#1041 – The Expat Files: Taxation, Federal Reserve, and Global Immigration Issues

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 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 see if we can offend some more sensitive weenies out there. You ready? Let's start off today with this email from mr See, I don't think he wants me to say his name Oh, and by the way, if you hear some construction noises, that's because there's construction

[00:46] Anyway at the end of this email you'll have Another dozen or so reasons why you have to get the hell out of dodge as soon as you possibly can't mr See starts by saying oh la Johnny, you know why I hate my government Probably because my wife and I make a notable income But apparently 38% we pay in payroll taxes isn't enough and we still owe 4500 bucks to the IRS for last year and three hundred dollars to the local township But thank God almighty that Pennsylvania is giving us a refund of 30 bucks My question to you Johnny is why should I have to pay taxes if the government can just print money here? You've got prisoners and illegals getting paid stimulus checks and we a slightly above-average Americans who make over the hundred and sixty K a year arbitrary limit for the stimmy checks are excluded

[01:36] Don't get me wrong Johnny We really don't need one but dog gone it I'd have bought more Bitcoin or gold if they would have shipped one off to me Alright, let's stop here for a second. I'll add my two cents. You know, mr. C I've been saying that for years myself Why do we need to have taxes at all when the government just hits the button and boom? The Federal Reserve has topped off all the banks with another load of unbacked by anything funny money So over the years with that question in mind when I run into people who are a lot smarter than I am and there's millions I'm out there I'll sometimes pose that very question and most of them say pretty much the same thing The US government has to maintain the illusion with the public that your taxes are somehow intimately connected with government deficits and government spending and that way You know, you kind of consider the US government like your own household that there's actually someone sitting down at the end of the month

[02:26] Balancing the books and making sure the income and expenses aren't too far out of whack So in an indirect way paying taxes gives us some kind of faith in the system that someone's actually looking after the books But deep down everyone working for the Fed they have to know it's got to implode the end is near though They don't know exactly when that's gonna be but it is the world's biggest Ponzi scheme And their number one job is to make us believe they know what they're doing. And by the way, did you know that the Fed? employees just over 400 full-time PhD economists. Yeah, I wish I was joking but it's absolutely true In fact, they've got a website called federally serve gov slash econ res. That's e-c-o-n-r-e-s slash the economists HTM and there they've got pictures and job descriptions of each and every one of those 400 useless

[03:17] PhD brain-dead mugs. Go ahead. Have a look but have a vomit bag nearby. You'll need it That's right 400 full-time PhD economists and their solution to every economic crisis is just print more money That's all they can come up with that's all the better they can do even though the results are not only unacceptable They're horrific in all their 108 years of existence The Federal Reserve has done nothing but oversee the destruction of 95% of the dollars purchasing power Sounds more to me like letting a bunch of monkeys fly a 747 Then again, maybe they just hired PhDs who graduated tallest in their classes But you know if you think the Fed run by 400 PhD economists is bad news It gets worse because according to their own website, they've got

[04:05] 2,000 auxiliary employees besides the 400 shit for brains PhDs The question is doing what exactly destroying the US dollar bleeding the country dry and keeping Republic rat power brokers in office, but I digress though Not too much bottom line of course is the fact that we really don't have to pay any taxes at all Because they really only cover a fraction of the government expenses The rest is just printed and dumped into banks and financial institutions over and over again proving what Obama said in 2008 during that last big financial crisis Remember he's the one who said we've got institutions out there that are too big to fail which was a lie in truth They were just too big to jail So the tax system is nothing but another version of the Emperor with no clothes problem is if one day

[04:53] suddenly you woke up and you saw all over the news a Presidential announcement saying that from now on there will be no more income taxes Explaining that we don't really need him because we got the printing presses on overdrive Well, that's when even the common man is gonna see that the Emperor really doesn't have any clothes It's gonna wonder how a system like that could remain afloat in no time There'd be tremendous loss of confidence in the financial system and all the other world economies and trading partners would have to admit They're doing the same thing and it wouldn't take long for everyone to rush out of paper currency into real assets like gold silver Commodities Bitcoin and other cryptos soon enough. There would be zero faith in any system that uses paper currency So taxation today is just a historical remnant of how the system used to work when fiat currencies were backed by gold silver

[05:43] Etc where the vast majority of government spending was actually covered by tax revenues Not that they had expenditures under control, but in the early days they did and never when they had wars So mr. See the short answer to the tax question is taxation maintains the illusion that there's some direct connection between Expenses debts and your tax bill and though the government doesn't need your tax money Don't ever expect them to admit it The other thing is if they were truthful about it and they're all you know a bunch of liars and even the PhDs Predictions about inflation and economic growth interest rates unemployment figures, etc are all complete bullshit Take the unemployment figures are talking about between six and eight percent, right? But if you go back to the way they counted unemployment in the 60s and 70s

[06:31] You'll find it's closer to 30% those shit for brains PhDs Just conveniently eliminate data points that skew the figures So again if tomorrow the president said all right as of next year, no more income taxes. No more IRS Well, that would never happen for one thing the IRS employs more than 75,000 people where they gonna go on welfare Because there just aren't 75,000 instant job openings for people who are qualified to be garbage men sewer workers paper Shufflers and debt collectors. Oh and don't forget the latest stats show that there are about one and a half million Tax preparers and tax accountants making a living at it and they'd all have to get real jobs, too Wouldn't they so mr. See your impulses are correct taxes are a facade but a necessary psychological support mechanism

[07:23] To maintain the illusion that we all are responsible through our taxes for funding government and all its hundreds of departments Divisions wars pork waste and terrible decisions, too. Hey, I'm not digressing here. I'm sticking on topic then mr. See continues. I'm tired of people saying America is the greatest country in the world. America is beautiful It's just the people living here and our leaders completely suck case in point My wife is a manager for a large pharmacy chain She's willing to give out the covid it shots to old people and the many stories she could tell about the elderly stuck in homes Is either sad or hilarious? Some of the old folks are thankful and some are so doped up. They have no clue as to what's happening Imagine a hundred and seven year old woman getting a covid it shot not even knowing what the sickness called

[08:13] Covis is you heard right? Yeah, that's what some of the old-timers call it Covis c-o-v-i-s Yes, well informed is our aged population. What are you supposed to think when they can't even get the F in the name, right? However, Johnny the good thing for me is that I have a blank Covid it card to fill in as I please how about that? Could make lots of money selling these cards in the states or anywhere else now, couldn't I? Alright, mr. C. Hey, I brought that very subject up on the last show mark my words It's gonna be a huge black and gray market for Covid it card so-called Covid it passports I'm sure we all know at least a handful of people who would be glad to drop a hundred bucks or so

[08:58] To get their hands on one of those things In fact, I know a couple of dozen people myself who've fallen to that group Hmm will be interesting to see how that plays out and to be completely politically incorrect about this. I'm all for it Alright, then mr. C. Continues. Anyway, Johnny my wife and I are opposites opposites attract and she's all about TV science I'm over here saying I don't trust a goober mint doctors or attorneys in that order No way in Hades that might put in that Mira in my body when the goober mint says hey, we're here to help I run for cover then he says by the way, I saw in your show notes about a quick second residency passport So I'm looking forward to more info on that. All right little clarification me Johnny again He's talking about that quick passport that a lot of Caribbean islands are now offering

[09:46] You know the story tourism is dead and there are many Caribbean islands whose economy completely depends on tourism And now they're all so distressed. They're offering great deals cash deals on buying a residence and passport And though it sounds scammy, it's totally legal. You know all the big first world countries do that too, but they don't Advertise it something about buying a passport just doesn't sound right does it? However, did you know for example? Let's say you're from India and you come to the US and open a semiconductor factory You dump six million bucks into it Guess what if you're a huge investor like that the US will give you a US passport So basically foreigners were a lot of money can come to the US set up a corporation build a factory whatever and in effect Buy their citizenship. It's happened thousands of times

[10:34] Happened to that human sow George Soros, but it's not advertiser reported like that because then it would sound scammy Like the Caribbean countries who are brutally honest about selling residencies and passport They don't beat around the bush. They actually hire legal above-board attorney intermediaries to market those programs online again It's all about perception when a foreign country sells its citizenship. Yeah, right. It's a scam But when the US does well, the US wouldn't do that now would they well? Yes, they would and they do but they just don't come right out and advertise it and surprise surprise Canada does it too and now you know though? I dare you to ask your friends and neighbors if they think it's possible you could buy a US passport 99 out of 100 will say are you kidding if you can it's got to be a scam

[11:24] It's got to be illegal No way and if it did happen There would definitely have to be some big connections and some bribes paid and you know what in so many words There is a bribe involved that six million or whatever You have brought into the country to invest or build a factory Well now you know the truth yet I brought this up to people many times at parties and such and they don't believe it I just goes to show how wrong people's perceptions can be Because you know people think the US is such a sterling example of honesty and righteousness They would never stoop to selling passports. Don't believe it Well, here's what very few people know besides getting a passport a few invest millions There's something called a million dollar green card a visa program in the US called the EB-5 investor visa it's got various levels and if you put between

[12:11] 500,000 and a million in a new commercial enterprise in the US and it creates at least 10 new jobs you get an instant green card permanent visa and the latest stats from 2019 show that three quarters of the 10,000 EB-5 visas issued went to Chinese nationals and after five years with that green card you get automatic Citizenship a US passport, but now of course, you know The brain drain is flowing out of the US everyone who's above average and knows what's really going on and of course who doesn't work And residency then a second passport. I know I know I'm preaching to the choir Anyway, lots and lots of disgusting fat cats like George Soros were awarded US passports and citizenship

[12:58] Just because they got tons of money to invest. All right, then finally, Mr C says a big shout out to Captain Mango I started buying Bitcoin at 9,000 bucks and have made a ton of money off of Captain Mango's Crypto course for beginners now. I'd like to see Oscar minor give an advanced course I wonder if he's doing that anyway, Johnny Thanks for all that you do though I think we all would like you to do more than two shows a week shows on lunas meerklis and Viernes would be nice Pardon my dual lingual espanol reference. He says oh and I'm also taking your advice from my new proton email Via the brave browser PS. Hopefully my email made sense that tequila after a hard day's work can cause misspellings and other misfortunes

[13:47] All right. Thanks for that. Mr. C and thanks for the shout out for Captain Mango and his crypto course You know, I get inquiries from people all the time saying Johnny. I really want to get into crypto I wish I'd have done it so long ago, but I have my doubts I'm not a tacky, you know us baby boomers are not good or comfortable at what those Gen Xers and Millennials are doing online and with crypto I wish I was but I was born too early back in the flip phone and pager days So when I hear that I tell him you can do no better than hook up with Captain Mango He'll get you started hold your hand through buying selling crypto get you one of those hardware wallets Then you too can get in on the wildest game in town and I've said this over and over again It's a once in a lifetime thing crypto is and if you think it's topped out It's too late to get in you ain't been paying attention because you know since crypto first came on board about 12 years ago

[14:37] Practically every single mainstream financial analyst said crypto was just a fad It's going to zero don't invest and now of course, you know the story those financial analysts market makers and banks and all their brokerage Desks are being hammered by their clients with requests for some kind or any kind of crypto investment fund to get into I know really it makes me laugh when I hear people say is it over that I miss the boat and every time it drops 5 10 or 20 percent they ask if crypto is gonna go to zero Well, if you look it up, you'll find a traditional market experts have announced the death of crypto and Bitcoin at least 20 times Over the past 12 years every time it drops 10 or 20 percent. They call for a funeral They announce it's dead yet. It keeps going up at a minimal rate of

[15:25] 200% a year since it was born back in 2010 So let me ask you this have you ever been in an investment that made? 200% in one year two years even ten years running. Well, maybe if you got into Microsoft Amazon or Tesla stock But most people didn't they weren't that lucky. Hey, I'm not giving you investment advice only to say the biggest haters of crypto and Bitcoin Are those who had the chance to get in many times but didn't they were people to wedded to the mainstream? Financial guys or to stubborn or chicken to dip their toes in a brand new kind of lake enough said about that except to say I've got lots and lots of listeners and new expat buddies who suffer the same problem an embarrassment of riches All right. Here's some strange news coming out of Costa Rica

[16:10] You know, you've heard me say many times before that if you order from Amazon you're living in Central America Let's say the absolute best way to do it is have a Miami mailbox Courier have your Amazon eBay Overstock comm or whatever else you're ordering online shipped to that Miami mailbox And of course if you order more than 25 bucks worth of stuff, you usually get free shipping in the continental US So it's ship free to your Miami box They in turn ship it to whatever Latin American country you're living in and that courier service cost you between Three and maybe eight bucks a pound in Central America that is in South America It gets pretty hefty that you all know already and you also know that almost all Latin American countries have a two hundred dollar exemption on Import taxes. In other words, let's say you order something for 160 bucks on Amazon. It weighs one pound

[16:59] It lands in Miami first goes from Miami to El Salvador. It goes through customs automatically They see that it's under 200 bucks They don't charge anything and you get an email from your courier service It says your item is there to pick up or have delivered Usually four to six days after it arrives in Miami and you go and pick it up or have it delivered and it cost You four to eight bucks because it weighed one pound and it was under 200 bucks So you had the exemption by the way some countries. It's 300 bucks Well, the good news out of Costa Rica and there ain't much good news out of Costa Rica, man Is that they raised that limit to 500 bucks? So whatever you order from eBay or Amazon or whatever once it's courier to you from Miami and lands in the Adwana That's the import tax people if it's worth under 500 bucks You pay no import tech and that's a very good deal because generally import taxes range anywhere from 12 to 35%

[17:51] Depending on the type of item. For example, electronic items are taxed differently from household kitchen or even building supplies But you can bet if it's over the limit and you're hit with import tax, it's just gonna be at least 15% In fact, I remember about a year and a half ago. I ordered 16 4k Surveillance cameras a whole system and if I hadn't done a little sleight of hand with Photoshop on the receipt I'd have paid around 30% import tax. Oh, and here's a tip if you're ordering from Amazon I know I know a lot of people hate Amazon Jeff Bezos and what he and the whole company stands for but We still just can't help ordering from him Can we in any event? Here's a tip that'll save you a lot of money when you're doing the final check out with your cart You'll find a lot of products aren't sent in Amazon boxes You can buy a lot of stuff through Amazon that shipped directly from the manufacturer or seller. In other words

[18:40] It's not sitting in an Amazon warehouse. It's coming direct from the seller or manufacturer Well, here's a tip if it's not in an Amazon warehouse You'll see a little box that says check this box if you want it packaged with other items You may have ordered and put it in an Amazon box check that box It's always better to have an Amazon box delivered to your Miami courier forwarding service because normally with an Amazon box There won't be a receipt with the price on it But if it's coming, let's say from a company like Sears in a Sears box There'll be a packing list attached to it with the real price on so those large assets in the Adwana tax department They'll have the packing list with the price in their grimy little hands. You won't be able to fudge anything For example about a year and a half ago. I ordered a digital piano from Korg for six or eight hundred bucks I can't remember and I checked the box that said combine it in an Amazon box

[19:28] It came in an Amazon box with no packing list or receipt and it slipped right through customs. No charge However, if I wouldn't have checked that box, it would have arrived in the manufacturer Korg's original box with a packing list Tape to the side and there would have been no way to get around the custom charges of at least a hundred to a hundred fifty Bucks you get it, right? But back to Costa Rica. Yeah, they raised that limit to 500 bucks. That's very good So then why do you think they've done that? Well, the economy is shot It's based on tourism and they figure that'll be a way to get people to spend more get the velocity of money going But already there's stiff resistance from stores and malls saying it's just not fair because when they receive their products to put on The shelf etc. Their stuff comes in containers through customs. They aren't exempt. They have to pay the import tax

[20:15] Meanwhile regular mom-and-pop consumers who order through the internet get a $500 exemption. Hmm. That is a dilemma, isn't it? But as predicted everything government does has negative secondary effects You could see it could cause a lot more bloodletting as people stay away from and avoid even more those commercial centers and malls God, what a cancerous plague governments are, huh? They can't do any Thing right and what they do accomplish always cost twice as much as it should but you knew that already, right? Meanwhile in news that you're probably not hearing up in the States Did you know that the island of Hispaniola it consists of two countries, you know, Dominican Republic and Haiti now regarding illegal Immigration issues turns out the situation there is an exact microcosm of the US and Mexico

[21:06] Now I don't suspect you'll hear much about this up in the States because the ubiquitous anti Haitian immigration theme in the DR Runs completely contrary to everything the Biden administration in the pro open border do-gooder stateside Activists are always crying about so today I'd like to read you a few highlights from articles that have been appearing down here in Latin America, but I don't think you're getting them up in the States. Most of them are in Spanish So I'll translate this was dated February 27 2021 and the title Dominican Republic plans Extensive border fence to keep illegal immigrant Haitians at bay starts by saying the Dominican Republic will begin fortifying its 234 mile long border with Haiti adding fences remote sensors and drones as it tries to control Undocumented that is illegal Haitian migrations adding that new Dominican Republic president

[21:56] Abeniter said in a speech before Congress the 300 million dollars has been obtained To construct a wall to commence in the second half of this year and would include Double fencing along the most complicated stretches and simple fencing along the rest adding that new border controls would include facial Recognition technology radar motion sensors and detectors infrared cameras and drones saying quote within two years We will be able to bring to an end the serious problem of illegal Immigration as well as the accompanying problems that come along with illegal migrations That is narco trafficking and a movement of stolen vehicles all problems We've been suffering for years because we haven't had a viable deterrent a wall Then the president added we must achieve the protection of our territorial integrity

[22:47] That we've been seeking since our independence Then he reiterates the fact that the Dominican Republic and Haiti share a border of almost 400 kilometers where continuous reports of human trafficking smuggling of weapons and Animals as well as massive illegal crossings are common now get this talk about politically incorrect The article goes on to state. There's a huge controversy Regarding the fact that nearly 30% of all babies delivered in public hospitals in the Dominican Republic Correspond to Haitian women most all who are illegals Hmm sound familiar most all of these women it adds who enter Dominican Republic hospitals in labor are undocumented Haitian

[23:32] Utilizing the DR's national health care system that was intended for Dominican nationals and legal residents man Talk about deja vu all over again, huh? It says the Dominican Republic is home to at least 500,000 to a million Undocumented Haitian workers out of a total population in the DR of 10 million Most Haitians with less than a grade school education and they're working in construction and as household domestics now those would seem to be Inconvenient facts that do-gooders would rather not hear about Including self-proclaimed socialists like Juan de la rocio a professor at the Autonomous University in Santo Domingo DR who states quote there should not be a wall Not as long as there remains extreme poverty and political instability in Haiti unquote say what?

[24:21] Yeah, right So throw the doors open to the most poor and under educated society in all of the Americas cuz you know Haiti's the poorest country in all of the Western Hemisphere now The counter argument is that guys like this professor at the university never ever have to deal with poor uneducated Haitians on a day-to-day basis because 99.9% of Haitians never step foot in a university yet the ivory tower guys will say yes They have rights open the doors let them in but ask the people on the street You'll get a completely different viewpoint fact is and I know many Dominicans have been there many times myself They rarely interact with Haitians at all you almost never see Dominicans date Haitians or get married to them their societies are Completely separate and it's not like the Haitians can physically blend in with the Dominican society either because Haitians stand out

[25:11] They're very black and almost always very skinny too not necessarily under nourished It's just that they work some very tough jobs out in the Sun roofing digging trenches agriculture concrete work They do all the shit jobs the average Dominican just doesn't want to do and they get paid less They're off the books and want it that way again. Doesn't that sound familiar? All you have to do is ask the average taxier Uber driver their opinion about the Haitian invasion You'll get an earful in Spanish, of course And though however similar it is to the situation with the US and Mexico and Central America There is one big difference. There's no welfare food stamps housing assistance No 101 freebies within the safety net that illegals in the US are able to qualify for in the DR the one big government program

[25:56] Everyone's able to take advantage of is the national health care system. Sure It's a crap system like every other national health care program But it's better than nothing and they can't turn you away And in this case the facts for some are very uncomfortable to hear the fact that about 5 to 10 percent of the population in the Dominican Republic are illegal Haitians yet 30 percent of all the women who go to the Public hospital to give birth are Haitian women There's no way to really tease those numbers and make them palatable when you mention them to the average Dominican They say get them the hell out of our country or don't let him into the hospital In fact when the subject comes up, I've never met a Dominican who hasn't stated his extreme Objections to that reality not to mention I've never met a working or middle-class Dominican who was against putting up that wall

[26:46] You'll hear no politically correct statements or whining regarding the immigration issue from the average Dominican I'll tell you that and here's the irony Dominicans and Puerto Ricans to some degree to are the only Latin Americans have ever come across who completely understand and sympathize With average stateside Americans, especially ones who live close to the Mexican border They recognize much the same things happening in their own country on their own little island of Hispaniola Oh, and before I end the show today, I feel obliged to make a confession regarding this gender fluidity business I too actually felt that one time I was trapped in a woman's body Yep, that's right. Then after about nine months or so everything changed. I was born Hmm

[27:33] 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 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. No spamos You