#1040 – The Expat Files: Life, Bullies, Bitcoin, and the Future of Money

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started All right. Let's see who we can offend today. Haven't you found that everyone's so damn sensitive? Seems like most of the whole world I mean the first world well at least the ones I hate to say this that voted for Biden are a bunch of whining Sniveling weenies. Hey, not that Trump was any better, but people who voted for Trump

[00:48] They call themselves conservatives That means they want to hold on to what they have already or the old laws and norms and Traditions like for example bullying. Hey, we all got bullied now, didn't we? Did you survive? Did you get over it? In fact, I remember a guy in high school. His name was believe it or not. Michael Jackson He was a big guy flunked greater too And I remember the first day of freshman year in high school. I'm walking into the building He came up to me and said give me a quarter in those days, you know quarter actually bought something It's worth something like three bucks today. I was a bit startled. I said no, I don't have one You know what? He did then he stuck his hands in my pockets and pulled out I think I had 25 cents in small change. He called me a liar gave me the evil I I knew I was gonna have trouble with this guy again. And yes, I did

[01:35] He took my dough my lunch money punched me in the shoulder and said if you lie to me again, I'll kick your ass He wasn't just picking on me either He did it every day eventually to dozens of green freshmen like me And you know what you just learn to avoid guys like that now if you don't believe in karma Listen to this about ten years later, you know after undergrad and grad school and all that I run into a guy that I used to sit right next to in many classes because our names kind of coincided You know how they used to put you in desks according to your name, you know, the first letter of your last name Now I don't think they can get away with that today It would be called racist or classist because if your name was at the front end of the alphabet You'd get preferential treatment if you were at the end like my buddy Jimmy Zach Z a K he was always in the last desk in the corner

[02:20] And I suppose in this climate if he was a failure in life He could sue the school because well being picked last for everything and sitting in the last row all the time Would be evidence enough in today's weenie courtrooms to have destroyed his self-esteem Boo-hoo, who can you sue poor Jimmy Zach? I wonder what dumpster he's digging through right now Then again, a lot of us envied him. He was always right next to the exit door Anyway, I run into this guy who sat next to me in many classes because we both had last names that began with an M So suddenly it was old home week We had a cup of coffee and started reminiscing about old times at the high school and then by chance he hit on the subject Of Mike Jackson because he was tormented by the guy too because you know If you didn't fork over some dough to him, he'd rough you up. Anyway, he said did you hear about Mike Jackson?

[03:06] He died of a lead poisoning Someone shot him in the head and then we both smiled and knuckle bumped and I know at least one of us said Come on who says there's no such thing as karma, but I digress man. Did I digress anyway? You probably knew a few guys like that yourself Question is were you the bully or the bully er when you get tested like that? You know, it kind of prepares you for adversity, doesn't it? Oh, by the way, if you hear a lot of construction noises going on, that's because there's some construction going on Now if you're wondering what color this Mike Jackson guy was well, I'm talking about Chicago now But there's also a tough a-hole guy blind hair guy of German descent named Kenny Schultz Who used to do the same thing ask for money and stick his hands down your pocket or rough you up if you didn't give

[03:51] Him some he was a big burly sociopathic a-hole. In fact, I'll never forget the time I must have been around 16 years old driving my first car and I saw him hitchhiking Many people actually did that back then not just in the movies either and you know back then there were no tinted windows at all So he saw me he recognized my car too and I knew I had to pull over and pick him up if I didn't it was Certain he'd rough me up later at school So I gave him a lift and he even had the nerve after the favor to hit me up for dough, too He was a big rough foul jerk of a guy. Everyone hated him But everyone was afraid of him too We just knew he and Mike Jackson and guys like him were headed for a life of crime But you know you're stuck at school with whoever end up being stuck at school with and then karma struck again By the time summer vacation after senior year came around the word spread

[04:40] It was in the Chicago trip to that Kenny Schultz the a-hole Everyone just hated got killed hit by a car hit and run and we all thought you know the guys he used to extort money From that it had to be one of us because it had been mentioned as a party topic and such that if we ever saw Ken Schultz hitchhiking late at night with no one else around we would just have to swerve right into him But no one fessed up and if they would have I don't think anyone would have squealed either So it was another case of our faith in karma being renewed of course kids today They're fragile little personalities and egos are never confronted with the common childhood traumas and learning Experiences their poor parents had to suffer through while growing up We must protect and shield them from all kinds of trauma and microaggressions

[05:28] That's job number one as parents besides paying for college buying a macar and paying for those summer break trips to Cancun in Costa Rica Yeah, right microaggressions that word didn't even exist when I was growing up Oh, and did you know it doesn't exist in the Spanish language reason number seven thousand four hundred and twenty six Why Latin America is a really nice place to have your plan be they did now, how did we get off on that tangent? Oh, yeah talking about how at least half of the US has turned into sniveling weenies Goes for Europe and Canada too. Oh, and yes, I did say that conservatives and especially libertarians are much less likely to be of that sort Hey, don't get me wrong. I would never have voted for Trump I don't vote for anyone because just by voting you're giving a vote of confidence to a completely corrupt system And I like what Gerald Cilenti says about politicians

[06:16] He says remember the guys you hated in high school the guys that were presidents and secretaries of clubs Perpetual student council members they went on to get their poli sci degrees and never held a real job They aspired to and succeeded in becoming the swamp creatures the ones that turned government into the putrid toilet bowl that it is And of course, I mean that in the kindest most Christians sort of way. Oh, and here's an interesting email a response email from Bart Remember a couple of shows ago. I was talking about hate mail came up. Hey, you know what they say when you're over the target That's when you get the most flack, right? Anyway, just in the interest of fairness. I'm gonna read Bart's email his response to my response to his original email Well, I'll read it because he explains the situation pretty well. He says hi Johnny

[07:01] I thought you did a pretty fair job of relating my Bitcoin phobia to your audience last week And I want to congratulate you on that. You didn't make anything up and you got me dead to rights, too I'm frustrated that my attempts to buy Bitcoin back in 2012 failed I tried to buy it through Mount Gox and couldn't make the technology work Remember my Gox Johnny. I think there was some scandal about that company. Yeah, right. So yeah, I'd be a Gazillionaire today had that worked out. All right Bart. I'm gonna stop here just for a second to talk about Mont Gox You know, that was the big scandal one of the early Bitcoin exchanges There weren't any other shit coins around only Bitcoin and Mont Gox is a place you could buy it and hold it back in 2012 13 and 14 there were very few places you could buy and store Bitcoin There were none of those really great hard wall

[07:47] It's like the treasure or nano that you could store your keys in and have them all by yourself in your house or in your pocket On a little device they came later after the crash of Mont Gox In fact, I recommend everyone who's into Bitcoin or any kind of crypto buy one of those things or something like 50 to 100 bucks depending But it's the best kind of insurance policy against hacking you can have back then those little hardware wallets didn't exist and you had To enter your password online Many people use the biggest exchange back then called Mont Gox And if you know cryptocurrencies early history, you'll know Mont Gox had some sneaky dealings going on and it went bust by February 2014 It was over Bitcoin was stolen. It was an inside job So if you had your Bitcoin on that exchange when it did you lost them In fact a very good friend of mine a guy talked to practically every week

[08:34] I think he lost 20 Bitcoin there and back then when Bitcoin was bouncing around between Two to eight hundred bucks. It wasn't around a six thousand dollar loss for him Yeah, it hurt. All right, like a lot of little paper cuts, but it didn't affect his lifestyle back then early on You knew getting into Bitcoin was a complete speculation You knew that when you got in the old saying was true only invest what you can afford to lose But man looking back on it today in 2021 the 20 bitcoins He lost the six thousand dollars worth would be over a million dollars now now as for me I got in at the same time, but I didn't do it through Mont Gox I knew practically nothing about crypto except I saw Satoshi's white paper and realized it was really Revolutionary but pretty much only for nerds and gamers if only it would catch on I thought you know being an engineer in the past

[09:23] Life and all that so I followed the lead of our local crypto expert Bitcoin Dan and he told me to put it into a blockchain address called info dot blockchain dot com as mentioned back Then there weren't so many exchanges just a few and one of them was Mont Gox So it really was for me pure luck that my crypto purchases didn't end up on Mount Gox The only reason they didn't is because I asked Bitcoin Dan Where should I put him and he said put him where I put mine and I did and then when those hardware wallets like Trezor and Nano came out a couple years later they were created as a response by the way to Mont Gox's problem and the general problem of putting your cryptocurrency Online and not in a hardware wallet by the way, you're not putting your Bitcoin aetherium or any kind of crypto in your hardware wallet

[10:09] You're just putting your private 12 or 24 word keys into the thing your Bitcoin or the record of your Bitcoin always remains on The blockchain but to access them you need your private keys So that hardware device the Trezor and Anno is only your private keys with that little device You own your keys and no one else ever gets to see them or have control of them those hard wallets as they're called Those things are unhackable, you know, because your keys are always outside of your computer They're just sitting on that little device. Whereas if you have your crypto coins on an exchange like coinbase That's the biggest one in the world now They actually have control of your keys But you know you have to use them once in a while because that's how you buy your crypto and sell it So the trick is when you're doing your business whether you're buying selling or exchanging crypto on one of those exchanges Which is online like coinbase and when you're done when you've performed all the actions you want to do

[10:57] You get off that exchange you assign everything back to your hard wallet that little thing that looks like a flash drive You with me so far now, I know for a lot of people especially baby boomers. That sounds a bit complicated That's why Captain Mango has put together a crypto course for beginners. You heard me talk about that He'll get you up to speed and probably about an hour And hold you through the whole thing including buying that hard wallet and setting it up As well as showing you how to get in and out of those crypto exchanges like coinbase, which you'll have to do eventually He'll hand hold you through all that too. He's highly recommended I've known him and he's been my buddy for practically 10 years now and he's completely 100% trustworthy and honest even when he's been drinking tequila So send me an email the expat files at gmail.com if you want Captain Mango's crypto course details

[11:45] All right, here's the rest of Bart's rebuttal email, which is by the way entitled my 15 seconds of fame So he said you got a lot of things right Johnny on the other hand you did Mischaracterize a couple of things that I pointed out for example while you completely refuted the terrorist money laundering angle Which I predicted would be the basis of legislating crypto out of existence Governments playing the Mafia card is the only scenario I predicted to wipe crypto out of existence It's not what I'd want at all. It's just what governments will probably do you don't need to convince me. It's all BS I predict cryptos powerful enemies will mold public perception until criminal involvement in cryptocurrencies is common knowledge It won't matter if it's true or not I wouldn't be surprised if the next 9-11 type of tax is a pretext once the perception is established

[12:34] They will criminalize crypto. That's my belief imagine a 9-11 type of tech That's funded completely with crypto and Bitcoin true or not. That'll bring the hammer down Then he says Johnny you cited Elon Musk as the expert in crypto whose lead you follow. That's fine He's obviously a lot sharper and better connected than the average part But you failed to mention that Musk only committed a tiny fraction of Tesla's cash to Bitcoin that amount exactly The limit I'd suggest for a prudent speculator a percent or two of total assets Whatever you can afford to lose without losing sleep at night risk governs reward, but most amateur risk takers just get took Alright Bart just a little comment there, too Now I'm thinking a person should put five to ten percent of his assets into crypto

[13:19] And if you look it up You'll find the only reason Elon Musk put in a percent and a half of the Tesla liquid assets is Because it's a publicly traded company and you have to go through the SEC Lots of paperwork and red tape when you change your company's Investment strategy completely because you know the SEC and Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to be watching out for the little guy little investors Which is complete BS. They're completely owned in front-run by the big players on Wall Street But you knew that already right the thing is if Tesla were to put ten percent of the capital wealth the liquid assets into Bitcoin or the crypto market the SEC would be all over them saying it's too speculative and risky of an asset to put the Shareholders at risk yeah, right like the thousands of B and C rated junk bonds aren't that companies are allowed to invest in I mean really

[14:09] They aren't B and C rated for nothing right that means of course They've got lots of risk cuz they're not a rated and even the a rated companies can be junk After all the rating agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's have been corrupted, too Look it up. They've been caught red-handed rating companies higher than they ever would have been otherwise you knew that didn't ya alright Then Bart says everyone should bear in mind that if and when the demonization of Bitcoin begins in earnest It will be time to take profits a recent interview with Wall Street insider Nouriel Ribini may be predictive of the attack on crypto to come then he gives me a link now You know I already knew about this guy if you scan all the crypto and Bitcoin YouTube influencers There are hundreds of them they all put out 10 or 15 minute shows every day analyzing the crypto market the odd thing is you'll find

[14:57] Only two or maybe three old baby boomer establishment guys like Ribini Saying that cryptos all of them are garbage and useless you see him Ribini and Peter Schiff and a guy named Jim Rickards Are the main crypto haters anti crypto guys they diss it all the time and that's become basically their trademark Whereas just a few years ago practically all establishment economists and market analysts Were anti crypto and now they've all flipped they had to since bitcoins gone up over 200% a year for 10 years running the thing is you see if you're a traditional stock market analyst or Economist a 10 or 20 percent return on your money per year is fantastic And all the traditionalists were left in the dust watching Bitcoin push 200 percent a year

[15:44] So now as they say if you can't beat them join them But those three guys being crypto haters keeps them in the news the fact is they wouldn't be getting their sound bites and such on CNN If they were crypto lovers, they're the three oddballs they know they'd fade away and be irrelevant if they join the crowd and you know the worst thing to be these days if you're a market analyst or economist is Irrelevant especially if you're a media hug like all three of those guys are because you know if your viewership and likes hit a slump There goes your income Alright then Bart says Johnny pull your audience and I'm sure you'll find many many folks are happy to have followed your Bitcoin advice early on Far more no doubt than those who panicked and sold when it dropped It would be interesting to learn just how many sold and lost their dough How about you invite feedback from listeners to find out however Johnny you are justified in touting crypto as a speculation

[16:32] Turds float and this one will likely float a lot higher on the rising flood of fiat money Then it will get flushed but reckoning if there is one is probably years away Your advice had made a lot of folks very rich and for the tiny number of losers They are ultimately responsible for their own actions, right? And finally, he says you mischaracterize me as a hater I'm not I find a lot of value in your show and love your humor and anti-pc. Take on things best regards Bart Hey Bart, you're by no means the only one that's piped up about the Bitcoin stuff People write me email after email Thanking me for how rich they are now and some whining about how they couldn't take the rollercoaster ride and panic sold Meanwhile since bitcoins been around 12 years or so now Did you know that about 98% of people who bought it and any time as long as they held and never sold

[17:21] Stuck through those periods when there was a panic drop. They're all way in the money some of them millionaires Now with just a couple of grand in for an initial investment and you longtime listeners No, I've always advised just buy it and let it ride. It's gonna have its huge swings It always has you just have to look at it in the long term. We all see the fiat funny money system self-destructing You have to try to preserve your wealth and your choices basically are gold silver Crypto and land if you know your history you'll be wise to the fact that no paper fiat currency has ever Stood the test of time. They all rapidly head towards zero in the last hundred years the US dollars lost 95% of its purchasing power and so has a British pound There are basically the only two currencies left that have been around for more than a hundred years

[18:07] The rest of them have all gone to zero That means every one of the hundreds of paper currencies that have existed throughout time have gone to zero So really it'd be nuts Nuts put your faith in paper money, especially when they're printing money like there's no tomorrow right now The US dollar is only backed by one thing not gold or silver the US military think about that for a second Alright while we're on the subject of crypto and collapsing currencies. Here's an email from Darlene in Canada She says Johnny they talk about the dumbing down of kids in America. You ought to see what it's like here in Canada She says when the new generation writes our history books as inevitably as they must do The books that no one will read of course the one thing I'm sure of she says that history will be misspelled

[18:56] Have run on sentences bad punctuation and every historic event will be generically described as totally awesome Yes, Johnny even in our graduate schools up here in Canada The lack of knowledge in the cluelessness of the students is so apparent to us teachers Especially those of us who are baby boomers. It's apparent that most journalists are brain-dead, too For example, I'm reading here from the CDC Center for Disease Control's own report that says in the first half of 2020 Americans life expectancies had dropped by a full year to seventy seven point eight years old blaming, of course COVID-19 That news was reported with a straight face by all the major newspapers in New York Times the Washington Post and all of the internet

[19:44] News sites as well as CNN and the major networks and yet when you examine the data You'll find the average age of a person dying from COVID-19 in America is are you ready for this? 78 in other words logic will tell you the typical person is better off dying from the coronavirus than from natural or other causes because you'll live an extra couple months and Johnny did you know in 2020 a year when the grim COVID Reapord was on the loose all over the world? The global population actually grew by 81 million people Look it up on the UN's world statistics site Then she says Einstein once said Johnny that after hydrogen the most common thing in the universe is stupidity Funny Johnny you talk about Bitcoin. Yeah, right Bitcoin. It's used for illegal activities, right? Got a bandit

[20:33] Gotta shut down those criminals, right? Yes, the talking heads and government and the Fed will bring that up every time There's a discussion Oh Johnny. I'd give anything to be a CNN interviewer. Just for a minute My comeback would be this and only this I'd say did you know smarty pants? Every single US dollar in circulation has cocaine residue on it Look it up every single bit of paper currency has cocaine residue on it and you brain-dead Shlubs wanna ban Bitcoin Duh, she says it's not even the proper term of disgust for that one I have to get out of Canada. My husband and I are coming to your next seminar for sure I just hope we get out in time before the mandatory travel vaccine She says Canadians have to get out or get destroyed. There are no other alternatives

[21:20] Anybody here that doesn't see it is either blind or plain stupid Canadian home prices have gone up three times Three hundred percent since 2006 Oh, and did you know that in the major markets the big cities housing has gone up five times since 2006 Look it up in all that time since 2006 wages haven't kept up with asset inflation Let alone the CPI Johnny the Bank of Canada has cheated an entire generation They expect us now to spend 45% of our income on housing. Yep That's what economists are saying the average Canadian except older baby boomers Who've paid off their mortgages now spend 45% of their income on housing. I'm done with the system She says I refuse to play the game anymore. I've been buying gold in crypto. I'm getting out of Dodge

[22:09] I'm coming to your seminar in Canada can feel free to devalue with their currency Keep on bailing out the big asset holders and charge 50% in taxes But I won't be on the wrong side of that deal anymore It's like having your doctor diagnose you with high blood pressure And he says the cure is to slowly drain blood from you every day So all you canooks out there stay in Canada if you must that is if you don't mind dying poor Oh and Johnny about those talking heads saying that Bitcoin and crypto are environmentally unfriendly and idiots like Bill Gates saying that it takes the energy of Argentina to mine it and that it's just a big waste Why doesn't anyone talk about how it takes massive energy and manpower and environmental destruction to mine gold silver platinum?

[22:55] Lithium-lead uranium iron tin aluminum and oil hundreds of times the energy it takes to mine all the Bitcoin out there Besides, you know the crypto mining situation has changed drastically in just the last two years now they're putting solar panels out in the desert 500 miles from the nearest city and Mining Bitcoin out there with zero environmental degradation Another thing people don't realize that all power plants still operate at a net loss at night And on weekends the turbans just spinning away wasting all that energy with all the big manufacturing plants on idol at night Yep They keep those power plant turbines spinning away They have to with billions of megawatts of energy lost every year

[23:40] Available not used the soul lost just like in oil country when you drive by and see the natural gas Just lit up and burning off all that energy completely lost to plus slowly degrading the environment Burning natural gas spews that environmental demon co2 into the air So then what are bright creative crypto miners doing these days? They're setting up generators to run on that wasted natural gas out in the oil fields harnessing that lost energy Bitcoin miners are getting smart and green and environmentally conscious though. Nobody talks about that That's a major trend as well as buying electricity at its lowest rate and why does it have a low rate? Those are those off periods where it's being produced and wasted So when you hear Bill Gates and his crypto haters say Bitcoin is sucking up far too much energy You know, it's just fake news and misinformation

[24:27] All you have to do is a quick Google search and you'll find it's all BS Remember bill effing gates was the guy that said in 1985 The internet was a fad it would go away like Netscape did when remember he's the guy that gave away hundreds of thousands of doses of free Experimental vaccines to the poor people of India thousands who've died or were permanently injured Oh, but that'll be hard to look up on Google because it doesn't conform to the Bill Gates Fosse and Big Pharma party line Johnny, did you know that Microsoft Bill Gates this company doesn't take Bitcoin for payment But Apple does and those two companies have always been bitter enemies. They're in direct competition and hate each other So you can expect Gates to talk crap about crypto. All right enough said about that

[25:14] Now to close out the show a gringo expat buddy of mine asked me if I could decipher his Latin American electric bill So now I'll go through it with you. It's an easy one too because last month he used 400 kilowatts Of course, it's all in Spanish. That's why he wants me to dissect it for him And I thought it'd be a good lesson for you guys, too. All right first. We have the fixed charges That's for just having the service and having the meter. It's not a smart meter. By the way Though I am seeing them pop up here and there I don't know if they're actually being used because guys still come out and check those meters And that's what they're supposed to eliminate, right? But this is Latin America, you know, by the way You know expat Eddie had an addition put on his house and they put a smart meter in and he just hit it with A hammer cracked the glass housing He called told him to replace it and they came over and try to put another smart meter in but he was having none of that

[26:02] They told him they don't have any regular meters anymore. Just smart meters So he sent his maintenance guy down to the local electric supply store where they have the old meters They sell them for something like 40 bucks His maintenance guy bought one brought it back and the guy installed it. So remember that so anyway, the fixed charge on this bill is $2.30. That's what you gotta pay every month. Even if you go off the grid, that's just you know to maintain the hookup big deal Right now you've heard me say many times before that Latin American countries Subsidized poor folks electricity It's reflected here in this bill with the first 200 kilowatts used is listed here at costing 8 cents a kilowatt hour The next hundred kilowatts that's from 200 to 300 kilowatts 12 cents a kilowatt hour and the final hundred over the 300 mark at

[26:50] 20 cents a kilowatt hour So his final bill using 400 kilowatt hours of electricity for the month of February 28 days is around 48 bucks Meanwhile the average American household uses between 800 and a thousand kilowatt hours a month So if you came down here and use the same amount your bill would be over a hundred bucks a month Which gives you one of three options when you move down here Number one be energy conscious and lower your bill number two go solar and get the hell off the grid But remain connected just in case of emergency or you have to do maintenance on your solar equipment or number three Don't cut down at all Just keep using 800 to a thousand kilowatt hours a month and like the piggish wasteful Americans. We are You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America

[27:36] If you need some help with your own plan B We can schedule a one-on-one phone or Skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at Gmail dot com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week long expat insider seminar in Central America Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan B Send me an email the expat files at Gmail dot com Nos vamos