#1318 – The Expat Files: Corruption, Culture, and Cost of Living in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Now here's something that needs to be said You know, I get a lot of emails and occasionally some fresh green gringo will write and say to me something like Johnny You tell lots and lots of stories about the corruption in Latin America. How do you put up with it?

[00:47] All the lying corrupt politicians lawyers and businessmen, etc, etc How is it that you don't flinch when you have to bribe a cop or pay some gopher to sit in line for you at The immigration office? How can you take it so calmly? Well, I say it's a good question. Maybe it's because I come from Chicago Latin America kind of reminds me of what a Chicago politician my sister's godfather once told me he said it's not corruption It's just how we do things here Now many people when they think of Chicago, they think of corruption, right? Then again, Chicago is known as the Windy City and it's also known as the city that works You've probably heard that before the thing is how could it be so damn corrupt and still be the city that works

[01:34] Well, it surely ain't a city that works anymore. I'm talking about when I was a kid and live there now. It's a complete war zone Then again, so is every major city in a democratically controlled state. Anyhow, I had a very interesting young life I saw people getting greased and people climbing the ladder for just being related to someone or friends with a politician That was how things went down in Chicago. You longtime listeners might remember. I had a job during the summer of my University years. I was a beneficiary of that very system getting a government job based on who you know I was on the Chicago dead dog crew. Who do you think picks up all the dead dogs cats skunks, etc Someone's got to do it. Right? Well for a while. It was me Even that totally shit government job was a patronage job that my dad obtained from me through his political buddies

[02:25] Oh and when my brothers and my sisters were on college summer break They all got golf course jobs at city courses Just a phone call from my dad to his childhood buddies who were now well placed in the Chicago political machine Made that possible. Oh and in Chicago if you wanted to work for the park district Let's say you kick back two weeks pay to the Union steward or the guy who got you the spot Back then if an old-timer wanted his kid on the Chicago Fire Department He became a ward captain and got out the vote People would pay off government slugs to get a cab driving permit And if a cop pulled you over you had a 50 clipped onto your license when he said license and registration, please That was the easy way to see if he'd take a bribe or not You never mentioned it so he could never accuse you of offer and a bribe

[03:12] But if he took it handed your license back and said drive carefully now Well, that was how things went in Chicago. Of course, you never try that with the state patrol They were incorruptible, but state was not Chicago. Chicago was its own entity In Chicago, everyone knew if you paid off the cop who pulled you over It was much cheaper and convenient than going down to the courthouse Taking a couple hours off for work fighting the traffic in the loop and paying the fine Sure, the politicians were corrupt. Why else would they be politicians? By the way, the absence of this understanding in the minds of Gen Y and Zers, you know The young adults today just shows why their cerebral cortexes are not fully formed yet you know neurologists say it's 28 for males and 22 for females and

[03:59] Never for transsexuals. Oh And another thing was it terrible to be a black in Chicago back in those days when I was a kid probably But my black buddies like Gary Reese and Jeff Grimes never said so and Jeff Grimes He ended up graduating college and marrying a hot white Catholic girl doing a lot better than some of my white high school buddies That's for sure and my best bohong buddy Eddie Lachansky His parents escaped the Polish programs and his grandparents died in Russian gulags in all those years in junior high and high school He only mentioned that to me once and it never registered What did I know when I was 13 about Polish pogroms and Russian gulags after all back then soldier needs and hadn't smuggled his book out

[04:45] Yet, whoever heard the gulag archipelago that didn't even hit the bookshelves till the mid or late 70s Anyway, my bohong buddy Eddie his father had a tailor shop and had many well-dressed mobster clients who heavily over tipped him We'd sometimes ride our bikes there on Saturday and watch some mobster get fitted for an expensive suit Yep, that was the Chicago of my youth riding around everywhere No place off limits on my Schwinn stingray with the banana seat and the angel bars Yeah, Chicago was different. All right in Chicago Politicians went on trial all the time, but never went to jail. But coincidentally almost all Illinois governors Regularly went to jail go figure, huh?

[05:32] So when people ask me why I'm able to count it's the corruption in Latin America When I got down here and saw it firsthand, I didn't lose much sleep over it. Maybe it was because I grew up in Chicago and Again for all its corruption. It was known as the city that worked not anymore, but it used to be oh And by the way, you may have seen that Tucker Carlson interview with the gay guy who said he had sex with Obama multiple times Way back when Obama was first starting to get into politics when he'd just been elected, Illinois state senator Representing the south side of Chicago. Well, you can believe it or not, but people ask me all the time What's my take on it being that I'm from Chicago the scene of the alleged crime? Well, it used to be a crime Any nowadays if you're gay lesbian or fluid you get celebrated. It's practically a badge of honor

[06:22] The question is did it really happen? Well, those kind of rumors weren't exactly unknown in the 1980s and 90s in Chicago In fact, my two next-door neighbors an older gay couple were really in the know about that kind of stuff They worked for the Chicago Tribune One had a byline every day and the other in charge of the arts and entertainment Section of the trip at the time they were closeted. Of course, you know, those are the days Until the weekends came then they throw some wild parties sometimes I was buddies with them ever since I plowed their snow the very first day They moved in turns out the house next door to me went up for sale and I heard the new neighbors Whoever they were were moving in on a Saturday. Well Saturday came it was a deep snow and I figured hey

[07:08] I'll do a good deed. I took my snowplow, you know in Chicago. We all had gas snow plows I plowed their lot a big corner lot and the very next morning. There's a knock on my door There's two guys stand in there with a giant gift basket a big. Thank you gift for plowing their snow I mean who does that what a great gesture, huh? From then on they invited me to all their parties and I'd never go alone Always brought my girlfriend anyway Funny thing too. Those parties were always conservative very low-key bashes They'd have a piano player from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra There'd be doctors lawyers people from the Tribune like Cisco and Ebert would be there At the time they're also big-time movie critics remember at the movies thumbs up and all that But at midnight right around midnight when all the conservative people at the party would have left

[07:55] That's when the party got wild That's when some of those stoic doctors lawyers and politicians got kind of happy and gay if you know what I mean Anyway, I remember many times sitting at one of their weekend parties with my girlfriend back in the 80s Where one or more of their guests were talking about Obama's Unusually rapid rise in politics. They'd say things like we finally got one of ours in there They would talk about how he was often seen in a place called the Russian steam baths a pure gay hangout back then I remember one guy had pictures of him and Obama standing around the steam baths and white toga robes They showed me the photos. It was common knowledge. Of course back then the guy had a pretty low profile He was in local politics and not on anyone's national radar But I remember at those parties they used to talk about him. Anyway, maybe it's a Chicago thing

[08:44] I mean the way people from Chicago accept a certain amount of corruption as normal I mean look where else but Chicago would your high school Italian buddy call you up and say Johnny What are you doing right now? The boss is out of town. I'm in charge. Come on over to the restaurant We'll hang and I'll give you a free meal. And when I get there, he's all alone behind the bar There's almost no one in the place. He says hey Johnny you want to see a million dollars? I said what he said, come here. He walks me around the back of the bar There's a safe on the floor with the door cracked open a bit He flips it open with his foot and he says up I was wrong I think there is more like 2 million in there today and my jaw dropped I said you mean to say they have that kind of money in the safe and they leave it open like that He gave me a weird face. I said Johnny

[09:31] Nobody in the world would ever think to rob this place So maybe that's why I don't flinch when some gringo down here in Latin America complains about having to bribe a cop Getting stopped and having to fork over 20 maybe 50 bucks. Whatever, you know I actually prefer that to living in the US and working till July for the US government You know, if you do the numbers the average working American doesn't make dime one for himself until July 1st of every year You should really ask yourself. What do you get for paying half of your income to the US government in taxes? How about nothing? Of course, if you don't work or don't want to work or come in as an illegal There's a hundred different giveaway programs you could take advantage of

[10:17] But the average tax-paying working guy or gal keeps paying and paying and what do they get in return a lot of nothing and a lot Of aggravation and that works out to less than nothing All right moving on how about this email from Richard K in Virginia He says Johnny. I love the show, but I can't afford to come to your seminar He says I've done a lot of stupid things in my life So I don't have much of a savings not much of a nest egg at all And because of that getting out of Dodge is my only option. Thank God. It's an option Who would have thought that an American guy with a college education couldn't even retire comfortably in his own country? He says I'm serious Johnny. I've made so many stupid mistakes in my life that old age for me I'm 56 years old now would look very bleak if not for the practical option of

[11:06] Being able to have a plan B sort of thanks to you Johnny and being able to get the hell out of Dodge Yes over the years. I've been stupid my middle name should be stupid. Let me count the ways though Some might say I'm just too nice of a guy and nice guys as we know finish last for starters He said I got a stupid useless journalism degree. I selected journalism mostly because it was easy Some of us at 18 years old aren't too smart when we're forced to select a major So I thought journalism that's the ticket So I could hang with my friends weeknights and weekdays and party and socialize because you really didn't have to study much Though I did have visions as most budding journalists do of working for Rolling Stone magazine and interviewing celebrities and rock stars Just as every kid on the basketball court thinks he's gonna be the next Michael Jordan

[11:55] Well, it hardly worked out at all never did go into journalism Meanwhile, my twin sister got a chemistry degree and almost never party. She hung with a brainy though boring crowd I thought it's time all of whom now pull in well over a hundred K a year Yep, stupid is as stupid does the next stupid move I made was knocking up my sometimes girlfriend when I was 20 I'm on the pill. She said two months later when I received that frantic phone call. She said yes I'm on the pill, but sometimes I forget good Catholic girl that she was and her dad being a cop So I got stuck with 18 years of child support for a kid that I only saw in court when more support was requested Stupid mistake number three. I got married to someone else at 22. She already had a kid

[12:45] We had two more kids. I got a vasectomy during the second pregnancy a little too late That vasectomy turned out to be the best decision of my life should I had it done when I was 12? The big lesson for me there was don't marry a woman with a kid. You'll always be last and get the leftovers Stupid mistake number four. I enabled my kids, but I couldn't see it then I bought one kid a car when he turned 18 and he wrecked it He wrecked one of mine, too I let another one of my useless kids live in my house and eat my food well into his 30s Stupid mistake number five. I bought a timeshare 20,000 down the drain. It's like taking out a loan and never being able to pay it off at the time No, it seemed like a good idea because I thought it would force me to take more vacations

[13:31] Got sucked in by the sales pitch and the free weekend. They gave you for attending the spiel You know who used it though my kids and their friends and I paid for the airfare. How dumb was I? Yep, stupid is as stupid does Stupid mistake number six. I lent 20 grand to a childhood friend. He's not my friend anymore Stupid mistake number seven and eight. I Co-signed a car loan and a home loan for my brother and one of my kids You don't want to know how many family get-together scream-a-thons. We had over that Stupid mistake number nine. I cheated on my wife with a co-worker That's why I have no savings now and rent instead of own

[14:17] I got caught got divorced lost the house to my ex stupid mistake number 11 I was dumb about finances and depended on credit cards for everything I was one who thought the more credit cards you have in your wallet the more worldly and important you are man Never put a vacation trip on your credit card. That is the stupidest thing you can do especially if that vacation is a trip to Vegas if you don't have the cash or savings don't go Putting anything on your credit card when you can only afford to pay the minimum monthly payments like paying for a dead horse forever Stupid mistake number 12. I went nuts on funeral expenses when my dad died the funeral directors know how to push your buttons They get you when you're at your weakest so you can be doubly stupid

[15:05] subtly hinting and jacking up the cost Piling on the extras implying if you don't go deluxe you'll look like a skin flint in front of your friends and relatives You most certainly don't want to bury your dad a pine box now Do you as a result I got sucked into spending 10k for a casket with the trimmings a day later? When he was in the ground no one remembered, and I was out 10k Stupid is as stupid does So Johnny stupid decisions have been the trajectory of my life and the main reason I can't live on my pension and Social Security like a decent human being when I retire I Estimate I'll be getting about 35,000 a year between the both and when I finally take retirement at 62 in six years I expect the US dollar will probably have lost a quarter even half its value to inflation

[15:56] No, American could live like a decent human being on that That's why I'm working to get the hell out of touch Just hope the world doesn't fall completely apart before I hit 62 signed Richard K stupid from Virginia Wow Richard me Johnny here. I feel for you, man But if there's one thing the US provided though not much anymore was opportunity It allowed all of us to make some very terrible and stupid mistakes and still recover We could fail over and over dust ourselves off get up and start over again, but that's not quite the case anymore That's what's so great about Latin America. There's huge opportunity here. That's the thing no matter how dire It looks we can still recover as for me I dodged a lot of those potholes you stepped in when I was still living up in the States

[16:45] But you can chuck me up as an idiot for lending a couple of my friends doe and now we're no longer on speaking terms By the way Richard your advice about not hooking up with someone who's got kids Obviously the older you get the rarer it is to find someone who doesn't have kids And you know lots of older guys and gals find themselves back in the dating game Which means most likely you're gonna end up dating people with kids The trick is so I've been told if you hook up with someone and they have kids Make sure those kids are out of the house and living on their own and not still living in mom's basement If you know what I mean, by the way, it doesn't matter how smart you are You could still do some very stupid things like getting sucked into buying a boat or a timeshare For example, my sister who's a doctor was engaged to a guy with two kids one kid autistic

[17:35] The guy had custody on weekends and my sister broke it off broke the engagement off after about a year Because she would become she discovered the designate nanny for the kids on weekends and the autistic kid Was oftentimes spastic and out of control It wasn't even her kid and the dad nice guy good father, but the whole kid situation bad news all around for my sister So she opted out. She said she felt guilty for a long time But in the end she knew she dodged a bullet all of us are certainly not all that lucky So how about you? How many really stupid things have you done in your life things that drastically impacted your future? I guess the more relevant question is how many bullets have you dodged? Well, don't feel bad not to worry

[18:22] If you have taken some financial hits over the years whether big or small if you made some stupid decisions in the past That seemed pretty smart at the time Just remember down here in Latin America off the gringo trail That is you can live a nice calm fulfilled first-world kind of life on a measly social security check And the average social security check in America now is something like fifteen or sixteen hundred bucks a month The bad news is as we get older then comes the sad Realization someday that you may just end up in a nursing home or immobilize that home or stuck in a wheelchair In the words of Jim Morrison No one here gets out alive By the way, did you know I just looked this up that the average median national cost of a home care nurse or

[19:07] visiting nurse home caregiver, whatever is a hundred and sixty three dollars a day That means if you live up in the States and you're stuck at home in a wheelchair or immobile or just can't get around Go to the store hospital, whatever to have someone come to your house eight hours a day That's not even live in average median national cost a hundred and sixty three dollars a day That's about five grand a month Something that Medicare and Medicaid do not cover Meanwhile down here in Latin America the average cost for a live-in caregiver or LPN nurse Four to five hundred bucks a month and she's living in she's there 24 seven That would cover about three days for a home care nurse to come into your house in the States only three days Funny thing too when I first got down here Latin America

[19:53] I couldn't believe every house I walked into even tiny houses one-bedroom apartments Even they had a room called a quarto de servicio basically a Servants quarters for the living maid a tiny room usually half of the size of a regular bedroom With its own pint sized bathroom and shower, too In fact many years ago when I first walked into one of these quarto Servicios when checking out apartments to rent. I couldn't believe how tiny the sink in the toilet were I mean after seeing all those big old jumbo wide-body toilets up in the States It almost looked laughable like a joke and that was 30 plus years ago The only toilets and sinks that even come close are the ones you see in airplanes. What pathetic jokes those things are I'm sure though American toilet manufacturers are keeping up with the trends

[20:42] They must have a finger on the pulse of the ever expanding American backside. No joke I'm not saying that to be cheeky by the way for you guys and girls who've been to Latin America already Have you seen one of those? Do you know what I'm talking about would be like a kitty toilet up in the States? But the concept is understandable Considering Latin Americans are quite a bit shorter lighter and of a smaller frame than Americans up in the States Though it's true these days Latin Americans are much fatter and more rotund than they ever were that's true of everyone in the world either fortunately or Unfortunately, no one seems to be starving anymore Certainly some are starving nutrition wise but not so much calorie wise still for most Latinos Those little toilets sinks and shower stalls are perfectly adequate

[21:27] But you have to wonder with all the gringles and expats coming down some of them way over six feet tall Others almost as wide too. It's just got to shake a person's Confidence a bit when he walks into a bathroom and sees a toilet sized for a guy like Peter Dinklage I don't know about you, but for me, it's tough enough getting comfortable using someone else's bathroom Add to that the discomfort of using someone else's bathroom in a foreign country even worse when the toilets kind of miniaturized Oh, well, you make do right? Anyway, when I first got down here to Latin America It used to be a kind of a snide joke between gringles We'd laugh at the fact there would be maids quarters and houses that were lower middle class by our standards in the States We knew no one not even rich people who had live-in maids Yet so many families here in Latin America in cracker box houses were able to pull it off

[22:16] So to us gringles and expats seeing a maids quarters in a house That would seem to be a virtual dump up in the States Obviously made us rethink the idea of rich poor and middle class You meet people here in Latin America all the time making 500 to a thousand bucks a month who have live-in maids Yep, 500 to a thousand bucks a month. That's below poverty wages up in the States You'd be amazed at the people down here who have live-in maids slash nanny slash Caregiver for wheelchair bound grandma keeping house full-time and living in that maids quarters The longer you live down here in Latin America, the sooner you discover that's a real thing. The maids quarters comes in handy It's not just for show now for us gringles and expats living down here. Well, we know sooner or later We're eventually gonna be a homebound person possibly in a wheelchair

[23:05] We all deteriorate though. Some of us will linger on a long long time So my advice be grateful Latin American building contractors have taken it upon themselves To build a tiny maids quarters lockout room and practically every house and apartment Oh and those maids quarters even when they're in a rich person's home. They're very spartan By the way, I promise even if you're laughing about it now I promise you will come to appreciate a maids quarters in your own house Suppose let's say you've been renting a one-bedroom apartment Then something happens health-wise and you end up immobilized or in a wheelchair What are you gonna do about that live-in nurse? Well, guess what your one-bedroom apartment will have a separate maids quarters with bathroom. That's how it works down here So don't laugh snicker or be surprised when your realtor tells you about the maids quarters when your apartment or a house

[23:55] Hunter in time, you will be grateful that it's there Alright moving on almost forgot to plug the seminar You know, it's coming up in just a few short weeks now starts March 8th thing goes through March 15 We'll be hanging out in the Altiplano of Guatemala and the lowlands of Velsalva door for all the sign-up info and agenda Just go to expat plan B calm and click on the seminar link By the way, not only does my seminar promise to give you a two to five year head start on your plan B It's guaranteed to be loads of fun with plenty of boots on the ground action All right, and finally we've got to see mail from $1. He says hello Johnny. Yes, the word is going around in the States about bidets They're catching on slowly a couple of years ago. Some friends had an online Amazon store

[24:42] He says and someone returned to bidets the kind that replace your toilet seat Not the full bidet but the attachment the one like you talked about anyway They asked us if we wanted one because they couldn't do anything with them now I never thought about owning one before but we said sure what the heck we'll try it Maybe it'll change our lives. Maybe it won't so we installed it It was pretty easy actually and we've never taken it off since We actually love it and it's been a game-changer for us. Oh, and yes, we use a lot less toilet paper I feel pretty good about saving the planet to Ever notice how they never talk about saving the people. It's just the planet, right? The people saved the planet

[25:28] Anyway, Johnny this year. We were at a New Year's party and guess what suddenly the conversation about bidets came up Wasn't me or the wife who brought it up the couple that brought it up said we've got one and wow It's a game changer. There you have it Johnny signed one dollar By the way, speaking of toilets bathrooms and bidets and such seems to be the theme of our podcast today, huh? Have you seen the reports lately of little businesses popping up that offer adults with a diaper fetish a Place to party and hang out with other adults of that stinky persuasion Yep Only in America where perverted adults with diaper wearing fetishes can find each other online Hang out in real time and enjoy their smelly fetishes together and you wonder why the rest of the third world thinks we're nuts

[26:19] That's why I've learned to love Latin American lag time. They haven't even gotten to pronouns down here yet Not the Latin Americans anyway, but I understand you can find all kinds of first-world shit-for-brains Woksters hanging out on the gringo tourist trail. I understand Costa Rica Cancun and the rest of the tourist sites in Mexico are just Full of American Woksters. I've seen a few in action. I've met a few and I avoid them like the plague by the way There's a new movie out. I highly recommend Called American fiction it really lays waste in subtle terms sometimes to all the woke white liberal virtue Signaling Hollywood and media hypocrites who pump out shit like Barbie and gay and lesbian Disney movies who suck up to Black Lives Matter and worship at the throne of CNN and the New York Times

[27:07] Oh, and one more thing. Did you know that Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon donated a million bucks to BLM Black Lives Matter How revolting is that then again? We are talking about Ozzy the icon of psychotic behavior Of course that was in the early days when the media made crackhead criminal repeat offender George Floyd a saint guess what? I saw Sharon Osbourne interviewed recently. She says her and Ozzy's lawyers are suing BLM. They want their money back 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 console Just send me an email the expat files at Gmail dot-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

[27:56] Send me an email the expat files at Gmail dot-com