#663 – The Expat Files: Preparing for the Future, Navigating Latin America, and the Rise of Bitcoin

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 up to play and now I wonder Hello there all you expat 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 first I'd like to read you this email and then if I have time I think I will tell you a very interesting and enlightening story a real life boots on the ground story that happened to my friend That really does deserve to be made into a movie. All right, here we go. This one's from listener Dave

[00:48] He says I've listened to a good many of your podcasts and enjoyed them thoroughly I unfortunately am in the category of quote government worker Now before you throw rocks, I'm military. So it's not like I work at the DMV or something I agree that things are going to be coming to a head soon here I have 11 years before I retire and hopefully I'll be able to get my pension and social security together My worry is that I won't So my question is with some of my disposable income, is there something I should be investing in to hedge my bets? For example acreage in Latin America gems jewels Bitcoin beans bullets, whatever I know that a lot of others are wondering this as well Since my plan B is a number of years away Do you have any suggestions as to things that can be done to prepare for our future move? Thanks, Johnny

[01:36] I look forward to all your podcasts invaluable stuff. Yes, we are starting on our Spanish step one All right, Dave first things first, you know If anyone out there thinks they can sit around for even two years to wait to get that plan B going In my opinion and so many people I know that are smarter than I am If you're thinking you've got some time some breathing room You're creating an unrealistic and extremely optimistic future in your own mind Because you see all signs point to some kind of very big blowout coming in the next year You know, it always amazes me everyone knows at least everyone with a brain knows Something big's coming and it ain't good. So what's it going to be economic social? environmental biological

[02:24] Or even a toxic mix of the above so smart people know that but they always want to fit The calamity into their own schedule and mostly they want to push the big blowout to right after they start collecting their pension Or social security what that just means is there's going to be a lot of very smart people who procrastinate it Sitting in the living room having a family crisis meeting wondering what the hell they're going to do next But you know again, everyone has to do these things at their own pace And of course everyone has their own comfort level though One thing's for sure when things start going down the tube fast the pressure's on and that multiplies the stress So the question is How are your decision-making abilities going to hold up under severe conditions? Have you been tested yet? Well, you soon will be now. I have no doubt that people are forever going to get their government pensions and social security checks

[03:15] That goes for welfare and food stamps, too However, i'd say people in the private sector who are getting pensions will be screwed. That's not to say Government workers with pensions and social security won't be screwed either They'll still get those checks, but they will certainly not have any semblance of the purchasing power they have today Yep, social security pension and disability checks will come because the government can print money Whereas private businesses are screwed when they go broke and thus no pension I always laugh when I hear young people in the workforce say hell i'm paying into social security But i'm never going to see it what that tells me is that they have an incomplete financial education That just means they don't understand the concept of fiat funny money that the government can just keep printing it

[04:01] Yeah, they're extremely good at that. You know, however, if you don't have your plan be in line pretty soon You might think about getting that book 101 ways to disguise cat food what you say There's no such book out there. Hey now there's a niche waiting to be filled any budding writers out there Here's the title cat food helper for dummies Hmm yum yum bottom line everyone who listens to this program and alternative news sources Knows the crap's going to hit the ventilator soon There's just too many tipping points about to roll over now And my advice just don't try to fit the timing of the next big economic or social calamity into your projected retirement schedule That kind of thinking's not logical what you should be doing right now is getting all your plan b ducks lined up

[04:49] Getting out of debt pay those credit cards off get lean and mean at the same time you should be working on getting some of your assets out of the country as well as Arranging and applying for permanent or temporary residency in a foreign country Preferably a latin country since they are the easiest and least expensive to accomplish So then how do you work out a formula to get those ducks lined up for that plan b? Well, the easiest way is to come down to one of my expat insider seminars Next one's coming up in about six weeks You still have time to sign on even get in on the early bird discount which ends on june 1st So if you sign up by then you'll save 500 off the regular price again We'll be doing it in and around guatemala Mostly way off the gringo tours trail in the ulti plano place almost no one's ever heard about or experienced

[05:35] My favorite spot by the way So if you come you'll see with your own eyes so many of the things we talk about on the show One thing you won't see however Are gringos they will probably be the only gringos in nearly every place we go. That's a good thing You know and a big part of what makes up our gringo advantage And when the gringo start piling in that soon wears off and we get to be a slight irritant to the local population I mean put yourself in their shoes Because inevitably you raise the cost of living they suffer and they start looking at you as just a dollar sign They see all you have that raises their expectations and suddenly not so happy anymore a not so pleasant cycle I've seen it many times costa rica panama many places in mexico and now columbia and ecuador

[06:22] Not everywhere in those countries, of course Well everywhere in costa rica, but the change in expectations and social norms spreads is like wildfire in a particular country So as the gringos pile in and make their little gringo fight areas and islands your gringo advantage disappears and for the locals Turns slowly into gringo envy and believe me that ain't a good thing Which is why I absolutely prefer living off the gringo tourist trail myself Sure At first it's much much easier to hang with a bunch of gringos Because as you might expect Living off the gringo tourist trail is a big step and you really have to know some spanish And if you don't know any you'll learn fast, believe me But the saving grace if you want to call it that for people that are Just a little afraid or hesitant to take the plunge that is living off the gringo tourist trail

[07:11] Like I do is that there are so many off the gringo tourist trail locations that are kind of near a gringo hot spot You know within a half an hour an hour so you can get your gringo fixed when you need it And it's amazing too the vast difference in rents The closer you get to the gringo wise areas the higher the rents jump In fact, I could prove it over and over again what you can get for 800 a month in a gringo wise area You can get for half or less when you're off the gringo tourist trail Just a half an hour or 45 minutes away And you'll see that if you come down to my seminar So as this show is going out on sunday may 27th You got about four days to sign up and get in on the early bird discount save 500 bucks to get all the info Just go to www.thenewxpat.com click on johnny's seminar link the sign up blurb also explains everything

[08:02] You need to know about those famous john gault pre and post seminar trips If you're thinking about doing business in latin america, man, you can't do better than take one of those trips guaranteed It never fails. That's when those business ideas really start percolating Now if you just can't swing coming to the seminar The very best way to get your plan b together get the ducks lined up and all that is take my expat essentials course Just go to www.expatplanb.com And get the three free introductory videos to the nine hour course That's www.expatplanb.com and don't forget the www or you won't get there Now just one very important thing about dave's email. He says towards the end Johnny my question is

[08:47] Are there some things in latin america? I should be investing in to hedge my bets before I get there All right, fair enough. I get that all the time Now i'm no investment analyst, but I can tell you this I have not been a good investor in traditional financial instruments and such In fact before I came down to latin america 27 years ago or so I tried lots a little easy so-called get rich quick or not so quick schemes I got sucked into buying some of those courses those midnight tv success gurus were selling Some of you remember those old audio courses on cassette. They didn't have dvds back then You know the drill 199 bucks learn how to play the stock market learn how to trade options learn how to do arbitrage with currencies

[09:35] Flipping houses buying foreclosures. Yep. I admit I got sucked into a few of those. Did you back then before the internet? There are all kinds of snail mail promotions like that. And you know what? I either lost money or broke even on everything. I tried That's why I haven't done any kind of speculative market or financial stuff in 30 years now the market experts I know the ones that are really good at it and make a great living Spend at least four hours a day studying and doing charts and analysis and stuff. That's what it takes You know You can't just buy a course Listen to it and spend 10 or 15 minutes a day and watch the cash roll in that's not going to happen And that's the big lesson I learned to make money beating the markets. You really have to be involved in it

[10:21] It's kind of like the 10 000 hour thing, you know The reason why almost no kid learns how to play the cello piano or guitar well enough to ever make a dime at it So 30 years ago or so, I recognized that The hard way and I watched others including one of my brothers do the same thing and lose money or at least Never do better than break even again because you can't spend 15 20 or even a half hour a day beating the market when the big boys have massive Computing power and work at it eight hours or more a day It's even worse these days when computers can do a thousand buy sell trades before you could scratch your nose and hit the send button Now, of course, I never invested enough money to really degrade my lifestyle enough to hurt and feel like a fool

[11:07] But never enough to lower my standard of living and that's what your goal should be too If you like tinkering with that stuff But what about when the big one comes along now? I wish I could say there are no big ones, but there are I missed a few back. I missed almost all of them mostly because I didn't have any dough when they came around I know a lot of you missed out too and really the investing trick these days and it's been like this for some time now Is to preserve your wealth? I mean, it's true that the days of the really spectacular gains are over Look at what the banks are paying out in the stock market and a beast bubble looking for a pin Sure, you know this stuff already But in regards to setting up that plan B you got to get some money and some assets out of the country That's a priority, right?

[11:54] And that's what dave's asking how to hedge your bets how to make sure you're okay when it does hit the fan At least get a good enough chunk out of the country so that you can get out yourself and still have some assets Wherever you land and you long-time listeners to know I always recommend besides getting residency having a bank account set up in a foreign country That's not linked to a u.s Bank doesn't have a branch in the u.s And since it's almost impossible to do that all by yourself now These days with fatka rulings and all those u.s government banking regulations, you'll have to get your residency That means you'll have to come down and apply for it And after you've got it, hurry hurry you can get a bank account anywhere now to get that residency approved It could take a year or two. So what do you do in the meantime?

[12:40] Well, that's what your latin lawyer's for He's the guy that'll help you set up your residency and he'll also set up an sa corp for you too If you like and that corporation can be done in about two weeks to a month that corporation can open up a bank account You'll own it. So guess what? You can immediately pass cash to that new bank account You don't have to wait a year or two to get residency if you have a corporate bank account Of course, that'll cost you some dough to set up maybe from 700 to five or six thousand dollars depending on a latin country, but so does residency that'll cost you anywhere from 700 to 5000 dollars too again depending on the country and my advice if you're not going to set up a business in latin america You probably really won't need a corporation in my opinion I see too many gringos getting a corporation and they don't really need them or use them much

[13:29] So then how do you get a quickie bank account without waiting a couple of years for residency? Well talk to your lawyer and many times he'll be able to set up a bank account for you Even if you're not a resident he'll do it at the same bank. He's got accounts at therefore They know him trust him and he'll be your sponsor No, people won't have his signatory powers over your account Unless of course you're out of the country latin you want him to have signatory powers In any case if you want a bank account and aren't a resident Your lawyer's the only guy that can grease the wheels to get you one Which means you must have a good honest latin lawyer The big problem how to find one of course we come down to the seminar We'll hook you up with one right away But if you're coming down to a latin country on your own, well, then you are on your own Finding a good honest lawyer is like throwing a dart at the legal section in the yellow pages

[14:17] You remember the yellow pages, don't you? And you know someone once asked me johnny What's the percentage of lawyers in latin america that are crooks versus the ones that are honest and trustworthy? hmm Crooks ones that'll actually lie in steel behind your back Well, you definitely don't want one of those guys But how can you tell now all latin lawyers are known for really bending the rules But you want them to be bending the rules in your favor not his So again, the question is how many are real dyed in the wool crooks i'd say when you're on the gran go tours trail 50 percent and i'll stand by that too because I got so many examples you hear that 50 percent

[15:03] Now, of course like most parasites, they don't want to kill the host so they'll keep sucking your blood But they won't finish you off In fact, you might even think he's a great guy because he's not nearly as expensive as those lawyers up in the states But still i'll stand by that number 50 percent of the lawyers on the gringo tours trail Anywhere in latin america are going to gouge you as much as the traffic will bear Now it is a different story completely when you're off the gringo tours trail What's the percentage of vipers there i'd say 10 percent why so low compared to the lawyers on the gringo tours trail? Well, because off the tourist trail where everyone speaks spanish and almost no one speaks english Clients of lawyers can actually understand what they're saying and read the documents They're producing for whatever given situation

[15:51] And you know lawyers on the gringo tours trail have learned that they can get gringo to sign just about anything because they don't understand What's going on nor could they possibly read a document that's so Loaded with spanish legal terms. I know you get the point And the simple fact is off the gringo tours trail lawyers simply don't have gringos as clients Which gives them almost no way to develop the methods to gouge gringos Anyway, once you've found an honest lawyer You could transfer money down to his account as a pass-through or he can hold it for you or Immediately deposit it to a bank account that you've established earlier or A corporate account that you've established earlier. So you got some of your money down then what well I always recommend you have some gold or silver

[16:37] Not bullion should have the well-known and easily tradable coins that you get at coin and pawn shops You know like canadian may believes in american eagles in the case of silver pre-1965 coin change called junk silver How much should you have well the more the merrier and should you store it at one of those gold or silver storage vaults never Always take possession and you can come down with your stuff. That is fly with it depending on how much you have There's controversy on whether you have to report it when you fly through talked about that in a past show Or you can ship it down insured Better yet, you can buy gold and silver here in latin america There are tons of jewelry shops that are echo y mano meaning they make the jewelry by hand

[17:23] So they use raw gold and coins and in the big cities. They also have quite a few little coin shops Yep, there are coin collectors here in latin america and shops where you can buy and sell Next you might want to pick up some real estate and some land or even a small farm And my suggestion always try to buy from a distressed seller one who's headed on the market for a long long time You know, there's a huge building boom and bubble going on here in latin america So there are lots of quality properties with no one to buy Oh one more thing, you know people are very afraid about putting money into latin banks They think hell if us banks are unstable latin banks are worse They're just bad corrupt copies of bad corrupt us banks And you know in a lot of cases there But your lawyer will tell you about the usually two or three top banks that have been around

[18:13] More than 75 sometimes even a hundred years owned by the big sugar pineapple tobacco cement and sugar magnets Yep the strongest banks in latin america are infinitely stronger than the banks up in the states because They're owned and operated by huge usually agricultural interests who figured out a long long time ago That it was in their best interest to have their own banks Why let another bank make the money off the interest and the operations? And because it's their agricultural assets behind the bank. They're very conservative Most of them have no derivative exposure and they get 20 to 30 percent down for a home mortgage You know in recent memory in the states you could get a mortgage at times for zero down

[18:59] Which was one of the reasons for that big 2007 2008 financial blowout, you know Well, they never experienced such a thing here in latin america In fact when you bring it up, they don't even know what you're talking about. It's kind of refreshing really now Of course, I never recommend any type of real estate project. I've got no pet projects. I make no commissions I just recommend real estate land farms, etc. In general I've got no project that I direct people to Not like international living in the english speaking gringo realtors in ecuador in columbia who will take you to their pet projects and Gouge it every time and you won't even know it now. I'll tell you what I don't recommend I never recommend you get in on one of those so-called avocado work teak plantation projects run by gringos

[19:47] You've heard me say this before but i've never met a single person who's ever made any money investing in one of those things Yep, the numbers and projections are always fantastic, but nobody ever makes any money The only guys making money are the ones selling the project and printing out the pamphlets And i'm not saying all of my ripoffs are out to screw you, but guess what? I know a lot of gringos who've invested in those projects who've been taken to the cleaners some more than once So I do get plenty of emails from people asking me what I would recommend people invest in down here in latin america Investing in in general and I just told you what I say to most all of Now when you get a bank account down here and you really should I wouldn't keep a lot of money in it Oh, you can load it up if you're looking to make a land investment, let's say but don't keep it there for a long term

[20:36] Because you know the day of reckoning is coming for fiat currencies And it's only a matter of time before the world finds out the emperors got no clothes Which brings me to a subject of very special interest for me now you long-time listeners know in a past life I was a real engineer Yeah Had one foot in the real world and one foot in the geek world and back then they weren't nerds yet They were pencil-necked geeks and being that I can understand at least to some degree and communicate with to some degree Even the most extreme nerds and geeks. I actually enjoy the occasional mind expanding sometimes brain fogging Conversation with said clan. Yep. Well, the rest of the world might avoid them. Especially pretty girls I recognize their brilliance and have a core of very brilliant friends They're all smarter than I am but if you just listen and nod once in a while

[21:24] They don't hold it against you because they think you actually get what they're saying now I don't suppose I told you this but one such guy a very nice guy came to my second seminar around five years ago Liked it so much. He never left. He's down here permanently now You might remember I told you a canadian guy and his wife She's a roosky drove their trailer down through the u.s. Through texas all the way down to guatemala Well, the part I didn't tell you was that he asked me if he could park his trailer In front of my place in the coffee fields where there's nobody else around believe me While he looked around for a nice gated guarded community to move to Well, what started out as a two-week stay turned into six months. No problem Nice guy quiet banging away at his computer day in and day out in that little trailer

[22:14] Of course, he'd walk over to the house and i'd visit him in his little trailer and he'd show me that he was Buying these little blocks of coins by the hundred Bitcoin I remember at the time he's paying about 11 bucks a piece He kept saying johnny. You really got to get some of this stuff. Remember this is five years ago And i'm thinking digital money backed by nothing. Well, I know fiat currencies backed by nothing, but digital money How's that gonna go? Then he explained this thing called the blockchain again five years ago Yep, the famous blockchain It was a terrifically new concept that made absolute sense to me Except at the time the buying and selling of this bitcoin stuff Was only going on between a tiny percentage of true geeks

[23:00] And unlike today's stores and businesses were not taking it and believe it or not The first group to actually take it as currency were gamers So he had all the gamers around the world buying up bitcoin and using it in their little gaming fantasy lands In fact this guy was gaming four to eight hours a night With his internet buddies all over the world and they all were picking up this bitcoin stuff to use as payment For purchasing virtual land and buildings and spaceships and stuff for different gaming platforms Now back then I thought hey this stuff's way too difficult to purchase for the average guy and no one accepts it except gamers And when I said that he said But johnny look at all the shoeshine boys They live in tin shacks with one light bulb no hot running water yet

[23:49] They've got smartphones and are running apps like skype. He said look johnny They don't have to know what it's all about If it makes their life easier eventually they'll adapt and use it Meanwhile the price of these little bitcoin blocks this guy was buying by the hundreds was starting to go up A year or so later when he long since moved out and found himself a really nice Gated guarded subdivision. He called me. I said johnny, you know, you really ought to buy some of this stuff It's gaining acceptance outside the nerd circle and you can even buy some stuff on the internet with it And he said it's no longer 11. It's 50 bucks So I bought in I was in for a little less than 10 percent of what he was and he had 2000 of them and still back then it was a bit difficult to buy this stuff Then by the time I did the price was at about 60 bucks each

[24:38] Then little by little within the next year the price moved up to 100 then 150 then to 200 Then there was this silk road scandal and motcock scandal and it oscillated a lot between 200 and 500 for a long while in the meantime as always I kept getting dozens and dozens of emails from people saying johnny. What should I invest in? I'd tell him just what I told you now about gold land banks silver and that upstart currency bitcoin In fact around three and a half years ago at every seminar I started doing a couple of minutes spiel on bitcoin talking about it and such I spoke about how it could be a nice speculative investment or just used nearly anonymously to move money around In other words, if you got in and out really fast

[25:25] Let's say you did a transaction within a day or two. You wouldn't suffer or any swings or fluctuations So what's the point of all this? Well for the last three and a half years. I've also said bitcoin Why because I had something and almost no one I knew had a friend who was a ground floor bitcoin insider By the way, this guy taught the very first bitcoin and crypto currency university class in the world and he's still doing it Oh, and if you come to my expat insider seminar, you'll get to meet him personally He always shows up and hangs with us for a while now understand. I had inside information on bitcoin years before it caught on Now look this is an historic event that's happening right now. Basically these things that go up thousands of percent

[26:11] Only come around once in a generation the equivalent of owning a mcdonald's in the 50s or 60s Microsoft or apple shares in the 70s or 80s and you know, it's all about the block chain It's going to revolutionize all contracts financial transactions in the future and it's going to kill the banking system and the government issued currencies And they know it so they're either trying to kill it or jump on board to try to save themselves But look what's happened. It's bouncing around between 2000 and 3000 right now So for full disclosure people who know me and you long-time listeners also know I said bye when it was a hundred bye when it was 200 bye when it was 300 yada yada yada Now i'd never bring it up unless people asked and they asked me all the time johnny. What should I do?

[27:01] What should I invest in or they'd say what are you invested in johnny? And you know what back then? Every time I'd mention it i'd get the same response from non-engineers and non-technical types. They'd say It's not real money. It's not sanctioned by governments. It's used by criminals. It was created by the nsa to spy on us It's jackable and hackable and on and on so then who got in early? Well, just like apple and microsoft The geeks the nerds the adventurous and the chance takers south of the border This is the expat files living in latin america If you want me to help you out with your own plan b just schedule a one-on-one consult Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to learn how to move forward with your own plan b from right up there in the states

[27:50] Go to www.expatplanb.com And check out my three videos See ya