#930 – The Expat Files: Navigating Life, Power, and Wildlife in Latin America

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 that 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 talk a little bit about solar panels and going off the grid Yep I get questions about it all the time because I've dabbled in it myself and the truth is I'm always keeping up on the latest And greatest tech stuff because you know being an engineer in the past life You just have sort of an addiction to gadgets now

[00:46] There's something we haven't talked about much yet involving installing solar panels here in Latin America You'll see right away if you ever come down here and drive through any little subdivisions that most all the roofs are flat At least 90% of them anyway And you have to wonder why that is because we're talking about an environment here where it rains like hell Six months of the year and man when it comes down it comes down four five even ten times harder Then your typical rainstorm up in Milwaukee or New Jersey now That's not to say it's always coming down during the rainy season You get it for an hour or two sometimes three or four Then normally you get some hours of sunshine and then it repeats the next day and the day after that and the day after that Etc though sometimes when you get a hurricane or a tropical storm It could be rainy for three four or five days at a time with no break, but that's not the usual case

[01:37] It's usually a couple hours with a really heavy downpour and then it's over at least for the day And when I say it rains, it really comes down. It's hard to imagine unless you see it for yourself many times It's almost impossible to drive in especially at night And it's not only because you just can't see because your wipers can't keep up with it It's that once the rain hits the roofs in the houses It's got to go somewhere and that's pretty much anywhere it wants to and that's why practically every time There's a big rain a good percentage of street intersections are completely flooded out and they could remain flooded out For an hour or two after the storm because the sewers and the drainage vents are undersized I mean, this is Latin America, you know, and even when they're built to code no one's ever out there cleaning or maintaining them In other words periodically getting rid of all the plastic leaves branches McDonald's wrappers, etc

[02:27] That have clogged things up deep underground though That's not to say that governments don't have street departments that are in charge of cleaning the streets highways and drainage ducts And they do clean the streets superficially. You'll see little city crews of guys and gals in matching Municipal or government t-shirts manning their brooms and dustbends out on the streets and highways apparently doing their jobs But in truth, it's only cosmetic sure they periodically go through and pick up all the plastic and litter and stuff But they're not down there pulling sewer covers and cleaning drains Which is why it you'll see flooded intersections during every rainy season and regular cars that are low to the ground Backed up for blocks cautiously inching their way through the lake that wasn't there yesterday and many times I'll just pile up on the embankment scared to drive through because they don't know how deep it is and

[03:16] Justifiably so because your average car has a running board That's probably only six to eight inches above the road and the height of the water during a big rainstorm could get much higher than That that's why I always recommend gringos and expats by a car That's higher off the road like a pickup or mini SUV because obviously they always have better clearance than your average car Not to mention the tires themselves are larger wider and with heavier duty suspension systems, too So they're able to take a nice big pothole without blowing a tire or screwing up the front-end alignment I mean really the last thing you want is to blow a tire at midnight on a desolate badly lit Latin American road I could tell you many times when I was driving on one of those roads and I hit an unmarked pothole Problem is if you got a small car

[04:02] You're likely to blow a tire bend a rim do some real damage unless you're driving a pickup an SUV or a mini SUV By the way SUVs here in Latin America are called cambionetas Cambionetas and it's true many roads here in Latin America are very badly maintained However, if you're driving during the day, you can see where the potholes are at night Forget about even if you know the area new ones are popping up all the time and at night most roads are badly lit By the way, not so long ago Latinos returning from the States would tell me how great the roads were in America But they're not saying that anymore Yep, it's the deteriorating infrastructure up there, but we were talking about water the rainy season and flat roofs, right? Well as mentioned about 90% of the buildings here in Latin America have flat roofs

[04:50] That's because builders and owners are always thinking that they might add another story in the future Now I know that almost never happens in the States you build a house there or you buy one Who's thinking about tearing off the roof and adding another story? No one right? I mean, I don't think I've ever met anybody in the States who thought hey, I got a big tax return this year Let's add another story to the house. What a good idea not First of all, most houses in the States are made out of wood and metal studs Unlike in Latin America where almost all the construction is block and concrete for that reason up in states Most structures just couldn't support another floor too much weight to bear Most stick-built houses would be structurally unsound plus the building codes would never permit it

[05:35] But here in Latin America with all the block brick and concrete It's possible to add a couple of extra stories on a whim and the building could take it So anyway with that being the standard thought in the average Latin American homeowners mind what you end up with is flat roofs Generally with a lot of ugly rebar sticking out of them just in case someday the dome materializes to add another story Now you're probably thinking if you're gonna go off the grid go solar a flat roof is cool because you get up there Slap on the panels and hey, it's easy to do and they're easy to batten down with a flat roof It's very unlikely you'll fall off a ladder or break a leg Problem is when solar panels are installed at an angle less than 10 degrees They get dirty fast And not just your regular kind of dust dirty that a good rain will wash off

[06:25] Problem is all solar panels have a little raised board around the edge like a small picture frame So if a panel is laying flat or at less than 10 degrees from the horizontal roof You'll get water pooling up at the bottom edge And if a panel set at a really low angle the water will pool on parts of the glass on the panel In fact, I've seen some panels installed completely flat and the frames acting like the walls of a container Creating a kind of a panel swamp a little swimming pool And then when the Sun comes out and all the water evaporates you get kind of a baked-in crud layer That won't come off unless you scrape it down with something that's got a decent edge on it So if you have a flat roof definitely choose your solar Mountings so that you have a slope of at least 10 degrees and even at higher angles

[07:11] You should get up there once in a while and clean them up The problem is dust leaves and other organic crap can collect in them And if you got a lever to or some organic rot when the water dries you'll have a real problem You know those plastic polarized films they put on car windows to tint them if you ever watch them apply that stuff You'll see they take a spray bottle with just a water mist and after a couple hours in the Sun It's stuck on the windshield for good. That's the point The same thing applies to solar panels set at a low angle now you might be thinking What's a little dirt or crud on a solar panel when the Sun's out especially here in Latin America man? Can it penetrate but dirt and crud can be a big factor there are actual dirt? Accumulation tests that have been made to measure solar radiation

[07:58] Degradation with dust and dirt in fact at Google headquarters near San Jose, California They've got a massive solar farm out there. They've done the studies They found that solar panels installed almost flat horizontally on their carports after 15 months The dirt cut the solar energy output in half of course after good cleaning the output came back to 100% But they found eight months later Once again the panels got all monged up and the output was cut by a third and a loss of a third of your power Is huge in fact one solar panel installer that I know told me there's a need to tell everyone that Installations should be cleaned at least once a year no matter what angle the panels are installed at he mentioned that he installed a big commercial

[08:44] Installation in Puerto Rico a couple years ago the panels are sitting at 24 degrees more than double the 10 degree minimum He told me after a year. He was called back because the system was losing efficiency He found they were baked with contaminants mostly dust and pollen, but it's the pollen that's the real problem it's got a sticky gluey surface and even a hard rain won't take it off and it accumulates and the best thing to use to Clean those panels if you don't have a power washer one of those cheap rubber squeegees with the sponge on one end The kind those little bothersome guys on street corners use to muddy up then clean your windshield for a quarter or two Man those guys can drive you nuts especially here in Latin America There's a million of them though. They're nice about it. They don't get pissed off if you refuse to pay them

[09:33] Most times they're hovering around you before you have a chance to wave them off now I don't know how prevalent those guys are up in the States, but down here in Latin America It's got to be one of the most miserable thankless jobs there is but still they're joking around laughing upbeat and happy You got to give them that much and for the record. I don't usually stiff them Even when the cars just been washed and they muck it up and make it worse by leaving streaks on the windshield The fact is 25 cents here in Latin America will still get you something to eat an avocado couple of bananas Or apples up in the states a piece of licorice you tell me oh and by the way regarding solar panels I just checked on oil x.com yesterday now There are all kinds of vendors and solar installers selling those big 320 and 360 watt panels for around a hundred bucks a pop and at that price. It's just amazing

[10:22] That's a third of a buck per watt I remember it was a buck a watt just two or three years ago and for those of you who've been keeping up with Me and my solar recommendations for having a complete off-the-grid system here in Latin America You probably remember me saying you'll only need about five thousand watts of solar panels to run everything That is except of course if you have an electric car Then you'll probably want eight thousand or even ten thousand watts with a panel now I'm talking about being in the Altiplano where you don't have heating or air conditioning bills But just think of it if you get five thousand watts That's around 15 panels around 1500 bucks Though probably closer to two grand when you include the racking the metal mounting racks and fasteners You can just about double that if you're rigging it for a house and an electric car

[11:09] Then of course you need the controller and the batteries and such and that's the most expensive part these days the battery But still you should easily be able to put a whole system together for around 10 to 12 grand now Of course even if you're completely self-sufficient. I don't recommend you completely disconnect from the grid That is you want to keep the power lines coming from the street run into your house Then it's simply a matter of throwing the switch whether you want to stay off the grid or connect into the grid Because maybe for example you're going away for a couple of months and you want to power down your system In that case you could switch over and leave it hooked up to the normal grid the electric company now Of course, you know Even if you never use power from the grid if you don't disconnect completely that is call them up and say pull the wires You'll have a monthly charge probably like three to five bucks There's always a minimum charge even if you don't use any electricity at all big deal

[11:57] So it's a couple of bucks a month and it's always there as an emergency or insurance policy For example in case you need to do some maintenance on your system or change components Then you might have to shut it down for a day or two and just hook right back up to the old grid For a couple of days or not enough said about that. All right, how about this news coming out of Brazil? Here's something that doesn't make sense, but people are doing it all the time Title of the article translated from Portuguese Of course songbirds to raptor eggs are being looted from Latin America's bird species And I'll paraphrase this as usual cut out to chaff It says in the case of the infamous Irish trafficker who's facing extradition in Brazil for stealing Para-green falcon eggs, this has brought attention to the diverse ways in which the region's avian species are being plundered

[12:47] All right, let me stop just for a second and say this gets really interesting. So pay attention one guy Joffrey Lendrum is currently completing a prison sentence of three years in one month in the UK After being arrested in June of 2018 having flown in with 19 eggs from endangered birds of prey And tied to his body including vultures eagles hawks kites, etc with a value of around a hundred thirty thousand bucks Then it says prosecutors in Brazil from where he skipped bail in 2016 are now Requesting his extradition from the UK. He was arrested in Brazil trying to board a flight from Sao Paulo to Johannesburg Carrying four albino peregrine falcon eggs that he obtained illegally in Chile Which were worth an estimated?

[13:34] 80,000 bucks on the black market. He was then sentenced to four and a half years in prison in Brazil But skip bail, but his case is just a tip of the iceberg Regarding the pillaging of Latin Americans native species turns out on January 15th of this year a Belgian citizen Hugo conings was arrested at Lima Peru Airport trying to smuggle 20 live birds and cardboard boxes Onto a flight bound for Madrid. He's facing five years in jail Then it says a December 2018 report by the wildlife monitoring network traffic and world Wildlife fund has found smuggling eggs is preferred over smuggling live birds Why because it's much easier and the penalties are minimal besides eggs don't need food and water They don't yak and they don't poop

[14:19] For example a National Geographic report revealed that traffickers Laundered the eggs of one of their preferred birds the mccon parrot illegally smuggling them into Europe Incubating them there and then selling them off legally as having been bred in captivity Now you see the only way to detect if a bird was truly bred in captivity is to carry out DNA parentage testing by plucking and then examining feathers To see if the birds have truly the parrot is described in their paperwork And if you think that colorful parrots are the most desired you'd be wrong turns out poachers Love to import peregrine falcons the fastest bird on earth reaching speeds of over 320 kilometers an hour the Falcon is prized by rich Falcon enthusiasts in the Middle East Another prize catch is the large-billed seed finch. It's taken from the wild to be used in songbird

[15:11] Competition people bet on how many songs it will sing in an hour for example or how long it can keep singing Turns out these songbird competitions are popular with the wealthy in Yiana and Suriname And now the practice has spread to expatriate communities in New York and the Netherlands, too Who'd a funk huh with each of these small birds fetching between three and five thousand bucks apiece all right So there you have it sad, but true human beings can be pretty nasty Which is why I suppose Samuel Clements, you know Mark Twain always said he'd take a dog over a human any day But to me it's even worse just hanging around and living your life in Latin America and seeing how Exotic animals are treated especially birds when they're captured and displayed as pets and really what can you do or say when you're at someone's house?

[16:01] And you see a big colorful parrot or toucan sitting in a dirty smelly cage in the hallway Most times you see him in a cage so small they can barely turn around without scraping their wings against the side of it I can't tell you how many times I've seen things like that makes you sick Sure, you can tell the owner that's not right and obviously the birds not happy about it But stuff like that's so prevalent in Latin culture trying to explain what's wrong with it. Just makes you seem like a crazy gringo Alright, so it seems at least that there's some kind of crackdown on this internationally at least when people try to fly But as far as living in a Latin country and owning an endangered species as a pet sure There are laws against it, but there seems to be pretty much zero enforcement unless you're crossing borders

[16:47] Hell if right now I decided I wanted to have an endangered species for a pet Let's say a jaguar or an ocelot. All I'd have to do is mention the animal I'm interested in put it on fake book insta crap or Olx.com and soon enough I'd be contacted in fact occasionally when I go to one of those gigantic fruit and produce markets I'll run into a couple of guys who have endangered animals in cages and sometimes as is the case with the birds They're walking back and forth on the guy's shoulder with a leg band tied to a leash In fact, I've snapped a few photos here and there of guys selling birds And they don't seem to like the camera one bit But there they go to guys if you want any other kind of endangered species, too I know I know the whole situation sucks But there's not much you can really do about it except never have one of those animals yourself

[17:34] All right Now let's talk a little bit about taxes and the cost of doing business on the books and of course on the books Means brick and mortar businesses and or an internet business or home office where you've actually gone down to the local municipality got an a tax number a Sanitary certificate that you post on the wall and a permit to do business. Oh and about that sanitary certificate I don't get that either Everyone's got to have one though, and it's posted and framed usually behind the cash register Yep, and they call it a sanitary certificate, which makes you think there's been some kind of detailed hygienic Inspection after all that's what the word sanitary implies right, but you'd be wrong It's just something you need and have to pay for before you can open just part of the multiple layers of bureaucracy You have to deal with when opening up a business on the books and one of the main reasons why?

[18:24] Perhaps 30% of all the businesses here in Latin America are off the books Meaning they don't collect or pay taxes to the government. Well, I take that back They might collect taxes and tell you they're collecting But they just might not be paying them to the government because you know down here in Latin America Tax evasion of all kinds is the national sport Though some locals swear that the national sport is cheating on your wife for girlfriend There is enough of that going around that's for sure So then what about taxes and the cost of doing business on the books here in Latin America? Well, here's a fact the portion of Latin American tax revenues collected from indirect taxes Such as the VAT which is the national sales tax and custom duties excise and other operational taxes are really how Latin American governments make most of their dough and

[19:13] That is aside from borrowing from the Chinese or the World Bank or the IMF and defaulting when the payments come due Don't laugh. It's happening again right now in Argentina Whereas in first world countries most of their tax revenue comes from taxing people directly like income and property tax in Latin America That's not true. Most of it comes from the VAT customs duties and excise taxes And in fact those particular taxes called indirect taxes Happen to be some of the highest in the world for the following countries Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela And what that means is in those countries just mentioned companies there are incurring huge tax bills Because they are stationary brick-and-mortar targets and therefore sitting ducks for those kind of taxes

[20:00] For example, take Argentina a country that's in default and technically bankrupt right now It's got a VAT tax of 21% and an average custom duties rate on things important of 13% So what that means is if you buy an item that's been imported The cost of that item to you is automatically 34% higher than it would be if you'd bought it Let's say online from Amazon or eBay or any mail order house or operation outside the country By the way, if you have a bank account or credit card in Argentina, the government charges 0.6% that's a little over a half a percent on every credit and debit card account and transaction All right. Now if you take Brazil, for example, their EVA or VAT taxes all over the place depending on what kind of items

[20:45] We're talking about there's a huge lookup table But get this their IVA or VAT tax rate varies from zero to an unbelievable 365% Depending on how the government classifies the good or service being sold on top of that You've got the average customs duty rate of around 13 and a half percent And that's why in Brazil so many imported items cost twice as much or more than what you pay for them up in the states Then you've got Colombia whose average VAT or EVA is 19% again That's the national sales tax with your average customs duties around 6% and they too have a bank tax That's a tax on all financial transactions and that's point. Oh, oh four percent Oh, and they've also got another tax called the excise or consumption tax

[21:32] Which depending on the products is for eight or sixteen percent depending now as for Costa Rica They have an average EVA or national sales tax of 13% and their average customs duty rate on imported items is 5.6% which doesn't seem that outrageous compared to Brazil and Argentina However, they've also got what they call an excise tax. That is a consumption tax That ranges from 10 to 50% and that my friends is how Latin American governments gouge businesses because you see if you have a business on the books you're responsible for collecting all those taxes when you sell your product and Turning those fees over to the government every month All right, then what about Mexico since there are approximately 2 million gringos and expats living there

[22:21] In fact Mexico has the biggest US expatriate population in the world. Well, Mexico's VAT That's EVA or national sales tax is 16% with the average customs duty on imported goods of 8.57% again compared to Brazil and Argentina. That doesn't sound terrible Except they also have a special excise or consumption tax depending on the item or service anywhere from three to 160 Percent god, it's no wonder a third of the working population is off the books Alright, let's compare those countries to a couple of other Latin countries that don't hammer businesses on the books quite so hard For example, Guatemala, it's got a 12% VAT tax and an average customs fee duty rate of 5.6%

[23:08] With no special consumption or excise taxes either similar to El Salvador whose VAT EVA or national sales tax is 13% and their average customs duty rate 6% with no Additional killer consumption or excise taxes, you know, we could go down and list every Latin country But let's finish off with Uruguay now Remember Uruguay is a country that produces a lot of food itself sufficient in that area, but they have very little manufacturing They import all electronics and household items, etc And their VAT or EVA or national sales tax is 22% and the average customs import duty rate Ten point five percent. So that means right off the bat. Everything you buy that's imported is at least 33% more than the same item ordered from abroad on the internet

[23:56] But thankfully Uruguay does not have a consumption tax By the way, if you guys or gals want a copy of this report send me an email the expert files at gmail.com It's got the tax situation on every Latin country covered in great detail. Oh and speaking of taxes Did you know that the president of Colombia might just have an IQ over 80 or perhaps it was just dumb luck That he came up with an idea that really makes sense. Listen to this according to this fresh new article I have right in front of me. It says that nearly 85% of Colombians believe corruption is widespread throughout their government Coincidentally 85% of Colombians also believe that corruption is widespread within businesses So then what do you do when you got a problem like that?

[24:43] Well get this the president of Colombia announced three measures last week aimed at generating popular support What he's proposing is eliminating the VAT tax for three days a year. That means three days a year Everything will be 19% cheaper. By the way, according to the subjective well-being or happiness report That is the 2019 report on world happiness. Turns out since 2018 Colombia felt 10% on that scale According to that report a 10% decline in happiness was also found with Mexico Brazil and Argentina Whereas the other 15 or 16 Latin American countries remain just as happy as they had been in 2018 So do you think it's a coincidence that the countries with the highest levels of taxation have the lowest happiness?

[25:30] Hey, don't get me wrong compared to first world countries are still extremely happy It's just that the more heavily taxed Latin countries are slipping now a few words about fake news It's everywhere, you know in this business the radio podcast and media business You know, you're popular when people start posting fake news fake facts and fake email sites about you It seems like the more popular you get the more the haters come out of the woodwork Take for example, the most successful podcaster in the world right now That's Joe Rogan. I listen to him myself man. Does he have haters? He's actually a pretty smart reasonable guy But doesn't matter he's popular. So he's got haters They've created fake news sites websites fake book sites fake Instagram and Twitter sites In fact, he said on his show recently

[26:16] there's so much fake news about him and so many cloned websites and so many people dissing him and all the Pretenders and aggressive haters out there that he actually quit reading Comments or doing any searches on himself on the net. The fact is people who've got the time to waste Creating trivial fake news and websites, etc Don't have a life like Rogan says and there are twisted minds are somehow living vicariously through someone else They could never be in fact Joe Rogan says if you go on the net right now You can find articles and fake news saying he's a bigot a racist a white supremacist a Jew hater a Jew lover a Homophobic womanizer Nazi leftist rightest tax evader and of course stoner But that he admits and you know There are people out there who make it their job to diss him and float fake news all over the net

[27:04] But in the end he just laughs it off and feels hey It's part of the job part of being popular is having haters. He says just ignore it Don't respond by the way He's had his podcast for 10 years now and in the early days he had to fire one or two people Could it be because she was a thief and hijacked his PayPal account? Something truly sociopathic and traitorous like that who knows but if so I can see how someone you once trusted but had to give the boot could certainly become one of those haters You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America 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.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in Central America

[27:50] 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.com