#906 – The Expat Files: Cryptocurrency, Millennials, and Bolivia’s Political Shift

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 I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat 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 You know, it's funny when people first meet me and they start firing the questions I mean everybody wants to tap me for something you can bet in the first five minutes They're gonna ask me about crypto, you know Bitcoin aetherium light coin and the rest People want to know what I recommend for cryptocurrencies and what I think about the state of crypto right now

[00:51] Like I'm supposed to be the expert or something though. I'm not an expert I was actually one of those they call early adopters In fact, if you go back to some of my first shows way back into the second year of this show And I've been doing it for nine years now You would have heard me mention the story about an absolutely brilliant guy We call Bitcoin Dan who came down to I think was my second seminar now you long-time listeners Have heard me tell this story before but he came down in a Winnebago type trailer from Canada with his brand new Russian wife And man, I tell you he was escaping. He did not want to go back to Canada or any place in the first world He was planting his ass in Central America namely Guatemala for good. So why'd that happen? Why was he so dead set on leaving? Well, he used to own a business called E. Golder an internet online gold buying and selling business based out of Montreal, Canada

[01:42] And the Canadian feds shut him down and as it turns out it was totally illegal for them to do so But you know governments government and they make the rules as they go along So Dan being the libertarian that he is was so burned up about it He said I'm getting the hell out of that so anyway He came to the seminar with this Winnebago style trailer and he said Johnny, you know I'm looking for a house to rent but right now I have to park my trailer somewhere and where can I do that? And since I had a place in an ecological subdivision way out in the coffee fields with my own little cul-de-sac My nearest neighbor probably three blocks away So if Dan's trailer was parked in front of my house, I figured that would be okay No one would see it It wouldn't be an eyesore because none of the other neighbors had a view of the place after all we were in an ecological

[02:32] subdivision basically all trees shrubs and tropical cloud forest Notice I said cloud forests not rainforests because we're up at five or six thousand feet So lots of times were in the clouds Anyway, Dan said can I park my trailer in your cul-de-sac just for a couple of weeks? Maybe a month while I look for a house to rent Well as things go that month turned into I think four or five maybe even six months not a problem They were excellent neighbors. And of course, I let them use my facilities and stuff wash your dryer shower occasionally You know good neighbor policy and all that but you know, the strange thing was that two three in the morning I'd see the light on in a trailer at first. I thought man those guys are newlyweds That must be a spontaneous urge to procreate, you know revealing itself in the wee hours of the morning. Not a problem

[03:19] It's what Bob Seger would call jungle love So I kept seeing the light every night But that trailer wasn't rocking and rolling like you might expect and no animal or passionate sound coming from the place either There was light but nothing but dead silence. So, you know after a week or two, I said Dan What you doing out there? And of course being a super nerd. I knew he was gaming with people all over the world I mean, that's what gamers do right when you're playing against guys in Russia, China, England You have to weigh the time differential and sometimes addicted gamers are on their computers at 5 in the morning Playing fortnight or Minecraft with some 10 year old savant in Indonesia. Anyway, Dan admitted to his gaming addiction I knew that already But he said lately the reason why he was up at two three in the morning was he was buying this stuff

[04:07] You could only get on a Chinese exchange called Bitcoin and back then some eight years ago I'd never heard of it and you guys and gals who are tuned in on crypto No, but coins only been around ten years So we were two years in at that point and Bitcoin was the only cryptocurrency there were no other Coins available. So Dan explained it to me and he said this stuff could go to the moon at some point Nobody knows when but he said eventually mass adoption will kick in and I asked him How much is one of these Bitcoin things and he said they fluctuate a bit but right now eight bucks Though he said a year earlier when he first heard about it It was something like 80 cents and at that point he had thousands of them In fact back then he showed me a website that you could log in to just give him your name address and an email

[04:55] And you'll get four free bitcoins Then you know some months went by and he found his house to rent and he said Johnny listen What do I owe you for rent? I've been in front of your house for a couple of months now I want to give you something. I said no forget about it, Dan forget about it Then he said, you know what? I'm gonna give you two bitcoins Some day these things are gonna be worth a lot of dough He said and believe me, I didn't think anything of it I thought it was a pipe dream at the time by the way a Bitcoin was 40 bucks And I thought and he convinced me of this that they were gonna go a lot higher So I said tell you what Dan Why don't you buy some for me and he said Johnny you don't have to buy it from me turns out He said I trained up our lawyer our seminar lawyer and he's now registered at the exchange

[05:43] So he can buy and sell his stuff with ease anyway by the time I got in it was way up to 60 bucks And that's when I started talking about it on my podcast So if you go way back eight years ago into the expat files archive You'll hear me talking about Bitcoin every now and then and why you should get into it at least Learn about crypto because it looked like for sure it was gonna be the future and then of course starting probably six years ago I had Bitcoin Dan and Oscar Miner and Oscar is another brilliant crypto guy who came down to my seminar and never left In fact at nearly every seminar. I have Bitcoin and crypto early adopters because you know They're very bright people and they know the first world's going down the toilet and they want out of dodge Plus being that they were in Bitcoin and cryptos very early on the early adopters so to speak

[06:31] They're definitely creative chance takers Those are the kinds of personalities that got in early and that's why like I said when I first run into new gringos and expats Including connecting with expat gonna bees and wannabes who listen to the show or who have heard the show before it almost never fails Within the first five minutes or so I expect to get a crypto question or two Of course, they always want to know where I think it's gonna go and what coins or ICOs to get into now and truly though I know quite a bit about crypto. I'm not the expert I don't keep up on it too much not on a day-to-day basis anyway And the real super knowledgeable people Bitcoin Dan and Oscar Miner and Captain Mango, too Well, you get to meet all those guys at the seminar and you can fire off any questions You like and learn things about crypto

[07:17] You'll never get off the internet because believe me these guys are knee-deep in it They practically live and breathe this stuff, which is a really good thing Because man, that's like a dream come true having cutting-edge crypto guys living 15 minutes away from you now I ask you how many of you guys up in Seattle or Cleveland have a couple of world-class crypto experts You could walk right over and borrow an egg or a cup of sugar from So anyway, the fact is people ask me about crypto stuff all the time and I do have my opinions and recommendations Of course and gonna give you those right now But first, let me give you some factoids about who's driving the crypto market. It's not the baby boomers. It's the Millennials you know what the Millennials are they were born between 1981 and 2000 and right now in the US the average age of a millennial is around 27 years old

[08:07] By the way, there are over a billion millennials on the planet right now Now the thing about spending power no matter which generation you're talking about the baby boomers Gen X millennials or Generation Z Yes, they call them now historically their spending power really starts when they hit about 32 to 35 years old That's when they're at their peak their earning power and then they start spending now what they spend on Depends on which generation they were like for example the generation before the baby boomers. They call them what the silent generation Those are the ones that bought gold and silver and houses when they came into their prime They bought hard assets because their families went through the Great Depression and really suffered then the next generation Their kids were the baby boomers when they hit their prime years starting age 32 to 35

[08:55] They bought real estate cars and started getting into the stock market as well as financial instruments Usually sold through banks like CDs and bonds and treasuries But here's the thing about the Millennials remember they're born in 1981 to 2000 They at the average age of 27 now are just in less than five years Are gonna really crank up that spending machine and guess what they hate banks? Why because it was their parents. They got wiped out in the banking and real estate blowout of 2007 and 8 they watched as her parents mortgages went underwater and they watched their parents suffer over losing half of their pension dough And they watched as a lot of their parents lost their jobs in construction and finance or got laid off So then where are the Millennials gonna put their dough and it's a huge chunk of dough, too

[09:45] You know a lot of them don't care much at all about having big houses and mansions and moving on up Nor are they into fast-heart cars like the baby boomers work But guess what they love technology and the idea of cryptos So what's that tell you they're not gonna buy big houses nor fast cars nor are they gonna buy CDs or instruments sold through banks Nor are they enamored of the stock market? They've heard all the dire predictions about the market They believe it's in a big bubble and in unknown territory. So then taking all that into consideration Let's put it this way cryptocurrency should be part of your portfolio. Even if it's just a little let's say one to five percent of your assets Because just imagine what's gonna happen when the millennial dough kicks in and the next couple years

[10:31] So then you might ask which are the best cryptos Well, my opinion is if you stay with the top ten that have the biggest total market cap to find that out Just go to www dot coin market cap calm and you'll see a list of over 2,000 crypto currencies. Yep They're over 2,000 and you'll see they're numbered from 1 to 2,000 something based on their market cap value in dollars In other words, number one would be Bitcoin with the biggest market cap of a hundred and sixty billion dollars in the number two Ethereum it's got 20 billion dollar market cap and so on and so forth So if you're gonna invest in cryptos Which I highly recommend stick with one or two or more of the top ten on that list and screw all the rest because

[11:16] Chances are 90% of those over 2,000 on that list will be gone in a couple years That's just the nature of crypto currencies, but the top ten they're around. They've been around for a long time They're well known easily tradable and convertible So by all means this is the time to get into crypto currency. Don't think the boom is over Don't think you've lost out even if you put one to five percent of what you've got to invest It'll be worth it as for the downside. There's always a downside. There's no one hundred percent guarantee of anything Especially when you talk about markets speculations and investing that said on the extremely slim chance that you lose it all So what it was a chance worth taken and a loss of one to five percent of your net worth or portfolio is not gonna kill you But if you don't do it and just sit on the sidelines and watch you're gonna miss riding that tsunami

[12:05] That's coming and surely there are huge things coming. So there you have it. That's my advice on the subject It's free and you know what they say you get what you pay for Oh, and just to give you a little more ammo to back up my claim that I think we're just at the beginning of the Cryptocurrency tsunami there's a company called first data that does polling and they just did a poll of 10,000 Millennials remember those are people who are born between 1981 and 2000 average age 27 right now Well, this polling outfit called first data shows that 71% of Millennials would rather go to the dentist than to listen to a spiel from a banker In other words, 71% completely ignore commercials they see on TV and in the media when they're sponsored by banks

[12:51] They're just not interested and the poll shows that 33% of Millennials think that in five years They will never need a bank again. Why because of their faith in cryptocurrencies and remember These are the guys and gals that are just starting with their maximum spending mode at age 32 to 35 Just a couple of years from now. Oh, and here is an amazing statistic Insurance actuarials have estimated that Millennials will receive a total of seven Trillion dollars in inheritances from their baby boomer parents in the next five years So where do you think that money's gonna go as mentioned before not much in McMansions Muscle cars or the stock market or financial instruments sold by banks and brokers Well, you can bet a nice slice of that pie is gonna go into crypto

[13:40] Now, what do you think that's gonna do to crypto prices across the board? Just remember to be a true cryptocurrency There is an absolute maximum limit on the amount that's out there unlike dollars and other fiat currency Just think supply and demand and remember that five-year projected millennial inheritance figure of seven trillion bucks and the fact that Millennials are Absolutely sold on cryptos. In fact right now 20% of Millennials have crypto wallets Way more than any other demographic group Think about what's gonna happen when the rest of them dive in So if you look at those stats and what's gonna happen in the next five years Millennials are set to pour in a ridiculous amount of money into crypto So you can either ride the wave or kick yourself because you didn't Alright, so that's my take on cryptocurrency

[14:26] And I think everyone who's got a plan B and who's moving down to Latin America has to get into it At least a little bit and if you feel lost it's over your head You're not technical at all. Don't worry If you come down to the seminar or even if you don't and you visit us down here in Latin America We got one hell of a crypto unit here. Believe me I still wonder sometimes how'd that happen? But man am I glad it did All right switching gears a little bit probably a lot what the hell's happening in Bolivia, you know If there's one thing I absolutely hate besides politicians government banks Google fake book social media Mark second turd Soros Bush Clinton Obama it wait. Wait, I'll stop there. God. I hate a lot of Don't I but it's worth hating. Anyway, on top of my hate list is fake news

[15:11] It's everywhere and so ubiquitous. You don't even know if it's fake or not Like for example, what's happening in Bolivia here? I'm reading all these articles and blogs coming out of the states Most of the articles saying the US must be involved again in regime change. Why are mainstream journalists? So Pro-socialism or social democracy as they call it. I don't get it Meanwhile, it doesn't seem like any of them have actually had boots on the ground in Bolivia and talked to the people That's why today I thought I'd give it a straight poop on what's really happening from people I know who've lived there are living there now and are reporting on it not in the news so much But at their kitchen tables and coffee shops, that's where the real poop is now The trick is not to get the news from the usual suspects up in the states But to read the articles coming out in Spanish in the countries where the news is actually happening makes sense, huh?

[16:02] Not from an armchair media quarterback that said let me read a translated article It came out in Spanish direct from the streets the coffee shops and kitchen tables in Bolivia And I'll paraphrase this a little bit title of the article Bolivian people refuse to let evil Morales steal a fourth term starts out and says Bolivian strongman evil Morales has found to have fabricated Election results in a bid to remain in power for a fourth term So the Bolivian people took to the streets and shut down the country until he agreed to resign then it says November 10th 2019 will go down as a great day for the people of Latin America in Righteous indignation the people of Bolivia took to the streets to express their outrage at evil Morales's Flagrant and blatant attempts to steal another election and ensure himself a fourth term in office

[16:52] Morales would have been willing to go to any length to stay in power You know the people with the support of the police and military however ensured that Morales would not turn the country into a true Socialist dictatorship a la Cuba and Venezuela. All right, let me stop just a second there to comment You know the media up in the states is saying since it was the military in Bolivia that kind of forced Morales out It's truly a coup d'etat. Well, that's not what the people on the streets are saying and you got to know the burnt burnies and occasional Cortexes of the first world are gonna push the theme that it was a military coup and takeover of a duly elected social democrat They're already saying it was a coup that was backed by the rich and business oligarchs who are intent on taking the power back from the people

[17:39] Alright now Let me continue with this article one slogan frequently heard on the streets of La Paz and Santa Cruz Bolivia can be heard above the chaos Namely Bolivia is not Cuba Bolivia is not Venezuela It is abundantly clear to the man on the street that Evo's grand plan was to remain in office for the rest of his life Like his greatest friend and mentor Fidel Castro who we met with at least 30 separate times Meanwhile we hear the whining of the usual suspects Evo's loyal supporters from the other dictator governments in the region Then it says the Cuban communist dictatorship was outraged at the so-called assault on democracy when they threw Evo Morales out Which is so ironic coming from a nation that is Cuba that hasn't held an election in 60 years

[18:29] You have to ask yourself why the Cuban leadership would be so concerned about the lack of democracy in Bolivia When their own country has none there also seems to be no apparent mention of Morales attempt to steal a fourth term by shutting down the nation's electoral system and Fabricating results to magically give himself just enough of a margin of victory That would be ten point five percent to prevent a second round election runoff Which Morales was extremely likely to lose to the other guy Carlos Mensa Then it says the outrage here However, isn't that Morales would try to steal an election a la Hugo Chavez Nicolas Maduro The real outrage is that he was allowed to run on the ticket at all What non Latino countries failed to understand is that Morales?

[19:18] Declared his candidacy for a fourth term in clear and flagrant violation of the Bolivian Constitution Then he held a referendum in which the Bolivian people voted against him being on the ballot Then he went to his hand-picked thugs on the Bolivian Supreme Court who declared that it was his human right to Violate the Constitution and run for a fourth term Then it says when it became clear that evil was going to face a second round election, which he might lose He had his thugs at the National Electoral Council shut down the voting counting system for 24 hours Something that's never happened before in Bolivia Strangely enough when the system came back online 24 hours later He was winning by just enough to spare him a second round election run off at that point

[20:06] Every man on the street knew it was blatant and obvious electoral fraud Then it says evil Morales would never have resigned of his own will he did so because the military Obligated him to do so Bolivia has a long history of instability and political volatility Morales remained popular for more than a decade and presided over numerous years of economic growth in the first couple of years He did much for the indigenous population, but after being entrenched in power for more than 14 years Bolivian voters even the indigenous were clearly suffering from evil fatigue So now having lost the support of the military police numerous political allies in the nation's largest workers union Morales had no choice but to resign amid provable accusations of massive voter fraud

[20:53] That means he will face criminal charges and arrest himself if he remains in the country Which is why he called in his political markers and made a run to Mexico In fact, he was trying to make his escape in the presidential plane property of the Bolivian state However, his plane was subsequently seized by Bolivian authorities at first his plan was to hightail it to Cuba or Venezuela But the Cuban and Venezuelan embassies are under occupation from anti-morales protesters So he felt it wasn't cool to show up there But with an estimated 50 million dollars sequestered away in foreign bank accounts He's certainly on the A list for the welcome wagon in any corrupt country now for those of you who look at Morales's record and say he really turned Bolivia around and

[21:39] Eliminated severe poverty cleaned up the water system built schools and hospitals and repaired the infrastructure Sure in his first term he did all that but it was not him But the gas deposits of Kamari and the eastern provinces that provided the dough Turns out in the first couple of years. He was in office He invited multinational petroleum companies to invest in locating reserves and then reinvest in production facilities Then a few years later Morales nationalized the natural gas and oil refineries Following the lead of Maduro in Venezuela. That's a tenant of socialism Nationalized the industries because you know government can run those things best, right? So once nationalized these industries gave the government all the profits instead of just the royalties they were getting previously

[22:30] In fact, he openly admitted many times his leadership model was Hugo Chavez of Venezuela Then nearing the end of his second term and the Bolivian Constitution only allows two terms for president He asked the Bolivian people to modify the Constitution to eliminate term limits There was a referendum and the Bolivian people voted it down So Morales went to his hand-picked Supreme Court and argued that enforcing the term limit was a violation of his human right and they agreed with him So he got a third five-year term and up to now with 14 years at the helm and with the gas reserves Dwindling and no new discoveries because no international petroleum giants want to come in and invest in Bolivia not if their projects and companies are just gonna get nationalized as Morales did with the previous bunch of petroleum investors. So then where does Bolivia stand now?

[23:19] Well Morales is in Mexico, but is still calling on his followers to resist Meanwhile many families are hiding out in their homes Refusing to go out as young people in the streets break windows loot stores and burn buildings Bottom line the writer says in a nutshell What you have here is a socialist that tried to stay in power by any means and being forced to leave Kicking and screaming. He decided if he couldn't be president anymore He'd punish the ungrateful masses by trying to start a civil war Alright, there you have it a man on the street viewpoint a boots on the ground view of things now It's true. You don't have to believe that version of the story And I'm sure in a couple of weeks or maybe even a couple of months when the dust settles We'll find out more and we'll also find out how many millions

[24:04] Morales and his family members have socked away in foreign bank accounts when we find out those numbers We'll know for sure the real news from the fake news. All right enough said about that Let me throw in a little plug for my January 2020 expat insider seminar this time Once again, we're going to two Central American countries Guatemala and El Salvador Participants will be flying into the airport at Guatemala City We'll pick you up directly at the airport Hold your hand through the entire week of the seminar all the way up to where we drop you off at the airport to fly Back to Cleveland. Yep, we're doing two countries part of the time. We'll be in the Alti Plano of Guatemala That's five to six thousand feet above sea level perfect spring like weather all year round no heating or air conditioning needed Then we'll spend a little time at the Pacific beaches of El Salvador

[24:50] Every day, we'll have lectures from 8 till noon or 1 and every afternoon and evening boots on the ground to some of my favorite places So just go to www.theexpedfiles.com and click on Johnny's seminar link or go to www.theexpedfiles.com Slash seminar for complete info sign-up details, etc And remember when you sign up you get a free hour phone or Skype consult with me to discuss Anything and everything about the seminar or your plan B including banking healthcare Crypto the price of coffee anything and don't forget when you come down to the seminar You can kill two birds with one stone that is get your Guatemalan residency going But you'll have to schedule another week after the seminar to get the process done And if you do apply don't worry You won't be holed up in your hotel room for a week

[25:37] You can explore get some boots on the ground will give you a great itinerary and our seminar logistics Coordinator Rita has put together four amazing boots on the ground trips that you can take advantage of if you like in any event If you come down, you'll be drinking from the fire hose and that's just the way we like it That is the way, you know to get a two to five year head start on your plan B And I'm not just making that up or picking numbers out of the air people who've been to the seminar Tell me that all the time Some people also tell me the best thing about the seminar is the connections that they make while they're down here Hospitals dentists physicians our seminar lawyer Bitcoin Dan Oscar minor captain mango mr. B and well just an amazing cast of people and you know I've been doing the seminars for nine years now and I've never ever had one person tell me it wasn't worth it

[26:27] Or they wanted a refund sure I've given refunds to people who paid but never arrived or just couldn't make it couldn't get here changing plans But never has anyone asked for a refund after taking the seminar So when people ask the question is it worth it? I just point to the dozens and dozens of repeat offenders So why in the world would they come back and drink from the fire hose again some not just two, but three times I rest my case. All right. One last thing a couple of shows ago I read a long letter from a millennial Remember that was a young guy who said he'd seen the light and he needs a plan B Even though he's a millennial and addicted to his cell phone and social media the whole works You remember that one in response to that letter? I got quite a few emails and one guy wrote me his name is bird He said Johnny I'm a baby boomer and I agree with pretty much everything that millennial guys said

[27:17] Even though he sounds like he's really resentful of us, baby boomers But I have to say us boomers will get the last laugh because the way things are going in this world Millennials will never get a chance to experience old age You've been listening to the expat files living in Latin America If you need some help with your own plan B We can schedule a one-on-one phone or Skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in Central America Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan B Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com No spamos