#1135 – The Expat Files: Travel, Scams, and the Future of Taxation

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 as 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 Remember a while back on st. Patty's Day. We were talking about the luck of the Irish Well talk about luck or serendipity or chance when we all know there's such a thing called dumb luck, too I guess that's what happens when you win the lottery twice. I

[00:46] Still don't understand how that happens. It just doesn't seem possible mathematically some guys win it three times That would be like trillion to one odds. Come on. Hey, but it has happened. Anyway, just last week, believe it or not Guatemala completely lifted its ban on having people enter the country Vaxxed they decided to follow in logical footsteps of Mexico El Salvador Dominican Republic, etc Etc and allow people to enter on Vaxx. Of course, they're still requiring one of the idiotic PCR or antigen tests But hey, you can't win them all and the reason why I'm mentioning this is because I just got done with my seminar a couple Weeks ago, right? And if that seminar had just launched three weeks later We wouldn't have had to go through all the mess of bringing a half the people into Guatemala who were vexed in the other half

[01:33] Into El Salvador who weren't faxed. Oh, well, it's after the fact and the seminar was a big success But man, the logistics would have been so much easier Guatemala would have given us a heads up on the dropping of that fax entry requirement though It is good news for anyone planning on traveling there from now on though as more and more countries come on board to drop those Vaxx requirements It certainly points out what a bunch of numb-nut idiots they were for doing it in the first place the Double duh yet. You still see lots of fools mostly gringos and gringos running around with masks and face shields on both outdoors and in their cars Wankers all of them as the Brits would say Anyway, I thought I'd start out the show today by reading a very different kind of email from Karen

[02:19] Yep, that's right. Karen Karen. You must be taking a lot of heat for that name these days. Sorry about that I know the decision was made long ago by your parents and sure in the future when people look up the most popular names for kids There won't be any Karen's just like in Australia after the new millennium parents quit naming their kids Sheila But you knew that already right or did you? Anyway Karen says I'm a longtime listener Johnny and I'm not an entitled snotty white woman either at least I don't think I am anyhow. I've been listening to and enjoying your show for over ten years I have a question for you, but it's on the personal side. Have you ever been propositioned by email? Just wondering by the way, this is not a proposition. I think Signed Karen from Minneapolis All right, Karen. There's more to her email. Maybe we'll get to it later

[03:08] I just like to say for the record right now that everyone I know who's got what's up has been propositioned not once but a number of Times, you know, I have what's up by default I don't like it and I almost never use it But you need it for plumbers and electricians and doctors appointments stuff like that Believe me down here in Latin America. If you don't have it people look at you like you're from another planet Problem is though with what's up people will contact you right out of the blue In fact, I'd say at least every week I get some what's up message from an unknown person often accompanied by a very sexy profile picture And I always hit the button that says I don't wish to accept that contact then it's over with you Never get contacted by that scammer again, and they are scammers 99% of them

[03:53] The problem is, you know, if you just accept one of those contacts and start chatting I'm talking about those out of the blue scammers that mostly consists of girls and bikinis lingerie or even less Once you accept them as a contact, you become a mark and they pass your what's up number around to other similar scammers And suddenly all kinds of unsolicited what's up contacts start coming your way all Accompanied by very sexy profile shots And the only way you could stop the deluge from coming is to get a new what's up number By the way, you've heard me say many times that you should use the signal app It's just like what's up except nothing is saved in the cloud Your messages are yours and the other person you're talking to That's it And if you eliminate a message or some chat, it's gone forever And you never get prompted with a message that says do you want us to save these messages in the cloud?

[04:44] Like you get every once in a while with what's up whether you say yes or no, they're still being saved Now as we're getting in those unsolicited sexy contacts and photos on what's up And i'd be willing to bet that most of the time those photos aren't even real There's some boiler room scam operation pumping out that tempting sexy junk because they know average guys guys like my brother Are suckers for that kind of stuff, but the truth is it's a business There are actual sex scam call centers with thousands of girls Maybe they're not even girls with sob stories and they eventually get around to asking you for money Not a lot at first Though after they've sunk the hook the stakes get higher and they've got maybe 10 or 20 guys on the line That are sending them money every month. The excuses are always the same. They're having a rough patch The iphone broke or got stolen their rents do grandma got mugged aunt josey needs an operation or

[05:32] Uncle tito fell and broke his dentures They've got all the excuses to pull on your heartstrings and guys especially older idiot american guys Like my brother fall for it and a hundred bucks here and there not gonna break the bank But imagine a girl or a guy whoever it is on the other end of that line juggling 10 or 20 gullible gringos That's generally true and my brother found that out when the ladies he was talking to Just wouldn't do a live video chat with him. They had 101 excuses why they couldn't Number one the internet the wi-fi or their phone was on the blink Which we know is bs because the internet is never that bad or the phone's camera is on the blink Yeah, right young ladies live for their selfies and videos. Come on now. Not so long ago my brother, you know our stem cell poster child

[06:19] He fessed up and said over 50 sexy girls had made contact with him on what's up He said he didn't go after them. They came after him He'd figured a lot of them were scammers and he blocked them But new ones just came popping up and man with all those girls hitting him up online He asked me to help out and I told him to get on signal and he did but he still has that what's up crap running In the background, but the story gets uglier. Yes. He was sending a hundred bucks here and there to different ladies Umos certainly weren't ladies at all. By the way, my brother's a single guy a widower. His wife died about five years ago So he's kind of a perfect mark for these young ladies sexy internet scammers Who again are probably not young ladies at all, but call center sex scammers Though i'm sure some of them are not that organized. They're just scamming guys on their own from home

[07:05] Usually in cahoots with a boyfriend who's controlling them. Believe it or not Now remember when a beautiful sexy girl contacts a guy out of the blue There's something really abnormal about that for one you tell me what beautiful sexy girl doesn't have a boyfriend or two or ten And what sexy girl needs to go online to find a guy? Oh and all claimed to be unattached and nursing a broken heart and their last boyfriend cheated on it Well, I can believe that and you can bet if any of these ladies are actually real I'm sure a percentage of them are but they're surely very damaged goods With lots of baggage namely kids and abusive parents and boyfriends. And how can I make a blanket statement like that? Well, let me tell you another little lonely heart story. My brother admitted to oh and just for the record My brother wasn't on the latin american cupid dating sites. He was on the american first world lonely hearts dating sites

[07:56] Though i'm sure he would have tried out the latin cupid dating sites But his spanish was too crappy to maneuver successfully through it though Now I understand those latin cupid dating sites have a translation button But still that's not going to work face to face or on video calls Which as mentioned earlier the girls in bikinis and lingerie will make up any excuse to get out of Those girls who aren't what they pretend to be will opt out any way they can so then you might ask are all those cupid sites complete trash Well, no And here's the thing regards to you lonely heart males out there There are some definite ways to tell if a girl's on the up and up For example, if a lady sends you or post photos of her and her family playing in the backyard Petting the dog hanging out or dancing at a quinceaños party and there's no or very minimal sexy lingerie shots like one in 20 pics

[08:45] Then she's more than likely the real thing and most importantly She will do a live video call with you anytime at the drop of a hat not one That's pre-planned four days from now at 7 30 at night So if she's passed those few tests then she is more than likely a real flesh and blood girl Who's more or less what her profile suggests? Then again, only you know how much you bs'd on your own profile However, even if she's a hundred percent real that's not to say she's not going to ask you for money Because most of those ladies wouldn't be on those sites if they weren't a bit hard up, especially the latinas Now this might sound a little bit classist racist and sexist. I guess i'll be hitting the cancel culture trifecta here All right, here goes I never met a class of person so terrible at handling money then latinos and latinas in my many years down here

[09:33] I've met dozens if not hundreds of latinos and latinas From every walk of life rich middle class and poor and most all of them seem to spend everything they made Like americans, I guess 80 of them couldn't come up with 500 bucks if their lives depended on it Even professionals like doctors and lawyers the ones that are seemingly making big bucks big bucks latin style Anyway, because you know down here even an m.d engineer lawyer or dentist starts out his career unless he's working for daddy Making if he's lucky a thousand bucks a month In fact i've told the story many times that if you want your own personal doctor your living doc That would cost you at least a couple hundred thousand bucks in the states, right? I'm sure you've heard that many wealthy celebrities have their own live-in personal physicians Like for example michael jackson and prince a lot of good at them, huh?

[10:19] Anyway, I know for a fact that a young m.d graduating from medical school here in latin america Even after doing a hospital residency is lucky if with his first job He makes a thousand bucks a month and many will work for six or seven hundred a month when they first get out Imagine that down here in latin america. You could have a live in m.d for less than a grand a month Hell in the states only one and maybe 200 families can afford a live-in nurse That would cost you 50 to 80 grand a year and down here You can easily contract one of those for three to 500 bucks a month That's why I think it's absolutely ridiculous to put your old parents or uncle or whoever in an odiferous nursing home For 50 to 100 grand a year in the states when you could bring them down here to latin america Have them live in their own room in your house with a live-in nurse in the room right next door

[11:06] And to me one of the worst things about shoving a family member into a nursing home is the guilt you feel about it To be brutally honest Everyone wants to die or live out their last remaining years in the comfort of their own home around their loved ones, right? And shoving someone in a nursing home is like walking them through death's door And ultimately it's you that made that decision because you just can't handle them at home anymore, right? But if you had a live-in nurse you could but I digress. Oh, yeah talking about How latinos and latinas of all economic backgrounds are absolutely terrible with money Even the ones just barely scraping by don't know how to price shop I think it has a lot to do with the fact that until maybe about 10 years ago until Walmart cost go ace hardware and the big commercial centers came the big massive balls latin americans had very little

[11:53] Variety when choosing things to buy for example when I first got down here There are only three brands of television you could buy sony Panasonic and a funky off brand from china same thing with kitchen appliances There were just two or three different brands of washing machines microwave ovens or ceiling fans Back then even pharmacies had only one brand of aspirin bayer And many times when you went to a hardware or appliance store, whatever they were out Whatever you were looking for you couldn't even find it So early on i'm talking scores and scores of years ago latin americans learned To buy what was available on the shelves because it just might not be there next week And I really think that's why nowadays when they've got five or ten different brands to choose from They just picked a brand they're used to Whereas many if not most americans especially when they're buying a big ticket item like a tv washing machine or dryer

[12:44] They'll check out the blogs the critics choices consumer reports, etc But get this there is no equivalent to consumer reports in the spanish language Though you can get consumer reports translated into spanish, but it's not the same thing Now you might say with ebay and amazon and such You can just scroll down and look at the consumer ratings on a particular product. Well, that's very misleading You know, it's really hard to tell which reviews are real and which are staged Turns out most of those four and five star reviews on amazon and such are plants But you knew that already, right? We dissected that on a show a couple years back. You long time listeners. Remember that Now, where were we? Oh, yeah My brother and his online girlfriends when he admitted there were over 50 girls in contact with him on what's up He was sort of proud of that bragging a little like he was some kind of rock star

[13:32] Nearly all of them had posted sexy lingerie shots even nude shots What a red flag, but he got suckered and took debate so much so that get this He sent a hundred here and there to some of them But two in particular he sent well over a grand to not at the same time Of course two separate incidents a couple g's to a girl from the philippines and a couple g's to a girl from nevada or somewhere out west The money was to be used for plane tickets to come and visit him in chicago And guess what with the first lady he went to the airport and she never showed up He stood around for four hours waiting and just a couple months later the girl from nevada same thing He went to the airport. She never showed up. Come on. How sad is that? How terrible would you feel standing at the airport holding the bag and feeling like a fool? But my brother he sucked it up and even told my sister and mother about it

[14:21] The guy's got thicker skin than I have kind of wonder why he did that I mean really if you're gonna make a fool of yourself Why let everyone else in on it and I had a man-to-man talk with him I said how many of those fantasy beauty queens are you sending money to how many are you still talking to? And you know what he said no more than the next guy, you know, I love that answer no more than the next guy It always reminds me of a story. My sister the dentist told me turns out she's got a patient named scotty irish How do you get a name like that scotty irish? Is he scotch or is he irish? Real nice handsome happy go lucky guy too But she just can't get the guy numb She says comes in for his dental treatments. She shoots him to the max and he still feels it He still jumps out of the chair So one day she said after he practically jumped through the ceiling. She said scotty by any chance. Do you use cocaine?

[15:13] And he said me cocaine Well no more than the next guy Which brings us full circle back to karen's email She says johnny. Have you ever been propositioned by email? Well karen, I have to say yes. I have quite a few times actually But only one or maybe it was two sent me naked photos so far Believe me, I don't encourage it, but it does happen Though I have to admit when I was doing my regular radio show here in latin america from around the year 2000 to 2008 You long-time listeners might remember. I was the morning and evening drive-by guy in many of the big city latin american radio markets Well back then I took listener calls and quite a few ladies laid a few hints on me both on and off the air In fact one lady whose english was almost perfect by the way because she went to helicopter schools. Her parents had money

[16:02] She was quite attractive too, but she became kind of a stalker. She used to show up at all the extracurricular events I used to host Harley runs and hooters parties. They were my sponsors, you know She'd show up at gold's gym and events at shopping centers. I had mc And bar and restaurant and hotel and disco gigs where my band would play Well, like I said, she used to call the show all the time So I got to talking to her one day. She said she was going to spain to go to graduate school You know entitled children of the rich and all that I didn't give her any reason not to she just wasn't my type Just a little too pushy. Anyway, I didn't hear from her for a couple of three years and suddenly She called in on my radio show again. I spoke with her a little bit off the air She said she'd gone to spain got her masters married a spanish guy

[16:48] Got divorced because he cheated on her and now she was back in guadamala again And I thought oh no, not again This time though, she was more subdued probably because she had a kid She wasn't so pushy. She wasn't so determined. So anyway karen that should answer your question Now as for my wayward brother and his fantasy girlfriends that had been milking him for a couple of years now Well, the good news is on his treks back and forth at the dominican republic the dr to get those stem cell treatments He made a beautiful real live girl face to face in the dr and now they're an item She's a girl with a real job and no kid baggage going to university night school Yep, he seems to have hit the jackpot with her, but she speaks no english and his spanish sucks So for now, anyway, it's kind of a google lost in translation relationship

[17:37] Not the best not really satisfactory But little by little his english will rub off on her and her spanish on him Though admittedly people think google translates some wonderful thing But really it's just a crutch sort of like never taking the training wheels off your bike Oh, and by the way, you remember I said that everyone here in latin america is on what's up Well, of course, so is my brother's latina girlfriend And the first thing she did was take his phone and check out his whatsapp And when she saw all those other bikini clad girls on there She had a fit a conniption. Did they still say that conniption? Well, my mother still does anyway As mentioned even when my brother deleted all those fake fantasy girls new ones kept popping up He's only recourse get a new chip new what's up number or new real flesh and blood girlfriend because his present latina

[18:24] Girlfriend's not dealing with it. So well. Now remember i'm gonna warn all you guys and gals out there Just one more time guys If you get a latina girlfriend and ladies if you get a latino boyfriend, they're gonna take your telephone That means you'll have to give me your password Oh, and they'll be checking your history too Just in case you deleted a lot of stuff before you handed the phone over, you know Sometimes when you delete your history, it's not completely deleted It's still recoverable and they know how to do it So why all the mistrust and suspicion problem is here in latin america There's a whole lot of cheating going on and as far as love romance mating and dating words are all fine and well But you know a picture is worth a thousand of them, right? And for latinos and latinas the telephone is the lie detector of last resort, but still there's a workaround There's a hack that's why so many latin guys I know have two cell phones one for the wife or girlfriend and the regular what's up stuff and one

[19:12] For those liaisons and all that cheating around In fact, I don't know if I told you this I have a 30 something latino guy friend who's had an exclusive latino girlfriend for over five years At least she thinks she's exclusive What she doesn't know is he's got another phone with get this five other girlfriends on it girls He sees here and there somewhat regularly and when I asked him how he gets away with it He says simple. He doesn't live with his exclusive girlfriend. That would ruin it He said he'd definitely get caught But man when you think of the logistics of having five girlfriends and a steady girlfriend talk about stress I even said to him there's so many ways you could screw up and get caught But he said he's been caught But the fact is latinas are so used to their guys cheating on him

[19:58] They blow up at first but soften up later his steady quote exclusive girlfriends caught him cheating at least three or four times In the last five years, but like most latin guys who get around he knows how to pour on those crocodile tears So she always takes them back for the ladies that boils down to limited options and for latinas Their only option are the local boys. In fact, I can't tell you how many times i've heard latinas say After she's been cheated on multiple times. I'm never going out with latino guys again And then I see her six months a year later and she's out with latinos again. Why because there's no other options Sure, they'd love to have a gringo or european boyfriend. That's a big part of the gringo advantage and lady gringas out there You've got a big gringa advantage too Practically every single latino guy I know would love to have a gringa girlfriend

[20:45] But the odds are ridiculously small against that too because there are so very few gringas here in latin america So latinas prefer a gringo boyfriend and latinos prefer a gringa girlfriend But you see there are so few of us around especially off the gringo tourist trail You heard me say many times before you can walk around all day and not even see a gringo even in the biggest latin cities As long as they're cities that are off the tourist trail However, if you're on the gringo tourist trail like canco and costa rica in many cities in mexico There are certainly enough single gringos in gringas to go around But there are other big problems with living on the gringo tourist trail That don't necessarily make up for the advantage you have in the love romance and mating dating department The problem is the deeper you get into the tourist trail. You'll find the locals become jaded by the gringo dollar

[21:32] And as a general rule the more english latina or latino speaks the more gringo eyes they are And unfortunately the more likely they are to accumulate all those first world bad habits We're trying to get away from when putting together our get the hell out of dodge plan b You don't want history repeating itself as they say you don't want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire All right change in gears a bit. You know at our expat insider seminars. We always go to a place called echo filter It's a factory where they make a really cool and inexpensive water filter One that I recommend all gringos an expat skit if they're living in guadamala or anywhere in central america It's a gravity feed. So you don't need any power. It's got a ceramic element So it gets rid of all the virus bacteria and cysts It's got an activated charcoal element to get rid of the organics, you know herbicides pesticides that kind of stuff

[22:23] And it's coated with colloidal silver Anyway, they're very cool and inexpensive, but pretty fragile So once you got it on the counter you want to leave it there You don't want to transport it too much because the ceramic element can break Anyway a couple years back when we visited the place the owner said johnny a brand new things happened to us Because we use solar power and he showed me they got solar panels covering the entire roof of the factory And they use no heating or air conditioning because the factory is wide open. They've got no walls Plus they've got an organic garden and they grow all organic food And they have a chef in a kitchen to cook for all the employees using that food Anyway, he said a lot of people come through on tours first world people engineers chemists Biologists many first world innovator types and he said one guy said to him man

[23:09] You know, you can get carbon credits for all this stuff because you're completely off the grid Well, he said johnny. I don't know anything about carbon credits, but I applied I got them and people like bill gates and microsoft are buying My carbon credits so we make a ton of money on top of our truly innovative water filter products by selling carbon credits To dickheads like bill gates. No, he didn't call him a dickhead. I did. I think he called him an ass white Can't remember. Oh, well tomato with the motto of the shoe fits whatever Anyway, it seems even some of the smartest people are confused about these carbon credits and here in latin america More and more modern factories are applying for and getting those things So to alleviate a little confusion. Here's the story Turns out you see by 2030 most big companies in the world at least in the first world will have to be net carbon zero

[23:56] Many environmental laws have been passed to force that outcome That means the majority of companies will have to buy carbon credits to get net zero Because a giant company can only get their carbon footprint down so low. They can't get it to zero They can go solar or buy electric vehicles But they've got heating and air conditioning and supply costs and if it's let's say a bottling plant They've got to smelt glass or fabricate tin or metal cans that takes huge amounts of energy fossil fuel energy So for them to go zero carbon, they'd have to fire or kill all their workers and get robots But that's not possible because robots don't exist for every task So you have to go to a zero carbon broker Who will sell you credits from a place that grows trees or has gone a hundred percent wind solar or geothermal

[24:41] So you as a producer buy the right to pollute by buying carbon credits from some other company That's gone green and seems to be saving the planet. So this is a gigantic worldwide push That's creating an entire industry that never even existed before done by decree by all the major countries in the world Who know nothing about producing a product or doing business. It's all government decree You know how that's going to turn out since everything they touch turns to shit everything But you knew that already, right? Anyway You know what? That means don't you if you drive a gas vehicle over the years? It's going to be harder and harder to be able to maintain that thing and get gas for it because gas prices aren't going to Zoom with oil companies taxed out of existence because the world's been convinced they're damaging not saving the planet That also means by the way, if you bought some land and there are lots of trees on it with a forest

[25:28] You could get those carbon credits and sell them. You don't have to ever cut your trees You'll make money just sitting on them. It's exactly how the whole world is going to run. That's what they're called carbon offsets What that also means is every time you get on a plane You're going to pay an extra tax for flying to denver europe because jets use non-renewable fuels And airlines and companies like bowing and airbus still going to have to buy carbon credits to offset Their fossil fuel and carbon footprint and you and I are going to pay for all that With governments getting most of that cut and they'll waste and squander all that excess money like they always do Once again, the bureaucrats think it's a good idea, but it's going to have very terrible unintended consequences But bureaucrats don't care about that when prices rise They just give themselves raises don't they but go into any starbucks and ask the barista the guy with the full sleeve tats

[26:16] The nose ring two masks and a face shield ask him what he thinks about carbon He'll say it's toxic. It's poisonous. It's warming the planet. It's going to kill us all Anyway by 2030 will all be forced to buy in you buy a product and you'll see an additional tax on the receipt It'll be a carbon tax So then why do taxes exist they exist to feather the pockets of bureaucrats and to incentivize Everyone else's behavior everyone who makes a product or provides a service other than government In other words people who actually work for a living And by the end of the decade the feds are going to track every single dollar in existence By then it'll all be digital dollar and i'm sure you'll be getting text messages from the feds Telling you you've had too many red bowls this week and you can't buy anymore till the beginning of next month

[27:02] Oh and you say you got a couple of cars a house in the city in a beach house You got a big carbon footprint. My friend says uncle sam you're going to get whacked with a carbon tax Yep, that's where the world's going But thank god do the lag time the last place that system's going to kick in is in latin america Due to that wonderful thing called latin american lag time Whatever happens up there by you in cleveland, morwaukee and new york will take 20 years or more to make its way down here Which begs the question. How is your plan b coming? 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

[27:50] 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 nos famos