#848 – The Expat Files: Life in Latin America, Crypto, and Family

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 couple of really short emails with possibly quite long answers Let's see. This one is from Scott. He says Johnny great mems. Here's something. I think you ought to know I listened to over 30 different podcasts and yours is still my numero uno

[00:48] Thanks for that Scott and he says more expat Eddie stories, please Everybody wants expat Eddie stories I have quite a few too, but half of them are x-rated, but we'll get to the other half here and there I'll drop them in then he says by the way Johnny with Bitcoin starting to take off again And I see that Peter Schiff the analyst is not down with Bitcoin at all any thoughts on that Then he says Oh Johnny if you start another dinosaur rock band there in Latin America, you ought to name it the sweaty masses Yep, I like it Scott the sweaty masses Las masas su darosas even sounds good in Spanish, huh, but Scott, you know about Peter Schiff He's an analyst that's on all kinds of podcasts and mainstream financial shows You know the mainstream media loves interviewing people who hate Bitcoin and cryptos

[01:37] Why not who's got the most to lose when cryptos take over banks and where do banks advertise in the mass media, right? So where's their bias gonna lie? About mr. Schiff you have to remember he's one of those died-in-the-will gold bugs gold and silver is everything for him That's how he's made his money all his life He's had a silver and gold company and who'd have ever thought 30 years ago that anything like cryptocurrencies would come to pass I myself have been a gold and metals bug since I was a teenager and I've dealt with lots of these outfits that sell Gold and silver and other metals both online and in the old days by snail mail and back in Chicago I even had my favorite pawn shops because you know people usually down-and-out people Drunk struck addicts and petty thieves would bring in their recently deceased uncle or grandpa's coin collection and try to hawk it

[02:24] Yeah, right. Well, that was the usual story back then when you brought something in the pond Yep back then the rule was ask me no questions and I'll tell you in all eyes But these days even pawn shop owners have to ask for multiple IDs and follow that know your customer laws But you know when I was a kid, I used to love checking out those pawn shops I certainly didn't have much money back then but I was always there to check out what was coming in and you know A little by little I'd pick up this and that gold or silver piece and I amassed a pretty good collection That is until one of my ex-girlfriends who shall remain nameless at least for now stole the whole damn thing That was in the early 90s. No, it wasn't a Latina It was a British girl and present value of what she stole around get this $400,000 so much for that retirement fund, huh?

[03:11] So then you might ask and everyone who knows this story does they say Johnny how pissed were you did anybody die or disappear? Mysteriously, well, I'm not that kind of guy and you can't go to jail for what you're thinking At least not here in Latin America, but I bounced back in a lot of different ways But still my friends who know the details of that story no better than to mention her name around me However, these days because it's so long ago more than 20 years now I rarely think about that incident except when people are talking about gold and precious metals like right now When it does cross my mind, I think of one word Karma, by the way, it wasn't that I had the stuff hidden around the house or anything and she stole it I was stupid enough to have a safety deposit box in a well-known bank in the UK

[03:59] Her and her father were able to get the bank to open it up for them and how'd that happen? Well, I don't want to talk about it, but I digress though. Not much. Anyway, I used to go to pawn shops a lot That's how I bought most of my gold and silver back then then suddenly when the internet came all these big gold and silver Dealers were online and you could just order direct and they deliver it to your house Like for example, jm bullion and Peter Schiff's outfits They're really reputable for selling gold silver platinum, etc And you know three or four years ago crypto currencies did exist But not too many people know about them when people started sending emails to the metal dealers saying hey Have you heard about this Bitcoin stuff and the other crypto currencies? A lot of them almost all of them at the time said it was a great idea, but a fad probably will fade away

[04:46] Why because they were totally vested in making all their money off physical gold and silver sales paid for in almost all cases with US dollars then the craziest thing happened about two years ago They all started accepting Bitcoin Litecoin and other coins as payment for gold and silver platinum, etc And then and this is relevant about a year and a half ago Very few gold and silver companies wouldn't take Bitcoin in altcoins And one of the biggest holdouts was guess who Peter Schiff's gold company shift gold In fact, you could look up YouTube's and podcasts showing Peter Schiff dissing the hell out of crypto currencies saying Cryptos were just sort of a virtual construct in a Ponzi scheme However, now he's talking out of both sides of his mouth the last holdout Peter Schiff

[05:33] Schiff gold is now taking Bitcoin as payment for precious metals. Isn't that funny? So even though he hates cryptos, he became one of the last metals dealers to cave now They're all in by the way, that's a great way to diversify your money You know you hold some crypto currency You shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket and you buy some gold or silver Online with one of those big reputable companies and they'll ship it right to your house And of course if you buy it with crypto You can be almost totally anonymous if you do it, right? And isn't that one of the top selling points for crypto that you can do your transactions nearly anonymously actually There are ways to do it. Totally anonymously, too. I'll be talking about that on a future show So stay tuned for that though. I will tell you a common method, you know, somebody with Bitcoin you give them the cash

[06:19] They transfer the Bitcoin right to your Bitcoin wallet your treasure your nano, whatever right in front of you That's anonymous. No names. No addresses No background checks But you got to have trust in the other guy and you got to be right there when he shifts his Bitcoin or whatever to your wallet. The trick is to find someone on the other half of that buy and sell deal That's completely trustworthy. Sure. You can find people willing to buy and sell for cash online And then generally you'd meet up with them in a public place like Starbucks and make the transfer But to the average person that sounds so dodgy, you know, let's meet somewhere. I'll bring cash and you bring your Bitcoin Whatever there are other ways, of course, but that way I'd never recommend myself unless you really know the person But that is one way you could stay completely anonymous and cryptocurrency if you're up in the States or Canada

[07:07] Even with those Bitcoin and crypto ATM machines, you see you popping up everywhere You can only buy crypto you can't sell it and with that you have to give up all your debts And they'll take a photo of your passport or driver's license and well, you're stuck You're not anonymous anymore because you know big brother is always watching and they want to know everything you're doing Especially when it comes to cryptos because they just can't seem to get their dirty little hands and minds around it to control it They know it's a big threat to their system. So they either want to kill it or tax it However, if you're in another country, especially a Latin American third world country You're out of the reach of big brother if you do the right things and don't give up your debts There are plenty of crypto people in exchanges down here who will work either end of the buy sell deal But again, the problem is trust. How do you trust somebody who says hey, I know you just met me

[07:57] But give me two thousand dollars and I'll give you two thousand dollars with a Litecoin Yeah, that's a testy proposition Well, guess what as a pleasant but unexpected side effect of running a couple of expat insider seminars every year since 2008 I'd say about a quarter of the people who come to the seminar are really into crypto Some of them even on the cutting edge And since a good percentage of the attendees get their plan B moving fast and they end up living in Latin America Some of them who are really into crypto decided to make a business out of buying and selling to fill that void So as an extra added attraction if you come down to my expat insider seminar, you'll meet these guys personally Because these are people I know people who've attended my seminars and have been down Some of them as repeat offenders too. We've got that trust factor down 100 percent

[08:45] So for all you guys and gals who send me emails saying hey I'd like to get into the crypto thing once I move down to latin america or whatever. I like to say simply man We've got that covered not me specifically I'm talking about the collective we hear and don't forget during the lecture part of my expat insider seminar You'll meet two crypto experts that were in on the game even before I knew about it One of them bitcoin down an internationally known crypto expert who taught the very first university course On bitcoin crypto and the blockchain in the world Our other crypto expert oscar miner we call him. There's a guy who knows everything and anything about crypto mining In fact, he's always got a number of machines running down here mining away 24 7 as we speak So if you come down to the seminar, you will meet those two guys personally

[09:32] You'll hear their presentations and of course you'll meet some other crypto gurus in their own right Who wish to remain on the sidelines for various reasons nothing illegal anyway, not in this jurisdiction Because you see here in latin america the crypto game is wide open There's nothing illegal about it in any step of the buying or selling process That as opposed to the hoops you have to jump through when you're dealing with cryptos in the u.s. Canada and europe and Venezuela That should say it all, huh? So there's another big reason to get your plan b in high gear Best way to do that is to come down to my expat insider seminar starts in july It lasts for a week and we'll be hitting two different countries el solador and guatemala Get in on the early bird discount plans now by going to

[10:19] Www. The new expat.com and clicking on johnny's seminar link Once there you'll also see the explanation on how to kill two birds with one stone That is when you come to the seminar apply for temporary or permanent residency in guatemala at the very same time Lately about half the people who've been coming down to the seminars have been doing that and since generally you'll have to spend another week Down here after the seminar just hanging around waiting to sign paperwork and get your photo Taken going down to certain government offices with the lawyer and such Oh, and that includes our seminar lawyer holding your hand and walking you into a bank so you can get an account Anyway, if you're applying for residency, you'll be down for a week And there'll be lots of time for you to take that famous john gault post seminar tour As it turns out about half the people who come to the seminar take the john gault trip right after the seminar, too

[11:09] You can find all that out by clicking on the seminar link at the new expat.com website Now said about that. Oh and one last thing about peter's shift He seems to be one of the most outspoken gold and silver guys against cryptocurrency But you have to ask yourself if you see him on fox cnn joe rogan or anyplace and he's dissing bitcoin and cryptocurrencies Why is it that none of the interviewers have ever posed a question to him peter? How come you accept all kinds of cryptocurrencies as payment yet? You're saying you absolutely don't believe in this stuff. That's Convenient, huh peter? That's for me I just think he's a resentful big-headed sob who failed to get into the crypto market early like a lot of his buddies did And it's purely a case of sour grapes like expat he said peter shifts like a guy with a gigantic cassette tape music collection

[12:00] And suddenly the cd disc revolution comes along that was what in the 80s and he tells the world That's just garbage ones and zeros on a little silver disc We'll never compete with much less replace the good old cassette player Well, we know how that ended up right and now even the cd music disc has gone. We've got the thumb drives and streaming I know you get it. Meanwhile nearly all the other physical gold silver platinum palladium traders out there have Adopted cryptocurrencies as part of their payment system They're even advocating stocking up on precious metals and crypto you'd think they'd be the strongest holdouts But you see the fact is cryptos have taken a big bite out of their business, especially millennials Wait a minute. Did I say millennials? I like it

[12:46] I'm talking about those millennials that are kind of preppers and believe in a coming crash and they should Funny enough as it turns out instead of putting some of the excess cash they have into gold and silver They're putting most of it into cryptos. Why because they're the internet and smartphone generation And those gold bugs they mostly consist of baby boomers and some generation xers early on the smart metals traders said i'm not gonna Fight this i'm gonna get a piece of it You know It is a very good idea to have physical gold and silver of course silver is really heavy and not easy to move around Gold's a lot more portable, but it's a pain and scary especially these days to get it through borders And that's a problem cryptocurrency is solved from day one But you knew that already, right? All right now we have this short email from mr. Lewis. It doesn't really need an answer. It says it all it says johnny

[13:37] Thanks for sharing all that great info. Love your show been listening since the beginning. I've heard every single show I myself have been out of the u.s for 12 years now having traveled extensively through southeast asia and latin america I call medellin columbia my home and have been living there for at least the past nine years Unfortunately though it's time to pack my bags and leave as all the gringos have been piling in They're all coming here. I don't think this place will turn into the new costa rica I hope but if it does such as life was a good run, but it ain't no more By the way, if I find my new latin paradise this time i'm not telling anyone where it is Then he says by the way johnny, what cities and countries you finding yourself in lately?

[14:25] Well, mr. Louie in the last six months i've found myself in lima peru panama cardihena columbia Guatemala, of course san salvador san juan porta rico Don't recommend that place since the hurricane has done its damage It's only about half repaired and that's what year and a half ago now Oh when I hit the dr and bogota a couple of recommendations on those places i'd say skip porta rico and lima peru All right, mr. Louie as far as what you're saying about the gringos piling into columbia All I can say is oops. There goes the neighborhood. Thank you international living I'll tell you when international living escape artists.com The aarp and condonats traveler put out their annual list of the 10 best retirement havens for gringos and expats

[15:15] That's the kiss of death for living a first world life at third world prizes But it is true if you're one of the first ones in an early bird When international living first starts touting a place when you land there You will find paradise on a small pension or social security check But five years later as more and more gringos and expats pile in you'll wish you had a business down there because that social security Check just won't cut it anymore Luckily though wherever you land in latin america You find you have a lot of time on your hands and most gringos do find a nation They make money if only to just keep busy and active The point is you don't want to have to face that five years after you've found your paradise So my advice to all you expat gonna bees and wannabes who are on a strict budget

[16:02] Thinking about just living on social security or disability when you see an international living escape artist aarp or condonats traveler top 10 list Don't fight. Oh and mr. Louie you say in your email if you find your new latin paradise You're not telling anyone about it. Well good move But you know, you can tell me because my listeners are very smart and exclusive and it's easy to keep it that way I just stay off of social media. I've got no fake book twaddle or instasham account Yeah, I know for sure. I could reach a much wider audience I can't tell you how many people have advised me to do that all along But i've resisted and managed to keep my dignity intact Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far Anyway, because then if I had a huge audience and I recommended a place that would be the kiss of death too, wouldn't it?

[16:52] So in that respect it's better to keep the audience small and exclusive And though the stats show i've got some millions of downloads for my show and such That's over a long period of time and nothing like the big boys like international living who are basically Shilling land real estate and their own pet projects They get those giant numbers every week and they need those big numbers They've got a lot of mouths to feed last I heard they've got 100 people in that organization You got to shill a lot of real estates and sell a lot of special reports to feed that crowd And me johnny here at the expat files. Well, it's just me and my expat insider crew Those are the only mouths I have to feed and they all have side jobs, too Nope, i've got no land apartment houses condos or beachfront property to sell don't even have a marketing division or a marketing person

[17:38] Guess what? I like it that way and now a blast from the past written by an expat insider attendee Came down around two years ago now Living and planning up in the northern climates of the eastern us Now with this email you'll see it's more urgent than ever to get your own plan be going as fast as you can I'll paraphrase this a little bit and add my two cents because it's my show Anyway, he says johnny for various reasons including but not limited to anchoring my own sanity I've given this matter a great deal of thought that there's no turning back. The us cannot be fixed It's time to get the hell out then he says johnny feel relieved that i'm only giving you the short version here Oh, this is from seminar attendee. Mr. Bob Let me just preface this by saying the story that i'm about to relate to you written by bob

[18:25] Is a scenario that doesn't exist anymore in the united states except perhaps in the fire-reaching Very small town boonies of montana or idaho However, it's still a very active and viable way of life here in latin america What he's talking about is something that exists in every little small and medium town here in latin america So let's get on with it. He says Anthropologically speaking johnny humans are pack animals not like burrows more like wolves We are at our best when surrounded by somewhat related groups of others The pack the extended family the village basically we all love to have a support system around us Very few of us can exist as loners. That's sad and trivial life We all at some time or another think of our childhood and upbringing and we had a really great childhood

[19:11] Some of us did it's sad to think back on things that can never happen again in today's society He says my paternal grandfather was from an owned house in new jersey I was born in 1950 and old enough to remember what conditions were like back then in the 50s With the exception of two of my father's sisters. They lived elsewhere in the city. We all lived on the same block All right, just to comment me johnny here. That's the way half of latin american cities and towns are set up Families and extended families live really close sometimes on the same block sometimes in the same house Then he says my parents brother and self lived upstairs from my grandparents and my father's two brothers aunt's uncle's cousins great aunt's uncle's second cousins removed cousins other vaguely related cousins old family friends long time tradesmen

[19:57] You name it. They were all within a stone straw of each other. I even remember the milkman mr. Beazey They had milkmen back then. It's true gave my father his first job delivering milk before school in the late 30s Johnny, maybe it's my imagination or i'm mentally polishing a long lost nostalgic turd But I do remember when I was on the street back then one could always feel friendly eyes on oneself Yep, back then no one ever got shipped off to a nursing home There was always some relief available for the primary caregiver Not at all like the burnout my mother brother and myself went through in that order caring for my father From his stroke in 89 then to my own eventual breakdown in 04 from the stress Then finally he went into the nursing home. Yeah, they got real family values there

[20:43] You can tell that real fast as you walk through the front door and take a whiff and try not to gag Oh, but didn't you hear we've got the best healthcare system in the world Yeah, right all self-serving bullshit falling from the lips of our politicians So you might wonder how did this devolution of family values start? Maybe this will answer the question. We first moved to the suburbs in 1957 We were the third family to move into a brand new development I remember there was no one there for me It was like moving from the womb into a desert a social desert There was only one kid rusty my age in that whole development problem was he had ms Nice guy, not much of a playmate, especially since at that time He was getting around in a little pedal powered tractor Definitely none of the usual boy roughhousing with him not because he was a wimp because he had tremendous upper body strength

[21:34] He didn't want to get in his way when he got pissed Needless to say I suffered for living in the burbs. I missed my big fat extended family terribly As for my grandparents who died in the mid 50s, they met in the boonies up in the cat skills and built a house Meanwhile, my gramps was a policeman in jersey city and he'd travel Up to the house in the cat skill on weekends living in the city during the week and when they died They left the two houses to their kids all seven of them They sold the city house to one of my aunts and then came the best collective decision they ever made Maybe it was dumb luck They kept the house as kind of a vacation house up here in the cat skills what they call the hollow It was pure blue collar vacation heaven and it was cheap Once the new york freeway went through it was only a two-hour drive from jersey

[22:22] I remember everyone got two weeks vacation during the summer and the whole bunch got together And during three days summer holiday weekends, too, man It was a mob scene and you know, there are good mob scenes and bad mob scenes This was a good one man. Did we love it up there? Eventually. I had 19 first cousins We all had the woods to run around and be well Destructive that is blow off steam and energy outdoors Things that boys like to do are prone to do and just can't do much of anymore I imagine these days parents would go to jail if their kids were found splashing around in a creek at the foot of a lake Sleeping bags on the porch tents staked out in the woods or on somebody's lawn kids climbing trees falling Coming home with bruises and soakers from falling in the creek Yep, child protective services would certainly get in on that act

[23:10] Oh, and did I mention there was always a project going on up at that house in the hollows Little doubt us kids learned some very valuable skills that are totally lost these days installing septic tanks toilets Plumbing electrical little woodwork roofing concrete work Something's always going wrong at an old house like that to us kids. It was always a fun do-it-yourself learning project Oh, and we did have a two-seater outhouse Oh god, where's child protective services when you need them? Though once we installed that septic tank, we had an alternative Didn't matter whatever little construction or repair detail us kids were in on it In fact, we were encouraged to help and our bumbling was well tolerated and after work came the reward always a kick-ass barbecue Lawn games shooting bb and pellet guns off the porch treasure hunts. No iphones or x-boxes at all

[23:59] What a stunted childhood we had and at night. Yeah, we actually went out at night We'd catch fireflies sometimes have a big sing-along on the porch penny ante poker beer cigarettes Lots and lots of laughter a little radio maybe but no tv Yes up in the hollows. We learned our vices like gambling And you know what that meant after a whole night of indulging and losing you could be down five bucks Interestingly though none of us ever developed an adult gambling problem One thing I noticed though, although the extended family was disappearing from the city Up in the boonies. You always had those friendly eyes on you and could knock on any door if you had a problem Yep in those little towns and villages There was lag time in the disappearance of the extended family too and the girls around my age

[24:45] Yeah, they gave as good as they got too. My best friend was marcia. She taught me how to hunt and bar hop Taught me how to drive her stick ship cheap when I was 11 The girls up there in the howl knew how to harvest apples make cider and turn the cider into hard liquor and applejack too And they had driveway chickens way too many cats too. Then again, that's what bb guns are for now, johnny I'm trying to make a point here And that is an extended family is vital to one security sense of well-being and happiness That concept does not exist anymore in the us of a People in the states these days have not been brought up with those relationships and do not realize what they are missing It's still obvious to see in guatemala though. You see it everywhere You see that closely knit support system and if times get tough

[25:34] You can always run up to uncle wands farm out in the sticks and at least eat good food No one starves or freezes to death either I'll tell you the soil up here in the hollow is not nearly as good as down yonder in central america But my ancestors had managed to eke out a living since the 1840s up here And johnny another point that i'm pondering that has led me to theorize how it all slowly came tumbling down The construction of the interstate highway system in the us And the ease of movement that led to the burbs the subdivisions Et cetera, et cetera has had a lot to do with the disintegration of the extended family clan system in the usa The glue that held family and societies together is gone with those great new roads and the eisenhower highway system

[26:19] People could easily and cheaply go where opportunity beckoned or the job demanded people were moving all the time However, there's nothing like that that I can see in guatemala That's yet another reason why people down yonder in central america can make do with many fewer things and still be much happier Than people up here and now johnny i'd like to conclude my little epic email with some self-serving sentimental maudlin Whining if you will as for me long before I moved to the hollow up here in grandma and grandpa's place I realized I could not realistically recreate my old life up here not by myself impossible So i'm now the only one of us left in this hollow It's a sad thing, but I do garner a lot of warmth and comfort by being reminded of what I and we once had

[27:10] It's still a lovely place to be but difficult to be alone here It's all about love all you need is love to quote john lennon and a million others. So johnny saludos Previous seminar attendee bob. Well, bob, what can I say? But to misquote the famous words of horrors greeley when he said go west young man Could have sworn he was pointing south You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b, you can schedule a one-on-one phone call with me But first download my free plan b questionnaire at www.thenewexpat.com Better yet if you want to get your plan b going from right up there in the states Just sign up for my nine hour expat essentials course get the perfect plan b blueprint by going to the expat files.com

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