#308 – The Expat Files: Johnny Mueller on Seminars, Infrastructure, and Nuclear Ambitions 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 as I wonder Hello there all you expat 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 Just to remind everyone my January 2014 expat wisdom seminar off the tourist trail in Central America is all set up and ready to go and for those of you who've been Asking a little bit more about it. It's half boots on the ground and half lecture

[00:46] So we'll have morning lectures and every afternoon will be hitting the road and yes We'll be going to places that I'm sure you've never been before in fact I guarantee it and if you want to complete details go to expat wisdom comm click on the Latin seminar link and find out all About it. We're more than half filled now So be sure to save a spot for yourself because once again I'm limiting it to 24 people and for those of you sending me emails asking if it's gonna be rugged when we're doing our boots On the ground portions. Well, you don't have to wear chaps or bring the Indiana Jones whip sure We'll be walking a bit, but there'll be no jungle or river excursions No mountain climbing or anything strenuous and no extended walking more than a couple of blocks at a time Plus we'll be in the perpetual spring altiplano region about five to six thousand feet in altitude So you won't break a sweat unless you take a side trip to a Russian steam bath. Yep, and believe it or not

[01:36] They've got those things down here, too That time of year it can be cool high sixties or in the day and mid-fifties at night In fact in January, you might have to wear a sweater or a light coat So anyway, there'll be no roughing it so don't worry about that. In fact on my previous outings I've had one or two people with canes a lady with a walker and at least one guy with a hip replacement and no one's yet Complained in fact our friend with a hip replacement decided he's gonna come down here and live permanently and he's here right now So yes, it is an adventure but a soft kind of adventure So anyway, check out the Latin seminar link on the expat wisdom.com website Now continuing with my last show's theme which was hazardous waste and nuclear power plants in Latin America I mentioned that every single thing Latin American governments do they do in a substandard half-assed way

[02:23] And I'm being kind when I say that in fact, probably a majority of their road construction projects Especially mega projects like bridges and such are outright dangerous That's why so many chicken buses bite the dust that along with the fact that they're way over loaded All the drivers love to drink they drive way too fast for conditions And because there's little or no maintenance the headlights and taillights don't work and the brakes suck But even if your vehicle is in good condition You really have to keep your eyes open for man-sized potholes and other defects in the road For example, they rarely put up guardrails or warnings on the steepest and most dangerous sections Not to mention landslides are frequent and there's no warning of that either and people pass on blind curves all the time But you knew that already, right? Anyway, even a brand new Latin American road would never pass a first-world inspection

[03:14] But of course as you know Everything that the US government does is a model of waste and inefficiency too, but we're concentrating on Latin American governments here So regarding Latin government projects and their terrible lack of maintenance and oversight Just remember that these are the same people with the same attention to detail That are running and maintaining those nuclear power plants in Brazil Mexico and Argentina Of course, it's not the same people But Latin government manana attitude laxity and carelessness prevails in all divisions of government you can count on it I know I've seen it I've stood in a government line for four hours Just to be told when I finally get to the service window that they ran out of forms or rubber stamps or files or something

[04:02] And I'll have to come back tomorrow or what that really means is next week down here when you're dealing with the government That happens all the time. That's why you'll have your trustee lawyer do all that stuff for you and actually he won't do it But you'll have one or two Motorcycle guys on staff called tramita dores that'll stand in those four-hour lines for you or the tramita door will pay one of those Guys who makes a living standing in line a buck or two to get cuts to the front and I'm not joking It's absolutely true. There are hundreds of people in every latin american city who actually make a living standing in line But you knew that too, right? Which brings us to the case of nuclear argentina like I began to say in the last show but never finished Argentina has proudly announced the startup of its third nuclear reactor

[04:50] After they missed their startup timetable by a mere 24 years. You heard me right? 24 years they've got plans on the drawing board for two more and with any luck the way the argentine government works They should be done by the next ice age And really the only saving grace is that argentina and brazil are not in seismic zones But you've still got those manana oriented Incompletely educated latin americans running those things and you know keeping a nuclear power plant up and running and in good condition Is all about the details Exactly what latin americans are not good at and that's the main problem. No, I take that back The main problem is nuclear power in general is just not safe Oh, we can get it right on the drawing board just like we can with nuclear fusion

[05:36] But human air and government stupidity will prevail and for all you naysayers out there who say oh, you're nuts Johnny nuclear power is completely safe Fukushima's problem was that it was built on a fault line and Chernobyl Well, that was because it was an idiot Russian design The Soviets back then had not found oil yet, and they were basically broke so they cut corners on everything so with Chernobyl the Soviets did not construct a double containment vessel a Standard item in nuclear plants elsewhere though very expensive because it took massive amounts of concrete That second containment vessel that they didn't construct was supposed to be a fail-safe Mechanism if the first containment vessel leaked I mean why do you think they call them a containment vessel? Right and the first one not only leaked it cracked wide open. We all know how that turned out

[06:25] So anyway, if you naysayers are saying Johnny you're wrong safe nuclear power plants can be constructed well to answer that I'll give you this example. No one knows how to make a legal buck better than an insurance company They never risk their necks They only bet on sure things and there isn't an insurance company in the world that will ensure a nuclear power plant Unless a government like the US government steps in as a co-insurer and a guarantor of last resort Now private insurance companies will ensure every other kind of power plant coal oil diesel Geothermal, but they won't do a nuclear not without an ironclad stop-loss government guarantee Hmm. What do they know that we don't know?

[07:10] Especially when insurance companies like Lloyd's of London will ensure anything including Fred Astaire's and Betty Grable's legs The Ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz Meteor strikes and yes even alien invasions And I'm not talking about aliens named Jesus who've invaded your neighborhood who speak Spanish do gardening and midnight dry walling either So anyway, these gigantic multi-billion dollar insurance companies will ensure you against the International space station falling on your garage and killing your dog But they won't ensure a nuclear power plant and by the way in case you were wondering there are about 450 operating nuclear power plants in the world generating about 15% of all electrical power and it's always interesting to note that the country that gets the most power from nuclear energy is

[08:00] France not the US and get this France has 51 nuclear reactors They're the biggest exporter of electrical energy in the world So is that place a nuclear accident waiting to happen or what and it's always strange when you hear that little Canada a country that's always prided itself on being the most eco friendly and conservationist country in the world Well, they have 17 operating nuclear power plants all within spitting distance of very populated areas So go figure which leads us to Brazil with its two functioning nuclear plants with four more on the drawing board But guess what when Fukushima happened they put those additional reactors on hold for 18 months big deal Whoopee so times up and now they're back in the pipeline again

[08:46] And the head of the Brazilian Nuclear Power Commission said in a recent press release for Brazil the Fukushima accident doesn't systematically change the basic framework or Context in which our country takes decisions about nuclear power. Of course, we will be cautious We always are but our plant constructions will go ahead as planned that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside So all you expat wannabes and gone a bees out there. There's reason 2426 not to move to Brazil Alright, so what about nuclear power in the rest of Latin America? Well, guess what little Uruguay Population of a little less than three and a half million has always had trouble in the electrical power Generation segment of its economy. It cannot produce enough electrical power itself

[09:33] It has to buy from other countries Which means they have some of the highest electrical rates not only in Latin America Which are already three or four times what you pay per kilowatt hour up in the states But they actually have some of the highest electrical rates in the world and by the way Latin American countries Generally have a three or four tier rate system when it comes to electrical power users nearly all structured something like this There's a very low subsidized rate for the poor and lower classes that use a hundred kilowatt hours a month or less and that's half The population of Latin America who live in tin shacks and have maybe a refrigerator a TV and two light bulbs going Most likely they're paying only about five cents a kilowatt hour. That means if they're using that hundred kilowatts They're only paying about five bucks a month

[10:20] Then there's a rate that's three or four times higher For the average customer like you and me that uses between a hundred and a thousand kilowatt hours per month or so Then they have a rate for light commercial businesses and yet another rate for large commercial businesses And because of all those screwed up rates and plans Who do you think it's stuck paying the subsidy for everyone else? Why it's the average user like you and me and you know, it is something to complain about But really there are only two things in Latin America Whether you're on or off the tourist trail that are higher price than in the first world Everything else is much much cheaper and those two things are gasoline and electrical power But if you listen to this show you knew that already right and by the way, don't send me an email saying what about imports? Everything imported is more expensive Well, that's only true of imports coming from Europe or the USA

[11:08] And there's not many of those anymore the rest of the imports coming from China Indonesia and Korea the usual suspects that are flooding Everyone's market are pretty close to what you guys pay for them up in the states the exception being cars and in some Latin countries Cars can be exactly the same price as you pay in the states other Latin countries like for example Uruguay Argentina Chile and Brazil they can be up to twice the price all because of greedy governments and their taxes So what else is new and by the way, you wonder how they can get away with putting a hundred percent tax on a car That's because their own tax collecting system within each government is well run by people who work for the government Who are lazy inefficient corrupt slugs? So you gotta love that meaning of course their tax collection within the country is so Ridiculously low that the import taxes are very high because that's one of the only ways

[11:58] They can collect large amounts of money at one crack without all the bureaucratic BS that goes along with Collecting taxes at the small business or individual citizen level import taxes are collected right at the port as the product comes in And though all the aduanas or customs departments are totally corrupt They still collect a ton of import taxes about less than half of it Actually making it to the government coffers after it's been skimmed a dozen times In fact to give you an example one of the ports in Peru Was collecting somewhere around 20 million dollars a year over the last couple of years and suddenly after a change in administration The next year it collected only 4 million with the same amount of traffic So basically when that new administration came in something like 80% of those import taxes just

[12:45] Disappeared and don't forget that original figure of 20 million was a figure that was also skimmed way ahead of time So it was probably 40 million who knows? Suffice it to say everybody in Latin America would love to work in the customs department again It's called the aduana because that's one sure way to get rich or at least get some of the split when it's passed around In fact, it's been discovered that throughout these ports in Latin America The aduanas are often run completely by extended family members Aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and in-laws are all working at the same place for dozens of years We're talking about well connected in family inbred criminal operations And when there's a job opening no outsiders are allowed kind of sweet, huh? And how do they get away with it?

[13:31] Because so many of these ports and border aduanas are way way out in the boonies in the hinterlands where no city boys and girls Particularly want to live so you've got these kind of closed shop towns A lot of them starting out many years ago as backwater hayseed communities that expanded and grew up right alongside the import export business and because everybody's either buddies are related when there's any Kind of investigation at all or hint of one. No one talks So anyway, the tax collection rates among the citizens and the small businesses is very low and ineffectual That's why so many of us expats pay little or no taxes when we finally get down here to Latin America If we're off the books, we pay no taxes and if we're on the books There's so much lower than first-world taxes in the first place and in the second place

[14:19] There are tons of loopholes and a million ways around them And in the third place Latin governments are very very weak at enforcement Which is why it's been estimated that more than half of the working people in Latin America pay no taxes at all And why 40 percent of latin americans work completely off the books for cash and no one does a damn thing about it And you gotta love that too. So why not come on down? Let's see now before I got on to taxes and the aduana. I was talking about urgway. Oh, yeah, urgway and nuclear power Anyway last year they submitted plans to the international atomic energy commission stating that they were very interested in having nuclear power plants in the country Even though get this nuclear power is actually banned by law

[15:05] And two-thirds of their congress would have to vote to override it But still they have their feelers out now The thing is experts say that urgway is just too small a country to even have a nuclear power plant They just couldn't afford the billions of dollars it takes the expense would bankrupt the citizenship But since when did bankruptcy ever stop a government from doing anything at once? They all spend like drunken sailors But the difference is where the u.s Can create money out of thin air with the federal reserve and slowly destroy their economy If you're a third world country, you just go to the imf or the world bank and borrow your ass off That's what they all do even the big oil producers like venezuela, which reminds me Here's something you didn't know about venezuela Not only does it have the lowest gas prices in the world

[15:52] Due to massive subsidies and political promises that got guys like shavas elected It's got the lowest electrical rates in the world too at three cents a kilowatt hour for everyone. Not just a miserable poor It's a huge subsidy that costs venezuela dearly. In fact because of those subsidies on gas and electric power Venezuela has massive debt now and it's escalating by the year and they're heading into a socio-economic collision course So we'll see how that plays out and you know The citizens have been used to those subsidies for so long It would be the kiss of death for any politician or political party to even hint at cutting back There'd be malatov cocktails and riots in the streets. Believe me. Wait a minute. What am I thinking? They already have malatov cocktails and riots in the streets in venezuela

[16:40] All right, so they'd have more of them. So there are two good reasons to live in venezuela It's got the world's lowest gas and electricity prices even though that's all smoke and mirrors and artificial then again There's about 5 000 very good reasons for you not to be an expat there. Then again, some people love playing long shots So anyway, my take is realistic I don't think urgue will ever have a nuclear plant unless russia or iran gave one to them I shouldn't laugh because they just might in exchange, of course for mineral rights Uranium mineral rights and urgue has plenty and that's of course why they're so interested in starting a nuclear program They've got all the raw materials right there And of course now that marijuana is legal in urgue You can bet if they do open a boring old nuclear facility

[17:28] The break room will be a very happy place which again brings us back to the nuclear waste issue What do you do with tons and tons of those spent fuel rods? When latin governments who have oversight and are responsible for inspecting and licensing those plants are lazy corrupt and inefficient And by the way, that's the dark side of all of this when I started talking about latin nuclear power plants in the last show I started by talking about evil morales and bolivia because the bolivian government is right now Meeting with the french and the argentine nuclear people trying to work out some nuclear power plant agreements And the reason why morales the president doesn't seem to want to back down in any way from his nuclear plans Even after fukushima, it's because bolivia too has vast uranium deposits

[18:15] So all they need is a high-tech processing plant and a few nuclear partners like france and argentina and they're in business And speaking of the dark side of things Did you know that russia has approached both urgue? bolivia and peru and offered out of the goodness of their little pink hearts to help set up their Future nuclear power programs for peace, of course, and why do you think russia wants to do that? It's because those three countries have proven high-graded uranium deposits, too And though russia's got lots of gas and oil They've got a lot of nuclear power plants and a huge nuclear defense program, too Which can't be completely supplied by their own uranium resources Now you might think with all these fledgling third world nuclear programs on the drawing board after fukushima all bets would be off

[19:06] So are they now that's a solid maybe Well in reality if you really judge the situation correctly experts say in the long run only brazil argentina and mexico The ones that have nuclear plants already will be putting new ones online in the next five years So I wouldn't worry too much about these other latin american countries and their blabbermouth presidents Just know it's the fact that these guys are all angling for nuclear power if they can get it Oh, and just one more thing about that, you know since venezuelan's big blabbermouth president chavez died It's been revealed that he was in pretty heavy negotiations with russia to put a couple of nuclear power plants in venezuela, too And the whole thing was just about to get started when fukushima happened and after that he immediately

[19:51] Cancelled the whole project. So who knows maybe chavez had half a brain after all Or maybe he just didn't want to have a nuclear cold war with columbia who surely would have gotten a tit for tat nuclear power program courtesy of their failed drug war buddies the good old us of a Just to keep a balance of power in the region. So thank buddha that never happened Now here's something i've recently noticed that's going to surprise you When I first got down here to latin america 20 some years ago I was simply amazed to see the two biggest cultural icons with the young folks in latin america Were for one che guevara so well known that he only needs one name che like madonna or share or Popeye and the other top latin icon of all time A face you'd see on t-shirts and walls posters and billboards practically everywhere was bob marley

[20:41] And though he's not technically a latin american if you ask anyone down here He's an honorary one and it's obvious up in the first world bob marley's been a cultural icon forever, too And why not he kind of internationalized the style of reggae music, right the godfather of reggae and spliff Nothing wrong with that completely harmless But this other thing that che guevara thing 20 some years ago when I first came down. It was beyond explanation This guy's mug held a place of honor in practically every latin kid's home right alongside the jesus and mary statues Back then che was considered practically a revolutionary saint Though nine out of ten people who had his photos in the house or a t-shirt with his mug on it had no idea at all About his history or what he really stood for It was all about the coolness factor like having a john lennon t-shirt back then

[21:31] So here you got this guy's mug everywhere in restaurants hotels people's houses on banners His head immortalized in graffiti on countless buildings walls and murals throughout latin america Now i'd have to agree that most expats that come down to latin america are pretty well educated in fact Most of them know more about che guevara and his life than any latin person does All the average latins know about their idol che is what they learned seeing a couple of popularized movies about him And knowing that the average latin who had a che t-shirt was clueless about their idol to us expats It seemed ridiculous. This guy was everywhere yet No one bothered to find out what he was all about Just a thought of that would drive a lot of us expats nuts Since when you ask some guy who had a che t-shirt on what it was all about

[22:18] He just shrug and say hmm no say which means who knows? And worse yet when you say to one of these t-shirt wearing guys that che was a diagonal socialist and he wanted to drag down the capitalist system completely Like they did in cuba and if che would have lived and carried his revolution throughout latin america You wouldn't have a computer or a cell phone or a flat screen tv The internet porno disneyland and a hundred kinds of beer or any of the evils of capitalism that latin's now so fully enjoy Well us expats soon found out it was useless to get into a conversation like that Because all you'd get in return was a deer in the headlights look Now as for me soon enough I figured out that all these guys with their che t-shirts were pretty much brain dead In fact over the years of all the expats i've known none of them

[23:06] I mean none of them would be caught dead with one of those t-shirts ourselves Anyway, when I first got down here in the latin world, he needed another che t-shirt like kim kardashian needed another ass implant So back then anyway everywhere you go There were che t-shirts school notebooks with his face on the cover badges che faces etched in graffiti all over the place People dressing up like che on halloween and then came the che movies from hollywood those benicio del toro movies that Nobody up north saw but when they got dubbed in spanish and shipped down latin's down here just ate it up But they still didn't put the capitalism socialism thing together Then there was that hollywood movie the motorcycle diaries which supposedly depicted the life of young che

[23:53] Long before the facial hair the army camo clothes the poor hygiene and the infrequent bathing Now that movie didn't make any money up in the states either But down here it cleaned up and that's how local latin's learned about their hero che And worse yet there are also a ton of bad che movies in spanish that you should be glad you never saw Oh, and by the way when I first got down here It was not unusual to flick on the tv nc soap operas and bad comedy shows and tv series with che like characters And revolutionary che like figures popping up all the time In fact one expat marketing guy down here told me that the che image is one of the top 10 Iconic marketing brands of all time. He's right up there with elvis bob marley the beetles mickey mouse james dean charlie chaplin

[24:41] Maryland minnow santa claus superman and batman In fact, you know old che's got to be turning over in his grave because you know ironically He contributed massively to the consumer culture that he hated and despised And it's everybody else making the t-shirts hats posters tattoos and bikinis that are making the dough off his image And you know 10 or 20 years ago. He was the ultimate symbol of rebellion and latin counter culture But what kind of rebellion or counter culture nine out of ten latin's wearing that stuff just couldn't tell you Was it the coolest factor? What else but you know what else was even cooler than a che t-shirt? Now this will sound strange But it's absolutely true all a latin teenager adolescent or adult needed to push their che t-shirt to the back of the bus

[25:28] Was any item of clothing that came from the first world with english lettering on it and anything having to do with disneyland? Top the list. That's why when you're down here in latin america You'll occasionally do a double take when you see a kid on the street wearing a t-shirt or a hoodie That says joe's cozy corner tap cleveland on it now to a young latin kid. That's a prized possession It's got a very high coolness factor to the locals Even though the guy wearing it has absolutely no idea what the words mean in english The gringo advantage strikes again That's why mickey mouse goofy and donald duck fashion wear trump a scruffy old che t-shirt any day Even though disneyland paraphernalia is passe with american adults. We wouldn't be caught dead in a donald duck t-shirt

[26:14] Up north that's purely kid stuff totally kitsch and passe for us adults But you know back then 15 or 20 years ago disneyland stuff was rare and very hard to come by down here, too Which of course made it all the more desirable not for us gringos, but for the latins, of course So back then a che t-shirt would go for like two or three bucks and a mickey mouse job Well, just try to find one. Oh and I gotta tell you one halloween expatty went as mickey mouse Wearing a che t-shirt and nobody got the joke but me. Yeah, we had conversations about it, but no one got it Can't win them all, you know So anyway 15 or 20 years ago, there'd be so many young kids running around thinking they're cool with all this che paraphernalia Sometimes you just want to slap them and say do you even know who this guy is?

[27:02] But I tell you things have really changed in latin america these days Bob marley is still the exalted bragee symbol He always was and that's cool. But funny enough. You almost never see any che stuff anymore Except and this is a big exception in cuba, of course where he's a hero and practically a saint In fact, the grade school kids even chant songs about him in school as part of their morning lessons get that Well, i'm at the end of the show again. So i'll pick up with this next week. Stay tuned You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border Email me the expat files at gmail.com And don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on latin america

[27:53] See you next time nos vemos