#762 – Episode 762: Email Security, Secure Communication, Online Jobs, and Housing for Disabled Expats

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 out 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 All right. I just want to say a few things about the emails you guys and gals are always sending me now I don't know how many emails the average person gets in their inbox every day I suppose they're mostly on fake book twaddle and Instagram So possibly emails are on the downturn, but I wouldn't know but I do know I get more emails than the average bear

[00:50] And I can prove it You know I was gone for about a month away from the coffee fields that is and since I have a couple of email accounts And I was on the road every day I only got to check my personal accounts But when I got back to the coffee fields, I kind of dreaded checking my expat files account That would be the expat files at gmail.com and boy, I do regret having a gmail account But I got that a long long time ago around eight or so years ago now way before we were thinking about loss of privacy data theft hacking accounts and even ID theft But luckily five or six years ago when we first started hearing cases of identity theft and stuff That's when I switched to a private start mail account though I hung on to the gmail account because well everybody had it and that's how they contacted me So luckily early on I got that start mail account because it's encrypted and all that and I'd advise you all do the same

[01:39] Not necessarily start mail. There's a lot of other ones proton mail for one The point is you can have a gmail hotmail Yahoo account Whatever and use it for a day-to-day non-critical stuff But you really do need a private email account for private conversations and connections You know, and of course if you're doing any banking moving data around or running a business online You're gonna need a personal email account That's encrypted and it'll cost you maybe 25 or even 50 bucks a year Remember if an email is free it ain't they're getting something from you your data, but you knew that already, right? Alright, so I got back and had over 700 emails in my expat files gmail account and not all of them were from exiled Nigerian princes offering to give me half of their inheritance if I just help them to my bank account number and like I said before

[02:29] I read them all except when it's coming from a person who starts by saying dearest one or my beloved or I notice It's coming from someone with 25 consonants in their name and two vowels I mean, come on bad first impression even for an internet scammer But aside from that I read them all and sometimes they're short and sweet and sometimes like a chapter in a book and generally I'll read the ones on the air big or small that are quite general enough so that most listeners can get something out of it But when I get those really specific emails and I get a lot of those like for example Who's the best eye doctor best hospital or neighborhood or lake best internet service helicopter school strip club? Whatever then they narrow it down to a particular region or city like Managua Nicaragua

[03:14] Well, you know, it's of great interest to the person writing the email But it's of almost no use at all to the general audience who probably don't care one bit about Managua and are interested in Latin America in general and you know, I'm glad to help people out with that specific stuff But there's only a very small chance I'm ever gonna read that on the air and there's no way I can write a lengthy Response or give justice to practically any email cuz I'll just end up getting carpal tunnel I mean, come on when you write an email yourself I'm sure you don't kick them out a thousand words at a crack Now imagine if you had to reply to sometimes dozens of emails a day So in lieu of getting carpal tunnel when I reply I like to make it short and to the point as opposed to when I'm blathering on the radio Then the point sometimes falls down a black hole and gets lost completely

[04:01] So a lot of your emails just can't be answered in a line or two. That's nowhere enough So if you need some answers on some specific stuff within your own plan B scenario If it's not general enough to be of interest to pretty much the whole audience It's best to set up a one-on-one phone or Skype consultation with me. And by the way, here's some really good news on that front I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the show before but the famous Bitcoin Dan who by the way was such a Fabulous software programmer that Bill Gates himself hired him and for years Before he came down to my seminar and ended up living permanently in Latin America He did a massive long-distance commute Microsoft would fly him back and forth every week from Montreal to Seattle And after a few years of working for the man a lot of us love to hate Bill Gates

[04:48] He decided to quit and start his own thing. Amen. Did he start his own thing? Anyway, Bitcoin Dan libertarian and extreme privacy advocate hated Skype because you know It's part of that whole internet data collection scheme So anything you've got to say your chat about on Skype is like anything you write into a standard email account or blog Pretty much available to anyone who's got any interest in getting it and it's out there forever So Bitcoin Dan said screw that and he developed his own alternative Skype and chat system and man is it rock-solid It never fails. It never drops out. Unless of course, there's a lightning strike or power outage or something Anyway, Bitcoin Dan gave me that program a couple years ago And we always use it to communicate and he's giving me the okay to pass that program around to other people

[05:34] So if we're doing a one-on-one consult and the information is personal private or what you might call classified I'll just send you a link you could download the program and when we do our consult It'll be done over an end-to-end encrypted system. That's virtually untrackable and uncrackable So for all you guys and girls out there who aren't thinking of doing a one-on-one consult But you're also thinking hell, I don't want to say too much on Skype or even over the phone. Don't worry We got you covered. Not only that you might remember if you go to www.thenewexpet.com You can download my consultation questionnaire form. It's pretty thorough There are a lot of questions on it Some of them quite personal which makes some people hesitant to fill it out and send it to me with complete information Because it's going over the internet Which is in that case not to worry either because you see one of my email accounts is through start mail

[06:22] Which is an encrypted email service and even if you don't have start mail we can send encrypted messages back and forth So how does that work? Well, for example, if you want to send the questionnaire back to me You can encrypt it your own way on your end and send me the password so I can open it That is if you have your own encryption program on your computer That's the way some people do it or I can just send you an email from my start mail address And then you reply to me from that same email You can click the box that says encrypt this email and it'll come back to me totally encrypted Either way these days it's easy to send encrypted info back and forth So that's a heads up for you listeners who are hesitant to Skype or use the phone And if you use what's up on your phone, that's even worse

[07:09] Hey, I'm in a third world country where big brother is practically non-existent yet. I'm hesitant to use Skype Oh and you'll like this if we're gonna do a consult using Bitcoin Dan's protocol you get the link to download his software Absolutely free and then if you want to have other completely encrypted Conversations with friends and relatives or business associates, whatever you can just send them the link to they set up a user profile And now you can talk to them completely encrypted, too And it's all free courtesy of Bitcoin Dan who by the way along with our famous crypto miner Oscar Miner will be talking about the latest greatest breaking news in the crypto world at my upcoming July expat insider seminar

[07:54] Which starts on July 7th? So if you want to join us there live and in person check out the info and the sign-up details Just go to www.thenewexpat.com and click on Johnny's seminar link now speaking of my expat insider seminar If you remember last week, I mentioned there'll be another special guest Mr. B. Who'll be explaining in detail how he makes 18 to 36 bucks an hour Sitting at home on his computer here in Latin America And you know it took him a year of living down here looking for his niche before he found it actually as he explains it It found him Anyway talking a little about that on last week's show. I did get a volley of emails I should have known I mean come on make an 18 to 36 bucks an hour in the States

[08:40] That's doing all right, but down here in Latin America. Those are princely wages No, not Nigerian princely wages But princely wages and man did that strike a chord with some of the people in this audience Listen to this email this one comes from listener Fred. He says Johnny You've never done this kind of shit before not that I can remember What I mean is listening to your show over these past years you have never and man He put capital letters and exclamation marks there teased people before But in your last show you said a guy came down again For the second time to Latin America and found a terrific business niche And then you stopped and said nothing more about it. So what gives Johnny signed Fred? All right, Fred I get it, but I didn't mean to be a tease or how about this one from Rodrigo living up in Canada now

[09:30] But he's from Venezuela. He says I'm a Venezuelan listener In fact an avid listener to your show and Johnny it amazes me how accurately you've dissected The South American experience. I am from Venezuela So I know what you're talking about by the way me Johnny again You heard me say in a recent past show that I had my share of Venezuelan listeners What I mean is people listening from Venezuela mostly gringos, of course Most of them were there either doing business or working for get this the US embassy Yeah, that's right in every capital city of every latin country There is a US embassy with dozens sometimes hundreds of employees In fact, I met tons of them years ago when I do my latin american morning drive by and drive home live radio shows

[10:20] Yep They didn't invite me to dinner parties embassy gigs and stuff and some of them by the way didn't like their jobs at all As one embassy guy told me in the morning you arrive and you check your brain at the door But the pay was great and man those guys could dish out the dirt anonymously, of course I'm sure that some of that stuff if I talked about it on the show would earn me a drone with my name on it Anyway, as mentioned I had my sheriff gringos in venezuela who were listeners Some of them had been living large and cheap in venezuela for a long long time But now I don't hear from them at all as if they'd fallen off the radar Except I still get emails from venezuelan nationals who are living up in the states in canada So yes, I had regular venezuelan listeners too ones that weren't gringo

[11:06] But native latins which brings us back to rodrigo a venezuelan who flew to coop and is now living in canada He too was extremely intrigued when I mentioned on my last show that 18 an hour sit at home on your ass I mean on your computer job and actually according to mr B the bonuses come in at about double that anyway rodrigo says johnny i'm not looking to go back to south america at all After my venezuelan experience. I have sort of an allergy to the place now But I was wondering if I could pay you for the information you shared in your podcast about this online job That pays 18 bucks an hour I wouldn't mind doing that while visiting or living in let's say thailand or even portugal Then he says cheers johnny and many. Thanks rodrigo toronto. Canada

[11:55] All right along with rods and fred's email about that little business niche that found mr Just recently there's no mystery about it But the thing is it needs some explaining and of course mr B will be doing that and answering questions at the seminar and I think after that I'll try to get him to write up a little checklist I can pass it around to everyone who's interested in trying it themselves now just to clarify things a little it's for people who speak Canadian or us english perfectly that'd be almost everyone in this audience, right? They'd want you to have a college degree, but you don't need one and what you're doing is teaching chinese kids english online and that company or companies and there's a number of them get you the students they give you the syllabus That in itself is great But the beauty of it is that unlike so many other ways to make money online where you have to buy a course

[12:45] You know spend two three five hundred even fifteen hundred bucks to learn how to sell products on ebay amazon or fake book I mean that is all the rage right now, right? And this is just simply teaching english to chinese students Now, you know The chinese have over a billion and a half people and the fact is the best way to learn any language is from a native speaker That's why I always tell gringos and expats It's a bad idea to learn your spanish from a gringo whose first language is english because they'll teach it to you from a book And it stands to reason no language is strictly from the book. It's ever changing and flexible especially on the street in Conversations and when you learn by the book you never learn the general or local street slang in common usage Which is why when I learned french in high school and went over to france

[13:33] Filled with confidence and ready to babble with the frogs They just gave me the cold shoulder and pretty much told me to shut up. Yep a real ego deflating experience Let me tell you so anyway, you want to learn any language from a native speaker Of course, there are always exceptions, but that's a pretty solid general rule So anyway, the chinese are the up and coming power. They got all the money these days In fact when I was traveling for the last month in and around europe, I'd ask the locals what's changed over the last few years And they'd say besides the illegal muslim hordes pouring in There are a lot less american tourists and a lot more chinese because they've got the money They've got more millionaires than any country. So as the u.s economy its power its manufacturing base etc dwindles China is the new powerhouse and continues to grow

[14:20] And because in the rest of the western world english is the main language and china's main market All chinese people now want their kids to learn english And since the very best way to learn it is from a native english speaker And there aren't very many native english speakers in china at all The fact is china's a good place to visit as a tourist But gringles and expats do not see it as their plan b destination So chinese kids that are trying to learn english at school in their homeland are learning it like I learned my french They don't want to learn it from a chinese person speaking english They want to learn it from a native Creating a nice new niche for gringles and expats now The thing is there are lots of scammers on the internet, you know and companies that are well not what they're represented to be

[15:10] Which is why it's so cool that mr B has been able to sort this out for us as mentioned in the last show 18 bucks an hour Is what the average latin person makes in a day? So in effect when you're teaching english to chinese kids you're making eight to ten times the average latin american minimum wage And from what mr B says the downside is you got some pretty crappy hours because when your clients your chinese kids are awake It's the third shift for us here in the western time zones and that's something to get used to All right, so that's the gig in a nutshell and for all you listeners out there who want more info The ones that aren't coming to the seminar That is i'll ask mr B to put together a checklist that I can send out to you guys, okay But that won't be coming till after the seminar plus i'll work it out so you can talk to mr

[15:55] B directly so there you have it bottom line It's a boon for expats and gringles who have to make some money right off the get-go when they get down here And from what mr B says the market is expanding like crazy since it's the goal of practically every chinese Kid and their parents of course to learn english All right, enough said about that Which brings us to an email from a seminar repeat offender. Yep We get a lot of those in fact every single seminar i've ever given now for past eight years Has had at least a few repeat offenders and the seminar coming up is no exception And you know when people first hear about me or first hear my show or hear about my seminars Paying a couple thousand bucks for a week long seminar in latin america. How can that be worth it?

[16:42] I can go on the internet and look up expat stuff and go into the blogosphere and find out everything I need to know about latin America. Hey, I hear that from people once in a while, especially from backpackers. So what's my response? Well, it's quite simple. I just tell them exactly what I just told you I say every single one of my expats seminars Except for the first one because it was the first one and there would be no repeaters, right? But for everyone since then i've had repeat offenders and why would they spend the money to come back again? If it didn't have tremendous value Meanwhile, I've run into a lot of people who've gone to international living seminars in panama and costa rica and such Every last one of them said it was all right, but they wouldn't go back Oh, and by the way, some people come back to my seminar for thirds. So to the doubters I say how do you explain that?

[17:31] Which brings us back to this email from one of our repeat offenders And i'll paraphrase as usual and add comments wherever because I just can't help myself She says johnny, can you bring up housing for disabled on your radio show? You discuss a lot about building a home, but I can't remember you discussing housing for someone who's disabled Certain things apply across the board for everyone disabled or not and certain things such as having a bathroom You can roll a wheelchair into are probably things that you can do when building your own home I get that number one homes should have a full bathroom and bedroom Or a space to convert a room into a bedroom on the first floor Too often i've seen people suffer because they don't have the space to put a bed and they can't clean themselves

[18:18] Because they don't have a full shower on the first floor Number two a full bathroom needs a shower that people can step into rather than a bathtub That people have to step over to have access to the shower Also, it would be nice to have a full bench where you could put your leg up rather than a bench that Just has enough room for a person's behind There also needs to be support bars in the shower and by the toilet to help people lift themselves up Another essential ingredient would be a removable shower head preferably nine feet or longer Sure, it has some length, but you need that to get to all your body parts Furthermore the toilet seat needs to be higher than a traditional toilet so people can get up and down more easily Ideally the bathroom should be big enough to easily maneuver a wheelchair

[19:04] Other things to consider of course are ramps to get in and out of the home And of course doors wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair and levers rather than doorknobs Because they're far easier to use especially with people who have arthritis The other thing I think you should mention is where ideally People who are disabled should live in latin america. Then she says I haven't seen any scooters around But i'm told they do exist in argentina and finally johnny How do people who are disabled get the handicap sticker for the car? So they can park in disabled parking places at malls and grocery stores, etc All right, then let's try to hit on that stuff If you think you need some authorized handicap parking sticker, you'd be wrong Fact is if you're handicapped you just park in a handicap spot and even though parking lots have rent a cops

[19:52] Most of them have just enough brain power to lift and lower the gate to let you in and out now being that we all have gringo sensibilities if someone who isn't handicapped parks in one of those spaces And i've seen that happen down here plenty of times you feel like going up to him and say hey Get the hell out of there, but that's a gringo thing You know latin's are non-confrontational and are used to bending even breaking laws themselves I mean you should see how they drive I mean really it's not a normal day in latin america If you don't see a bunch of people running red lights and stop signs people are used to that even the cops Don't give out tickets for that stuff So you think they're gonna press the handicap parking spot issue? However, since that's gringles and expats are quite sensitized to the handicap problem If you're handicapped and you feel you must have a sticker just go on the internet search handicap stickers print one out

[20:39] Have it laminated and stick it in your car Or I suppose if you really want to try to make it legal You could go to your lawyer and have them notarize a little document that says you are truly handicapped Then you can keep that in your glove compartment if you ever feel you're going to need to use it That along with your own laminated handicap sticker is about a thousand percent overkill But if you want to cover every single base, well, that's the way to do it Oh, and by the way, if you go down to the police department or a municipality to get such a sticker I'll bet you a bitcoin they won't have one on hand nor will they know where to send you to get one either And truthfully i've been down in latin america for many years I think i've seen only three or four handicap stickers on vehicles in that whole time Now what i've just said pertains to living off the gringo tourist trail or slightly off the trail

[21:27] Whereas if you live on the gringo tourist trail where gringos have infiltrated most heavily There could be the odd case that they've pushed the local municipality to require such stickers So maybe in certain parts of costa rica mexico columbia and panama They might have them available and even enforce the law But I doubt it because i've been around and i've never even heard anyone discuss such a thing So then what about the best places for handicapped people to live i'd say absolutely It's got to be in the altiplano Why because one of the banes of being handicapped is you're often in bed or in a wheelchair For extended periods of time and you don't want to be in a constant sweat mode And since more than 90 percent of latin america is dead hot that'd be the lower elevations the beach areas the coasts

[22:13] That's where a handicap person would be the most miserable and the altiplano with constant spring like weather all year round That's where a handicap person would be most comfortable Not too hot not too cold though. That doesn't mean if you're handicapped You can't live comfortably on or near a beach, but you're going to have to run the air conditioning practically all the time And that could definitely break the bank Then again, if you've got the dough you could live pretty much anywhere Even so you'll be going shopping to the malls out and about And you'll be in and out of the air conditioning and when you're out you'll be dead hot and certainly sweating all the time Now as far as an actual home for the disabled in latin america There certainly are nursing homes, but they cater to the locals. They're low budget I mean ultra low budget and no place a gringo or an expat would want to hang out for any length of time at all

[23:02] Now there are some upscale adult care facilities, which of course would accept handicapped people all day long You know, they've got nurses and doctors on duty wide open spaces pools and activities In fact, they're just starting to pop up now and there's one very good example I came across in particular in columbia again It's in the altiplano. It looks like a very nice facility In fact in a future show I think i'm going to go more in depth into this place translate the spanish and Lay it all out for you because you see to be a resident at this particular place and it's high end Will cost you between around fourteen hundred bucks to two thousand dollars a month Everything included that be your medical care housing food activities everything but it's too much to go into right now We'll hit on it in a future show

[23:48] And as mentioned, this is an adult care facility for adults and for the handicapped But the interesting thing is that although these places are based on and are targeted at gringos and expats That might want to come down and live in a high-end adult care facility on basically a social security check Well, that's not quite how it's turning out the actual written information I've got it right here says listen to this and i'll translate The majority of our residents are adults over 50 years old and with our 44 individual units We have 15 columbian residents from the united states Who are now retired and receiving pensions and who moved back down to our facility in columbia Then it says the rest of our residents are from the following places holland

[24:34] Venezuela argentina and canada though principally our residents are from columbia So get this we're talking about exactly the kind of adult care facility Gringo up in the states might be looking for because you heard what the cost is per month About as much as your average social security check go a little more yet even in this home Which is probably the highest end facility in all of columbia. They've got as of this article written in 2017 Zero homegrown gringos living there So it turns out the really smart ones were the columbians living up in the states who knew their pensions would get them nothing But a putrid vomit tinged crap hole facility up in the states Whereas they knew that same dough would get them into a nice pleasant even excellent facility in columbia By the way those columbians who formerly lived in the states don't count as real gringos, you know

[25:23] So it's true places like that exist, but gringos have no idea Which is a shame because you know a facility like that up in the states would easily Cost six to ten grand a month and really who do you and I know that could afford that? So anyway, if you listeners want the link to this place, just send me an email the expert files at gmail.com I'll hook you up. You can read all about it However, you'll have to run it through a translation program because it's all in spanish All right, then what about individual homes in latin america that are all set up for a handicap person? Well, unfortunately, you'll only find handicapped access as you know it up in the states at u.s Style franchises like mcdonald's and wendy's because those franchises throughout the world are standardized to us building codes And you'll also see good handicapped access and facilities in brand new upscale subdivisions in malls

[26:14] Most architects and builders are following first world regs when it comes to brand new buildings However, as for your own living quarters, you're on your own you have to do the modifications yourself So if you're handicapped, I always say your best bet if you're not going to build a house yourself Is buy a rent an existing one-story house get a local young architect in and have them remodel the place based on first world handicapped Access guidelines and how much would that cost? Well, just remember the architect and the labor will be dirt cheap But if you need specialty items like a taller wider toilet, whatever You'll pay more than you would in the u.s For the same item because remember it's got to get imported from the states or elsewhere meaning china However, all that stuff's readily available every medium and large sized latin city has a couple of large medical retail outlets

[27:01] They carry all kinds of handicapped stuff even scooters In fact every one of the 3000 plus walmarts down here have electric scooters for the handicap So things like that are available and anything you can't get you can order it from amazon However, I believe if you are handicapped in a wheelchair mostly immobile Whatever the best place for your plan B is the alti plano in latin america because it's important to remember You could have a full-time living nurse for four to five hundred bucks a month and she'll be your cook maid and go shopping for you too You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan B, you can schedule a one-on-one phone call with me But first download my free plan B questionnaire at www.thenewexpat.com Better yet if you want to get your plan B going from right up there in the states

[27:48] Just sign up for my nine hour expat essentials course Get the perfect plan B blueprint by going to the expat files.com slash academy most famous