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I know every parent thinks this but ... she's absolutely beautiful!

See more pics on AmieRose.com

They say you learn something new every day. Today I learned a phrase that made me smile -- "tax avoison". Now, if I could only learn how to practice tax avoison, that would make me smile even wider.

I heard the phrase mentioned in a radio discussion about Ireland's growing reputation as a -- sort of, almost, not quite, kinda -- tax haven. The discussion was spurred by the recent move of UK Drugs company Shire to Ireland, for tax reasons. (Source:The Times, UK)

Now, companies re-locating to, or locating branches in Ireland for tax reasons is nothing new. Large software firms, in particular, have been doing it for years. The nature of the software business -- much of it globalised and online -- allows these companies to "wash" certain profits through their Irish branch, and avail of Ireland's lower corporation taxes on these profits, and makes it difficult for anyone else (e.g. the US taxman) to disprove that the profits emerged elsewhere.

What's new about Shire story is that this the first FTSE 100 company to relocate to Ireland. And, as the UK tightens its tax laws, Ireland is being seen as a UK companies as, if not a tax haven outright, a safer haven than the UK.

Expect many more UK companies to follow suit over the coming months and years...

I have just returned from a holiday in Malta, which I visited not only for its sunshine, but also because I was curious about its potential as a business location.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered. English is spoken (in fact, English is Malta's "business language"), personal income taxes are low, and IT companies can avail of business tax incentives. Malta is also a recent entry to the EU and, from the beginning of 2008, will use the euro as its currency.

Add to this a lower cost of living than Ireland's, a lower salary level, affordable accommodation, and I wonder whether -- in my line of work -- I'm on the right island.

Other pros: there are direct Ryanair flights from Dublin, and daytime temperatures rarely drop below 12 degrees at any time of year!

No wonder then that many UK companies are already using Malta as a "nearshoring" destination (BBC).

Yesterday I finished a book called "Wake Up! Survive and Prosper in the Coming Economic Turmoil," which I have already blogged about.

I regularly read non-fiction books, and rarely mention them here, but this one has grabbed my attention. Since reading it, I have been looking around for other opinions on the state of the US economy. A lot of people out there are very angry and/or worried.

This July article in a Canadian website called Global Research takes a particularly glum view:

Here's how I would put it today: our economy is on an artificial life-support system, a barely-breathing hostage in a lunatic asylum. That asylum is the U.S. and world financial systems which are on the verge of collapse.

Before reading "Wake Up", I thought that the American economy had recovered from the dot-com bubble, thanks to some Keynesian government intervention. Not so. It seems the Fed replaced the dot-com bubble with the housing bubble, and Americans (both citizens and government) continued to live beyond their means. From the same website quoted above:

As everyone knows, the Federal Reserve under Chairman Alan Greenspan used the housing bubble, like a steroid drug, to pump liquidity into the economy. This worked, at least for a while, because consumers could borrow huge amounts of money at relatively low interest rates for the purchase of homes or for taking out home equity loans to pay off their credit cards, finance college education for their children, buy new cars, etc.

But what goes up must come down, eventually. Americans have been spending money they don't have for over a decade. The US national debt now works out at around $30,000 per citizen. Someone's got to foot the bill. The dollar is sliding against other currencies, particularly the euro.

But Europeans will not be able to delight in a collapsing dollar (the crisis in the subprime market is only the tip of the iceberg -- the rest of the US mortgage market will soon come crashing down), since Euro exports will be hit hard too. And many European countries, particularly the UK, are also overborrowed. We may be entering a period of social and political turmoil -- depression, unemployment, civil unrest, wars -- triggered by a global economic crash.

Chandramohan Sathyanathan, an Indian blogger, suggests that a US dollar collapse is highly possible, citing the country's huge trade and budget deficits.

The collapse of the dollar will throw the world into a global depression. Those nations with large external debts will not be able to trade sufficiently to earn the income to service their debts, and will slide into bankruptcy. The economies of New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK will also totally collapse, as a result of their indebtedness and not being able to service their borrowings. Crime will become rampant. Law and order will cease to exist. Disease will become widespread.Though Asian economies will also be affected....they will recover after a mammoth turmoil.

So what do the authors of "Wake Up" advise? In short, be prepared for huge socioeconomic change on a global scale. Get out of debt as fast as you can. Don't take on any more debt. If you own property in the US or any other rich western country, consider selling it.

If you own property outside the US, consider switching your mortgage to a US dollar mortgage (the logic being that the US dollar amount is going to become small, relative to other currencies).

Of course, it might never happen. But will it hurt to be prepared?

I'm halfway through a book called Wake Up! Survive and Prosper in the Coming Economic Turmoil. Despite surprisingly few (and poor!) reviews on Amazon UK, this book is by two British-based authors, Jim Mellon and Al Chalabi. (The reviews on Amazon US are better, but still few.)

Call me a sucker for doom-mongering, but so far I've found the book both educating and enthralling. The author's central themes, from what I've read, are:

• China will become a world superpower within the coming decade
• Many Western countries, but particularly the US, are severely over-borrowed
• The world economy is heading into a dramatic deflationary period
• An energy crisis looms
• Geopolitics are increasingly unstable

As the authors point out, all of the information in the book can be gleaned from reading newspapters etc. But they put it together in a way that presents a compelling -- and sometimes chilling -- big picture.

The coming crisis will, they hint, bring opportunities (I guess I'll be reading about those in the coming chapters -- so far it's been pretty grim reading). Nevertheless, the authors' accounts of China's rapid economic growth has been fascinating.

Mellon and Chalabi stress that you can get anything you want manufactured cheaply in China, where the average wage is about 40 cents (US) a day. Indeed, a company I've worked with, based in the west of Ireland, has launched its own brand of VOIP phones. The ideas and marketing are generated in Ireland; the phones are built in and shipped from China.

When the authors talk about western countries living beyond their means and individuals not realising that the spending spree will have to end, I look at Ireland 2007. I glance at the newspaper reports of massive consumer debt in Ireland -- fuelled mainly by a property bubble that has recently started to make an ugly popping sound -- and see that the picture the authors paint looks very real.

Indeed, since the book was published, one of its predictions is already coming true: Mellon and argued that the US dollar was inevitably going to fall in value in relation to other currencies. We are seeing this happen, with the euro now worth $1.40 -- but the authors predict the slide will continue for a long time. (This hurts EU countries too, who need the dollar value to remain competitive, so that they can continue to export to the US.)

That this book seems to have gone largely unnoticed makes me curious. Perhaps we only want to hear good news, whether it's true or not?

Read "Wake Up!" along with Karoke Capitalism and your world-view will change. You may even see opportunities where others see crises. I know I do.