#1352 – The Expat Files: Argentina, Emotional Support Dogs, and the Future of Retirement

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-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 Alright, so I've been traveling through Argentina for the past couple weeks now and You heard me say a couple of shows ago that I was gonna check up on what's really happening down there and what Malay Their new libertarian precedent has been doing and what effect it's having on the people in the society. You'd be surprised I was

[00:53] Funny thing too, you know, I'm down here in the cold or winter season the height of the cold season really lately It's been about 55 degrees Fahrenheit in the day and about 0 to 10 at night Hey, I'm from Chicago and I'm used to it, but I don't like it Lots of things. I don't like about Argentina lots of things. I like about the place, too We'll be going into a lot more detail on that in the upcoming shows Their question is what I recommended for gringos and expats, you know, it's a permanent plan B destination You'll be surprised at what I have to say about that, too You know, I've been talking to lots of people down here upper class middle class lower class Asking them, you know, the pertinent questions about the cost of living about Malay the economy healthcare Transportation the works and I'll tell you man

[01:40] There's some really crazy Ticotomies that you'll never glean unless you have some boots on the ground for quite a while now I've been to Argentina before but before the Covid it crap and It tell you the truth. It was nice to see even in the very cold weather down here Well cold compared to Central America and the Caribbean for the past month. I saw almost no one wearing a mask By the way, I've been doing a lot of flying lately That means I was cooped up a lot in planes with other people so I picked up a little bug My voice might crack a little here and there today. So bear with me a bit on that. Well, yeah Anyway, it's a seven or eight hour flight from any airport in the Caribbean or Central America town to Buenos Aires, Argentina It's a long flight same amount of time

[02:26] It takes to go from the Caribbean or Central America or even the states to Europe guess what wouldn't you know it? I had a brand new airport or airplane experience. I never had before and I hope that never have again But I'm absolutely sure this kind of things on the upswing for the first time in my life I wasn't an airplane stuck next to a guy who was holding an emotional support dog The dog even had a little clip-on badge that said emotional support dog I guess you have to have that to claim that designation on a plane nice gig if you can get it for the dog that is now the guy with this dog a 20-something obviously gay guy a nice enough guy though really Symbolized how young Americans and young people in general are getting very soft

[03:11] So risk and trauma averse that they can't travel on a plane without an emotional support animal Please yet this 20-something guy Had a nose ring a lip stud and some delicate tattoos up and down his wrist and his fingers All of them somehow related to wine wine glasses wine bottles tattoos of corks and wine bottle openers all nice Delicate dainty though. Nothing really heavily macho or masculine about him Surely this guy was some kind of a wine affection auto or wine steward Maybe question is does this guy drag his support dog along with him to work every day who knows now mind you I'm on an eight-hour flight sitting elbow to asshole with this delicate guy and his emotional support dog

[03:59] My radar was up for something bad to happen I was just waiting for one little bark to come out of that dog and it did one little bark And I thought just keep it up Give me one or two more of those barks and I'll find a way to get you bumped to the back of the bus But that was it no more bark. So I thought hmm, okay Let's use a little patience here Let's see how this goes and then came the farting now I don't know if it was the guy or his dog But one or the other is intestinal flora was certainly putting in overtime You know how sometimes you'll hear a person's stomach noises, you know those gurgles and stuff never a good sign Well, it was the dog. All right Whoa, that was the one time I really did wish I was wearing a mask or two or three in our little section of the

[04:44] Plane we kind of figured it out because when that second big whiff came Mr. Delicate got up and excused himself went into the bathroom and stayed there for seemed like an hour And as you probably know, there's nothing worse than farts on a plane Except maybe if the pilot says put on your life vest. I hope you can swim All right. All right, so you got me. I'll take farts over a crash any day But farts are bad because you know, they just keep recycling and recycling that air There's nothing you can do about it. Nowhere to go and all eyes are sort of darting around Who done it, you know to me would that not be a good time to drop those oxygen masks? Maybe let's put that one in the airline customer service suggestion box, huh? Anyway, there was a flight attendant and a passenger kind of arguing something out at a low level

[05:34] But I heard it turns out he was the next guy to visit the bathroom After our delicate friend and his support dog He was explaining to the flight attendant that there was a layer of pee on the restroom floor Which was disgusting enough, but worse yet. He figured it was emotional support dog pee Hmm might that be a higher quality pee than the run-of-the-bill street dog pee I don't know now this guy was really pissed off because he said he'd undone his shoelaces Like he does every time he flies in a plane to get more comfortable. I thought hmm. I do that, too Anyway, he said now his shoelaces were saturated with support dog pee. He said what are you gonna do about it? I paid almost a grand for this flight and this is what I get and all the while I'm thinking we had it bad in our little section with just the farts

[06:22] Anyway, somehow they worked it out. He went back to his seat with a smile I'm thinking she gave him a credit or a future upgrade or something I was just glad it didn't turn into one of those incidents that you see so frequently lately where The plane turns back to the original airport because some passenger got touchy feely or unruly or something Anyway, I found out later as I was leaving the plane There was actually three people on that plane with emotional support dogs All of them Americans we're talking about reason five thousand two hundred seventy six seven and eight Why it's imperative for your mental and emotional stability to get the hell out of dodge Young Americans, what a bunch of wimps Emotional support dog what you need is an emotional support slap in the kisser man. What's wrong with parents these days

[07:12] What's wrong with him? I mean really look at the weenie ass neurotics the american cultures turn it out I just read an astounding statistic. It said that 85% of american kids by the time they turn 18 they've already been to a shrink man When I was a kid you only went to a shrink if you really were nuts ready for you know The rubber room, but these days it's kind of a rite of passage more than a rite of passage Yep, those are the kind of neurotic softies american universities are turning out by the millions Soon they'll be in charge of everything Which begs the question once again. How's your plan be coming? Oh and speaking of pissed off frequent flyers in digging into my email pile here. I got this one from Jason in colorado. He says johnny

[07:57] Americans are so petite and tiny and small and skinny and short That all the airlines in the us have decided at some point To add several extra rows to each plane and to leave no leg room at all And to make the walkway in the center of the plane so narrow That when going to and from your seat you inevitably make ass to shoulder contact with someone Anyone who's not sitting straight like a soldier in the aisle seat is fair game for an ass grazing Like it or not and sometimes you might like it, but I don't he says I don't want to be disturbed while i'm flying He says my question to you johnny is i'm wondering if latin american airlines suffer from the same problem Have they added more seats and extra rows? Just wondering signed longtime listener jason

[08:46] Well jason good question But unfortunately the bad news is all airlines are sort of standard now Every single airline seems to have been able to wedge sheets in places You'd never see them before the good news However, is that most latin americans are a little bit shorter and a little bit tinier all round than americans So you're dealing with less human volume all around when in any given airplane Of course that doesn't help the leg room problem But you do get more breathing room and the kids yep Those latin american kids are so much more well behaved than american kids Though they too are addicted to their devices And remember any latin american families with kids that can afford to fly Are pretty much gringoized in all the worst ways latin american kids compared to american kids are smaller too smaller all around

[09:33] Of course, there are some notable exceptions like when flying on a mexican airline, man I'll tell you mexicans. They can put down the junk food and everything I mean everything is deep fried in some really horrific greece In fact once recently I was on aro mexico The plane wasn't full, but there were so many super obese people i'd say 90 were women that before we even took off The flight attendants redistributed the fat people around the plane, you know for balancing stability You have to assume right and you know i'm not normally an anxious flyer But when I saw him doing that it did sort of rankle me a bit Oh and by the way, you know A couple days before your flight when the airline sends you a notice that you can upgrade your seat or go to business class Or whatever I did for the first time notice along with certain upgrades

[10:23] You could elect to carry on an emotional support pad And you know, I never seriously thought about it until this trip sit next to that guy So let's see airlines will allow you to bring an emotional support animal What if your emotional support animal is a snake or a tarantula or a cuddly baby gator? Who determines that and how far can you really go with it? Just wondering how far the wokesters have pushed this thing talk about a mental health crisis, huh? Speaking of a collective mental health crisis and a couple more dozen reasons to get the hell out of dodge Comes this email from pablo in tucson. He says hi, johnny Since you mentioned this following subject a lot namely the lgbg Tqwtf stuff i'll share something that I learned today at my yearly

[11:11] sexual harassment prevention for employees video Yep, johnny. It's an employee video training session that we're required to take and in this video training I just learned there are two new letters and meanings added this year to the lgbqt Acronym as if we could possibly keep up with this stuff. Anyway, he says Johnny, please if you like insert your own screams of frustration as you read this He says according to the latest instructional video, it's not lgbtq anymore It's lgbtqia I and a have been added and the q has gained an additional meaning Since we were less instructed about this bs about a year ago The new added i is for inner sex

[11:58] Whatever that means the new added a is for asexual or Ali a lly and q which was formerly for just queer now officially has a double meaning it could be q for queer or questioning So there you have it johnny I'm sure the guys who write this stuff or the gays or the girls or the buys or the questioners or Intersexers or emotional support creatures who write this stuff Hmm that was me johnny who threw that one in Anyway, pablo says i'm sure those guys are trying to figure out more acronyms for next year After all the schools are turning out ever growing numbers of sensitive socially insecure victims Who feel they don't quite fall under the umbrella of the lgbtqia acronym?

[12:46] Anyway, johnny. Thanks for being you signed pablo from tucson Otherwise known down here in latin america as tucson You know that popular car the hyundee tucson? Well, there are tons of them down here in latin america Took me a while to figure out they weren't hyundee tucson's at all. They were hyundee tucson's What a dummy. I was pronouncing it all wrong But my latino buddies and acquaintances were nice enough to correct me a million times until I got it All right. Let's move on to an email from winston. He says johnny I saw the following stats below That rank the states in the u.s based on how long a million dollars would last you in retirement It's an article from a site called go banking rates called how long one million in retirement will last in every u.s state

[13:34] Winston says I thought you'd like to see this the shortest amount of time is nine years and the longest is 19 depending which state you're in By the way winston came to one of my expat insider seminars just recently too Anyway, he says the longest time is 19 years I remember he says reading the same stat in 2021 and the longest time a million dollar nest egg would last back then Was 25 years it took just three years of government caused inflation to wipe out six years of a retirement fund If anyone's paying attention, that's a tragedy He says as I was reading this I was wondering how long a million bucks would last a person If he lived in antigua, guadamala, for example He says I did a quick back of the napkin annual budget of thirty seven thousand five hundred

[14:21] That was my estimate and went from there. I know you can get by on a lot less than that. He says Well, maybe not in antigua because it's sort of on the tourist trail for guadamala But in most other places in latin america, you certainly can get by on a lot less Anyway, he says based on thirty seven thousand five hundred dollars a year It looks like you can make a million bucks last twenty six point six six years in antigua guadamala And that would be living very large. Oh and think of this He says if you invested that mill in the riskless 30 year t bond rate after taxes that one mill would last you 205.76 years if you're living in antigua 205.76 years

[15:08] All right. Thanks for that. Winston Now if you remember I mentioned a couple of shows ago I live pretty large in latin america on around 20 grand a year But then again, I rarely go to bars. I go to restaurants and i'll have a glass of wine, but I don't drink hard liquor I'm not a beer drinker either. Oh and that 20 grand a year doesn't include my trips or flights That's just regular homestead living, you know, there's lots of conflicting numbers out there I just saw an article this morning that said to live a solid middle class life in the united states will cost you on average 160 thousand dollars a year that's an average across the us And really not all that helpful if you live in a big modern metropolitan city like la new york, chicago Miami and you're not living in any kind of ghetto you're living just average nice

[15:56] Well, as you know 160k a year for a family of four in a business district in let's say manhattan or downtown chicago Ain't going to cut it in a smaller medium town or in the suburbs. Of course now they're talking a family of four That's a family of four. What about a single person? They're saying a single person on average in the united states could live a average middle class life for around 90,000 bucks a year And what winston's saying you could live in a place like antigua guatemala, which is a little bit higher in regards to the cost of living About 20 higher i'd say than the rest of guatemala because it is pretty much The most touristy place in guatemala though. Nothing on the scale of tourism that you might see in mexico or costa rica Anyway, just some more food for thought and a couple more reasons to get the hell out of that

[16:46] Oh, what's that? You say you can't get out of dodge Because things are really tough for you right now Just can't swing it too many debts too many bills So you think making ends meet up where you live is tough now? You ain't seen nothing yet Get back to me in a year or so. I bet you'll really be sweating then and when ai kicks in look out Hey now here's a good question for you What are you doing to get rid of all the plastics in your life and in your house and in your car etc? You've heard all this talk lately about plastic plastic everywhere in the water in the air in your sofa in your bed in your furniture fabrics often are toothpaste dental floss Everything that's water repellent or coated with that miracle stuff called scotch guard

[17:34] Man, you know when I was younger that used to be such a selling point. It's scotch guarded You'd see that 3m label pasted everywhere like the good housekeeping seal of approval Scotch guard man, we all wanted that and we'd pay extra for it, too That means if a kid or a dog pees or your friend's puke on your sofa. No worries. It won't penetrate Scotch guard man. You got to have it. It'll clean up lickety split unless of course you had a bachelor pad Then it just might never get clean Unless you had a girl over and how about teflon another miracle product? It even became reagan's nickname teflon runny Yep, I remember back in the 60s and 70s every modern woman had to switch her pots and pans over to teflon Anyway, unfortunately, the most recent bad news is almost everything is loaded with nano plastics

[18:22] including sperm and mother's milk Yep, that's right. Whether you want to hear about it or not Every teflon pan you your mother or your girlfriend ever used just loaded with micro and nano plastics All the stuff you buy from ikea loaded with plastic micro plastic nano plastic, but where does it all really come from? Which countries produce the most amount of junk plastic and then of course, where does it end up? Where do they dump it? We could talk about that big plastic island three times the size of france in the pacific ocean between california and huai It's been known about widely for 10 or 20 years now. I'm sure you've heard of it Hey, as long as it's not in my neighborhood, right and as long as it's shaped like france, that's okay, too, right? Now I don't know about you but down here in latin america. Nothing happens if you litter latin americans are the litteringest people i've ever met

[19:14] You've heard my rants about that before And though I have heard people get scolded for littering down here by their own by latinos It's more like don't throw that litter on my property throw it on someone else's that's sort of the attitude Why well, it's not about education. It's about getting fined as people get fined. They quit littering Now we all know it's low class to litter even latinos know that But man, i'll tell you It's just like driving through the ghettos of chicago or new york The nicer the buildings the nicer the parks the higher the class of people the fewer heaps of trash less bottles in the gutters The more organized and manicured the arts etc, etc But here's what you didn't know and I didn't either till recently There's been a very recent worldwide study of the top plastic polluters in the world

[20:02] This huge new study highlights the top 10 countries in the world that emit the most plastic pollutants into their own waters surrounding them Turns out most of the waste plastic found in the deep waters of oceans comes from litter from parks beaches and from storm drains Lining the streets of towns and cities and during any heavy rain rivers turn into plastic super highways Leading directly into waterways and oceans and in third in fourth world countries, especially the rivers and drainage paths Have no filters or catch basins at all The anomaly here is that if you ask anyone in the street to name the countries that produce and consume the most plastic They'd guess wrong. They'd pick the wrong countries on this list. Here are the worldwide rankings

[20:48] Number one country in the world worst plastic polluter the philippines with 356 000 metric tons a year in annual plastic ocean waste That's more than twice as much as country number two india with 126 000 metric tons of plastic waste into the ocean a year Number three malaysia now. Here's a shocker in a different kind of way. Number four is china Now, of course, we'd all peg them to be on the list, right maybe even number one or two But they're number four and get this philippines, which is number one produces five times as much ocean bound plastic as china does In fact, if we could somehow tomorrow stop the philippines from producing plastic

[21:37] It would be like taking out the other nine worst plastic producing countries in the world Are you getting this the philippines produces more ocean bound waste plastic? Then the next nine worst offenders put together. How does that make sense? Anyway, here's the 10 worst country list starting with the worst philippines Second india third malaysia fourth china fifth indonesia sixth minamar Come on, which average american has even heard of minamar? I don't think I know a single person who could find it on the map yet It's the six worst ocean plastic producer in the world Number seven and this is the only latin american country on the list Brazil if you've ever visited the place you'd know why it's up there

[22:23] Number eight vietnam number nine bangladesh number ten thailand Now somehow I thought mexico would be on that list, but it's not Now here's the really surprising part if you take the rest of the world all the other 190 countries in the rest of the world Including russia and all those third world countries in africa that basically don't treat any of their water runoff Their so-called gray water Pluvial systems go directly into their rivers and oceans and they don't care Well strangely enough all those less polluting 190 countries put together remember That's all of europe canada the us australia japan, etc dump about 176 76 000 metric tons of plastic into oceans yearly

[23:11] Which is about half of what one country the philippines puts in the ocean in one year. In other words philippines alone Puts out double the plastic ocean waste then the cumulative Dumpage of 190 other countries in the world and remember all of latin america except brazil is in that group Oh, and here are some other surprising facts china generates 10 times the plastic waste that malaysia does However, nine percent of alaysia's total plastic waste is estimated to reach the ocean in comparison to china's only 0.6 percent reaching the ocean As for philippines the worst offender and archipelago of over 7 000 islands They've emitted about 35 of all the plastic that's in the ocean

[23:58] On top of that about 75 of all the accumulated ocean plastic comes from the mismanaged waste systems of asian countries Including india malaysia china indonesia minamar vietnam bangladesh and thailand Oddly enough the total dumpage is seasonal too during the rainy season. That's when things really get out of hand In third and fourth world countries public drains and sewers always overfill during the rainy season It's just a fact of life that the sewage and drainage infrastructures are chronically underbuilt and poorly maintained But you knew that already, right? We talk about that a lot on this show So then you might wonder if you move down here to latin america Are you going to have drainage and sewage problems? Obviously, you don't want to drink the water without purifying it, right?

[24:45] What about garbage and drainage problems? Well again, you could just see it for yourself during the rainy season That's when you want to check things out drive through some of the nicer upscale neighborhoods You'll see they don't have standing water. They don't have floods They won't have plastic bottles or mcdonald's wrappers floating down the gutters But you'll certainly see that stuff in the poor and dingy neighborhoods where the working class folks live in the barrios In those neighborhoods where most people don't own a car They walk take the chicken bus or public transportation or drive really crappy off-brand motorcycles Anyway now that we've gone through all the stats and we know who the 10 biggest plastic polluters are in the world With the surprise being only one latin country in the top 10 brazil That's not to say we should let any latin american country off the hook latinos as a rule are terrible literatures

[25:37] But you know, it's all about the plastic content and the items you buy you could put all your refuge and junk And the right refuse bit the question is is it going to go to the landfill or somehow make it into the water supply So yeah, definitely latinos have bad habits and are very much part of the problem But they're not nearly as guilty as you might think We certainly can't fault them for destroying the oceans The dirtiest crimes are in the hands of the producers those container and packaging companies Meanwhile, we're all involved in a big experiment. We're all guinea pigs. I'm sure it's crossed your mind more than once Maybe it's better not to know these things you hear people say that all the time All right changing gears a bit got an email from Julio living in mexico city, you know districto federal

[26:24] He says johnny I wouldn't worry too much about the political shifts in mexico now that we've got a new lady president Julio says I wouldn't worry short-term or long-term about mexico becoming socialist or even communist Because the cartels who really run things are all dyed in the wool capitalists Not a single one takes a government subsidy or a handout In fact the opposite they contribute wholeheartedly to the police the military and all the political races of any importance He says i've read articles that said in this latest presidential race the cartels themselves were the biggest political contributors Donating through aliases and dummy corporations, of course Anyhow johnny love the show keep it up signed Julio in mexico city

[27:14] All right. Thanks for that Julio. I believe you and since we're at the end of the show I'll leave you with this little mind teaser. Did you know? That envy envy is the only one of the seven deadly sins from the bible. Remember that gives you no pleasure South 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 No spamos