#505 – Expat Life in Latin America: From Beekeeping to Car Theft

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 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 Okay, we've all heard about that terrible bead die-off That's been happening over the past four or five years up in the states many of you know all about that those of you who listen to alternative media because you know You never get the real poop from the idiot talking heads that are owned by the six gigantic media corporations

[00:49] Anyway, a lot of you expat gonna bees and wannabes out there would really like to come down to Latin America Buy yourself a piece of land and do some kind of farming or maybe you just want to get off the grid and one to get Into a more self-sufficient mode and believe me. It's so easy to do down here Especially when you're in one of the altiplano regions and you know I don't mind admitting I was a clueless gringo when I first came down here, too I didn't even know what the altiplano was till about five years into being an expat down here I always thought you had to be in 9200 degree weather all the time miserably hot and constantly with a coat of sweat on your body meaning you have to have air conditioning all the time Now, of course, you see a lot of Latin American people especially indigenous folks living on the sides of mountains and steep hills

[01:35] Nice cool weather up there If you don't mind living like a goat or a llama those seem to be my two alternatives when I first came down as a clueless gringo, how was I to know about the altiplano? I always wonder why in my geography class in high school and junior high no mention of the altiplano I guess it wasn't still remains one of the world's best kept geography secrets So was it a conspiracy of silence or just first world geography teachers showing their own incomplete? Education's anyway for all you guys and gals up in the first world who would like to come down get back to nature Maybe get off the grid get your own piece of land grow things or raise critters. Whatever I like to mention that one of the booming businesses down here in Latin America is raising bees for honey

[02:20] Which seems to fly in the face of what's been happening up in the first world where beekeepers are really struggling and hives that were Very viable just a couple years ago are now defunct which tends to do what raise prices worldwide supply and demand, right? Well, that said let me read you an excerpt from a Spanish language Latin American business journal that just came out this week It says Latin American honey Exportation and production is up 10 to get this 45% over last year depending what Latin country you're talking about. Whereas honey production up in the States is down about 18% over last year. So how does that jive? Oh and by the way, according to agricultural experts in Latin America They say honeybees in the region are responsible for the pollination of between 10 and 25 percent of all coffee plants

[03:09] Which makes sense and why I've noticed that so much of the honey you get down here Especially at mom-and-pop roadside stands has a very slight tinge and aroma of coffee Once you like to try some of that So yes down here they have thousands and thousands of mom-and-pop operations almost none of them produce honey exclusively They have cows and chickens and maybe a few lemon or avocado trees They're all just small and medium-sized mom-and-pop operations Oh, and by the way, though Latin America may be the second biggest honey producing region in the world Do you know what the first is? Nope, not the US China yes, China produces hundreds of thousands of tons of chemically tainted honey every year You've probably enjoyed a few toxic spoonfuls yourself. Yum. Yum Oh and by the way

[03:55] They've been caught mixing it with other cheaper sugars and additives to thin it out and extend it Of course who's gonna know huh when by the way this article says that every bee colony in Latin America Produces an average of 50 pounds of bulk honey a year and here's something else I don't quite get up in the states raw bulk, honey You know wholesale goes for around 250 to 3 bucks a pound Oddly enough down here you can buy it in one pound jars at one of the local little tandas for the same US Wholesale bulk price or less. So how's that possible down here? Are they thinning it with some other crap like the Chinese do nope? It's all about the fact that it's a manual labor process Just know that Latin American agricultural workers make minimum wage and sometimes much less

[04:45] In fact, I personally spoke to agricultural workers out in the boonies and some of them only make six or eight bucks a day That's half the normal ridiculously low Latin American minimum wage Which is why is so many young kids out in the boonies migrate to the big city where they can actually get a minimum wage job in one of those big factory Makilas, you know making Nike shoes or whatever or Maybe they'll hit the jackpot and get a job at McDonald's Wendy's Pizza Hut or Kentucky Fried Then you get a real uniform and a permanent case of acne to go along with it or is acne a prerequisite for the job I don't know sounds like a good master's theses to me imagine how the abstract might read the unusual predilection of acne in the fast food industry or

[05:31] Something like that you get the idea So you psych and sociology majors you heard it here first go ahead and run with it But I digress boy. Do I digress anyway? There's absolutely no talk whatsoever down here of be colony collapse Now as it turns out the vast majority of beekeepers the mom-and-pop beekeepers, they don't even know what colony collapse is However, the bigger honey producers keep up with that stuff You know, they've got their own organization and they belong to their country's import-export group Because they need to know the ever-changing international food regulations, etc In fact all beekeeping organizations in any particular Latin country offer classes and courses on how you too Can become a beekeeper because as one beekeeper told me they're never lacking for a market

[06:22] the world's always ready to buy their product and in fact if you are a Beekeeper you can join the local beekeeping organization where they have a co-op you bring your honey down and they'll buy it for what? I guess right now is about a buck to a buck 50 a pound Which by the way is about half the world bulk honey price as I mentioned before Oh and another thing one of the Latin beekeeper guys I know actually gave me an instructional CD on how to start your own colonies and manage your bees yes, I looked at it and it's a course done by a mom-and-pop beekeeping family up in the States no less and Predictably a Latin person got a hold of it pirated it and placed a Spanish language soundtrack on it So you can watch it in English or in Spanish and you know about one-third of it is

[07:09] Dedicated to keeping your colony alive during the winter when there's snow and frost down here not a problem Which makes beekeeping even easier south of the border now as far as the numbers Is this gonna work out for you financially? well Like I said before if the average bee colony puts out 50 pounds a year and let's say it can be sold off at the local wholesale co-op for 75 bucks that means if you had a hundred such be colonies you'd make around 7,500 bucks a year now I know what you're thinking a hundred colonies that seems like a lot of work and it is but here's the point those beehive stacks Take up very little space and the way these mom-and-pop beekeepers work They've got a full-time employee. They pay that person about

[07:56] 2,000 bucks a year. That's all agricultural workers do get down here that means that mom-and-pop farmer with a hundred bee colonies and a full-time worker could probably clear about 5,000 bucks a year and like one of these beekeepers told me the cool thing is your full-time guy does all the work you Do basically nothing except monitor quality control and eventually bring the stuff to market So that's a nice no-brainer for an expat However, like the beekeeper said you have to know bees if you go into the business So take one of those courses or study and that's half the battle So there's a cool expat idea for you In fact, I know an expat who did just that he bought an acre or two alongside of a small river Only 15 or 20 kilometers outside of a big Latin city

[08:43] So he's on the boonies, but he's got instant access to everything a big city has to offer He created a label and a little marketing campaign for himself and now he sells boutique honey on Amazon Yep, 12 to 15 bucks a pound and he also sells holiday and a special occasion gift sets, too So in the end he's making about ten times as much as the average beekeeper down here So he says for example if he gets 50 pounds a year out of each colony after expenses, he makes over 500 bucks, so work out the numbers if he has a hundred colonies he makes about 50 grand a year Living like an absolute king, but he doesn't have a hundred colonies Too much work he says he's only got about 30

[09:29] Which brings him about 15 grand a year so that along with his social security check Which he says was worth about 13 grand a year allows him to live He says better than he ever lived up in the first world and by the way up in the states He was not a rocket scientist. He was a Minnesota junior high school janitor Oh, and by the way almost all the Latin agricultural universities down here, and there are a ton of them They offer courses on how to grow manage market and sell any Latin American cash crop Coconuts pineapples avocados macadamias bananas whatever so if you come down here And want to dip a toe in the Aggie business You will be learning hands-on and from the experts and though all those courses are dirt cheap. They are in Spanish

[10:16] Okay, and another little bit of Latin news this week presently There's an important financial and economic meeting going on in Uruguay The Uruguayan government is discussing what kind of price controls. They're gonna put on basic goods and services There have been some minor controls in place, but they're planning on expanding them now if you remember in a past show I mentioned there are a few Latin countries that do have price controls on basic services like food and transportation Now since this audience is a rather enlightened crowd you wouldn't be listening to alternative media if you weren't You know that when a country institutes price controls It's a prelude to big economic problems just note throughout history go look it up You'll find out when countries become economic basket cases one of the first things they do is Institute price controls that said

[11:07] How about this quote by a Brazilian non-governmental economist he says right now in? 2015 Brazil is becoming Argentina Argentina is becoming Venezuela and Venezuela is becoming Zimbabwe of course what he failed to mention was that the US is becoming Mexico like I have to point that out to you Right anyway all of those Latin countries by the way have had price controls on basic goods for a while now And now you got Bolivia Ecuador and Uruguay jumping on the bandwagon So bottom line be very careful if one of those countries happens to be your expat destination of choice Nice places to visit except for Venezuela, but I wouldn't want to live there

[11:53] Oh, but there's opportunities to say you read Doug Casey, right? He's always talking about Argentina and those great opportunities sure there are opportunities in every Latin country even Costa Rica Which I'm totally against living or investing in that said you can make a good living and a good life and a good buck anywhere But note where there's price controls There's an underlying cancer in the system and unless you consider yourself a very creative Adventurous chance taker there are many better and more stable Latin countries to consider Oh, I know some of you are thinking I left out Cuba on that feces list well of course It's the price control basket case country of all time in fact most outside economists I'll tell you the only reason why Cuba's population isn't starving to death is because

[12:39] Cubans and their relatives living up in the states are sending back more than a billion dollars a year in remissas Without all that dough flowing in every year Cuba would be the Western Hemisphere's Bangladesh You can bet without those remissas You'd see sting and Bob Geldof and bono in another live aid type concert Toking on cohebas with the Castro brothers now speaking of Brazil I'm gonna read a little bit of this article. That's gonna blow your mind now as you know I generally don't read whole articles I had live a bit articles are well just too dry But this one you gotta hear a report from Sao Paulo Brazil it starts out when Rosalynja Arroyo a public school supervisor turned 44

[13:27] She did what millions of other Brazilians in their 40s and 50s have done she retired with full pension She took advantage of the benefit that was due all public employees in Brazil Her government pension by the way stands at about a thousand dollars a month That's five times the Brazilian minimum wage Brazilians on average retire at the age of 54 and Public servants military officials and politicians managed to not only retire Before age 54 an amazing number managed to collect multiple government pensions totaling well over a hundred thousand dollars a year That would be 50 times the amount the average Non-government pensioner gets let me stop here for a second now that might sound familiar because a lot of that goes on up in

[14:17] The stage, you know, in fact in a past show I know I mentioned a US government law enforcement officer I met down here in Central America who's triple dipping and making over $250,000 in pensions a year one as a retired sheriff one as a retired police officer and one as a retired air marshal Etc, etc. And you know when he kind of bragged and told me that two thoughts ran through my mind first I wanted to throw him under a chicken bus and second. I'm embarrassed to say I was Momentarily jealous of the jerk. So Brazil's got all of that and more Brazil public servants military officials and politicians Manage these hundred thousand a year plus pensions then Once they die certain laws and loopholes enable their spouses children and or relatives

[15:08] To go on collecting their entire pensions for the rest of their natural lives, too Then it goes on to say this phenomena is so common in Brazil's vast public bureaucracy that scholars are calling it the Viagra effect because Retired civil servants many in their 60s 70s and 80s wed very much younger women who then are entitled to the full pensions for Decades and decades after their spouses are gone and young Brazilian women are well aware of it There are thousands of blogs to that effect. In fact, it's become an industry Psychologists say it's having a twisted effect on the culture these days 20-something young ladies marrying 70 and 80 year old guys

[15:53] That's becoming a somewhat standard practice in Brazil and the old guys almost always ex-government workers Now according to Brazilian economist Paulo Tafner when talking about the pension situation He says think Greece but on a crazier more colossal scale The entire country he says should be frightened to its core The pensions Brazilians obtained and the ages at which they start receiving them are Nothing less than scandalous. The whole thing is a slow-motion train wreck now The problem of course is the Brazilian Congress They keep voting to perpetuate the inequality by providing special benefits to hundreds of thousands of government employees and their families Of which they're a part

[16:39] For example more than 185,000 women who are daughters of dead military officials still receive the full pension of their fathers Economists are saying there will be a financial train wreck soon because Congress won't vote down pensions they know they'll never get reelected if they ask for cuts and Though in the rest of the world unions are weak dead or broken in Brazil. It's just the opposite Unions are very powerful just like they were back in the US in the 60s in Brazil All unions are rejecting calls to scale back benefits And by the way the article says that Brazil is one of the only countries in the world where you can retire and receive a government pension even if you've

[17:24] Never contributed to the public pension system in Brazil minimum wage workers when they retire receive a monthly payment equal to that minimum wage about $210 a month these days whereas most government workers in Brazil make two to three times as much as the equivalent worker in the private sector and They retire on full salary, too Okay, that said you know I talked about the good the bad the ugly and the great in Latin America and of course that story about Brazil was ugly How about let's get even more ugly the other day? I was talking to a Latin insurance claims adjuster Yes, they've got them down here Anyway, we're having this conversation in Spanish, and I was mentioning how many brand new SUVs I'm seeing down here in Latin America I'm amazed how many new ones have showed up in the past year or so and of course the reason for that is not

[18:13] Because there's so much more money down here It's the fact that car dealers for the first time in history are offering their own financing and for the first time in history No money down sound familiar which means so many people are now qualifying that could never have before The insurance adjuster just rolled his eyes and said they can afford the car, but not the gas Then he said funny. You should mention SUVs He said there's a new car theft scam going around in Latin America now something that just wasn't on the radar a year or so ago He said in the past car thieves would just select an SUV or a light new pickup truck from a parking lot Start it up with a master key for that model pull the wires from the alarm speaker

[18:58] Have a duplicate parking ticket and just drive out then go to a nearby chop shop there They decide whether to use it for parts or just change the VIN numbers if it was worth retitling They'd have an accomplice at the vehicle registration department who would issue a new title and paperwork with the new VIN numbers Then they'd drive that car to an adjacent country where they'd sell it with a new title for example, if the car was stolen in Nicaragua, they'd drive it to Salvador or Honduras and That's where it would end up forever but now in the last year or two, there's much more title and registration security and Computers at the borders are now connected to the vehicle registration department That said if a car's had its VIN numbers changed and a new title issued

[19:45] The way thieves have been doing it for so many years up till now Anyway, when it hits the border station the immigration and adwana agents are gonna see that car never entered the country It's only exiting that VIN number will not be in the computer There'll be no record it ever came into the country and paid taxes red flags will go up all over the place So linked computerized systems have kind of made it impossible to steal cars the old way But you know since when has that stopped car thieves? So anyway, the insurance adjuster said the new scheme goes like this the bad guys in any Latin country Know where the expensive high-end gated communities are where all the nice late model pickup trucks and SUVs reside now Remember most all these gated communities have a guard station where you have to check in and show your license or flash in front

[20:34] Of a scanner or if you live there You'll have a residential sticker on your windshield and when the guard sees that and recognizes the car He waves you right through. So anyway, the bad guys are a couple blocks away from the guard entrance It could be in a little tienda or maybe just a busy street and they watch those SUVs and pickups going in and out of the guard station and they decide which SUV they're gonna steal they'll plan this usually for a few weeks and even follow that car as it leaves the guard station and When it stops in a mall or commercial center They'll watch who gets out man or woman if there's kids along or a bodyguard along the best target being a woman with no bodyguard Now generally there's an inside man He gets into that subdivision and he checks out that house where the car is parked

[21:23] So then he may ask how does he get past all that security? Could he be one of the guards himself or maybe part of the maintenance crew that's cleaning the roads in the complex could be But more often it's like this Generally, there's a guy hiding in the back of the garbage truck that comes in two or three times a week to collect In Latin America, you'll soon note that garbage trucks are not sophisticated They're just big old dilapidated moving van trucks Just packed with garbage and oddly enough there can be three four even five guys to a garbage truck Normally a driver a guy riding shotgun and two or three guys in the back keeping the garbage company now Naturally when a garbage truck pulls up to one of these subdivisions. He's waved through

[22:10] No one will ever go back and check that garbage out. It's disgusting who'd want to So it's dead easy to stash an extra person or two way back in with the garbage Now remember these garbage guys are making minimum wage and all they can eat So you got to know if some gang of car thieves pays these guys ten bucks apiece They'll let anyone who looks the part ride or hide in the back So then here's how the rest of it works that guy jumps off the truck hides nearby the marks house in the bushes or brush Whatever he could be there for a couple hours, but he does know the owner's schedule He'll know when she goes out shopping or to the beauty parlor or to pick up the kids or to go to the health club He's got that planned already So anyway when she arrives back from her errands or whatever and either hits the garage door opener or perhaps she parks in

[22:59] the driveway out in front he puts on his stocking mask and Sneaks into the garage before the door closes He surprises her with a gun in the face and says give me the papers for the car and the circulation Which is that laminated plastic card cops will ask for if you ever stopped or pulled over at one of those roadblocks It signifies that car is legally registered and that the license fees have been paid for the year That's all the cops really care about as long as it can be produced The cops will wave you right on by it doesn't matter if your name is on that title or that little circulation card or not Because remember many people own their cars and their houses etcetera with SA Corporation So there won't be anyone's name on that card or title. So that's what the crook wants

[23:46] He can drive anywhere as long as he's got the original Circulation card which most people do not carry with them in their car They carry a certified copy which is good enough within the country However, you can't go across borders with that only the original which is why the guy wants to steal the car while you're at home So he can get the original from you So anyway, he follows the lady into the house they go to the office wherever the paperwork is He takes it they get into the car. He's driving She shows him where the hidden alarm buttons are etc. They drive out past the guard He knows the car and sees the subdivision window sticker and remember in Latin America SUVs and pickups and almost all cars have heavy tinted windows Most often you can never tell who's in the car much less if it's a man or a woman

[24:33] Okay next step the guy hits the open road and heads for the nearest country and Remember within most of Latin America countries are quite small and you can usually hit a border within two or three hours No matter where you are And then since most borders are way out in the boonies He'll drop the woman off a couple miles before the border. Maybe he'll even knock her out He'll pass right through with all the right paperwork and on the other side his crew will be waiting They'll switch the vid numbers and the plates and they'll retitle it There is a car that came in from the US and by the time the cars reported stolen in the home country It'll take at least four days for all that info to get up on government computers and with the police force, etc Even so it won't matter because countries do not communicate stolen car information back and forth

[25:18] Not in Latin America. Not yet. Once it's stolen cars driven into an adjacent country There's almost no country to country cooperation between police authorities. So the car can be considered permanently gone now the moral of the story of course is that you don't want to have a car that thieves want to steal like a Late-model SUV or shiny new pickup truck, but you a new that already, right? Okay, let me take this time to remind you that my January 2016 Latin insiders seminar is all set and ready to go Check out the information and sign up link Www. The new expat calm and click on the seminar link at the top of the page now Don't forget as of the date this show goes out. That will be Friday, October 23rd

[26:06] You've got seven days to sign up and get that $500 per person early bird discount So come on down to my seminar and get a two to five year head start on your own plans That would be your plan B becoming an expat in Latin America. You do have a plan B, right? If you don't, let me ask you one question What are you gonna do when you wake up and turn on your TV and they tell you none of the ATM machines in the country? That's gonna happen, you know, and if it's not Chinese or Russian hackers It'll be your own government in a false flag, but whatever it is. You better have that plan B So come on down. Oh, and how about this for great news at our new website? Www. The new expat calm will soon be featuring a blog written by a trusted Latin lawyer friend of mine

[26:58] That's right A Latin lawyer will be blogging regularly on everything you want to know about Latin legal issues such as residency passports contracts, essay corporations, banking, trusts, courts, lawsuits and much much more and better yet You'll be able to email him personally with your own legal questions, too So stay tuned for that do check it out www.thenewexpat.com You got expert expat webmaster John Galt and his daughter Jane Galt managing the site So you'll get nothing but the straight poop 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

[27:46] And if you want me to help you sort out your own Latin American plans schedule a one-on-one consult with me Just send an email and let me know at the expat files at gmail.com. Nos vemos