Posted On Apr 24, 2015 By Brian Maher
Haven’t you always dreamed of owning 298,840 acres of land in… Paraguay?
We haven’t either, to be honest. But former president George W. Bush apparently had. Maybe you missed it, but he purchased all that land back in the glory days of 2005 and 2006. Maybe he thought he was investing in the next great retirement destination…
We can see it now… strip malls in their dozens, tracts of identical houses from horizon to horizon, fleets of Buicks and Cadillacs doing 22 in a 30.
Paraguay Land
Can’t you see the potential?
Or maybe the Bush clan had something else in mind when they purchased all that acreage in the remote Chaco region of Paraguay…
After all, it does seem an unlikely retirement destination. Bush’s judgment may not have always been the best, but still…
The Chaco is a semiarid, sparsely populated area known — to the extent that it’s known at all — for its abundant wildlife, rapid deforestation, nothing in particular… and what lies beneath it…
Our Real Wealth Trader and Outstanding Investments contributor Jody Chudley thinks he knows the true gen about the Bush land grab.
Jody says he has a “secret” about the Bushes. And he adds, “It has to do with an investment idea that’s hardly on anyone’s radar.”
The real reason Jody thinks Bush 43 and family snapped up nearly 300,000 acres in those semiarid, sparsely populated wastes of Paraguay?
Water.
That’s right, blue gold. Bush bought the rights to a veritable ocean of fresh, clear-as-glass, Grade A water.
His land rests atop one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world: Acuifero Guarani, by name.
According to Jody, “Acuifero Guarani covers roughly 460,000 square miles under parts of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. It is estimated to contain about 8,900 cubic miles of water.”
If you can’t quite imagine 8,900 miles of water, picture a pool nearly three times the size of California. That should give you a decent idea.
A fair amount when you consider that 98% of this planet’s water is salt water.
Of the other 2%, almost 87% of it is trapped within glaciers, hence inaccessible. Jody’s “trusty calculator” informs him that only 0.25% of the water on this cosmic ball is fresh (underground, or in rivers and lakes). Just a drop in the figurative bucket…
“Wouldn’t you love to know what high-level intelligence the Bush family has been privy to over the years that would make them go out and buy hundreds of thousands of acres of water rights in a remote South American country?”
How cheeky of Jody to raise such an impertinent question. But perhaps W knows something we plebeians don’t? Think of all the secret intelligence crossing that fancy English oak desk in the Oval Office.
And do pause for a moment to consider the investing opportunities this could potentially provide. We mention only in passing that his old man happened to be the head of the CIA at one point…
You needn’t own a tinfoil hat to raise an eyebrow here.
Jody came across a piece of 2008 research from Credit Suisse estimating that two-thirds of the world’s population is likely to live under “water- stressed” conditions by 2025. Quite a lot of people, that, and 2025 isn’t exactly the distant future.
You know about the historic drought conditions afflicting California and much of the Western U.S. But Brazil and other parts of South America are also in serious drought. And guess, dear reader, who happens to own a lot of neighborhood water rights? (Out of respect for your intelligence, we won’t answer that one.)
Makes us scratch our head just a bit, though. Does Bush know something none of us knows?
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