Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and realities of expat life in Latin America. He begins by promoting his upcoming seminar in the region, emphasizing its personalized nature and limited capacity. He critiques the trend of first-world seminar companies rehashing outdated content for the Latin market, often at low costs. Johnny highlights the cultural significance of diplomas in Latin countries, noting that even insignificant ones are displayed prominently in homes and offices. He also contrasts the low cost of credit card transactions in Latin America with those in the United States.
Next, Johnny critiques a seminar advertisement for a Wall Street investment course targeting Latin American audiences. He highlights the absurdity of the course's promises, such as obtaining a 'high-quality diploma' and learning to 'make money when Wall Street goes up then when Wall Street goes down.' He mocks the course's lack of credibility, noting that it's presented by a low-income Latin American TV newscaster rather than a first-world expert. Johnny also comments on the economic realities of the target audience, including the affordability of internet access and the prevalence of cheap, short-term internet solutions. He concludes that the seminar's success is due to its 'first-world title' and the appeal of a 'glossy diploma,' even if the content is dubious.
Johnny then discusses the state of internet access in Latin America, highlighting the popularity of one-hour internet sessions at cafes for a low cost. He explains that only about 15% of Latin Americans have 24/7 home internet, while 40% have intermittent access. He notes that using a scratch-off card for a full day of internet is cheaper than using a cafe's internet for 24 hours. Johnny also warns about the prevalence of viruses on home computers due to the lack of proper antivirus software, advising against using flash drives in these computers to avoid infection. He mentions the use of cafe internets as a way to stay anonymous and avoid surveillance, suggesting tools like anonymous email services and search engines. He concludes by sharing a personal anecdote about losing data due to a virus picked up at a cafe internet, emphasizing the importance of backup systems.
Finally, Johnny discusses the growing issue of extortion in Mexico, highlighting how it's now affecting expats and professionals. He references an AP article detailing the rise in extortion cases, including a doctor's experience with armed extortionists and the broader impact on businesses and tourists. He notes that the increase in extortion is a byproduct of Mexico's anti-drug efforts, which have displaced lower-level criminals into new areas of crime. Johnny critiques the Mexican government's claims of success in the drug war, suggesting it's a facade due to widespread corruption. He emphasizes the underreporting of extortion crimes and the involvement of corrupt police, with examples from pharmacies and other small businesses.
Topics
Johnny Mueller's seminar promotion, Criticisms of first-world seminar companies in Latin America, Cultural significance of diplomas in Latin countries, Credit card transaction fees in Latin America vs. the United States, Seminar advertising, Economic disparity, Education in Latin America, Internet access in developing countries, Internet access in Latin America, Cafe internet usage, Virus prevalence on home computers, Surveillance and anonymity
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:33 Introduction to the Seminar Promotion 00:01:35 Critique of First-World Seminar Companies 00:03:53 Credit Card Transaction Fees in Latin America 00:04:58 Cultural Significance of Diplomas in Latin Countries 00:05:39 The High-Quality Diploma Promise 00:05:41 Guaranteeing Happiness with Useless Diplomas 00:06:08 Wall Street Investment Course Ad 00:07:59 The TV Newscaster's Income 00:08:46 The Appeal of the Glossy Diploma 00:11:15 Introduction to Cafe Internet Usage in Latin America 00:11:39 Statistics on Home Internet Access in Latin America 00:12:21 Cost-Effectiveness of Scratch-Off Cards vs. Cafe Internet 00:12:33 Virus Prevalence and Antivirus Issues in Latin America 00:14:01 Anonymity and Surveillance Avoidance with Cafe Internets 00:15:29 Importance of Backup Systems and Data Security 00:16:51 Introduction to the Extortion Crisis in Mexico 00:17:40 The Doctor's Experience with Armed Extortionists 00:18:27 The Spread of Extortion and Its Causes 00:19:56 Underreporting and the Scale of Extortion Crimes 00:20:35 Corruption in Mexican Law Enforcement 00:21:44 Impact on Small Businesses and Pharmacies 00:22:58 Extortion in Mexico: A Driver's Dilemma 00:23:01 The Cost of Delivering Newspapers 00:23:08 The Extortionist's Business Model 00:23:13 The Nature of Extortion 00:23:18 How Extortionists Operate 00:23:24 The Extortionists' Strategy 00:23:31 The Consequences of Refusal 00:23:38 Violence as a Tool of Extortion
Transcript
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 First off today people want to know how close I am to filling my seminar for January 2014 Well as I'm recording this I'm exactly a month and a half away from Showtime And I'm over three quarters filled now meaning I've got about four or five spots left
[00:48] so it's time to get off the fence and go to expat wisdom calm and Click on the link that says the Latin American seminar Which is on the top left of the main page and there you'll find everything you need to know about my upcoming seminar and remember I've only got room for 24 people which makes it one of the most personalized seminars you'll ever go to so check it out I know there are at least a half a dozen of you folks out there who've emailed me saying you're trying to juggle your schedules To work it out. So obviously I expect to fill the seminar quite soon But as of now, like I said, I've got four or five spots open now just to top off what I almost finished off with on The last show I have just a little bit more to say about gringos coming down here cleaning up doing seminars Now I mentioned that just lately in the past year or two
[01:35] Big first world seminar outfits like that Kaplan seminar outfit in the States are coming down here to big hotels and offering Seminars to capture the Latin buck Basically, they're just rehashed first world seminars from the 90s and early 2000s When people in the States still had the money to blow on such things Before the dot-com and the real estate bubbles popped anyway So companies like that realize the market's saturated up in the States and people just don't have the dough anymore So some smart people in those organizations figured out if they just translate and rehash the same old same old in Spanish They've got a whole new Incompletely educated audience that they can mesmerize with a lot of help from the gringo advantage Let's figure if it's first world. It must be good. Anyway, occasionally, you see an individual First world seminar has been touting his rehash seminars in Spanish down here, too
[02:25] And these guys have figured out that you really have to lowball the seminar costs You can't go charging two three or five hundred bucks a pop for a weekend Like you were able to do back in the States in the 90s with let's say a real estate flipping seminar Instead they keep their seminars around 50 to maybe 75 bucks to hear a guy babble for a day or two in a hotel salon Just enough to tap into the lower end of the Latin white-collar class that earns between 500 to maybe 800 bucks a month and of course you could do it by payments naturally In fact, you can put minuscule amounts on debit and credit cards down here Everybody does it and it always blows my mind when I see someone put such a small amount like that on a credit card To me even putting 25 or 50 bucks on a credit card seems ridiculous besides the catch word for us expats and wannabes and gone a bees is
[03:13] Anonymity right so use cash whenever you can but unfortunately that only seems to apply to us gringos and expats In fact just the other day I was at a high-end shopping mall and I was watching people pull out their credit card to pay a two or three dollar bill At the parking garage. I mean come on I know in the states they have a minimum credit card charge of something like 10 or 20 bucks But down here looks like you can put anything even 50 cents on a credit card if you want So you can imagine how low the salaries are that they pay those number crunchers working at banks who process those credit card transactions Yep, they only make about three or four hundred bucks a month So credit card transaction fees down here are a fraction of what they are up in the states In fact, I understand up in the states There's a three to five dollar credit card processing fee for every hundred dollars you put on your credit card and that pretty much says
[04:02] It all right, but let's get back to talking about first-world people who figured out they can make a ton of money rehashing tired old seminars Down here as long as they translate them into Spanish and polish them up with a first-world spin now the latest and what might be The greatest of these first-world seminar dog and pony shows that are making it down here is one I just happened to spot a couple of weeks ago in a big city latin newspaper That seems to be just now making the rounds through latin america and this one believe it or not Claims to train you up in just four hours in the hotel salon in all the ins and outs of investing in wall street And of course if you manage to graduate that four-hour course and who doesn't you get a beautiful frame diploma and down here Latins really prize those things it doesn't matter if it's a frame diploma for having the best penmanship in the fourth grade
[04:51] Latins will mount those things in a place of honor for everybody to see and they'll never throw one away no matter how insignificant and it's amazing sometimes we'll walk into a house or a guy's office a lower middle management guy even and there'll be a wall That's absolutely jam-packed with diplomas of all kinds with practically none of them Signifying anything important down here you get a four-color frame diploma if you're the best tupperware salesman in the neighborhood In fact you get one if you're the only tupperware salesperson in the neighborhood And you'll find that right up on the wall in the living room Next to the wedding the graduation photos and the picture of the Pope and the Queen of Spain now you think I'm digressing here But just remember this if you're gonna put on a seminar here No matter how worn and old and cheesy and sleazy when it's all over if you spend an extra 50 cents and get that real
[05:39] high-quality diploma Every one of your attendees is gonna walk away happy and I guarantee you that your useless diploma will sit in a place of honor Alongside other equally useless diplomas in countless Latin households and by the way at my Latin American seminars you get no such diploma Now like I said the latest and greatest example I've seen of an absolutely useless seminar That's gonna make a ton of money is making the rounds down here right now now this half-page ad itself says it best It's called wall street a course model designed for you to get your diploma in wall street investment And by the way notice right up front They say you'll get your diploma and here's a list of what you're gonna learn at this course It says you will understand the wall street markets and indexes
[06:25] They'll teach you how to open a brokerage account so you can do wall street investing You'll learn how to buy and sell options futures bonds and currencies, etc You'll learn how to make money when wall street goes up then when wall street goes down You'll learn about margins how to risk less than 5% per transaction and obtain Unlimited winnings now bear with me here because I'm translating this directly from Spanish anyway, it says here in the ad you'll learn how to analyze the fundamentals of businesses and Analyze the graphs and charts and most importantly you'll learn how to select the precise day in which to make your investment and Much more and you'll learn all of that and more in four hours Now who do you think this course is directed at it says right here?
[07:11] It's a course specifically for people who are economically active whatever that means I guess a shoeshine boy is economically active, right? Anyway, then it says it's directed at anyone who desires to understand how to administer investment portfolios and the machinations of the US stock market And then finally it says it doesn't matter what profession you're actually in this course is for you Now another little twist with this ad is that they don't state the names or photos of any first world people No supposed first world Wall Street gurus are coming down to give this course instead they've got a picture of some Latin American television newscaster and he's gonna present and moderate this conference and Being that I know something about radio and television in Latin America
[07:59] I know this particular TV personality makes about 1200 bucks a month on his TV newscaster job And believe me 1200 bucks a month is big money down here and since he's such a successful high roller It's only natural that he give a seminar like this on how the average Latin guy can become the next Latin George Soros Anyway, you get the idea now I think after all this talk about doing seminars and conferences down here You have to realize by now that anything that touts a first world subject like that Wall Street For example, which I admit is a pretty good title for a seminar Anyway, just a solid first world title like that will sell the thing out No matter how bogus or ridiculous the claims and the promises are after all when you charge only 25 or 50 bucks for a Seminar like that even if no one in the room ever makes a single dime or invest in anything having to do with Wall Street
[08:46] Once they get that nice glossy first world diploma in English, and that's key. You can just bet there'll be no unhappy customers Oh, and here's another thing I talked to a middle-class Latin guy a young guy who got his business administration degree about two years ago from the usual crappy Nearly free public university the government university in El Salvador Now this guy's an assistant manager at one of expat Eddie's sushi restaurants making about 500 bucks a month Which is a step up from where he used to work as an assistant manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken Where last year he was making about 400 a month. That's with his public school BA degree now Yep, that's what a business degree will get you down here from a crap public school That is if you don't have connections anyway
[09:32] This guy told me he went to a similar investment style seminar a few months ago And of course he had to diploma to prove it and I asked him what he got out of it And if it was worth it, I think he paid 35 bucks he said everybody got a nice handout and they all walked out of that seminar with flyers and pamphlets and some internet sites and Addresses but the thing is he did admit that probably half of the attendees didn't even have internet in their homes Oh, they have computers. Alright seems like these days most families have a computer I'll be at old boxy clunky ones Some of them even 10 years are so old because you see unlike in the first world where everyone throws their computer away after it Crashes or is a little out of fashion down here. There's a huge aftermarket for used computers All you have to do is look in the classified yellow page section in any newspaper and take your pick for a hundred or two
[10:20] Hundred bucks you could have your choice of vintage computers with clunky monitors and tiny little hard drives But you see the thing is it's the home internet service that costs now It doesn't cost a lot to us maybe 10 to 35 bucks a month But the average latin person that wants internet doesn't even have credit to qualify for a long-term contract for a year or a year And a half at a time instead They'd buy these little stick modems for like 20 or 25 bucks and they buy the scratch-off time cards like they do for the cheap Throwaway cell phones and use those things to charge up their little stick modems for one day or even one hour at a time Because you see down here the cheapest scratch-off card You can buy is between 40 and 60 cents US depending which latin country you're in and at first it sounds unreal But it's the truth now that'll give you a whole hour of internet service with that stick modem
[11:07] And that's not an hour you get to pick and choose either. It's one hour from when you activate the thing So you use it or lose it? Whoopee, huh? Don't laugh those one-hour internet sessions are extremely popular down here So what kind of internet service do you get for that one hour at 50 or 60 cents you get a velocity of 2 megabytes per Second maximum and a download limit of 500 megabytes And for example, if you want internet for a whole day now, it'll cost you a $2 scratch-off card So anyway, you can see where I'm going here The fact is only about 15 percent of latin americans have internet in the home 24 7 or nearly 24 7 though About 40 percent of latin's have internet in the home Very intermittently like for example only a couple of days a month using those scratch-off cards
[11:55] That's why down here cafe Internets are so very popular since when you're off the tourist trail and in local neighborhoods You can get yourself a whole hour of internet there for about 50 cents, too So then you might ask if those little stick modems are so popular and cheap that is equal in cost if you spend just An hour at a cafe internet But if you want a whole day the scratch-off card will cost you only two bucks Which is a huge savings over a 24-hour period at a cafe internet So it does seem a no-brainer to get one of those stick modems and buy the scratch-off cards, right? That is if you're on a low low budget and perpetually broke like 90% of latin americans are if so Why aren't the cafe internets just dying off? Well, that's because all those clunky old computers that people have at home They're just loaded with viruses since most latin americans
[12:44] Don't bother to buy a good antivirus because it's too expensive for them. Anyway, like maybe 35 or 40 bucks a year So basically a lot of computers in the home are going raw or they install one of those free Antiviruses you get off the internet that are never as good as buying a package and registering it legitimately yourself because remember Once you buy a package like that legally your antivirus package is constantly updating itself and checking the internet to eliminate new viruses when they come along and there are dozens of new ones popping up every Day, you know that you don't get that with those free stripped-down versions that are available all over the internet And that's why just about every time I've ever used a latin person's home computer and stuck in my own flash drive to do something I end up picking up a nasty virus that my own computer finds when I reinsert my flash drive into my computer's port
[13:33] Yep, that's the state of things down here. And that's why I never recommend you do that yourself Don't stick your flash drive into a computer in a latin person's house because after that if you're not careful You could easily inject it into your own home computer I know I've done it and so have all my gringo friends But we learn at least we think we do in fact yours truly in a very good latin lawyer friend of mine We're out at one of those cafe internets ourselves and why would we do that if we both have good internet at home? Well, it's because it's good to mix things up a bit those cafe internets are completely anonymous In fact, there's certainly the way to go if you want to stay completely under the radar and not that you're doing anything illegal But I'm sure some people are no matter. It's none of my business. The thing is why should you knowingly help the surveillance state?
[14:20] I mean the US surveillance state, of course, you already know the NSA and the alphabet agencies are tapping everything I say throw a wrench into their works whenever you can you can do that by using cafe internets using anonymous email services and search engines that strip your IP address like start page dot-com and Anytime a website asks for your name or some data screw them up when you can and give them fictitious ones or better yet Sign up for anything and everything using names addresses emails and phone numbers of people You don't like like US senators congressman and any politician you can think of they all suck and deserve to be digging Ditches so screw with them every time you can they've been doing it to you since you were born Just have a look at what your tax dollar pays for almost nothing. That's useful to you only to them
[15:08] Oh and one more thing to keep yourself off the radar Use anonymous tunneling when you can too and I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about anyway, my lawyer friend and I were at that cafe internet using our flash drives and as bad luck would have it a virus somehow got Into both of our flash drives and wiped them out completely But we didn't know that for a day or two till we tried them in our own computers And that's why you should always have one of those little external hard drives for backup But you knew that already right and you have one though I bet you haven't backed up a thing for a long long while right but recognize even though it's first worlders fall down a little Bit on that stuff were infinitely better than Latins when it comes to backing up things now as for me I had a backup of that flash whose dad I lost completely and my lawyer buddy. He still winds when I bring it up
[15:55] He lost everything and had no backup Typical Latin, huh? The word backup like the word maintenance is a pretty new concept for Latin Americans and very few are on board with It and that's part of our gringo advantage. So it's bad for them and good for us, right? So take that information for what it's worth. Okay enough said about that now Here's some late-breaking news about that situation in Mexico and what situation in Mexico. Am I talking about well? Take your pick and they're all mostly bad mostly that is because I actually have a little good news coming out of Mexico Though not enough for me ever to recommend the place But anyway, because I'm here to tell you the good the bad the ugly and the great this you have to hear but first Let's get some of the bad news out of the way now This directly affects all those poor expat saps about 1 million of them who are living there right now
[16:43] Most who've made some kind of investment a condo a beach house Whatever and are stuck there and would like to get the hell out But as most gringos know by now Mexico is in no place us first-world folks want to be and right now I'm gonna read excerpts from this AP article on the rash of business Extortions that are going down right now in Mexico So you'll get an idea of what's happening to people even professionals who have brick-and-mortar businesses Not that this is news hot off the presses extortion rackets have been going on a long time It's just that now for the first time it's affecting expat gringos and the Mexican professional classes Okay, this report comes out of Mexico City and it says when the threatening phone calls demanding $20,000 in protection money began in December. Dr. Roman Gomez shrugged them off believing his clinic on the outskirts of Mexico City
[17:35] Couldn't possibly be of interest to criminal gangs a few months later His sense of security was shattered when three armed men barged into his office screaming. Dr. Ramon you bastard. Where are you? I hope I did that right then they tried to tackle him and take him out of the clinic and Then he saw each one had a pistol tucked in his belt Then he went slack and stopped resisting completely He figured that they thought because he was a doctor. He wasn't gonna resist but he did at first big mistake And I'll paraphrase a bit here But the article basically says such shakedowns have long targeted businesses in the most violent neighborhoods of Mexico Now the practice is spreading experts say the increase is a byproduct of Mexico's crackdown on the nation's drug gangs as
[18:23] Authorities nab cartel bosses and break up chains of command Hundreds of lower level gunman and traffickers are desperate for income and are looking for income in new places Targets include everything from multinational businesses to corner pharmacies and now lately unsuspecting holiday makers expat and gringo holiday makers For example, it says in the tourism industry Mexico's third largest source of foreign revenue It's been one of the hardest hit for extortion It says for example in recent months guests of at least a dozen hotels in scenic colonial Excella City have started receiving calls from strangers Saying they would be kidnapped if they didn't pay between 300 and 1500 bucks immediately
[19:09] Hotel operators report the way extortionates operate is to call the hotel and ask for a particular room and then Start threatening whoever answers most especially when a gringo or an English speaking voice answers then they know they've got a live one a Vulnerable catch in a foreign country that has instant resources to pay Some people pay and some people don't the gringos and the expats almost always do though many times They never reported simply because of fear and threats and the fact that they are in another country not to mention first worlders in Mexico Rarely speak Spanish well, but the extortionists they know just enough English to get their point across So the figures on the actual numbers of extortion crimes reported can never be accurate and it's been estimated
[19:56] That the actual number of extortion crimes may well be ten times what the official figures represent in fact all Mexican authorities do acknowledge the vast majority of extortions go unreported and Authorities do report that since April of this year Extortion is now the second most common crime after common street robberies now Mexican government Spokesmen say it's a paradoxical effect due to the so-called government success and anti-drug efforts. Haha and Just as an aside here We all know that's pure crap if you remember what I mentioned a couple of shows ago corrupt Policemen are almost always involved in extortion crimes in fact Everyone down here in Latin America knows that in Mexico the phrase corrupt cop is a redundancy
[20:46] If you don't remember what I said about that just go back a few weeks ago And here what I had to say about the Mexican cops anyway about the fact that the Mexican government says they're winning the drug War if you want to get a person on his deathbed to laugh his ass off just mention that you know us first worlders Expect governments to say stupid things like that ours does it all the time well It's the same down in Mexico only worse since it's about ten times more ridiculous and the only people that believe that BS are Well, actually I can't think of anyone right now except maybe Obama now this part of the article is interesting It says dr Oscar Zavala president of the National Union of Pharmacy owners a trade group of about 6,000 small Independently owned pharmacies says that one out of four Mexican drug stores has been hit by an extortion demand in the year
[21:36] 2012 alone meaning that every four years a hundred percent of small Mexican pharmacies will have Extortion demands made on them now that one in four number for 2012 isn't the real number either though the figures are uncertain Pharmacists claim. It's double that 50% of all pharmacies have been hit with extortion demands in 2012 now the pharmacist themselves say many don't report those demands to the police because they believe the police themselves are in on it Zavala's head of that pharmacy group says gangs usually call up the drugstore and demand an average of $2,300 a month actually demanding that the drugstore owner deposit the money in an existing bank account under threat of kidnapping
[22:22] And get this a gang member actually delivers a deposit slip to the drugstore owner With all the account details filled in already talk about a businessman's worst nightmare Isn't that the ballsiest thing you ever heard of and the cops in the government do nothing about it, of course Also being reported all over Mexico is that hardware stores? Newspaper delivery men bus drivers and taxi drivers are nearly all victims of extortion attempts, too In fact, it says one truck driver was given his extortion demand at gunpoint He was told he had to pay an amount of 3,000 pesos a week about $230 for the right to deliver newspapers on a route that he's had for 21 years now
[23:08] $230 a week is more than that driver actually makes meaning he had to cut a deal and by the way You can't cut a deal with extortionists. It's like any business transaction They start high and you come in low until the extortionists feel they've made a deal and you can continue paying Since they don't want to break you or bankrupt you they want a continuous weekly dribble of funds from a lot of different sources Though to show they mean business about one out of twenty businessman who agrees to the extortion measure gets a family member beat up killed Or kidnapped just to scare all the other local businessmen into compliance And here's another example at the opposite end of the country If you think it's just happening in Mexico City and Xala It says in the article in the state of Michigan Everyone from market vendors to cattle ranchers and lumber mill operators have reported being assigned fixed monthly extortion quotas
[24:01] specifically by the Knights Templar drug cartel whose extortion demands have become so bold that in 2012 its gunman attacked facilities belonging to the Sabritas snack company a large Mexican subsidy of Pepsi Cola that ships product to ten different countries in Latin America now just as an aside I see those Sabritas trucks everywhere I go in Latin America and I can't help thinking when I see the truck driver and a guy in the Passenger seat riding shotgun and there really is a guy riding shotgun with a loaded shotgun. Anyway, I can't help thinking What's the point the guy riding shotgun with the shotgun is just for show since these guys are all paying extortion fees to the racket Now the article goes on to say for those who refuse to pay
[24:47] Punishment is as certain as a site of a burnt-out delivery truck and warehouse Examples that have already dotted the local landscape So anyway, if a report like that doesn't completely scare you off from going to Mexico, then I don't know what will but you know I still get emails from people saying but Johnny south of Cancun and Playa del Carmen on that Mexican strip on the way down to Belize there are some pretty nice stretches of land and some great beachfront property and some spots that seem awful quiet and livable some beautiful areas and yes, I know that's true. I've been there I know the area, but I'm telling you you're still in Mexico Mexico has the most corrupt government and police force in all of Latin America
[25:33] I guarantee you that and there's just no way to fix it basically your little islands of tranquility and security on the Yucatan Peninsula are getting smaller and smaller as the crooks the Cartels the racketeers and the cops milk the other parts of Mexico dry. So where do you think they're gonna come next? It's not if but when remember Mexico's got a population explosion going on within the poor and the uneducated Classes, of course And what do you think's gonna happen to all these jobless young kids who want everything they see on first world cable TV and don't Want to work for it? Well, some are gonna sneak into the states Of course and some will get caught and sent back then they'll try it again a few more times and eventually they'll head for greener Pastures within their own country and where would that be? Try the Yucatan. Why not?
[26:19] That's where all those gringo tourists are so if you want to move there be my guest and if you're there already all I got to say is I hope it lasts but I wouldn't bet on it. And as far as the rest of Latin America. What about extortions? Yes, every Latin American country has its share of problems like that In fact, it actually is quite rampant in densely populated lower middle class and poor neighborhoods In fact in all middle sized and large cities those neighborhoods have always been affected by crooks and extortion But you don't see much of that at all in those small towns under 50,000 population But yes, it does happen frequently in certain parts of larger cities But almost never in upper middle class or upscale areas But you already know if you've been listening to the expat files for any length of time Smart gringos and expats do not live and work in middle or lower middle class areas
[27:08] We prefer to live like first world people do now Of course, there are some gringos and expats who do live in middle class neighborhoods Middle-class Latin American style that is which would be about trailer trash style in the first world Oops, I'm up against the time clock again. Okay, so next show. I'll actually talk about something good that's happening in Mexico I know I promised this show I'd do that, but there's just no time 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 expat wisdom.com to sign up for your free Reports on Latin America. See you next time nos vemos