#1158 – The Expat Files: Navigating Life, Health, and Politics 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 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 You know, I've got some very diverse and interesting listeners out there who to talk, huh? And sometimes, you know, I get emails that I won't read on the air Some of them are just downright hilarious clever to to me Anyway, like this one from Carly says Johnny what's with all the pessimism in the world?

[00:49] inflation climate change constant wars Cancel culture a generation of idiots wokesters everywhere the pharmaceutical industrial complex running things Where's the good news? He says there's got to be some well, here's a case for optimism He says here's something that no one seems to be considering. The joke is on the woke now there is a bumper sticker for you because 99.9% of them took the jab and Most of them took three and they're on four jabs now the more the merrier Meanwhile, there's all kinds of new data coming out saying those jabs are not good for your body Wrecked your immune system screws up reproduction damages the heart and brain The news is leaking out and even middle American Lunkheads are starting to question if being jab was the right thing to do thing is

[01:37] Many many studies are predicting now there will be grave problems in the coming years Not just a day a week or a month after the jab either We've got a future genetic time bomb on our hands and when the dust settles and there's lots and lots of terminally sick people There are already not just projections, but signs that due to the jab lifespans will be going down Here's the point all signs point to the fact that the sheep will be culled Any guess who will be left standing think about that for a while. Look at it this way all Politicians and government workers worldwide took the jab and so did all the pharma people and virtually the whole entertainment Industry, they were begging for the jab. We're looking at some monumental karma coming up Johnny

[02:25] I rest my case signed Carl from Florida All right. Thanks for that Carl. You know, you're right. I haven't thought of that Good point and as tragic as that sounds the world has been playing pharmaceutical Russian roulette Sad to say but people who trust big pharma have no idea how corrupt those industries are You have to wonder how many people would have jumped on the Vax bandwagon if they'd known that every single big pharma Vax producer Been nailed in the recent past with the biggest fines in the history of lawsuits The news is out there if you look it up, but the media won't talk about that stuff at all Why because a third to a half of all the media's advertising dollars come from big pharma but the average slug even smart people haven't put two and two together yet mostly because it crept up quite slowly starting in the

[03:14] 90s and big pharma's criminal actions have been scrubbed or heavily downplayed Just watch any TV or cable program and you'll see that every third ad is for some kind of prescription pharma med Sometimes for diseases that never even existed 20 or 30 years ago like restless leg syndrome I have that though. It wasn't a syndrome or a disease till they found a pill for it So your leg bounces around once in a while big deal used to be part of a type a personality now There's a drug for it. How about those drug ads on TV? They're all alike with happy people running through wheat fields and lovey-dovey couples watching sunsets with the same voiceover Ask your physician if this product is right for you. Yeah, right If you think big pharma has your best interests at heart

[03:59] You're completely diluted if you trusted them so much to get the jab Then why do they keep getting repeatedly fined billions of dollars for fraud? You think I'm exaggerating? You think it's fake news? Some of you might know this already But in 2012 Glaxo Smith Klein was nailed with the biggest fine in the history of litigation for the illegal promotion of drugs Failure to report safety information false price reporting, etc. Etc. The fine three billion dollars New years earlier in 2009 Pfizer that famous company you probably got the jab from because they produced the greatest number of jabs Pfizer that happy household name that instills confidence Thanks to Gates Falsy and the billions they spend in ads

[04:44] Well, did you know the US Justice Department slapped them with the largest criminal find of its kind up to that point? 2.3 billion dollars biggest criminal fine in history till Glaxo Smith Klein in 2012 beat him By being fined three-quarters of a billion dollars more charging them with the specific intent to defraud and mislead the public Yeah, the public you and me so that's the history of your favorite jab company You got that everyone out there who think big pharma companies are your saviors The US Justice Department comes right out and says every single well-known big pharma company defraud and misleads the public. Oh 1.4 billion 25 million and

[05:31] 22.5 million bucks in separate cases for lying and baiting elderly populations suffering from dementia They talked him into using a drug called Suprexa where they get those names They found that Eli Lilly's sales team was directed specifically to break the law Oh, I forgot in 2011 Merc got fined a billion dollars for the painkiller by ox Which increased the risk for heart attacks and prematurely killed an estimated 50,000 people They illegally promoted it as a safe treatment for rheumatoid arthritis where their own secret data showed terrible secondary effects Then there's AstraZeneca another jab producer in 2010. They were fined 520 million over a half a billion dollars as they lied about the safety of its anti psychotic drug

[06:18] Seroquel you've got Glaxo Smith Klein on the list again Remember, they're the guys that got nailed for the biggest fine in history in 2012 Think it was a one-off deal. Nope just three years earlier in 2009 They were fined 400 million almost a half billion dollars for fraud and lying about safety data for the drug well butrin Where do they get these names? This shows that a drug company get fined Billions over multiple years means they never learn their lesson They keep lying and damaging people as long as there's enough money in it Hey a question. Am I repeating myself here? Remember a couple of shows ago? I said send me an email if you think this show the expat finals living in Latin America has Over the years gotten better increased in value to you gone down the crapper or pretty much stayed the same

[07:04] And also to let me know if I've been repeating myself too much You know, I have to do it sometime because new listeners are coming out all the time But I don't want to bore longtime listeners either Well, people took it to heart and they are commenting For example, you've got longtime listener Roberto from Mexico Saying Johnny you repeat a lot but concurrent with my own memory lapse at least in my case he says you're the kind of guy would choose for a long day's drive as a Companion a guy with a sharp mind who only needs a bit of prodding to go off in a fresh new direction My own case he says I've been told my listening aptitude is good though some abuse it But it works well with folks who have good content By the way, he says Johnny most folks bore me to shit But there are always some I can talk to for a few hours straight and leave with a buzzed head from the brain exercise

[07:53] He says keep up the good work and keep the faith He says I'll continue to send content. You might want to use for the show Well, thanks for that Robo by the way Roberto fills me in on a lot of stuff that's happening in Mexico because he's been living there for I think 810 even 12 years now Then he leaves us with a little quote that says when in danger or in doubt hoist to sales and bugger out By the way, I think when Roberto was said most folks bore me to shit He was maybe commenting on a previous show where we were talking about IQ in various Latin American countries You might remember an emailer said what's it like living in Latin America where the average IQ is something like 49 By the way, speaking of IQs, you know, it's a really touchy subject

[08:40] Just listen to this email. This one comes from Burton also in my Jimmy He says Johnny those woke and BLM people who are always poo-pooing IQ tests All he's saying they're racist and classist and they ought to be abolished He says did you know every single British kid gets an IQ test at age 11 and that determines what level of school? He'll attend as he slides into adolescence He says also being ex-military I can tell you every inductee gets an IQ test to determine his placement from jet mechanic to cook He says the crazy thing about IQs and IQ tests Johnny is You take some of the people who are the biggest successes in the world and you're wondering about their IQs if you do a search and find out people that rise to the

[09:30] Top top layer in almost every sector business sports science racing even rodeo riders They have IQs well above average some up there 140 150 in the brilliant range. There are some things that don't make sense though Like the Kardashians, but I digress like you Johnny Take a guy like Elvis who was absolutely on top of his game for 20 30 years Even now they just came out with an Elvis movie. That's topping the charts Anyhow, you can look all over the internet and you'll find Elvis's IQ was 70 that sounds absurd though as hard as you look can't find any kind of extended interview with the guy at all to see how he Handles himself verbally off the cuff. There's none of that. Of course, there's press conferences Sure, where they fire really stupid questions at him

[10:16] Like hey Elvis, how many cars do you own? Who's your favorite musician? What's your favorite song the worst softball questions you can imagine He'd never did talk shows not even a glib short format talk show like Johnny Carson and Carson had every entertainer imaginable on except Elvis could it be Elvis really was a dummy Signed Burton from my jammy and he spells my jammy with a J just like I do Then he says PS has a fairly new listener You haven't bored me yet as far as repeating yourself I don't really know having been listening to the show only about a half year now All right. Thanks for that Burton and that thing about Elvis. I want to see that movie Have any you listeners seen it? You know, he got inducted into the military. I think it was

[11:04] 1958 military docs supposedly say he had an IQ of 82 That doesn't seem logical very strange, huh? Better than 70 though in 80 IQ being the cutoff for entrance into the military The army says below 80 a person is virtually untrainable even for menial tasks So how come some say his IQ was 70 and others 82? It doesn't make sense because research shows that IQs change very little on a person from childhood to adulthood Just a few points at most not ten and about that 80 IQ military cutoff some say there are exceptions They'll take an IQ a lot lower than that Remember the Marines took Gomer Pyle and the National Guard George Bush jr Shazam Now I know Elvis graduated from high school and they got report cards saying he got B's and C's

[11:52] And if he graduated from high school, he took a SAT test like we all did those things came out in 1926 and Elvis graduated in 1953 You know SAT tests are IQ tests So if someone could just locate that test that would definitively clear this up Someone's gonna have to do the digging and write that definitive article on Elvis's intelligence Was he a moron a savant or somewhere in between? Oh By the way, no matter how you feel about IQs and IQ tests Just this last week on June 27th 2022 Jordan Peterson, you know Jordan Peterson, right? The Canadian psychologist I love that guy. Well on his YouTube channel for June 27 He interviews a famous British IQ researcher and man, it will open your eyes. Check it out

[12:40] I'm surprised they haven't canceled that episode not yet. Anyway, all right getting back to our main subject Latin America You know people often talk about how friendly Latin Americans are towards gringos and expats Is it true? Are they just more friendly in general than first-world people or is it part of that gringo advantage? We talk about sometimes You know if you want to be cynical about it, and I've heard this from gringos and expats in Costa Rica Latinos play up to us because they can get something out of us money a job Status social advancement. Well, that was my experience in Costa Rica too But elsewhere off the gringo tourist trail, it's a different story It seems like every gringo and expat down here has a story or two or ten that illustrates that extra friendly phenomena

[13:27] I have multiple stories like that, too Like for example what happened to me in the bank a couple of days ago Now, you know many banks in Latin America won't change your dollar funny money into the local funny money unless you have a bank account There however when you're in tourist destinations Most all banks will do that even if you don't have an account because they know when you change money You're gonna spend it into their economy Anyway, I was at one such bank in a tourist destination just a couple of days ago I went up to the cashier pulled out 500 US dollars, and I said please change this into the local funny money And since I practically never carry my passport on me Just a nice paper copy and a scan on the flash drive when I showed the passport copy to the cashier It wasn't enough. She wanted to see the original passport or a government ID by the way

[14:14] When you go into one of those money changing joints, I'm not talking about the guys on the street yelling cambio cambio I never go to those guys I'm talking about those little money changing kiosks Especially in tourist areas a lot of them look very professional with digital signs And they're all fixed up nice inside other ones look like hole-in-the-wall scruffy dumps anyway I found when you go to the nice money changing places They'll want to see your real passport too But the more scruffy ones that aren't part of a chain or a franchise oddly enough if you don't have an original passport They don't care you could show them practically anything a boy scout merit badge will do the thing is no matter how Dumpy those places are they'll still give you a very good rate And they won't rip you off after all they usually on a main drag-pan rent utilities and stuff So they have to do right by their customers Reputation is everything and if they passed a false bill to you you could go right back to them with the cops in tow

[15:04] It's the guys on the street waving watts of cash that I don't trust and of course those guys never ask you for any kind of Id they're totally off the books, but where were we oh yeah at the bank, so I pulled out 500 bucks five nice fresh Franklin's They're really picky about that even if it's a nice fresh bill with some tiny little blue or green bank stamps on them Hmm. I always wonder who are the morons and banks that do that? Knowing full well their own bank won't accept bills with ink smudges on hmm. Could it be that average 49 IQ thing? Anyway, if you've got a dirty or smudged up bill with even a tiny ink mark banks won't take them unless of course You're in one of the Latin American countries that uses US dollars as their currency like Salvador Ecuador and Panama then like the US no matter how banged up your bills are everyone will take them by the way

[15:55] Here's a trick if you're in a Latin American country And you've got a hundred or fifty or ten or whatever and it's got some marks on it or bank stamps The bank certainly won't take nor will most of the franchise businesses and tienes like Walmart and Costco The tip is if you've got one of those rejectable bills guess who will generally accept them those scruffy little money-changing Place and saw I was telling you about oh and the guys on the streets with watts of cash yelling come BIO come BIO Meanwhile at the bank I bet you thought I'd never get to it Besides the paper copy of my passport, which they wouldn't accept I had no other government ID on me so I stood there at the window for 30 seconds thinking another shitty day in paradise and guess what a Lady who was standing in line. There was a line behind me. Maybe six or seven people. I'm married lady with kids

[16:44] She walked right up to me to the counter. She took out her Sadula. You know, that's the national ID She says don't worry. I'll do it for you. Are you getting this? This lady was standing in line with two kids She walked up and said she would change the money for me with her idea and she did it now Let me ask you would something like that ever occur in the US. Hey, I didn't know this lady I never saw her before she wanted nothing in return, but to help out a gringo in distress At least that's how she perceived it. So what would you call that friendliness above and beyond the call of duty or the gringo? Advantage by the way, I occasionally get hate mail when I talk about the gringo advantage Almost always from wokesters who say that my program and talk of the gringo advantage Encourages gringos and expects in Latin America to take advantage of Latin Americans truth is we don't need to they don't get that

[17:36] It's the Latinos down here that treat us differently sort of like a favored guest I like to refer to it as kind of being like a bass player in a famous band He's not the star of the show, but he gets VIP passes and invited to all the cool parties The thing is because the word advantage is in the term gringo advantage That's a red flag for the wokesters. Then again, what isn't? Anyway, thus the hate mail imagine what it'd be like if I had a fake book or total D dumb account Funny thing though. How do you explain that? I never get hate mail from my Latino listeners You know, I got plenty of Latino listeners almost exclusively from up in the States They're generally second generation Latinos who have made it very smart Latinos They have their own success stories and they want to get the hell out of dodge because they see what it's turning into

[18:23] I just can't tell you how many times my Latino listeners have written to me to say they just can't believe people in the US Especially the young people in the US under 30 are buying into socialism and everything that destroyed Cuba and Venezuela Now if you're wondering about my Latino listeners, they're certainly not the Latinx types. They're totally unwoke and get it You see they all speak perfect Spanish or pretty perfect Spanish They spoke it around the house because their parents who came over years ago spoke it every day But they themselves are a hundred percent American in every other way either born in the US or came over as very tiny kids That means they went to American schools, etc. Etc Isn't it funny to that at every single one of my expat insider seminars had about 18 or 19 now I've had at least a couple US citizens of Latino descent who are working on their own plan B to get the hell out of dodge

[19:14] And move back to Latin America, isn't that ironic where their parents escaped from how do you like that? now you remember that email from that guy a couple of shows ago asking what it's like to live in a country where the average IQ is 49 Well, just a fact there are many US citizens of Latino descent Listening to the show and coming down to the seminar that certainly proves there are lots of Latinos with high IQs out there, too Alright now, how about we put some closure on a boots on the ground story? We mentioned a couple of weeks ago. You might remember I went to a blue sky gravel on the ground car mechanic a couple weeks ago In other words, these were very low budget mechanics working on the open either in the Sun or under a lean-to They'd throw down a collapsed cardboard box and lay on it to get under your car

[19:59] Otherwise, they'd be hurting because there was no cement slab just gravel here in Latin America I don't care where you are There are mechanics like that everywhere and just because from a distance they might look like tent cities in San Francisco Don't let the lack of infrastructure fool you they can fix cars and do it cheap Anyway, just a couple of days ago I went back to that place to get a sensor fixed on my car and as I stood around waiting for the guy to fix It every five minutes I'd hear a clunk like someone throwing a rock at one of the cars in the parking lot adjacent to the mechanic shop I thought this can't be good after it happened about five or six times. I finally figured it out In that open-air parking lot holding 20 or 30 cars about half the cars were in the shade And that's where you want to be in Latin America with your car in the shade You've heard me mentioned before if you have a car in Latin America

[20:46] You better have indoor or covered parking like a breezeway If not in time, the Sun will damage all the plastic parts including the upholstery Dashboards and the clear plastic enclosures that cover your headlights In fact, you could always tell if a used cars got covered parking or not You could tell from 20 feet away Just look at the headlights instead of being crystal clear like glass Eventually the Sun clouds them up makes them turn yellow My advice if you see hazy yellowish headlight covers It's spent most of its life in the daytime baking in the Sun Not good A lot of that going around down here There are millions of cars like that But I digress as usual, were we? Oh, yeah Hearing those clunks like rocks hitting cars Well, like I said, half the parking lot was in the shade And there were birds in those giant fruit trees providing the shade

[21:34] What was happening is the birds were eating the ripe fruit Way up there and dropping the massive pit About the size of an avocado or mango pit Where the cars were So it was those big ass pits making the clunk noise when they hit the cars Now having tons of time in my hands Waiting for this guy to fix my car I walked to the back of the lot to check it out And some of those cars, even pretty decent cars Had been there a couple of days and their roofs And front hoods had dozens of those things on them Some pits had a kind of sap oozing out of them So the pits, some of them, were stuck to the cars I was thinking even after a good wash What are those paint jobs going to look like? To some people it doesn't matter Judging the condition of the cars down here But thankfully, I didn't drop my car off and come back at a later date Because that's exactly where they parked the cars waiting to get fixed

[22:22] Anyway, when the mechanic was finally done with my car I said, I'm sure glad he didn't tell me to park my car over there I wouldn't want my car covered with those things And you know what he said? The fruit's ripe for about a month once a year And that's when the birds come So it's no big deal Details, details Bottom line, that's one of the reasons you don't want to have a really nice car here in Latin America Hey, by the way, you probably know from checking the media or hearing it here Columbia's got a new socialist president I used to like Columbia as a Plan B, but no more And for good reason, the business community in Columbia is running scared Because they see through other Latin American examples When you're voting a socialist president The economy goes right down the toilet So then how did he get elected? Promising freebies, of course

[23:09] Let me read some excerpts from an article that just came out Here's what's happening on the ground there The title of the article? You're gonna love this Columbians, more than anyone else, are looking for homes in my jammy Subtitle? A warning to the new president Isn't that funny? We're just talking about that a few shows ago How everyone with real money here in Latin America, including narcos, regular successful businessmen, and sociopathic lying scumbags Otherwise known as politicians How they're funneling their dough to Florida Specifically and exclusively in Miami real estate Which is, by the way, one of the reasons you could live all your life in Miami A first, middle-class, even lower-class life And never have to speak a word of English You're good with that, right?

[23:56] Anyway, the article goes on to say Columbia's president-elect and former leftist guerrilla Gustavo Petro Yeah, that's right He was a murderous FARC guerrilla You heard of FARC, F-A-R-C, right? Those were and are the armed gangs out in the boonies of Columbia Protecting the narco coca fields Then it says, with the new president Columbia faces an ongoing danger of a stampede of capital, economic decline, and greater poverty If the new president, Petro, doesn't maintain his efforts to calm investors Many who have already fled It says now for a little-known but telling statistic For the first time, Columbia tops the list of foreign countries whose people are searching the internet to buy homes in my jammy

[24:42] It says, for the third month in a row, according to a June 28 report by the Miami Association of Reletors, home searches from Columbia top the list of foreign inquiries on its website www.miamireletors.com In other words, a number of Colombians moving, thinking of moving, buying property or thinking of buying property in my jammy has soared in the months leading to Petro's election Who, by the way, is the first leftist socialist president in Columbia's history Get this, according to the Miami Reletors Association, Columbia web searches accounted for 12.3% of all international real estate searches on their Miami-based website Followed by Argentina with 7% And Venezuela with 6.3%

[25:28] By the way, that 12.3% for Columbia is a massive number Considering, according to the real estate association, that aspiring homeowners from more than 160 countries are searching the website every month So that's 12.3% out of 160 countries Then it says, web searches for real estate in Madrid, Spain The second biggest destination for Latin American flight capital has seen a huge jump in the number of Colombians looking for homes there, too It says, Colombian investors are afraid for a reason Since only last year, on August 31, incoming President Petro said, My government will finance itself with a tax increase on unproductive land on the country's 4,000 biggest landowners Even though critics and economists say

[26:15] this decision by the president would trigger economic chaos By the way, this was not Petro's first rodeo he ran for president in 2017 Scaring a lot of people when he vowed to convene a new constitutional assembly to draft a new constitution Which has been the path chosen by dictators of Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries to allow a president to stay in power indefinitely He's since gone back on that statement after much pushback But you can certainly see where his mind's at By the way, Petro and his campaign promised to give massive subsidies to the poor You know, freebies to the voting masses and suspend oil exploration Anyway, the article ends by saying The new president deserves the benefit of the doubt Though a good gauge to see how the country's adapting to his measures Would be, once again, in six months, checking the worldwide list of foreign searches to buy homes in

[27:06] Miami and if Colombia still tops that list by years in That's a very bad omen for Colombia's future As businesses flee, so do jobs and prosperity So how about it, still thinking of Colombia as a viable plan B? A get out of dodge, soft landing? Like expat Eddie says Most gringles and expats move to a Latin country Because of the condition they find it in today In the moment Never much thinking what it's going to be like in five or ten years 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

[27:54] Send me an email The Expat Files at gmail.com No spambos