discovering new places, going into many interesting business ventures and always making a good living by buying and selling things was keeping me young, alert and intellectually vigorous. When I returned several times to the United States, I was appalled by the violence and crime in the big cities.

 

And I speak not only of armed robbery but also of the legal violence. Americans after World War II were suing each other as a way of life. Involved in a few small claims suits as a defendant, I learned quickly that victory didn't go to the morally right person. By the 1960's there were new legal theories that would disburse the life savings of a productive hard worker like myself with deep pockets, to any impecunious person who cared to sue. As I said, I didn't want to be under anyone's thumb and the legal system in the United States had unquestionable tilted against anyone who had the skill or luck to accumulate enough assets to be financially independent.

 

As a result of my experiences, I decided to have a "floating" home. Not a boat, but rather a state of mind that could allow me to be a sort of modern-day nomad. I tried Canada for a few months and loved it until winter set in. Then I took off for the fabled French Riviera and decided to live there very modestly while trading on various stock markets all over the world. In my spare time, I wrote a book. This turned out to be Bear Markets which Prentice Hall published.

 

My trading and book were both successful. As a result I had many letters from readers asking for financial advice. This led to a newsletter for my consulting clients. While I didn't like the idea of being tied down to deadlines and a regular job, I thought that I could write the newsletter from anywhere in the world. And that is exactly what I did!

 

As I moved around, the world's first portable international newsletter helped me achieve my goals. What were these goals? To be my own boss and to write useful information for my friends and clients exposing the truth where need be, without worrying about anyone getting bent out of shape. The HSL, founded in 1964, was a one man show. I have had wonderful staffers, and have met many interesting friends via my newsletter. Mainly by word of mouth, subscriptions came in from all over the world, including heads of state and leading thinkers. My infornmation sources also multiplied and my creative powers expanded. I have written theHSL from Beverly Hills, Washington, DC, London, Copenhagen, Paris, Monte Carlo and Sydney.

 

After all these years, it is still going strong, coming out every five weeks. It has been printed in a dozen countries, and like me, can move across the world on short notice. A portable communication has given me a healthier, free life.

 

As a PT you are under no one's thumb. Only you call the tune.

 

About 20 years ago, I put the concept of PT into a mini-book I called How to Keep Your Money and Your Freedom. "Three Flags" was the way I described the need to have a second passport, a safe haven for your assets outside your own country and a legal address in a tax haven. Over the following years, I wrote many newsletter segments about what I eventually came to callPT. It was also about this time that I first met my co-author and with him expanded the three flags to five. We included a place of business and playgrounds. Today, the Internet has become our 6th Flag. 

 

A consistent purpose in life is also one of the goals of the true PT. With the help of P.T. and others, I think I've discovered  how to live life to the fullest

 

 

This is Grandpa again: Thanks to Harry D (for Dynamic) Schultz for the above exclusive interview. If it were not for Harry Schultz, I would never have discovered the PT concept. He is truly an inspiring person. If you order the 3 volume set ofBye Bye Big Brother, you will get amongst other goodies a free copy of the latest Harry Schultz International Letter and also a copy of his Gold Charts R Us, the world's only online weekly gold chart advisory with specific buy/sell/stop numbers useable immediately to cash in on the gold bull market. The retail value of these items, if you could buy them singly (which you can't!), would be at least $200! The real value, if you put into action the ideas contained in the newsletters, could be much much more!

 

© 2006 Harry Schultz. Reprinted with permission from PT: A Coherent Plan for a Stress-free Healthy and Prosperous Life without Government Interference, Taxes or Coercion, reprinted with the kind permission of Harry Schultz.