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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   559 thread views

Transnational Thursday for November 6, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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There was a car bombing in Delhi this morning, near an old British fort that now serves as a tourist attraction. Casualty counts have been rising over the past several hours, now standing at about ten dead. Indian authorities are treating the explosion as a terrorist attack. Indian army units near the Pakistani border are mobilizing, and the Pakistani army has just been placed on high alert. While the body count of this attack is fairly low compared to other notable attacks, the location seems highly inflammatory. I’m not great with geography but I believe this is effectively a suburb of the national capitol. I can’t help but feel another border skirmish or worse is on the way.

So, I've been living in Paraguay since February 2024. I've recently started giving some thought to where to put my money. Paraguay is attractive because it's soo capital starved. I have $140K to deploy (I've put a different chunk in the stock market)

Some options:

  • Real state. I can buy a large appartment in a good neighbourhood for $80K, or a small apartment in a less good neighbourhood for ~$30K. A house in a good neighbourhood is a bit outside my budget ($170K), but a house in a less good neighbourhood wouldn't be (<$100K). A single apartment in a good zone has the that it can be either investment or consuption, i.e., I could try to rent it and if I don't just move out of my current apartment. A friend also pointed me towards allotments, i.e., buying up a larger territory and dividing it up into lots for houses which people buy on installments; apparently this is very profitable. Another possibility is to buy houses "de remate", i.e., which have been expropriated for people because of debts &c. These can be significantly cheaper but require paying 50% upfront.
  • Local businesses. They are generally very very capital constrained. For instance, I'm turning a food stall across the street into a larger restaurant (the guy's family owns the land). Another option is to rent motorcycles, very profitable if I can put up the capital and let someone else take the hassle. I expect this kind of thing is super profitable, the problem is that finding local businesses just takes a lot of time, trust building and relationship building.

Overall I see Paraguay as growing rapidly and thus I see an opportunity there, but I'm confused about what shape that takes for me. I'd appreciate thoughts, reading recommendations, etc.

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