#1071 – The Expat Files: Culture, Safety, and Strategy 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 Now here's a boots on the ground story That'll really give you something to think about you recent and longtime listeners have heard me talk about a gringo expat guy I run into frequently at one of my favorite indoor outdoor coffee shop slash people watching spots a guy who refers to himself as

[00:47] At least to me. He does retired corrupt ex Boston cop Bob ain't bad a mouthful now being that 98% of my time down here in Latin America, I'm way off the gringo tourist trail. I only run into gringos and expats very infrequently But of course every small medium and large town or city even ones way off the gringo tourist trail They have their little sprinkling of gringos and expats That means of course if you're hanging around one of those towns or cities chances are when you run into a gringo or expat It'll be the same ones over and over again. Now as far as retired ex corrupt Boston cop Bob I run into him probably every two or three weeks because practically every day I do a one-hour power walk and I plan it out so that when I'm about halfway into it I'm going right past that little coffee shop people watching spot

[01:32] I was telling about and that's where ex-cop Bob hangs out too So naturally every once in a while I run into him and when he's there We always stop and have a cup and catch up on things. You probably remember I told you he's married to a beautiful Latina who had two kids as baggage and a father that abandoned them That's pretty normal Oh, and you heard me mentioned Bob flew back to my jammy to get faxed So in that sense, he's really not one of us He drank a full measure of Kool-Aid But as far as fully realizing the US is that Titanic going down He's fully on board with that as our 99% of all his Boston cop buddies So anyway a couple of weeks ago, I ran into Bob again, and he invited me to a 4th of July party at his new place Yeah, he just moved he was a renter and now he owns a place his new place being a very upscale

[02:20] Residential tower in one of the best neighborhoods and usually I don't much like going to those kind of affairs But Bob had been bugging me to see his new place So I thought okay I'll go by the way Here's something you have to know about gringles and expats living down here in Latin America Someone's always throwing a US holiday party 4th of July Memorial Day Christmas New Year's and in a way You got to wonder why that is because we're talking about expats and gringles who left the US most of us because we can't stand what it's turned into and Because of that some of us don't even want to be reminded of the place anymore Speaking of US holidays thinking about how US holidays used to be so many years ago It's just sad and depressing to realize it'll never be like that again But the fact is for some gringles and expats even if they feel that way

[03:05] They'll still show up to various US holiday parties like Bob's 4th of July party simply because it's sort of a tradition Though I admit for some it's just an excuse to get a bunch of gringles and expats together having nothing really to do it celebrating the event nothing wrong with that except the irony of it is that a great majority of gringles and expats living down here in Latin America are Brainwashed American pseudo patriots were also proud and pleased as punch to whip out that fax card and brag that they're protected They've been jabbed and they're oh so happy to talk about it The other part of that sad truth is I'd say at least 80% of retired gringles and expats here in Latin America Our ex-retired school teachers and US government workers lemmings who drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago And the only reason they're in Latin America is because that government pensioner Social Security

[03:52] Allows them to live twice as well as they would on the same amount up in Cleveland Even though they're the ones really responsible for letting the US go to shit as for me I want nothing to do with that 80% and when I'm stuck sitting next to one at a party I'll generally toss a few sly slings and arrows I'll let them know in a roundabout way what hypocrites They are coming down here to Latin America all the while trying to turn it into a mini version of the place They left or I should say the place that they and their ilk have managed to ruin So be prepared when you come down and get boots on the ground for yourself that most gringles and expats you're run into Down here will be woke big government shit for brains closet socialists thinly disguised as do-gooder gringles out to save the world Oh, but not with their money with your money

[04:38] And really that's one of the top reasons I Refuse to live or hang out on the gringo tourist trail And that's where the vast majority of them tend to congregate and those are the places too they Contaminate with their malignant woke ideas where shit when a gringo expat tells me he's a member of Republicans or Democrats abroad I completely write them off as a mental midget Alright enough of that rant, but you get the idea anyway The gringo is an expats that I know and occasionally hang around with are not of that ilk They're like-minded and got the hell out of dodge for all the right reasons that includes retired corrupt Boston cop But and why a consented to go to his 4th of July party Though it is sort of ironic. Don't you think that gringles and expats will have 4th of July parties? You'd probably thinking why in the hell wouldn't they just stay back in the states if they're so bonded to the US and its customs

[05:27] Well for true expats who got the hell out of dodge for the right reasons the occasional memorial day in 4th of July parties are as mentioned mostly just a reason they get a bunch of people together for a party Oh and the fact that cheap massive fireworks displays are available at every corner store does give one the extra incentive to celebrate especially if you're kind of a pyro maniac like lots of manboy gringos are Though often nostalgia will seep in and people will start talking about what real 4th of July block parties back in their hometown Used to be like before the whole world went crazy which oddly enough seems to have started and accelerated With the advent of the internet in about 1990 though some say it started with the birth of the first iPhone What was that 2007? But if you spend a little time looking into it

[06:13] You'll see it really started with a kind of wokeness in the public liberal arts universities that started creeping in about 20 years earlier But you knew that already, right? So anyway, I went to Bob's 4th of July party There were 20 or so people there and thankfully not a single other gringo woke or otherwise and I said Bob Don't you have any other gringo friends? He said none whose opinions I could stand for more than five minutes at a stretch Though he said he's got lots of like-minded retired Boston cop friends who come down and visit once in a while But none of them live permanently in Latin America though. He said they all want to they've got just way too much baggage and attachments back home By the way, did you know that cops have a 20 year and out program? That means they can retire with a full pension as young as 40 years old So when you hear the words retired cop don't picture an old worn out codger with a cane

[07:01] He said almost all cops especially these days will take that 20 year and out option and they'll start a whole new career When they're 40 years old like he did. Oh and you don't even want to know what he and his conference got to say about what's Happened to the morale in the police departments up in the states He said since this George Floyd thing defund the cops and those new rules in many states starting in California that you can't Arrest a person unless he's stolen more than seven hundred dollars worth of goods He said every copy knows absolutely hates his job and that's a recent thing, too It wasn't like that just a couple of years ago In fact, he said the vast majority of cops working up in Boston right now are closet alcoholics, which didn't surprise me He said that's true all over the United States a lot of it He said has to do with the fact that cops nationwide have lost the respect of the common man

[07:49] It's never coming back either. It'll have terrible repercussions too because no one wants to be a career cop anymore He said hell, I'd rather be a firefighter or even a garbage man. Same salary with none of the grief Speaking of firefighters. Here's the part of the story. I really wanted to tell we were sitting in Bob's new place It's a nice. I'd say 1,400 square foot condo and a residential tower luxury all the way the kitchen even had a dishwasher and a Garbage disposal man, I can count on one hand the number of garbage disposals I've seen here in Latin America that really throws the owner in the point 1% crowd So anyway, I get there Bob showing me around we're in the laundry room and all of a sudden in the room next door the kitchen We hear a big pop to me the unmistakable sound of a short-circuit

[08:35] You know wires crossing and sparks flying fuses and breakers blowing So we rushed in there and saw Bob's Latino wife walk up to the oven and check it She was cooking a couple of whole chickens in it and suddenly came another Louder deeper pot and flames started shooting out from the back of the oven now the oven was set in an IKEA Prefab modular kitchen unit when I don't know if I've mentioned this before but most Latin American countries now have IKEA and to me Most of their stuff is junk. It looks good I'm talking about the furniture now for a while anyway But it's just laminate particle board and after a few dings and bangs and vacuum cleaner and broom wax courtesy of your cleaning lady It starts looking pretty tacky though. I have to admit even IKEA has some high-end stuff That's very good, but people usually buy the cheap crap because it's cheap

[09:23] So anyway flames are shooting out of the back of the oven and I said Bob Where's this shut off valve for the gas looks to me like the gas line to your stove is melted And now we got a propane gas fire So he opened the cabinet doors under the sink and there were three small valves one for the gas stove one for the gas Range and one for the gas dryer, so he shut them right away But the flames kept raging again from the back of the stove shooting up the wall now It was getting really hot and stuffy in there and the flames were reaching up behind the stove And you could see the reflection on the ceiling the whole IKEA cabinet was catching fire So I told Bob to hurry up and call the firemen the bomb arrows you call 911 for that and luckily since his high-rise Wasn't in one of the best neighborhoods There was a good chance the firemen would actually arrive quickly the better the neighborhood the faster the response time for

[10:09] Both the cops and the firemen no surprise same thing in the states right so anyway I'm up on this half ladder, and I'm dousing the thing with buckets of water And it's not going out So I yelled to Bob to go out in the hallway by the elevator where I knew there had to be a fire extinguisher You see them all the time next to elevators though whether they're actually charged up and maintained who knows by now the whole Kitchens filled with smoke and the flames are reaching up to the ceiling and being up on the ladder I had my hand over the top fit singe the hair on my arm and suddenly about a minute later Bob arrives with the extinguisher Passes it to me luckily. It was charged and in two seconds man I had that fire out, but Bob's new kitchen was an absolute disaster Smoke damage a half an inch of water on the floor blue powder and every drawer and nook and cranny from the extinguisher

[10:56] You know those dry extinguishers are loaded with potassium bicarbonate powder, but hey the panic was over and Amazingly enough about ten minutes later the fireman came We waited about 15 minutes for the stove to cool down enough And I undid the screws in front pull it out from the half chart spot in the IKEA shelf and sure enough the fireman said The reason why the gas pipe caught on fire is because it wasn't to code surprise surprise What did you say are you serious here in Latin America the gas line wasn't installed to code well? That was absolutely no surprise to me However It was kind of a surprise being that building is in one of the nicest neighborhoods one of the most expensive areas with very high rent in Those towers compared to other places in Latin America not compared to the states

[11:44] We'll get to that later the thing is as the fireman pointed out You're never supposed to use a plastic gas pipe near the stove You can use it in the walls But you got to use a metal pipe wherever a gas line is exposed like from the connection out of the wall To the connection at the back of the stove the fireman said the electrical connection was not to code either now You know gas stoves have an electrical connection because they have a spark system You know to ignite the gas and lights in front and a timer doesn't use a lot of electricity But it does get plugged into a regular 110 outlet now the fireman said and I knew this of course Bob didn't because he Never built a house before it's also true when it comes to stoves the electrical connection The wires coming from the wall to the stove have to be protected in a metal flexible sheet It's called BX or armored cable. I'm sure you've seen it

[12:31] So anyway here's what happened the stove was plugged into a regular wall outlet behind it It was a normal electric power cable with plastic insulation the kind you see on most appliances like refrigerators and vacuum cleaners Etc and when that was connected and the oven pushed in place The power cord enclosed in plastic touched directly up against the oven So that wire butting up to the back of oven would get hot every time it was fired up So on July 4th with a couple of chickens in the oven that was the driveway chicken that broke the camel's back The outside plastic insulation on the wire melted through the wires touched causing a short circuit Setting the plastic insulation on fire and right next to it the plastic gas pipe that was also Heated over and over again every time someone used the oven so really was a ticking time bomb that just happened to go off

[13:19] At the party. Oh and just as an aside you longtime listeners heard me say there are no central gas companies in Latin America No one has natural gas piped into their neighborhoods Like almost everyone has up in the states except if you live way on the boonies here in Latin America almost everyone uses propane gas Which is the same as natural gas basically with the tank stored in your own home However in these big first-world style expensive residential high-rises expensive again as compared to other residences in Latin America not in the states they have a system set up where there's a giant propane tank in the basement or in a parking area and from there the main feed from That tank goes to individual meters one for each apartment in the complex So every apartment does have an individual gas line So at first glance when you're in that apartment it appears as if you're connected to a central gas utility company

[14:09] But you're only connected to the main tank in the basement and you pay your gas based on your individual meter reading Of course now if you're living in a single-family home or a low-rent neighborhood You know what I mean or out in the boonies You'll have your own 25 50 or a hundred pound propane gas tank if you're smart You'll have the tank out in the back or in a garage or a protected shed That is most gringles and expats will whereas most Latinos will generally have that tank small one usually a 25 pounder Under the kitchen sink and it'll almost always be connected to the stove and oven with a plastic tube and to me It's always been a big surprise whether aren't more terrible fires though. There are kitchen fires all the time I've never heard of anyone being Exphyxiated because Latino housing especially in low and middle class housing

[14:55] There's always plenty of airflow the doors and windows are not sealed very well at all They don't have double pane windows and there's practically no such thing as weather stripping and since 95% of Latinos don't have air conditioning They've got doors and windows opened all the time now, of course air will feed the fire But when people have got doors and windows open all the time the fire can't suck out all the oxygen So it would be extremely rare for someone to be expxiated That's the good news The bad news is people with gas setups even in high-end areas are using plastic gas pipe Which is legal when it's in the walls, but never when it's exposed and I'll give you one guess as to why it's used everywhere It's five times cheaper than metal and since inspection departments here in Latin America are practically dead in the water You've heard me say that many times before

[15:41] The fact is you could have an architect design your house pull all the right permits Spend a year building the house and there's a good chance that not one single inspector will ever come over and look at your place That's why so many builders and contractors will cut corners though on the plus side since all decent buildings and structures are made out of glass Cement and concrete block even in the case of Bob's kitchen fire The only thing that would have been consumed had no one been there would be his IKEA kitchen cabinet setup and some might say That's no loss. Oh, and here's the topper to that story Well, the firemen were still poking around in the cupboards checking things out suddenly two members of Bob's homeowners Association showed up who were by the way, the only two doofuses wearing masks Even the firemen came without masks

[16:26] Anyway, one of the ladies from the homeowners association came up to me and Bob and said with a kind of a shrill even panicky voice She said in Spanish, of course Bob you are number eight and Bob said in his very bad Spanish Number eight for what well as it turns out She said since the building went up around nine years earlier and the building had 44 units total. She said there had been eight Identical kitchen fires just like Bob's everyone due to the exact same problem However, she said you were the luckiest of the eight You knew the shut off the gas immediately and to go up by the elevator and grab the extinguisher I said, yeah, that's what we were worrying about when the water wouldn't douse it We had our fingers crossed that the extinguisher would be charged. She says you don't have to worry about that

[17:11] She said after the first couple of kitchen fires We installed those extinguishers on every floor and we haven't checked regularly Very good news for Bob because it's a scary feeling when water will not put out the fire So in the end Bob only had to have two shelves in his IKEA unit replaced Whereas the other seven previous fires destroyed their entire kitchens. Why well because as it turned out all the other fires occurred while the cleaning Lady slash maid was doing the cooking and they don't know what to do. They don't know where the gas shut off is They just panic try to phone up the administration or run down to the lobby and flag the guard at the entrance and that takes some Minutes and by then those IKEA cabinets are done for oh and the thing is in Bob's residential tower Every kitchen was fully equipped with high-end appliances and a complete IKEA kitchen cabinet set and those IKEA cabinets

[17:57] Were the only things in that whole kitchen that were flammable Unfortunately every kitchen had the same setup Plastic gas and electrical lines to the oven. Oh and as a grand finale Bob asked the two ladies from the condo Association What they were gonna do about the situation since number nine was sure to come Well, they said a couple years back when all this started happening They got a lawyer and tried to get him to go after the building contractor and some day It just might get to court before the guy croaks and my parting words to those two ladies I said it would be a really really good idea if you sent out a bulletin to everyone in this complex Telling the latest story and urging them to have their pipes changed over to metal. Hell the very next day That's exactly what Bob did. He had an electrician and a plumber over They switched the lines in both the stove and the oven total cost around 90 bucks and

[18:47] 25 of that was the cost of the metal gas pipe. All right moving on and speaking of covid it's This is from a July 8th 2021 article coming out of Ecuador now as you might have noticed I mentioned Ecuador a lot It's been on the AARP and International Living top five list for at least five years now as Top spot for gringos and expats to live the good life on the cheap except now as you may have figured the gringos have piled In and they're slowly but surely turning it into their own mini version of California Yikes. Hey, I've been there a number of times gringo expat do-gooders are everywhere So here's the headline on this article starts by saying thousands of Ecuadorian families are taking their children to the US To get vexed and I'll paraphrase this and get to the point it says upper middle-class

[19:35] Ecuadorians after traveling to my jammy for their own kovat 19 vaccines are now making the trip again and going back with their Children, for example, there's Carlos Naranjo a 48 year old commercial engineer from keto Ecuador He says quote my wife and I had our shots in Florida in April and since most of the side effects happened in the first two Months, we wanted to wait and see if they were safe for our boys So now after that waiting period we feel comfortable taking our children so they can be Protected to mmm puss for brains, huh? Well, you know monkey see monkey do well down here with upper middle-class Latin Americans It's gringo see gringo do and if we've got the dough Latinos to then it says get this According to the keto Association of travel agents. They estimate as many as

[20:23] 200,000 Ecuadorian adults having traveled or making plans to travel to my jammy They're wanting to get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine since it's a one dose one says one Avian the travel association spokesman he says for upper middle-class Latinos who have the dough They don't trust the Sinovac vaccine, which is what most people in Latin America are getting especially in Ecuador They want the Vax the gringos are getting hmm, which reminds me of the Einstein quote when he said I know of only two things that are infinite the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former anyway I belong the travel agency spokesman says most parents that can afford it are now planning vaccine trips for their children after having gone To my jammy for the poke themselves

[21:09] He says now people who've had the vaccines for a month or two know they are safe and all that fear talk was nonsense They want to have their children vaccinated now Yikes. He says right now airlines are processing as many as 100,000 Ecuadorian children under the age of 16 to travel to the US for vaccines in the coming weeks. Oh and remember mr Not on ho that systems engineer We just quoted who took his kids to my jammy to get jabbed He says that Johnson and Johnson vaccine was not his first choice He would have preferred Pfizer since it uses the more sophisticated RNA technology Yeah, right shit for brains squared, but he says I can't afford to wait two weeks between doses I'm a okay with the Johnson and Johnson

[21:55] Vaccine they're given in the states and no it's fine for my kids best of all We all get to go back to my jammy again and visit Raton Mickey Mickey rat Are you getting the stupidity of all this now hidden in this story is the fact that for any Latin American citizen to get on a plane legally and fly to the US You'll have to have applied for a US visa There are no Latin American passports that allow you to travel to the US visa free and in order to get a visa you might know the drill you have to have a steady job for at least three years have a credit card not a Debit card a real credit card with at least a two thousand dollar maximum and you have to have an interview at the US Embassy as well as valid and active health insurance only have to have a local and national police report a letter from your boss verifying your on the books employment a letter of reference from your bank to

[22:42] In other words virtually no middle or lower middle class Latino need apply They could never for one meet the income requirement So who are these hundreds of thousands of Latinos fly into my jammy to get the jab? Well, they're Latinos in the upper 5% of income murders crazier yet They're taking their kids up to my jammy and there isn't a single Latin American country that Authorizes or mandates kids getting vexed But since now in the States some kids are getting vexed that brilliant Latino 5% are jumping right on that bandwagon Monkey see monkey do oh, and by the way, I know I shouldn't have to say this But have you noticed in all the real science reports you've been reading not the ones funded by Big Pharma or WHO or dr Falsy they're saying the side effects you see now and there are plenty of them will be nothing compared to the ones

[23:29] We're gonna see in some months and years down the line In other words, we ain't seen nothing yet and all the grinning jokers and idiots who are jumping on the Vax bandwagon right now I really want to thank you sincerely since all those vaccines have been approved under emergency orders Meaning they skipped three or four years of animal testing I want to thank you all for standing in as guinea pigs for all of us who won't take a Vax until it's proven safe And effective in animals. It's great. You're standing in for animal proxy test subjects though rats will do in a pinch We do fit the bill after all we are just animals apex predators, but just animals. All right moving on I'm sure you've heard of the fact that Peru just had an election and they voted in a communist a Marxist and according to Latin American Market watch Peruvian business people especially upper-middle class and wealthy are yanking their money out of local accounts and shipping it overseas at a pace

[24:19] Rarely ever seen before for example one mutual fund for him in Lima Peru called Fado Capital says its clients pulled more than half of all their money out of country funds in the run-up to the voting and the one month since Fearing new Marxist president Castillo will slap US dollar in euro monetary restrictions on Peruvians Just like Argentina and Venezuela have been doing recall that if you live in Argentina, you can only pull out 200 US dollars a month So with Peru's population voting for a guy who promises to redistribute wealth Nationalized industries and give out freebies to everyone the effect has been to drive the wealthy into getting their money out of the places While they still can in fact, there's been such an exodus of cash that the sole

[25:06] Sol the Peruvian currency is down eight point four percent in just one month making it the worst performing currency in that time period For all emerging markets on top of that the country's longtime Central Bank chief Julio Velarde Admitted that about 11 percent of the total foreign reserves of the country some nine billion dollars had just recently fled Overseas and as for the middle classes who do not have foreign accounts overseas the ones that are independent small businessmen owning small Restaurants corner stores and such they are according to the Central Bank chief Squirreling away as many dollars in euros as they can under their mattresses at home and in broader market terms Paul Roboleto CEO of tandem finance admits the average Peruvian investor is very very nervous about their new Marxist president

[25:56] By the way, Peru's new president Castillo ran on this slogan quote No more poor people in a rich country pledging that the nation's vast mineral wealth must benefit ordinary people Which in the end is making businessmen very jittery There's a high level of concern in the business sector every day more and more people are liquidating their market positions Taking the cash and sending it out of the country The question is should we be worried? Well for gringles and expats there's a good lesson to be learned here aside from the fact I've never recommended peru as a good plan B It's a more general lesson when the shit hits the fan in your own country and you got to get some wealth out in A hurry you better have a foreign bank account to transfer it to as so many of peru's businessmen are finding out right now What if you can liquidate stuff and you have cash

[26:43] But you've got no place to send it to because you haven't got a foreign bank account That's one of the cardinal principles of a plan B having a bank account in a foreign jurisdiction You know most of the people who've come down to my expat insider seminars do just that and many of them Hang around for a few days before or after the seminar and our seminar lawyer opens up an account for them It's a great way to kill two birds with one stone come down to the seminar and get yourself a foreign bank account Hell you only have to pump it up with maybe two to five hundred dollars But it's yours and it's always there in case you need to liquidate things in a hurry and it's untouchable by us authorities Because it's in a foreign jurisdiction Oh and one more thing I never did tell you what happened to those chickens in the oven at x boston cop bob's new condo Well, they were a bit overcooked but came through the whole ordeal much better than bob's ikea kitchen

[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