Episode Summary
In this episode of The Expat Files, Johnny Mueller dives into the complexities of utility bills in Latin America, the high cost of electricity, and the widespread issue of piracy. He discusses how expats struggle to understand confusing bills, the impact of subsidies on pricing, and the challenges of enforcement in the region. Johnny also touches on the prevalence of pirated goods and services, highlighting the cultural and systemic issues that contribute to this phenomenon.
Johnny begins by discussing the complexity of utility bills in Latin America, particularly focusing on electric bills. He explains that these bills are often confusing and poorly structured, even for those who speak Spanish. He highlights the lack of transparency and the presence of various charges, including subsidies for low-income users, which can make the bills even more difficult to understand. He also touches on the disparity in pricing between Latin America and the first world, noting that while the first world has more structured pricing with subsidies and different rates for peak and off-peak usage, Latin America's system is often chaotic and opaque. Johnny concludes by emphasizing that expats often give up trying to understand these bills due to the frustration and lack of support from utility companies.
He then discusses the complexity and confusion of his electric bill in Latin America, highlighting the lack of transparency and the difficulty in understanding the charges. He mentions the national sales tax called EVA, which is similar to the value-added tax in Europe but with no refund process for expats. He also explains the municipal tax and how it's applied to everything except the federal tax. Johnny then simplifies the bill by calculating the cost per kilowatt hour, revealing that electricity prices in Latin America are significantly higher than in the first world, with some expats paying up to 26 cents per kilowatt hour. He concludes by comparing these prices to those in the US and Europe, noting that electricity is not a good deal in Latin America, which has led some industries to move to countries like China.
Johnny continues by discussing the high cost of electricity in Latin America and how it has led to the relocation of sweatshop industries to countries like China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, where electricity is significantly cheaper. He highlights that while most goods are cheaper in Latin America, imported goods from the first world are more expensive. Johnny also explains the electricity subsidy system, where the poorest 50% of the population pays very low rates, while the middle and upper classes, including expats, pay higher rates. He notes that despite the subsidy, people do not conserve energy because the cost is so low, and even expats, who use more electricity, do not significantly reduce their consumption. Johnny also touches on the issue of electricity theft, which is more common in Latin America due to the chaotic electrical infrastructure and lack of enforcement.
He then discusses the prevalence of power and cable TV theft in certain neighborhoods, particularly among the middle and lower classes. He explains that most theft is done covertly, often by tapping into power lines for a few days a week or on weekends to avoid detection. He highlights the lack of enforcement and the existence of a gray market for clandestine hookups. Johnny also notes that the presence of multiple cable TV companies makes it easy for thieves to switch providers if caught. He emphasizes that the lack of prosecution and the low cost of energy subsidies encourage theft.
Johnny moves on to discuss the state of television access for expats in Latin America. He mentions that while it's possible to get local TV through an antenna, the quality is poor and not recommended. Satellite TV is a better option, but it's primarily used by the affluent and middle classes as a status symbol. Johnny notes that satellite TV is relatively cheap, but many people can't afford it and end up with payment plans. He also talks about the prevalence of pirated equipment and services that allow people to access premium channels without paying. Johnny shares that he doesn't use such services himself because he doesn't watch much TV. He also touches on the broader issue of intellectual property piracy in the region, citing examples like pirated software and the lack of enforcement of anti-piracy laws. He concludes by emphasizing that piracy is widespread and that it's practically impossible to avoid in everyday life.
Finally, Johnny discusses the prevalence of pirated goods in Latin America, particularly near government buildings. He suggests that expats who are uncomfortable with this aspect of life may not be suited for the region. He also highlights how government officials are often aware of and participate in the pirated goods trade, which he uses as a commentary on the region's status as part of the 'third world.'
Topics
Utility bills in Latin America, Complexity of billing structures, Subsidies for low-income users, Pricing disparities between Latin America and the first world, Frustration among expats with utility companies, Electricity costs in Latin America, Understanding utility bills, EVA (national sales tax), Comparative electricity prices, Expat experiences with utility bills, Electricity subsidies and their impact, Energy efficiency and its relevance to low-income populations
Chapters
00:00:00 Opening 00:00:16 Explaining the Complexity of Utility Bills 00:00:21 Comparing Pricing in Latin America and the First World 00:00:25 Discussing Subsidies and Charges 00:00:30 Highlighting the Frustration of Expats 00:05:20 The Complexity of Understanding Electric Bills in Latin America 00:07:30 Municipal Taxes and Double Taxation 00:10:15 Comparative Electricity Prices in Latin America vs. the First World 00:10:51 Electricity Costs and Industry Relocation 00:11:23 Electricity Subsidies and Usage Patterns 00:15:09 Electricity Theft and Infrastructure Issues 00:16:34 Power Theft in Lower-Income Neighborhoods 00:17:57 Subsidized Energy Rates and Theft Incentives 00:19:58 Cable TV Theft and Enforcement Challenges 00:21:34 The State of Local TV in Latin America 00:21:53 Satellite TV as a Status Symbol 00:23:05 Piracy and Gray Market Services 00:24:24 Legal and Enforcement Issues with Piracy 00:25:14 The Prevalence of Pirated Software 00:26:31 Expat Wannabes and Pirated Goods in Latin America 00:26:54 Pirated Goods Near Government Buildings 00:27:28 Why It's Called the Third World
Transcript
Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.
[00:11] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller, and you're listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, the one of a kind show that tells you what it's like to live, work, play, and or retire in Latin America, so let's get started. I got a recent email from an expat asking me to explain why it's so difficult to read a utility bill statement from down here. So right now, I want to go over an electric company bill I have right in front of me, and you'll see that it's just as confusing, if not more so, than any bill that you might get up in the first world. And like I said before, down here, almost all companies, and especially government bureaucracies, like to copy everything first world that they can, and when they do, it's almost always spectacularly mediocre or worse.
[00:56] And I'll tell you right now, even if you speak really good Spanish, you're not going to be able to figure these bills out. The fact is, some of us expats don't call them utility bills, we call them futility bills. Now the question that always seems to come up is, what is the price of kilowatt hours down here as compared to the price of kilowatt hours up in the first world? Now I know that up in the first world, you can be paying anywhere from 12 cents to 20 cents a kilowatt hour, depending on what country and state you live in. And that a lot of countries subsidize your usage depending on how many kilowatts you use a month. Not to mention that some countries and states have a peak usage rate and an off-peak rate too. And to make things worse, you have the consumer rate, the commercial rate, and the industrial
[01:41] rate too. And because of all that mumbo-jumbo, up in the first world anyway, you kind of just look at the bottom line, and if it's somewhere near what you paid last month, well, you just give up and pay it. And that's just about how it goes down here in the third world too. Because as long as I've been down here, I've yet to see anybody fight it out with a utility company and actually get satisfaction. You usually end up wasting a lot of hours in a hot sweaty line, and you get nothing but loads of frustration out of it. Okay, so right now, let me go through a simple electric bill that I just got recently. And I'm looking at this bill, and I've been charged 220 kilowatt hours for the last month. And on this bill, there are seven separate charges, and the first one being about a dollar, just for me being a client.
[02:27] So my charge for being a client that month was a dollar. And they put nicely in parentheses that they didn't charge me taxes on that dollar. Well, how nice of them. Now the next charge on the bill is about 20 bucks. And that's an energy charge for the first 106 kilowatt hours that I used that month. Now don't ask me why they picked that magic number, 106 kilowatt hours. It just doesn't make sense to me. Which actually works out to about 18 cents per kilowatt hour, but only for that first 106 kilowatt hours that I use. Now I'm wondering, what am I paying for the rest of those kilowatt hours? And it really doesn't make sense, because I read in the papers all the time, that there is a subsidy for the poor in almost all Latin American countries. And in most countries down here, anybody who uses 100 kilowatt hours or less a month is
[03:16] considered poor and gets a huge subsidy. They pay only about a quarter as much, or even less, for that first 100 kilowatt hours they use. And in some countries down here, that subsidy business gets really complicated. There's a subsidy for those who use 100 kilowatt hours or less a month, and there's a subsidy at a different rate for those who use between 100 and 200 kilowatt hours per month. And then there's another subsidy at yet a different rate for those who use between 200 kilowatt hours and 300 kilowatt hours per month. And after 300 kilowatts, then you pay the regular rate. And who knows what the regular rate is? And then there's those special deals that those big corporations get when they come down and open up sweatshops and other kind of factories and businesses. And in some cases they get to what amounts to free power for periods of 5 and even 10
[04:05] years. And since there's nothing transparent about the way these guys do their backroom deals, it's not often that the public ever even finds out. Okay, so much for sweetheart deals and borderline corruption. Looking at my bill again, remember I said for the first 106 kilowatt hours that I used that month, I got charged about 20 bucks. Which works out to about 19 cents a kilowatt hour. Now here's where it gets really confusing, because the next charge, charge number 3 on the bill, is called a solidarity charge, whatever that means. And it's actually a credit on that first 106 kilowatt hours that I used. Well thanks for that credit guys, where did that come from? And it's a credit of about 2 bucks. Okay the next charge, charge number 4, they're building me about 25 bucks of 134 kilowatts
[04:55] that I used of pure resistance energy. Now I doubt if 1% of the population up in the first world even knows what resistance energy is, as compared to reactive energy, which has to do with inductance and capacitance, which concerns the power drawn by motors, like in your refrigerator, your dryer, or your washing machine. So if less than 1% of the population of the first world knows the difference between resistance and inductance, how's the average guy down here, with like a 6th grade education, gonna have the faintest idea what he's looking at. He's lucky if he could just read and pronounce the words, resistance and inductance. I mean half the people down here don't even have hot water, and half of those people still cook with firewood.
[05:41] But back to my own electric bill, which I can't understand, and I'm an engineer. At least in a former life I used to be an engineer. Now for the next charge, charge number 5, it says they've built part of my total kilowatt hours without assessing the 12% national sales tax called EVA. And in a previous show I explained to you what the EVA is, it's Latin American version of the value added tax like they have in Europe. Only I might add that in Europe, for foreigners and visitors, you can actually get a refund on the value added tax when you leave the country and turn in your sales receipts at the airport. And, it's supposed to work that way too down here in Latin America, but guess what, I never met anyone, expat or not, who actually got their just refund even when they had all
[06:29] their paperwork in order. But this is the third world, so don't let that surprise you. But back to my completely confusing electrical utility bill. Okay on the next line, line number 6, there's a listing of kilowatt hours where I actually do get charged for the national sales tax called EVA. And how they determine those numbers, I'll never know either, and I don't even want to try. And I don't suppose 95% of the people down at the building office could give me a straight answer either. And do remember, if you go down there and try to hash things out, you'd better have a decent command of Spanish, because chances are nobody down there is going to know much English. And if you happen to run into somebody that actually does, you can forget about it, because since they can't really explain in Spanish what those bills are all about, how they're
[07:17] going to do it in broken English. Okay and that brings us to line 7, and here it says there's a municipal charge, in other words a municipal tax, on everything but the federal tax. Which means I guess they're not taxing you on the tax. Which is awful nice to know, because nobody likes double taxation. In fact, I think there's been some wars fought over that. Are you with me here on this? I didn't think so. And that brings us to the bottom line of the statement. A final charge for the month of about $52 US dollars. Which pretty much brings us right back around to your utility bill in the first world. You look at the bottom line, and if it's pretty much like last month's, you just pay it.
[08:03] At least 99% of the people just shut up and pay it. So after all is said and done, now that you've actually come to the bottom line charge, you're at the point where you can actually simplify things. You can take that $52 bottom line charge and divide it by 220 kilowatt hours that you use for the month, and actually come out with a number. And that's your charge per kilowatt hour. With all that other diversionary crap stripped away from it. And you know, for 95% of us, that's all we really care about is the bottom line. Just skip the crap and tell us exactly what we pay per kilowatt hour. And while I'm at it, I might as well tell you what a kilowatt hour is, because I don't think 75% of the people in the first world really have a good grasp on that.
[08:49] Now here's an easy way to think about it. When you buy an appliance or anything that you plug in, it has a watt rating on it. For example, a 100 watt light bulb. Now that watt, or wattage rating, just means how many watts that particular appliance or whatever uses in one hour. So take a 100 watt light bulb for example. It uses 100 watts in one hour. That means in 10 hours, it uses 1000 watts, 100 times 10. And a kilowatt hour, which are the units they charge you on your electric bill, is 1000 watts, because kilo means 1000. So therefore, a 100 watt light bulb uses 1 kilowatt in 10 hours. So if you leave any 100 watt light bulb on for 10 hours, it'll use 1 kilowatt.
[09:40] And for example, if your electric company charges you 15 cents per kilowatt hour, that means to keep that bulb on for 10 hours, it costs you 15 cents. Now why didn't they teach us that in grade school? Hmm, maybe they did. Now when I do the bottom line math, on my electric bill example down here, I come to the realization that I've been paying 23 cents a kilowatt hour. And if you compare that 23 cents per kilowatt hour I paid down here to any of the prices up in the first world, you'll find out that Latin American electric prices are on the absolute high end of the scale, and in some cases, even double of what you'd pay up in some of the states in the US. Now one expat friend of mine reports he pays 25 cents a kilowatt hour in Costa Rica, and
[10:28] another expat tells me he pays 26 cents a kilowatt hour in Colombia. And well, you get the idea. Now some people up in the states have reported to me that the price per kilowatt hour has been increasing rapidly, and that the average price up there now, roughly speaking, is about 15 cents a kilowatt hour, and in Europe, it's a little higher than that, around 18 cents a kilowatt hour. So basically electric power down here is not a good deal, and that's why a lot of these cheap labor, so-called sweat shop industries, have picked up and left for places like China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, where the prices can be a quarter of what they are in Latin America, at 4, 5, and 6 cents a kilowatt hour. And though most everything else down here is much, much cheaper than in the first world,
[11:15] that is except things that are imported from the first world, which of course are going to be more expensive. Anyway, electric power, it's not a good deal. So it's a very good thing that in more than 80% of Latin America, you don't need air conditioning. But down here, if you use less than 100 kilowatt hours a month, you really get a good deal. Because in almost all the countries down here, the poorest 50% of the population, the ones that live in tin shacks with dirt floors and no glass windows, and have just one bare light bulb in the kitchen, and maybe a refrigerator and a TV, and that's it. Now those people who make up about 250 million, or 50% of the people in Latin America, are paying maybe 4, 5, and 6 cents a kilowatt hour, a hefty subsidy paid for by charging
[12:03] higher prices to the middle and upper classes, and that includes expats. Now most expats I know use between 250 and 700 kilowatt hours per month. Now you'd think that because everybody knows there's a huge subsidy if you use 100 kilowatt hours or less, that the higher usage people would be cutting corners like crazy. Now shouldn't that be a great incentive for everybody and his brother to try to conserve enough energy that you might slip down into that 100 kilowatt hour window where you pay like about a fourth of what you'd pay normally. But that really hasn't been the case at all, because those people using 3, 4, 5, 600 kilowatt hours a month, for them it's almost impossible to cut back so much that they'd hit that
[12:48] magic 100 kilowatt hour tipping point. Everybody loved to do it, but most people don't even try. In fact, as for me, I've been away from my house for months at a time and had it virtually locked down, and still my bills came in at over 100 kilowatt hours per month, and I wasn't even there. And as for those poor people who do get that subsidy, their bills are so low that they don't even bother to try to save energy. They're not going to spend 5 bucks on one of those energy efficient fluorescent bulbs when they can spend 50 cents on a 60 watt bulb that's 5 times less efficient. To them it makes no financial sense at all. Because you have to remember, if someone's using 100 kilowatt hours a month and they're only paying 5 cents a kilowatt hour, that's only $5 a month for the entire electric bill.
[13:36] It seems like a paradox, but those low income people who have that subsidy, they don't give one thought to the fact that their 30 year old refrigerators with the broken door seals are sucking energy at 3 times the rate of a modern refrigerator, and they don't care that their microwave oven is sparking like a 4th of July sparkler, and that the newer ones are twice as efficient. No, they don't care about that. And all you listeners know about those little yellow stickers that show your yearly energy consumption on your new appliance, and how much energy you can expect to save as compared to your typical older appliance. Well, those yellow energy stickers have absolutely no relevance to the average poor person down in Latin America. Plus there's the fact that if they ever do buy a new appliance, they have no idea what
[14:24] it says because it's in English. Duh. And why should they even care about energy efficiency if they're only paying about $5 a month for 100 kilowatt hours? Even if the family only makes about $200 or $300 a month, even at that, a $5 electric bill is almost nothing. And you might wonder how expats feel about that huge subsidy, considering expats are always paying the highest rate. Well, it's human nature that we'd all like to be getting that subsidy, really. But we also know it puts a huge distortion in the marketplace, and it's really not fair. It only serves to disrupt markets, kind of like what rent control does in places like New York. How many people can tell you that was a good idea? And while I'm speaking about electric bills and electric usage, you should know that there's
[15:09] an awful lot of electricity being stolen direct from the power poles. Now, you know that in the first world, if anybody had the balls to tap into an electric power line, when he got caught, he'd get prosecuted to the limits of the law, and his picture would probably be all over the papers, and he might even get some jail time. Not to mention, he runs a big risk of getting electrocuted trying to tap in. And you can bet that the authorities up north could figure out what you're doing in a hurry, because things are monitored so closely, that any tiny drain on the system that's not accounted for, a drop in voltage, or a little extra current draw, is going to get people out there investigating right away. But down here, all you have to do is take a drive through any middle or lower-class neighborhood, and take a look up in the air, and you'll see such a rat's nest of wires,
[15:57] transformers, and leaning twisted power poles, and odd-looking Rube Goldberg-style connections. It's hard to believe that anybody could untangle that rat's nest, and if there's any real plan to it, those plans were lost or destroyed a long time ago. And in all that electrical connection chaos, it would be almost impossible to figure out just who might have tapped in illegally, and who might be stealing power on a small-scale basis, unless someone actually called in and reported you. And I've talked to some electric linemen down here personally, because I want to know how people get away with stealing power, and why most of them never get caught. I found out that the vast majority of power theft goes on in the middle and lower classes in older neighborhoods, and some of the time the electric employee personnel just stumble
[16:44] on these guys by accident. And even though there's supposed to be an all-out effort by the electric company to locate, disconnect, and prosecute these guys, it almost never happens. In fact, the electric companies down here even have posters with 800 numbers on them, offering rewards for turning in power thieves. Well, one insider in the electric company told me the vast majority of these cases are discovered through a phoned-in tip by a disgruntled family member, so-called friend, or, you guessed it, a pissed-off neighbor, or more precisely, a jealous neighbor who isn't getting free power himself, but he knows his neighbor is. But down here, most people who do steal power have become pretty smart about it. The smart ones, instead of boldly tapping into the power lines and stealing power 24
[17:32] hours a day, tap in maybe only two or three days a week, or on weekends, so that their regular metered service stays in that low, 100-kilowatt-hour range, but yet when they feel like it, they use all the power they want, and still getting that big government subsidy we talked about, and paying five bucks a month. Now that's another reason why it's not a good idea to subsidize energy, because it gives the incentive for people to steal power. Because if there were no subsidies and everyone was paying the same rates, the rates would drop drastically for the middle and upper classes, and those people are almost always the more productive members of society in terms of labor. And if the electric prices per kilowatt-hour were reasonable enough, there would be really no incentive for them to tap into the power lines and steal.
[18:19] But as most expats see it, the real problem is enforcement. They just don't enforce any of the laws. So you never see in the paper, at least I've never seen, a case where somebody's caught stealing power. But if they did catch a few of these guys, put their faces in the paper, and prosecuted them, you'd see it turn around in a hurry now, wouldn't you? And I asked one power company official why they don't take these guys to court when they catch them, and they do catch a lot of them. And he said, you don't know much about our court system now, do you? It takes about two years to get somebody in front of a judge and actually complete a case. So what does happen to the guys they catch? Well, they cut their power and take the meter away. And they'll be assessed some arbitrary back charges before they get reconnected. And this official also said there's a pretty good gray market down here for people that'll
[19:07] hook you up clandestinely. Not to mention, there's an even bigger gray market for hooking up clandestine cable TV lines. The truth is that people who have clandestine power hookups are very closed mouth about it, because they don't want to lose their power if they get caught. But if you have a clandestine cable TV hookup, it's no big secret, and a lot of people in the family seem to know about it, and they don't really care. Even the little kids in the family will often seem to know that their cable TV is free, or that it's hooked up to the neighbors somehow. The thing is, practically everybody knows somebody down here who's stealing cable TV. And many of these midnight cable TV installers still work for the cable company during the day or they got fired as cable installers in the past.
[19:54] And the thing is, because nobody ever goes to court or gets prosecuted, people are really bold about stealing from cable TV. And especially in the big cities and high density older neighborhoods, that's where cable TV gets stolen. Because houses tend to be back to back, and they have common walls, so perforations can be made and cables run, so the cable hookups and extensions and crisscrosses are inside the buildings and walls, not on the outside for anyone to see. And besides the fact that if you're caught, almost no one ever gets prosecuted, there's another reason why cable theft is so common. Because in every big city of over 100,000, there's at least a half a dozen cable TV companies to choose from. So if you do happen to get caught, and the cable company gets tough and cuts you off
[20:41] permanently or asks for a big reconnection fee, all you gotta do is call up another cable company and sign up with them. And they'll have a man over the next day to hook you up. Or better yet, you could call up that gray market cable guy and have him come over and hook you up to the very same company that just caught you stealing from him the day before. And don't laugh, I've seen it with my own eyes. And if by some chance you're a really bad boy and you've stolen cable from more than one cable company and gotten caught, and by some quirk of fate the cable companies actually got together and tried to blacklist you, which by the way is only a thought problem, because I've never seen it happen in reality. Anyway, not to worry. If you're a dyed in the wool TV addict, you could always put up a good old fashioned TV
[21:30] antenna on the roof, because there's plenty of regular ground stations. But no expat would ever recommend that, because the quality of the programming on the local stations down here is so pathetic and juvenile, I think if I was forced to watch it for any length of time, I'd probably blow my brains out. But if you really want to get all those first world channels, there's always good old satellite TV. And with that, you get your 200 stations. That is, if that's what you want. Now down here, satellite TVs come in in a big way, but mostly with the upper middle class and the affluent sectors of society. In other words, with the first world wannabes. And even though, down here, satellite TV is much cheaper than up north, and in fact you can get it for as little as 15 bucks a month, with a set up charge of maybe only 20 to 50
[22:19] bucks. Anyway, that kind of money is actually out of range for half the population down here. So having that satellite dish on your roof has become kind of a status symbol with the middle classes. And like I said many times before, down in Latin America, you are what you own. Even if you can't afford it. And most of them can't. So instead, these companies saddle them down with blood sucking payment plans. So if you happen to be driving through any of the lower or middle class residential neighborhoods, you'll almost never see a satellite dish except on restaurants and other businesses. And since I'm talking about satellite TV now, if you look in the classified ads of any newspaper down here, you'll see people selling various pieces of equipment, like special chips, boxes
[23:05] and decoders, designed to defeat those premium cable channel blocks, like HBO and Cinemax and all those premium sports channels everybody always wants. In other words, a lot of people buy the basic satellite TV package and get one of these gray market guys to come in and give them all the premium channels. Now I know what you're thinking, you're wondering if me, the host of the expat files, if I ever hooked up with one of these pirate or gray market services, or if I'm recommending anything like that. Well, actually no. And not because I'm so righteous and honorable, it's just that I don't watch much television. Yes, I do have satellite TV and the basic service. But I hardly watch television at all, except for the occasional movie. And speaking of pirating things in general down here, there's no doubt this is the land
[23:53] of the pirates. I'm telling you, Long John Silver would be proud. And stay tuned, because I'll be doing a show or two on pirates in the near future. But I'll just say this, anything that has to do with intellectual property down here is absolutely at risk. The fact is, I was in a retail computer store just the other day, and there was a big sign on the wall from Microsoft spelling out that pirating is against the law. It's not only illegal throughout all of Latin America, including Panama, where I was at the time. But you can get a $10,000 fine and up to a year in prison. And I asked the owner of the store just how long that law had been in effect. And he said, oh, about three years. And I asked, how many people have been prosecuted? And he said, about none.
[24:41] So Microsoft prints out all those warning signs, and hands them out to all the computer outlets and maintenance places. But nobody does the enforcement. Welcome to Latin America. And down here, they pirate everything. And that goes for clothing and DVDs and software and car parts, you name it, they pirated. Anyway, down here, by the strictest sense of the law, everybody, and I mean everybody, is technically a thief. And that's easily proved by an article I just read down here that said fully 100% of the computers that have been in use at least a year have at least one piece of pirated software in them. And the article went on to say that 60% of the computers bought right off a computer showroom floor contain at least one piece of pirated software too.
[25:30] Hmm, I wonder how that happened. Well, I know how that happens. Last time I bought a computer down here, the tech guy at the computer store gave me two prices for Microsoft Windows. One for the unofficial version and one for the registered version. And down here, computer salesmen often try to close a deal by throwing in a bunch of pirated software. Like Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, you get the idea. So what are you supposed to do about that? If you're an honest forthright person who believes in intellectual property rights, well, if you come down here, you're going to have to put on those rose-colored glasses because you can't avoid it, it's in your face down here. And if you think, if you keep your eyes open, you could say no and avoid it. Just take this for example. I was at a well-known travel agent the other day booking a trip and I noticed a CD-ROM
[26:18] laying on the counter and it was the travel agency's software program and it was pirated. So what do you do, walk out of there and refuse to book a flight because they're using pirated trip booking software? I don't think so. So all you expat wannabes out there, if that kind of stuff rubs you the wrong way, then Latin America just isn't the place for you. I mean, if you don't want to, you don't have to buy into the pirated lifestyle at all down here. But if you just go about your daily business and don't ask too many questions, you're bound to accumulate a lot of that pirated stuff yourself, whether you know it or not. And the fact is, it's well-known that the best places to buy pirated stuff down here are always within a stone's throw of the local government buildings like the presidential
[27:03] palace, the constitutional court building, the halls of congress, the central police buildings. In other words, any government official who has an office downtown walks past all these kiosks loaded with pirated stuff day in and day out. Not only do these government workers know exactly what's happening, they're pretty good customers of the stuff themselves, which gives you an idea how things really work down here. And another reason why they call it the third world. You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America, and don't forget you can email me on anything at all about Latin America. The Expat Files at gmail.com. That's theexpatfiles at gmail.com.
[27:51] See you next time. Nos vemos. South of the border. South of the border.