#1105 – The Expat Files: Social Media, Dating in Latin America, and Bitcoin City

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 ruffle a few feathers today and coax a few haters out of the woodwork Yep, there are haters out there All right, but isn't it funny they still keep listening But you know what keeps you sane in this business or how I stay sane I just don't engage in any kind of social media Facebook Twitter Instagram

[00:47] Though frequently listeners send me emails with excerpts from anti social media saying Johnny look at the crap They're saying about you, but I don't care You know what they say the more flack you get the closer you are to the target So that's why I don't engage in that stuff. So what do I occupy myself with this far as tech? I watch the occasional YouTube educational stuff. I'm all over the place You know like how to make gingerbread cookies how to blow up planet-sized asteroids and I have my favorite handful of podcasts I listen to too. But as for social media, I'm just not on it And you know, it's true. Every show has its lovers and haters, but I know this from observation It's dangerous to your mental health to read comments and hang on social media You must know that already because you know social media is a distorted reality to me It's like driving on the highway having road rage without a filter

[01:35] I mean look how many times does someone cut you off or some old lady in front of you is going 12 miles an hour What you'd really like to do is ram the old lady to wake her up and sideswipe the guy that's hogging the road next To you, but you don't do that right because it'll have real negative consequences Well on social media people just blast away without a filter and there are no Consequences for the blaster though in many cases the blasty can't help but feel some of the effects People say all kinds of nasty crap about other people they say things about people They'd never say to their faces in real life or they might get decked or their clock cleaned Now there's an interesting saying getting your clock clean. Where'd that come from? You know, it's so easy on social media to hammer someone you've never met before You've never seen once in person or even talked to now you might disagree but to me That's pretty cowardly and people who live for social media are just idiots who've never had a voice a life or real friends

[02:27] Or an audience before but everyone wants attention. They want to be heard They want their 15 minutes or win the social media lottery That means it's creating a meme or something that goes viral Suddenly everyone's got a voice and they think they're important enough to be heard even though most of social media is just throw away garbage Useless, vomitous, dribble. So for peace of mind, I just don't engage. It's too toxic I don't crave the extra dopamine Thank you very much Besides that if you're doing a show or a podcast like this and you pay attention to social media You're likely to self censor your level to start worrying too much about what other people think and start playing to the masses The thing is though, it's like the complaint or customer service department at a big company like Costco, man I don't know how a person could have a job like that eight hours a day Or for example if you've ever been a waiter or waitress at a restaurant

[03:14] There are always a certain few people that just rub you the wrong way Unfortunately, some of them turn out to be regulars who when they walk in you roll your eyes because you know It's gonna be a rough ride as they say in business school It's that certain five percent of customers are clients those chronic complainers or attention hawks who robbed 90% of your time Call them energy suckers time vampires. Same thing, you know, the guy or gal You don't want to sit next to at a party Too bad. We all know some of those and some of them were stuck with cuz they're childhood friends or family So how do you get rid of those time vampires cut them out of your life without? Causing a scene or too much embarrassment or seeming like too much of a dickhead yourself Well, you just vote with your feet and come to Latin America That way you never have to tell them to their faces that they're whiny boring time-sucking ass wipes

[04:00] You can blame the disconnect and why you're cutting ties with them on your plan B It's easy blame it on your plan B and man I'll tell you when I left the states 30 plus years ago I left behind a few time vampires myself once I finally landed and got settled in every time I was having second thoughts about it I just think about those time vampires. I left behind and wondering who they're sucking energy from now Yep, we're talking about those positive unintended consequences of getting the hell out of dodge In fact the first few years I was down before the internet and all that I used to tell people one of the best Things about living in Latin America was that I knew for sure if the phone rang it wasn't for me I did not have what you might call phone anxiety That'd be the old-school equivalent to today's social media anxiety You know that little jolt of anxiety that comes through when you hear the little

[04:45] Notification on your phone when a message comes through I noticed with a lot of people especially Millennials and Gen Xers those messages and how fast they respond to them kind of rule their lives. Believe me I'm not that guy now I know I must piss off a lot of people because oftentimes when I get a message I don't answer it for a couple hours even sometimes a day or two I know I know what some is considered rude and thoughtless if you don't jump right on it Especially when you're dealing with those dating and cupid sites. In fact, I was talking to an idiot gringo the other day here in Latin America Yep, that's right I said idiot gringo who's all over those cupid sites making dates with Latinas And he told me when he shoots him a message on what's up or whatever if they don't answer within three or four minutes He takes it personally in some cases. He reads it as a sign They've got other men online

[05:30] In other words, there are two time in them or three or four or five time in them Which strikes me as kind of odd because he's got five or six girls on the line He's texting back and forth and he's worried about the girls He's texting doing the same thing and after meeting this guy and talking to him a little bit at a party I can understand why the ladies might not think he's such a good catch Then again, he was bragging how beautiful these latinas were that he was texting to now remember I just met this guy and he's revealing huge chunks of his dating and personal life I had absolutely no interest in he showed me his girlfriends on what's up and every single one of those girls had sent him a very Sexy near naked photo of herself and to shut him down a bit I shook my head and said, you know Rule number one on those dating sites unless you're looking strictly for sex never date a woman who sends you a naked shot of herself

[06:16] Those are not the kind of girls you take to Sunday dinner at mom's house Then I said I bet they're all hitting you up for money right and you're sending it to him Then he nodded and I said, let me guess stop me if you haven't heard these excuses before Microwave oven broke down dad needs new teeth mom had to go to the emergency room She's short on this month's rent and I just kept going. I went down the list of excuses No doubt he had the gringo advantage and all and certainly he thought that being a gringo helped him get his foot in the door Relationship-wise that is but I said just a word of advice I told him, you know if you're gonna hook up with girls who send naked pictures of themselves to you You don't need the gringo advantage just money now what I'd noticed just talking with this guy a couple of minutes He was giving off vibes of a whiny time vampire Sure that gringo advantage means a lot But personality and attitude have quite a bit of weight too in his case

[07:04] He got the extra two points for being a gringo, but a minus two for personality and attitude. So it was a wash Hey, it takes all kinds, right? The thing is though with this guy he spoke very little Spanish So he was using Google Translate to talk to his naked girlfriend text buddies on what's up and Google Translate That's not quite allow you to transmit your personality or attitude Which in his case was a good thing enough said about that guy But there really are lots of idiot or maybe more or less naive gringos down here doing the same thing as that guy So anyway, I was at this party. I met another guy who told me a story. That was very interesting Let me back this up by saying, you know, I've said many times before Venezuelans are everywhere more than 6 million of them have left the country. That's way more than 20% of their adult population

[07:51] They've just gotten the hell out of their own socialist hell version of dodge A lot of them escaped by the skin of their teeth by hook and crook without two pesos to rub together Anyway, I met this Latino house party people are dancing and everything There was two other gringos there besides me and wouldn't you know it everyone was dancing except as gringos one a property manager Who rents out villas and stuff to wealthy gringos and that idiot gringo I mentioned was one of his clients Anyway, there was a wide mix of nationalities there Latino nationalities that is Venezuelans Colombians Mexicans all kinds Anyway, this one really built guy must have been around 35 years old. He could dance man I mean Latinos can dance anyway, but this guy he could make those dancing with the stars winners look like Stephen Hawking So anyway, I'm on this patio sofa smoke and a Cuban cigar

[08:39] The guy sits down next to me. We exchanged a few words. I find out he's Venezuelan and he said why aren't you out there dancing? I said cuz I'm a gringo and we're missing that dance gene, especially with guys like you out there Where'd you learn how to dance? He said it was part of my training my footwork I said, oh, you're a professional dancer. Then he said no, I'm a boxer or former boxer. He said Turns out he said when he was in Venezuela. He was a lightweight champion had 17 wins never lost a match But then he had a kid got married had to go to work and all that stuff And his wife forced him to quit boxing and that's when the story got interesting. I said, what are you doing here in Panama? He said I'm on my way to the u.s. I said you're a long way from the states Why Panama now now, of course, I know there's no flights in and out of the United States to Venezuela

[09:24] Everyone knows that that stopped a long time ago. So to get out of Venezuela People just sneak into the neighboring countries Colombia Brazil Chile Ecuador Peru Their first stop is almost always another South American country and they mostly end up staying there somewhere in South America cuz it's Logistically much easier, but this guy was in Panama and I said so what's your plan? He said well, I got a brother living in the States by jammy. Where else he told me he's been there over five years He's got his residency Anyway, this guy told me turns out Venezuelans can travel visa-free to Panama almost all other Latin American countries, too In other words if a Venezuelan can get to any Latin American country Even if they sneak in as long as their passports valid They get an automatic tourist visa for 90 days in the case of Mexico 180. So within that time frame

[10:11] They're totally legal. But like he said he's been in Panama more than 90 days So his visa expired and now he's considered an illegal and as of now anyway There are millions of Venezuelans in other Latin American countries illegally just like him because after 90 days they become illegal They overstay their visas and that's why he said Venezuelans in other Latin countries Even highly educated ones with bachelor's master's and doctorate degrees They're working as waiters waitresses doing construction work road work grunt work Anything they can get because when you get a tourist visa You can't work on the books because just like you and I and every other gringo who travels to a Latin American country We get a tourist visa for 90 days in the case of Mexico 180, but it's just a tourist visa We don't have permission to work The theory is we're arriving as tourists and are gonna spend money in their country and not make money or take a job away

[11:01] From a local. Yeah fat chance, right? But anyway, that's the law, of course, you know, and you've heard me say this before we can start a business and hire people But we just can't work ourselves. In other words, you can be the boss hire local employees legally and all that But we ourselves are not allowed to work not on the books Anyway, now that might sound crazy and prohibitive to you, you know, the restrictions that you can't work But you can own a business, but there's a huge loophole there any business will open a bank account, right? You know to pay your expenses your bills your workers and all that and whatever is left over at the end of the month Is yours because you're the owner and that bank account will be in your name or an essay corporation That's even better and you're the signatory on that or your lawyer is it's your money You can take it out at will or transfer it to another bank account or another country at will or another person at will if you like

[11:48] In other words As long as you don't write yourself a check as an employee of that company or business no matter how big or small it is You are strictly or actually more loosely within the letter of the law people do it all the time it's been going on like that for years and Latin governments are really lenient about that and look the other way because you're hiring local employees for your business You're adding to not taking from the local economy, but I digress. Where were you? Oh, yeah, talking to my new Latin American friend boxy adore and dance and fool Anyway, he said his first stop was Panama by boat He said there are lots of clandestine boat services that'll take you from Venezuela to any of the nearby countries That'd be Aruba, Curaçao, Suriname, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, etc for a couple hundred bucks No questions asked no IDs necessary

[12:34] In fact, he says you meet on a beach or up here You shove off at night with no lights at all on the boat to avoid Venezuelan government patrols and all that They're always on the lookout for people escaping because it is a big problem a huge Despora brain drain and all that by the way He said every couple of weeks you hear about one of those boats sinking with all hands on board after all They're small boats in a big ocean They hold maybe 12 to 20 people and he said if you get caught by the Venezuelan coast guard They'll take you back to shore question you and take all your money jewelry and everything valuable You've got on you and let you go. That's why they run at night with no lights until they hit international waters Anyway, this guy told me a couple of months ago He landed in Panama as his visa ran out and now he needs that thousand bucks or so from his brother to go to the Panama

[13:19] Embassy to pay a fine and get his visa renewed So it's in good standing again Then he can take a plane anywhere he wants in Latin America because as mentioned Most all Latin countries are visa-free for Venezuelans who can enter as tourists So his plan includes his brother sending him a grande or so to get his visa fixed up in Panama So he's legal again then from Panama. He's gonna take a flight to Mexico City That's about 400 bucks and as mentioned he goes into Mexico visa-free and has 180 days there But that doesn't really matter to him because he says once he gets into Mexico He's gonna pay a coyote five thousand US dollars to take him to Texas His brother in my jammies working that out and then he says as soon as he crosses the frontier the border He's gonna break away from the legal group. He's traveling with and give himself up to immigration

[14:07] That's the plan. He said to give myself up because and he cracked a big smile Then he said Joe Biden's got this thing going where Venezuelans are never sent back to their country once they arrive in the US They get permanent asylum because not only is Venezuela a failed socialist state It's considered a non-friendly enemy regime to the US And so if you come in and say hey, I'm a Venezuelan looking for asylum and then you show them your paperwork They'll put you in a detention camp for a week up to a month They'll process you give you a residence visa and surprise surprise. You'll be legal in the US In fact, he said so many Latin Americans know about this loophole now in the States as far as Venezuelans The rumor is all those Haitians you hear about on those caravans moving on up to the US

[14:53] Guess what they do if they get caught crossing the border to the US they ditch their Haitian documents raise their hands in the air and yell We're Venezuelan and need asylum So without documents they too are placed in a detention center But for most of them, it doesn't work their accents and their stories trip them up But it buys them a couple weeks time to work out some other kind of angle Of course, I said to the Venezuelan guy, aren't you a little worried about the trip up? What can happen to you along the way? You've heard all the stories about rapes and robberies kidnappings disappearances And then he smiled held his dukes up and gave me a boxer's pose And you know, I was thinking what this guy's confidence balls and well Determination and if he can't make it nobody can though He did tell me his biggest fear was that someone might steal his documents before he gets there

[15:38] That's because this Venezuelan asylum situation in the US has created a very fluid underground market for Venezuelan documents Real fake and otherwise that's what he said and a lot of the fake ones are so good They fool immigration people up in the states because there's no easy way to verify them with Venezuelan authorities The Venezuelan government or authorities won't respond to any inquiries coming from US immigration or the State Department So in that case anyway, a good set of fake documents will take a person a long long way In fact, he said a lot of Venezuelans who are actually born there are traveling on their own fake Venezuelan Documents because their own genuine passports and ID documents have expired once issued their passports expire in five years And there's no way to get your documents reissued unless you go back to Venezuela

[16:24] And most people who've escaped will never do that And if you try to renew your expired Venezuelan passport at a Venezuelan embassy in a Latin country that you're in There's a two-year wait unless you've got a couple of thousand US dollars Then you can get your documents renewed in two weeks Ah, the wonders of socialism where everyone's equal equally corrupt and equally poor now in the past few years I've met lots of Venezuelans in my travels here in Latin America and almost all of them are at least 90-95% of them have a trade a skill or work career professionals doctors lawyers IT guys engineers, etc However, things have changed just in the last half year or so. I'm starting to meet a lot of Venezuelans who have no careers You know, they're just high school educated average guys and gals people who've escaped Venezuela just recently

[17:09] Whereas in the first few exodus waves the ones that left five or so years ago The people who escaped with the educated and professional classes In fact, almost all of them after five years or so are now established in businesses or careers in the countries They landed in because they were the smartest brightest most creative and the most determined to get the hell out They were the so-called brain drain and there's a big difference between the Venezuelans who are coming now and the ones that left Years ago, the funny thing is the bright ones you see this with both Cubans and Venezuelans They're just amazed even dumbfounded to see that the US is walking down the very same socialist road that destroyed the economies of both of their countries I hear pretty much the same thing all the time from the smart ones They say how can America be so stupid as to let it happen? How did creeping socialism get such a foothold in the good old us of a they just don't get it

[17:58] They're baffled and I just tell me no it didn't happen all at once It started in the public schools many years ago Even when I was younger and now virtually all the schools especially the public schools are completely contaminated with woke and socialist ideals That's what Karl Marx said you could do it all at once with a violent revolution or little by little from within now as for the US People like their standard of living so they won't go for a violent revolution Revolutions are too destructive and disruptive instead you just get a huge section of the population used to sitting on their asses and eating junk food and Expecting more and more government freebies meanwhile you infiltrate the public schools, and that's not mild anymore It's not by drips and drabs what they're teaching is seriously toxic for example one listener. Mr. H writes Johnny

[18:43] My daughter's a recent college graduate. She's a mathematics major and she went to a US State University She said the first day of class everyone had to fill out a privilege quiz to determine how privileged They were or weren't everyone had to give themselves a score a one to ten privilege score And the next day they had to give their name and announce their score to the whole class and then the class spent time Discussing what it was like going through life with a high or low privilege score so in the public schools anyway They're turning mathematics lessons into social justice lessons man. How could universities have morphed into that well, mr. H all I can say is I'm so glad I got the hell out of Dodge when I did Then he says Johnny if you thought it couldn't get any worse There are some math teachers when teaching the coordinate plane system. That's you know the X and Y axis where you plot a graph

[19:34] I don't know about you, but back in my day. They'd have for example on the X axis some facts some data points like age versus let's say death by heart attack or number of cigarettes smoked per day versus heart attacks or a number of lung cancer patients on The other axis the y-axis in my day We learned how to plot graphs with scientifically verifiable things just neutral measurable statistics and data points But now schools are turning mathematics into social justice lessons For example, they'll have on the x-axis the theme commitment to social justice versus on the y-axis median family income So these days if people write in the textbooks in your public schools We'll try to inject social justice themes into every learning situation imaginable. In fact get this

[20:20] I just read an article in the Los Angeles Times You won't believe this the author claims in the poor areas of town the black and Latino areas The surface temperature is something like five degrees hotter than middle class and wealthy areas due to less shrubs and greenery So what does that have to do with anything where they're saying that it's hotter and more Uncomfortable in the poor areas of town and that's why people are more prone to violence crime and are generally more irritable All right, so maybe that's true. I know when I'm hot and sweaty I'm more irritable But the kicker is that they're saying it was a plan by the privileged city fathers years ago to plant less greenery Less trees and shrubs in the poor area, you know, let's not spend money on beautification projects in those areas In fact, let me paraphrase from this article. It says with the pandemic income inequality and now

[21:07] thermal inequalities Yeah, right thermal inequalities the Latinx and black communities are bearing the brunt of privileged city planning Hmm as if you're poor or live in a rundown area You can't plant a tree or shrub yourself. You got to wait for the city to do it So then let's place the blame for that and inner city crime on white privilege. I repeat I'm so happy. I got the hell out of dodge when I did So how's your plan be coming? Oh and by the way, how many woke people do you know? You know i've yet to have met a single latin american person who doesn't speak english Who knows what a woke person is and when I try to explain it to him They just don't seem to get it I get that glazed eye look To me that means I made the absolute right choice and come into latin america. Thank god for lag time

[21:53] Meanwhile, everyone's sending me emails about this el solvador news that they're building a city dedicated just to bitcoin bitcoin city Backed by I get this a billion dollars in bitcoin bonds. Yeah, they're gonna sell some bonds bitcoin bonds and here's the thing, man Is this a good idea if you relocate to bitcoin city or certain other locations in el solvador? You'll pay zero income tax zero capital gains tax zero property tax Zero payroll tax and zero municipal taxes on top of that all the greenies and tree huggers will love you Since the energy needed to mine bitcoin in el solvador will be coming from volcano and geothermal power That means it'll be zero co2 emissions by the way when el solvador floats that billion dollar bitcoin bond issue

[22:40] They're going to use half of that dough to build bitcoin city and the other half to buy bitcoin straight out and put it in their treasury And you know, what's funny is when el solvador said they're going to make bitcoin legal tender Right alongside the us dollar which has been their legal tender since about the new millennia They were immediately attacked and scolded by the u.s Treasury department the imf the u.s federal reserve the world bank and the european union All the big banksters were poo-pooing and wagging their fingers. No, no, no, you shouldn't do that It might upset the apple cart. You'll give other countries ideas Meanwhile little el solvador which most of the world never even heard of before is now on everybody's map And it's in the news all the time. They're getting great rewards from all this Investors and innovators are pouring in you know, and the best kind too one thing about crypto

[23:28] It attracts the best minds and talents in the whole world That's why I always say to people who say johnny It's a ponzi scheme or it's going to go to zero implode whatever I say obviously you have not done your homework If you go to the job boards of any internet listings for international jobs and career opportunities techies with crypto knowledge are in Massive demand more than any other career crypto is sucking in the best and the brightest brains by far So think of it if the best brains in all the world are in crypto right now What do they know that us average or slightly above average people don't they absolutely know one thing it is the future Do you think all these brilliant internet geeks would waste their careers and their lives on something? That wasn't absolutely cutting edge. Don't you get it? It's a whole new paradigm

[24:14] That's why I don't even like to get into discussions with crypto critics. They're just showing me They have an incomplete education None of them are half as smart even on their best days of some of the guys I know that are in crypto development It reminds me of the 90s and the old days when the internet was around But average people didn't use it because it was too difficult. There weren't any good search engines Most people didn't even use email connections were spotty and word processors were clunky green screen things Remember those and those phone motives man I remember back in the 90s having certain discussions with people who said the internet's just a fad It's just for geeks nerds and criminals Yeah, in the early days. I heard people say that about the internet It was for people intent on being secretive the so-called dark web only geeks nerds and shifty under the radar people would use the internet

[24:59] Non-users said it was too iffy and complicated for regular people. Now, where have we heard that before? Oh and think of this el solvador bought over a thousand bitcoins average price around 41 to 45 thousand bucks And as we speak as I do this show bitcoins in the upper 50 thousands Which means those risk taking dummies and idiots and el solvador are up more than 25 percent on their investment in less than a half A year come on When have you ever had an investment like that? To make 25 on an investment in just one year is unheard of in fact these days even a 10 Return on your investment per year is very difficult to achieve And now all of a sudden lots of other third world countries are thinking about jumping on the bitcoin standard And it's little el solvador a country people couldn't even find on the map before is schooling them

[25:48] How about that and suddenly as a secondary effect something's happening in el solvador that never in a million years Anyone would have dreamed of there's a steady flow of nerds geeks and entrepreneurs setting up shop in little el solvador Exactly what every third world underdeveloped country dreams of but never seems to happen Hey, if you were an entrepreneur or had any kind of it business at all Wouldn't you just love to go to a country where there's zero taxes? So anyway as it's planned once this billion dollar bond issue gets going bitcoin city in el solvador will become a fully functional city With residential areas shopping centers restaurants a port and everything centered around bitcoin And if you live workshop or play there the only tax you'll ever pay is the vat tax You know the value added tax sort of a sales tax

[26:34] Which every country outside the us has? Oh, and by the way, despite the poo pooing from the us government the fed the imf, etc, etc In just a short six months el solvador has gained so much from their bitcoin investment They've got so much surplus from what they call the bitcoin trust They have enough money to build 20 new schools and have already started to construct a four million dollar new veterinary hospital in a capital San solvador all coming from already realized bitcoin profits But still the traditional monetary banksters won't back off In fact just the day after they announced bitcoin city the imf warned el solvador against using bitcoin as official tender once again Which just goes to prove big banksters and the imf are running scared The sheep are leaving the barn and the banksters are all pissed off about hey

[27:22] Someone had to be first and it just happened to be el solvador Oh, and we will be checking it out at the next next bad insider seminar We're trying to hone in on early february. We'll let you know 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