Expat Living: The podcast discusses the benefits of becoming an expat, such as lower cost of living, reduced taxes, and improved quality of life, using Jesse Day's experiences in Croatia and Serbia as examples.
Geopolitical Concerns: Jesse Day shares his reasons for leaving Canada, citing dissatisfaction with political and social climates, particularly during the pandemic, and the importance of aligning with a country's cultural and political values.
Investment Opportunities: The conversation touches on the potential financial benefits of living abroad, including tax incentives and lower living costs, which can effectively increase one's income and standard of living.
Remote Work: Emphasizing the importance of remote work or entrepreneurship, the discussion suggests that having a location-independent income is crucial for those considering moving abroad.
Cultural Alignment: The podcast highlights the significance of cultural and religious alignment when choosing a new country to live in, as it can greatly affect one's integration and satisfaction with the expat experience.
Global Economic Trends: Jesse Day comments on the global shift towards state-sponsored capitalism and the potential implications for personal freedoms and economic policies, particularly in Western nations.
Uranium Market Insight: The podcast briefly mentions the resurgence of the uranium market, noting a shift in global attitudes towards nuclear energy as a viable and necessary energy source, presenting investment opportunities in the sector.
Transcript
Have you ever thought about leaving the country, becoming an expat, finding a lower cost of living, lower taxes, higher quality of life somewhere else? Well, today my guest is Jesse Day, and both he and myself have done and are doing exactly that. Today, we talk about how and why you might want to consider it, too. Here is Jesse Day on the J. Martin Show, where we dissect the brightest minds in geopolitics and finance. Enjoy. This is Jay Martin. All right, I'm here with Jesse Day. Jesse, it's great to have you on the show, man. Happy to be here on the Jay Martin show. Always appreciate your work and um you're the guy who kind of got me into interviewing in the first place. So, it's an honor to be on the other side of the microphone with you. Cool, man. No, I'm looking forward to jamming with you. So, here's where I want to start. There's like a handful directions I want to go. But um a lot of folks have the conversation about leaving their country to find a better life somewhere else. Whether that is because they're not enjoying the political climate, whether they're not enjoying the tax structure, whether they're not enjoying the cost of living. But for most people, this seems to be an insurmountable challenge. And it's a big one, right? To leave the country you're from, everybody you know, and the culture you're familiar with and go somewhere else to seek a better life. That's intimidating. You've done it right. Uh and I want to talk to you about that today. So, let's break that down. First of all, what can you share about because you know, you actually struck out and you explored many countries before landing where you're at today and who knows if you're going to stay there, but for anybody who's not familiar with that journey for you, they didn't see your keynote at VR. Just walk us through where you're at and why and then we'll pull on some threads. Well, originally I moved from Canada to Beijing, China actually back in 2007. That was kind of my first experience being an expat. Uh, from there I was there for a year and a half and then I lived in Seoul, South Korea for 8 years. I worked largely in both countries in the broadcasting industry hosting travel TV shows mainly and stuff like that. So that was more of just a passion I had for Asian culture. Um, I had a lot of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese friends when I was in Vancouver, and I've always been fascinated by um, you know, kung fu movies and the typical stuff that, you know, your your Western person gets into when when they tend to to dive into Asian culture. And so, it was just kind of a a natural transition for me to then I I took uh acting for the camera in my university. And so then I went over to Asia and kind of was able to use those skills to then build a career there which was really nice. However, the real expat move came in 2021 October when I left Canada to move to Croatia and that wasn't for fun or to pursue a career. That was because I was extraordinarily alarmed with what was happening in Canada and I thought that I could no longer live in that society. It was just a sense that I can't be here. Now, I had planned by the end of 2021 to leave, but of course, um, Trudeau put in these insane, uh, restrictions where people who didn't take the government's prescribed medicine could not get on a plane and actually leave the country, which, by the way, to this day is one of the greatest human rights violations ever committed by a western democracy in modern history. It's not even talked about in Canada. And uh most Canadians have either buried it or they think it was great and are happy that it happened. Uh which is one of the reasons I left was the people uh because once I saw things begin with the passport system where you needed if you wanted to go have a beer with your buddies, you had to show evidence of taking two doses of the chosen medicine. Uh that to me was completely nuts. But what was more insane to me was people's reaction to it where I was in Vancouver, which was great. This is exactly how it should be. Um, and that's what really pushed me out the door because I thought, okay, well, if there's resistance to this, if the people stand up and and do something about it or demand that things change, perhaps we could see change and I want to believe that my country is going to go in the correct direction. But once I saw people take almost a look down their noses at those who don't have the past type of opinion of things, that's when I realized this is not for me. I've got to get out of here. So I'd been researching countries all around the world. I had a spreadsheet and I was just looking at countries mainly at the rules that they had in society. So this was height of the pandemic, October 2021 when a lot of countries were locking down and doing crazy stuff. So I was looking for the outliers, which countries out there are not locking down and doing crazy crazy stuff and are actually open and more free. And so that led me to the Balkan region firstly to Albania. I didn't go there, but this was kind of one of my initial uh thoughts was to potentially go to Albania because they were one of the only countries in the world that didn't even test you to come into the country and really no rules in society. And so I was thinking about that, but that led me to a greater exploration of Croatia, Serbia, um, Bulgaria, Bosnia, all these different areas in the the Balkan and former Yugoslavian regions. And I landed on on Croatia because there was an interesting balance of power between the prime minister and the president. The prime minister has deacto power there. Uh, he's kind of a puppet of Brussels and of the EU and he can implement policy. The president doesn't really have much deacto power although he technically commands the military and he is a public figurehead. So what he says matters. He shows up on television and gives his speeches and interviews and so there was a real clash between the two of them whether real or manufactured I don't know but there was and uh the president was staunchly against any sort of restrictions or rules and the prime minister was very for them. And then you had the third factor in play which was the Catholic Church. And Croatians much like Serbians look to their religion before they look to their government. And so the Catholic Association of Bishops in Croatia was against uh forced medical treatments and they made that clear in an open letter they released. And there was a lot of people who rallied behind that because they looked to their religious leaders for guidance. And then you had the president who was against it and then the prime minister was for it. So it was kind of this checks and balances in place and so there was essentially no restrictions at all. I at the beginning of the pandemic there was some some lockdown curfew stuff before I got there but as things moved along by the time October 2021 had rolled along there was no restrictions other than wearing a mask indoors and that was not enforced. There was no enforcement of that. So it was kind of up to you. And so it was an incredible uh difference. It was it was a breath of fresh air coming from Canada and stepping into Croatia. It was like being freed from a prison. I can't even describe the the feeling. Um and so Croatia, fantastic country. What led me to Serbia was the fact that Croatia does not have good long-term residence options unless you have Croatian ancestry or you marry a Croatian. I'm already married, so that wasn't going to work out for me. Um, and uh, besides those options, it's very difficult to get uh, long-term residence. You have to actually get employed. Um, and they're just looking for essential workers, like construction workers and stuff. So, it wasn't going to work out. Uh, and then so I discovered Serbia. I was visiting Serbia after I'd uh, run out my one-year digital nomad residence program. A great program, by the way, if you just want to go somewhere for a year. It's a 0% income tax rate, which is incredible. Um, and and they let you stay for a year. So I did that and then I was visiting Serbia after that and just found it to be very similar to Croatia in terms of the attitudes of the people which was faith first and complete distrust of their government. That's a real feature of former Yugoslavian countries. Um except for maybe Slovenia but that that's kind of a neither here or there. They they they are the only country that separated from Yugoslavia without firing a single shot and and formed a government without actually fighting or going to war. And they're a little bit more EU centric with their approach to things. So the people tend to have a bit more trust of their government there in my opinion. Uh but but here in in Serbia, people are staunchly mistrustful of their government. I guess that's a that's one way to put it. And so I like being surrounded by people who don't trust their government. I think that's the natural way to behave. Uh that makes sense considering the governments are generally always a predatory class and they are generally always criminals who've legalized their own crimes. Um that's a view a lot of people don't believe in because we're kind of caught in this my party versus your party struggle which blows my mind that people can't open their eyes and see they're all trying to just consolidate their own power and increase their own wealth. that is the goal of the political class and they will say whatever they need to do to bring about that end and um people here recognize that and so I very much appreciate that and so I've been here for almost 2 years now it's been incredible um great experience the Serbian people are always willing to lend a helping hand you don't even have to ask them in many cases they'll approach you to help you out with things they're very um open to foreigners being here and uh it's been fantastic so far so far. But, you know, it's really interesting because your incentive there, right? And I know there's more incentives including the tax structure in Serbia, uh, the tax structure in Croatia, and we'll we'll talk about that, right? Because I think that's important in addition to the cost of living, which is front and center for a lot of people, but you know what you started with there, you're like, you didn't mention that. You mentioned uh cultural misalignment, right? you were noticing a shift or um a general alignment in the Canadian population that you were continually feeling like an outlier from, right? And it man, that's a real thing. It's really tough to embrace that and that's I think a very hard thing for people to do is like I feel very politically homeless in Canada, right? Oh my god. You know, and I similarly think it's almost like unfathomable, very hard to understand why folks just because they feel one party is bad that the other one must be good. It's amazing that people still think that way. Um but I I all you can do is shake your head. It's mindblowing. I mean um and you know, I was joking with a friend about this just the other day. We we're getting back to the same era that you just discussed, the 2020 era, right? and and you know a lot of my family's American, my wife's American, as are my kids. And um you know, the situation in the US at that point was you had an elected leader being President Trump who was at the helm when that outbreak began. And he was the one from the podium saying, "We're going to expedite the um the uh manufacturing of this medicine that we're all going to need and uh we're going to get it in your hands in in super quick fashion." And it was the Liberal Party. It was Biden himself who was like there is no way we're taking the Trump jab. You know that you know this is you know they're absolutely opposed to the concept right of a mass roll out of uh expedited medicine that everybody would take. And then right after the election it was like the product didn't change whatsoever. was still manufactured by the same companies, the exact same ingredients, the same process, but we just, you know, replaced our arguments and all of a sudden it was the Liberal Party who was like went from there's no way we'd take the Trump job to just take the job, man. You know, it was like and and same, you know, the Republican party rotated underneath, took the other side of the same argument and no one blinked, right? It was like, wait a minute, did you need more evidence that they're all just lying? Like, what? But, you know, you can go through infinite experiences like that and people still just align with the party they think is less bad and then they become loyalists and it's just it's kind of mindbending. Yeah, I completely agree. And one thing I will say is when not everybody is the same. Some people will tough it out even when they're feeling like their values are no longer aligning with the culture. So, it's to certain degrees depending on how you feel about the situation. For me, I just felt like I didn't have a choice. I was ready to go to Botswana in Africa. That was one of the places on my list, which gets so hot that I would barely even be able to handle it. Obviously, much more um rough around the edges than even a place like Serbia, but I that was one of the places I was looking at because they had very reasonable regulations in place. Um I was willing to go anywhere. It it it didn't matter to me just to get out of that type of draconian control. And that's when I realized that my own freedom uh whether you want to call it bodily autonomy or just personal freedoms to choose what you want to do is the greatest value that I hold which I actually didn't know before the pandemic broke out. So that really drove a lot of my actions. So I want to break this down a little bit and maybe we can also get into the the tax incentives and the cost of living incentives. But my my goal here, Jesse, I suppose, is to draw out a process that people could perceive as a lot easier than they thought it was going to be. And whether that's because maybe the barriers aren't as high as you thought or the incentives are far greater than you thought. And so those barriers are just worth it, right? And um you know, we're doing a similar um uh process in in my family, right? We're spending more time abroad. My kids no longer are in the Canadian school system. They're in the Indonesian school system. We spend half our life there. We're going back in seven days. Um, we've got our own incentives for doing that and probably a bit of a different decision framework because my kids are always going to be at the front of any decision, right? It's like, right, I'm looking at cost of living, tax structure, personal freedom, but first it's like, what's the environment and community going to be like for my very young kids, you know? Um, but you know, we're coming to a very similar conclusion. Um, and so what would you say to somebody who's like, "Oh, it must be nice, Jesse. Must be nice that you got to do this, but like I could never because XYZ, right?" You must have had that conversation with peers from back home. Um, what's your take on that? I think the most common um reason why people are unable to relocate is because of their profession, right? they've built a career already in the country that they're in and so they find it really difficult to imagine being able to travel to another country and kind of start all over again. Um, what I would say to that is that you don't have to leave right away. And if you have thoughts that for whatever reason you think your life could be better abroad, then you can start making a plan. And it can take years. you could look at a two to three to even fiveyear plan to eventually relocate. And I don't think when it comes to Canada in particular that things are going to get better. And I think the same way about many Western nations, the UK being one of them, Germany being one of them, Australia, etc. One of the reasons for that is that during the pandemic, people don't put these two and two together. But when as a population you put up with the most brutal draconian restrictions imaginable during the pandemic and even have a large percentage of the population cheer on those restrictions and bully others into compliance. Now the politicians can do whatever they want forever until somehow that mentality changes in the population. But once you've gone that far you can't turn back. I think it will take the next generation or the generation after that to potentially write things because people also experience tremendous cognitive dissonance with their decision-m and nobody wants to admit they were wrong in those sorts of situations and so they will justify why they were right. And as long as they have that mentality, the politicians can now continue to control them because they've already bought into the fact that they were correct to follow these restrictions and bully others into doing the same. And so now you get sort of a a bizarre Soviet style system in a way. It's got elements like the the the place that Western countries are drifting into is like it's got shades of communism. It's got shades of totalitarianism and authoritarianism. It's kind of a melded new structure of governance in a sense where they use the concept of democracy as kind of a shield, but it doesn't really exist. So people aren't getting thrown in goolags yet. Although in the UK and Germany, people are literally getting thrown in prison for speaking out against mass immigration and other issues like that. But it's kind of a soft gouag system where or or a soft totalitarianism where you don't have, you know, the gestapo showing up at your door again except unless you're in the UK or Germany, but in a place like Canada, for example. But you do have this idea that what the government says is correct and if you go against that you're a conspiracy theorist or you're far right or you're a Trump supporter or something like that. So it kind of causes society to self-govern itself into kind of a a prison wherein the citizens exist. Uh which which to me means that it could potentially take decades for this situation to ever turn around in a place like Canada. the next or the next next generation. And people need to feel enough pain to then um to then make change. What we saw in Argentina with Javier Malay, somebody as radical as him getting elected, and I'm not saying he's good for the country or I'm not a fan, he's a politician, so generally I don't like him. But he is taking some things in the correct direction. And for such a radical figure to be elected, it took decades of failed socialist policies to the point where people were just in such abject poverty. They were suffering so much that they had to stand up and say, "Okay, we have to change something. This isn't working." And I don't think Canada is even close to that level of pain and suffering for for people to actually rise up and cause change. So that's just a prelude to say like I don't think things are going to get better. So you can plan ahead and do a three to five year plan and find a way. The obviously the ideal thing is to be able to work remotely whether that's to be able to be hired by a company who will allow you to work remotely or whether that's starting your own business uh some sort of online venture uh some sort of entrepreneurship where you're able to operate online. That is obviously the key to being completely free in that sense because then you're not beholdened to your country and you're able to move around at will. So getting that type of freedom of movement and still be able to be employed whether that's by an employer or self-employed in my opinion should be the key of your plan when you are looking to plan out however long you think it might take. if you're already in the fortunate position. Okay, I kind of was when I left, although my channel hadn't taken off at that point. It was just kind of starting to pick up. I wasn't making a large income from it. In fact, the income was very small. Um, my employer at the time allowed me to stay on remotely uh for for some time. So that was a great help but my situation was a little uncertain but I was still in a better position than let's say somebody who worked as an electrician in their you know country. It's very difficult to then get up and move. You want to try to go to a country where electricians are in demand and then you also want to go to a country where you speak the native language which is very difficult. You can't just, if you're a Canadian, you can't just come to Serbia, just as an example, and not learn Serbian and get hired as an electrician. And and if you do get hired here as an electrician, it kind of defeats the whole low cost of living um part of the equation because your salary would be dramatically lower to the point where it's not a low cost of living. So, there's a lot of factors to consider. Um, but I would say the the main one is to make sure that your plan includes being autonomous, being able to work remotely and um, preferably running your own business or being in control of of that aspect of what you do. So, plan for it. I I mean, like I said, this isn't an overnight thing. It can take years, but um, if you're in a position where you feel like you would be better served living abroad, then it's worth it in my opinion. Yeah. And you're right. It's not not everybody can do it. if you're tied to a local trade that just doesn't uh isn't going to translate very uh beneficially, that that is what it is, right? Um for sure. I I appreciate the sort of transparency there, but also a lot of folks could pursue this more than they think they could. Many companies still accept and reward remote workers, us being one. I've got people all over the world, right? And uh obviously there's exceptions to any rule, but there's options for sure. Um, now you know the Argentinian example you mentioned, they're just now getting their feet back under them. It's really important, I think, for Canadians to pay attention to that story because if you were to go back 105 years, you would have found that Argentin Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And there was a phrase known all over the world that was the wealthy Argentinian. The individuals who came from there and traveled the world always had dough in their pockets. And it was because they had a very robust commodity export industry, huge coastline, favorable governance. They had all the right ingredients for a booming economy. And they capitalized on that for a very long time. They got smashed in the Great Recession, Great Depression in the 20s uh uh and 30s and just didn't bounce back like a lot of economies did because they elected a very far-left leaning government who promised the people they would fix the economy, right? The government will regulate us back to prosperity. And that led to 80 years of uh sort of a lost century in Argentina and they're just now getting their feet back under them. You know, I'm massively simplifying, but the point of this is that a country can have all the right ingredients like Canada does. Massive exporter of almost every key commodity the entire world needs. Longest coastline in the world, longest shared border on the other side of which is the world's wealthiest and hungriest customer. Like we've got all the ingredients for success. And Canada is a very simple country. It's larger land mass standpoint than the United States with less people than the state of California. We do resources really, really well. And if we glorify that industry, the trickle down effect from the capital that floods and benefits everything else. But if we vilify that industry and think we can lean on something else as the core pillar, everything falls apart. Right? You need the core pillar to be strong and then you can lean on any other industries that are financed by the revenues from that core industry. In Canada's case, that's natural resources. We've had um obviously a very anti-natural resource um leadership for 12 11 years now. So, uh that is what it is. So, um three incentives maybe to look at living abroad. One is cultural which we talked about. Um another would be the cost of living which I want to get into a little bit and the other would be you know tax structures right and so maybe I'll go first from our standpoint we're looking at all those. I feel very politically and socially homeless at times in Canada. And so we've been looking for uh an opportunity to explore other cultures. We landed in in Indonesia. We tried a couple countries. We ended up here. One thing I've really loved about expat communities, not just in Indo, but actually in Costa Rica, Mexico, a few other places that we tried, is that politics are way less of the conversation. You know, you know, it's like we're not from here, right? We left where we're from to get out of that conversation, right? and let's just build great lives here, right? And so I've enjoyed that's been very refreshing. Very often in Canada when I have a conversation with with folks, the conversation is always sort of positioned through the lens of partisanship in some way, right? It's like people make it very evident they're a liberal or evident they're a conservative as like a precursor to what they're going to say next, right? And it's exhausting and I don't care. You know what I mean? And I found that to be absent far more often in expat communities and that's been lovely. Um, yeah, we we moved to Indo because of the cost of living. We're not residences there. So, we still pay Canadian tax, right? Uh, but we still achieve, you know, a 25 to 30% reduction in living costs. Um, which is substantial, right? And so that allows somebody in my situation to benefit from the Canadian health care system, which people can hate on, but if you know, look, if we had had our kids in the US, it would have been a five figure hospital bill every single time. I got three kids and a fourth on the way. That adds up. Yeah. Right. And for the for the status quo activities, public health care is great. Personally in Canada, I almost use exclusively private healthcare. Like I still pay out of pocket because I'm just I'm usually more progressive in my approach to healthare uh than the average person is. But for status quo things, uh it's great. And you know, I want that option available for the kids. So, we're still carrying the tax bill, but we're achieving the cost of living reduction, and that helps us massively. Well, you know, you live a life of of um of increased income. It's like if we have a 25% reduction in our cost of living, uh it's sort of the equivalent of a 33% increase in income. That's the reality on the ground. and we could live cheaper in Indo, but we just it's like what, you know, we could do a 50% uh cut in our cost of living, but it's like let's just go there and drink champagne on a beer budget. Like why not, right? That's kind of the the pleasure of it, right? Yeah. Um what's your take on that, Jesse? The three buckets, you move for the culture, you move for the tax structure, you move for the cost of living. Do you think that's a decent picture of what incentives people should seek out and look for? Yes, absolutely. And obviously tax incentives and cost of living incentives are a big one. Um, obviously it can be a sensitive topic when it comes to the cost of living issue when we're talking about these countries where the citizens of those countries have such a lower salary. So, I'm very aware of that. I got kind of checked by one of my Serbian friends when I made a post on X about, wow, look at how cheap groceries are in Serbia. I showed my grocery haul and I put the price in US dollars. Everyone was like, oh my god. My buddy's like, dude, my Serbian buddy's just texting me. that's insanely expensive in this country. I'm like, okay, I'm sorry. I get it. Um because the the the salaries are so much lower. And that's kind of my point of if you want to take advantage of that uh delta in the cost of living, then you want to be self-employed or have a source of income coming from the west where you are preferably not taxed by the west on that income. Canada is a country still to this day where you can become a non-resident and then you do not have to pay taxes. Um you still have to pay capital gains tax on any assets that you hold in Canadian brokerage accounts for example, but your income will not be taxed as long as you don't own a business in Canada and you're not operating from there. That's the Canadian side of things. The obviously in the US you get taxed wherever you go in the world, which is tough except for Puerto Rico. Um, so that's kind of the only option out there if you're looking to avoid taxes. Now, the cost of living aspect of things is obviously you kind of you can double your income in that sense, just like you said. Um, here in Serbia, things are about 50% cheaper than back home in Canada. I'm assuming it's basically the same with with many other western nations, that 50% uh reduction. So, that's certainly one reason. The cultural aspects make a lot of sense. I think one important thing to consider when you're moving to a new country is do your values align with the people and the culture of that country. For example, Serbia is an Orthodox Christian country. In fact, it's probably one of the last pure Orthodox Christian nations on this planet. And by that I mean everybody's Orthodox Christian, practicing Orthodox Christian. I mean, not 100% but a very, very high amount. Your average person you bump into in the street, they're an Orthodox Christian. They go to church. They they kind of um exemplify the tenants of their faith or they try to which is what I believe makes this nation such an incredible place to be from a people and culture perspective because they believe in the teachings of Christ and they try to convey that in their everyday life. For some people that would be terrible. Maybe they don't like religion. They they don't want to be around all this religious iconography and and be involved in a religious society. So then you should consider somewhere else. Um you know Albania is a Muslim country. So Indonesia is also a Muslim country and if you're not if if for some reason that's not favorable for your own belief system then perhaps you want to consider somewhere else. So a lot of these cultures in developing nations are very religious I guess is my point. And my thing is moving to developing nations, emerging economies, because why relocate from Canada to France? You're going to basically be in the similar situation with what the government's doing. You're going to be in a similar situation with the cost of living, with taxes, and all that. So, it doesn't really make sense unless you really love France and you really want to move there. And so I think um the morals and the uh culture that you go into need to align with your own if you're going to be there over the long run. So that's that's one thing to consider. How welcoming is that culture to foreigners? There's some cultures that are much more closed off to foreigners. I've heard Thailand is like this. If you move to Thailand as an expat, unless you just hang out in your own expat community, you really need to learn Thai and you really need to delve into the Thai culture and understand all of the intricacies of how Thai culture works if you want to integrate. I lived in South Korea for 8 years. I learned Korean and I spoke it fluently because that's another culture and another society where as a foreigner unless you do that you are always going to be an outsider and you are always going to be treated differently. Right? Serbia is not like that. Serbia is extraordinarily open and welcoming to foreigners. Um everybody speaks English basically. So the language is another thing you need to consider. If you move to a place like Japan, nobody really speaks English in Japan. People have a misconception that people speak English in Japan. They really don't. Um or even if they do, they don't like to speak English, especially to a random foreigner who approaches them in the street. They're very shy. They're very, you know, that they're not outgoing people and they don't speak much English. So, if you're going to move to Japan, then you'd better learn Japanese and be really serious about it. So, these are very important things to consider when you're relocating to a new area. Um, and what was the third part of that bucket you were saying? There was uh there was culture, there was kind of tax breaks and cost of living incentives. Cost of living. Yeah. Those three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you can achieve a better cost of living either through reduced expenses or through tax breaks. And you know, people often look at the tax structures of the countries they're going to move to and think that's the best way to achieve an increased income, which is true, right? If you're like, you know, making uh $500,000 income in Vancouver, you're keeping about 280,000 of that, right? It's a 44% effective tax rate. And so it's bonkers. What you need to understand about that though is that if you regain that uh $220,000 of income by moving to a income tax-free location, it's not like you get a 44% income rate. Any investor knows you get a 80% increase in your income. That's what moving from 280 back to 500 in your pocket feels like. That's an 80% increase. uh because you regain that loss. And uh however, in you know, if you're not willing to give up your residency, there's other ways to achieve similar income increases just by focusing on the cost of living instead. Yes, absolutely. And one thing to consider is that once you gain residency in another country, you now have two countries and two political jurisdictions that you can walk in the door and they will say, "Right this way, sir, when you arrive at the airport because doesn't matter if you're a non-resident of Canada, you're still a Canadian citizen. The same applies to any country you're coming from. So, you can just come right in whenever you want, no questions asked." Um, and then the same you have a residence permit in another location. And so now if something happens in one, you you always you now diversify your options. You now have double the options that you did previously. And you can now open a bank account in another jurisdiction. So you're now diversifying risk when it comes to your bank account. You could open a brokerage account in another country. And in many of these cases, some of these countries have access to markets where perhaps you don't have access to if you're interested in investing in frontier markets or emerging economy markets. Often brokers in the west don't have access to these stock markets and these exchanges. So that's another thing. You can diversify your your wealth and diversify your savings between countries and it's just an extra insurance policy and that's just with one residence permit in another country. Yeah. And I don't mean to like sound crass or whatever by starting with a half million dollar income. You know, anybody over a quarter million in Canada hits that 44% effective tax rate between federal and provincial, even if you're making 100 grand, 150 grand. Regaining that tax loss and then coupling that with the uh decreased cost of living multiplies your standard of living dramatically, right? And that's the incentive when you bolt those two things together. I want to ask you about you touched on the significance of faith in many developing countries and this is like front and center in my household right now. Um in Western Canada is probably the one of the best examples of the consequences of a society without faith. People are completely lost. They have no idea and they're seeking purpose in all kinds of weird places because they don't have that central purpose that faith provides. Right? And like I'm I'm just I'm a Christian, you know, my household is Christian, but even if you're not a Christian, you might be able to understand the utility of seeking God because of how that aligns so much of your life. And you talked about um just effectively the culture in Serbia, people live out Christian values and that's them trying to live like Christ. And that's going to include a lot of compassion and reaching out and helping your neighbor and you know being there for one another, right? if that's lived properly, right? You can bastardize these principles and they often are. Uh but even in in Canada, for example, right now, the difference in culture between the west and the east is stark. And you know, I'm part of a little church here in Squamish where we live, but there's multiple campuses. There's three campuses in the west. Uh and they just launched their first campus in the east in Toronto. And the growth of that new campus in Toronto has like 5x anything they've accomplished in the west. And that's simply just a reflection of people's aversion to religion in the west. And there's like this allergic reaction to um to uh some sort of a belief in God. It's really strange. But I think lacking that people end up squirreling down the weirdest rabbit holes trying to find purpose elsewhere because we need it, right? We I believe we need purpose. We need some kind of central alignment in our life. But you'll find you'll fall behind the weirdest ideologies and um belief systems if you're just trying to create that on your own. And I think that's behind a lot of the cultural fracturing that we're seeing in the west right now. It's just there's no central divine guidance, no central um set of principles that we all follow. And so instead, everyone looks for what might suit them or what they can cherrypick their cause of the day and get behind that. And and um it's it's a bit of a mess. Um, now I don't think you're a practicing Christian, but you enjoy the the culture as a consequence. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Um, one thing I will say before I dive into that aspect of Serbia is, well, first of all, when it comes to Canada and many Western nations, the religion has largely become science at this point. Trust the science. It's become the government and it's become environmentalism. I actually think one of the big reasons that Canada doesn't exploit more of its natural resources is because the people don't want that. They believe that's bad and that you're damaging the ecosystem and they worship the environment in the sense in in almost a religious sense. So any exploitation of natural resources even though it's the foundation for all of human civilization and without the exploitation of natural resources they would be living in caves and you know trying to light fires with sticks. But people don't put two and two together. They enjoy this privileged life that was brought to them by mining and the extraction of hydrocarbons. And then they demonize those very same things no matter what. It doesn't matter. Not a little, just none. That's the attitude of so many Canadian people. So I think the politicians are largely, you know, when Trudeau said there's no there's no case for liqufied natural gas to be sold to Japan and and European nations, a lot of people said that's what is he an idiot? I don't think he was an idiot. I think he was just reading the political climate and realizing that the majority of people who voted for his party and would vote for him again are the type of people who would cheer on such a decision. We don't do hydrocarbons anymore or fossil fuels as they call it or clean energy. Perhaps in the future we'll do clean energy with you. Trust me, in the in the circles we live in where everybody was cussing him out and saying how much of an idiot he is, there is a whole other world of people who were cheering him on and applauding him for doing that. And those are the people he was doing that for, not you and me. So people people get it mixed up in their heads. They think it's obvious, but people have a political agenda. Um, and a lot of Canadian people are against that. So the the one thing I will say about Serbia is the infrastructure is not good. Uh it's very unstable politically. We're in our ninth month now of anti anti-government protests. Some of them have turned violent. Um there has been clashes between riot police and protesters. There has been clashes between the ruling parties. Um let's put it politely and call them representatives and uh and protesters as well. Um so freedom isn't free. I I want to put that front and center first, especially when you're going to emerging economies. Now, Serbia is extraordinarily safe. It's one of the safest nations on Earth. There is essentially no crime. There's no sketchy people around to the point where it's a bit of a disadvantage when I go back to Canada or when I visit other countries in Europe because I'm so used to it being so safe and everybody to just be normal everyday people with their families going about their business that it's a little bit more shocking now when I when I I'm like, "Oh yeah, there's sketchy people doing weird things in some places and you have to kind of be careful." It doesn't exist here. I mean, people might roll their eyes at this, but but but it's a truth. However, you've got to realize there's a trade-off. As Thomas Soell said, there's no solutions. There are only tradeoffs. So, you're going to have to sacrifice some things. A lot of that might be your standard of living in terms of the comfort and convenience that you're used to. Part of it is going to be the uncomfortability of being in a foreign land. And despite the fact that yes, in Serbia everybody speaks English, it is a bit of a bummer to not be able to communicate in the local language. And people are okay with it to a certain extent. I've been here 2 years, I only speak really basic Serbian. I have to step up my game because once I hit that 3, four, 5 year mark and I'm still not speaking Serbian, people are going to start to be a little bit upset about that. So, you have to realize there's tradeoffs and you have to be prepared for for all of this. But when it comes to faith, yes, you're correct. I'm not a practicing Christian or uh I don't have any religion, but I believe that Orthodox Christianity is the religion that is most aligned with my own moral values, which is to try to do good as much as possible and never do anything to take advantage of other people for your own benefit. Um, and that is kind of the Serbian mentality in general. Obviously, there are scammers, swindlers, and and people all over the world who are not good people and and who either don't follow their faith or claim to follow it, but but in actuality are just using it as a cover. So, I don't want to paint a picture that it's a utopia here in that sense. But I I think that is very important to be in an area that aligns with your own moral values as I was saying earlier and Serbia just really does that for me because people are just so kind here. I really can't put it under any other way. I experienced the same in Croatia and I which is a Catholic society and I experienced the same in Montenegro which is also an Orthodox Christian society. Um and how I'm wondering how it is in Indonesia. Have you felt that that same way? Indonesia is largely a Muslim country. Correct. Well, Indonesian's largely uh a Muslim country. We spend our time in Bali which is a Hindu island. It's this little Hindu enclave inside Indonesia and it's very Hindu. Uh you see it everywhere. Um yeah. Um every day, every shop, every cafe has a little offering outside uh their front step burning every single morning. Um it's very devout. Um you know, Nepi is their sort of biggest national holiday. We've been there for Nepi a couple times. It's the day of silence and the entire island shuts down. All electricity. You're not allowed to leave your house. can't turn the lights on, can't cook, can't do anything. Um, this is a sort of reflection. They the day before nepi is massive celebration, lots of fireworks and parades and all this and they sort of attract a lot of attention to the island spiritually. And the next day is the day of silence and everyone's inside, blinds shut, lights off, the spirits. Kind of nice if you're if you're hung over from the celebration the night before able to sit there with the blind. not not a big alcohol consuming culture, but otherwise it would be. The Aussies take care of that when they're there. But, you know, the the the evil spirits show up at the island the next day and they find nobody there is the is the sort of tradition. So, they leave the island alone for another year. Um, but it's it's serious and if you um there's patrols that are in the streets on the day of silence and if they see lights on um you know they'll they'll knock on your door right away. Like it's and it's so cool cuz you go out in your patio on the night of Nepi and it's just the stars are brighter than ever. It's just pure silence and darkness. It's it's really cool. Having said that, if you offend the laws of Nepi that the patrollers will come to your door and it's never I'd never seen this, but apparently they will actually apprehend you and take you to the temple where you have to um offer some penance, you know, and and pray for forgiveness, I suppose. So but it's yeah it's an incredibly devout Hindu culture and I would say even as a Christian um all the benefits of a very aligned and spiritually conscious God-fearing society is there and we love it you know and it's such a welcoming familyoriented look out for your neighbor uh you know um value children like it's such a beautiful culture we absolutely love it and and I think a lot of that is derived from absolute unity inside the Hindu religion in on this island. Um, so it's lovely. You know, we've also there's, you know, great Christian community and we found a cool church that we go to there. Um, so we kind of benefit from both. Uh, my kids are learning Bahasa to your point about um, you know, being able to just be respectful of the local language even if you're not fluent in it. You know, my wife and I can like survive. You know, you can order a car, groceries, and say thank you and good morning, but pretty limited to be honest on our Bahasa at this point. People will appreciate even that simple that that's another thing about developing economies that people don't realize when foreigners come to the west very often and they don't speak much English. People like what's wrong with you? Don't you speak English? Type of thing. That's But it's totally the opposite in in many places. I would say most places in the world. If you come from a foreign country and you're willing to learn the basics, hello, thank you, give me a coffee, please, or what, whatever it is, you'll often be showered with praise over these simple phrases and and people are just happy that you're willing to put in a little effort. That's 100% been our experience in in Indo for sure. Yeah. And having said that, you know, also the locals are far more keen in that case to practice their English with us than to try to stumble through Bahasa with with them, you know. So, um, so that that's but that's been our experience there. I want to pull on something you said, you know, freedom isn't free and you talked about sort of the trade-offs you'll make and inevitably, right? Like there's huge trade-offs in Indonesia as well, of course. Um, I want to maybe put this lens over the United States right now and get your thoughts on this because, um, I, you know, a lot of American in-laws, they're very proud American patriots and they value freedom over everything else. Or at least that's what they say. And I, you know, kind of wonder if American freedom is just an remarkably successful branding campaign. Uh, and that's what that's what this is. Um you could look at the US today and say um you know state creep into capitalism is increasing at sort of an unprecedented rate. Whether it's you know the Nvidia deal, US government getting a kickback on chips sold to China. Um whether it is the US Steel and Nippon merger um the United States government was awarded event initially blocked that merger and then was compensated with a golden share in US Steel Corp. as a consequence of letting it go through and this gives them veto abilities on um US uh manufacturing and and outputs and uh exports and all this a lot of control gives them a board seat um all of this um taking the 10% stake in Intel just uh last week that's a new development now sort of unprecedented in the US that's like standard course of business in China that's that's state sponsored capitalism to a tea that's how deals are done every day it's new in the US Right. Um, you could look at that and say that's that's offensive to traditional American values. You could look at, you know, any sort of I don't know, run through them, right? Deportation without due process, effectively shipping people to uh a labor camp in El Salvador. Um, masked up troops now patrolling many cities. Uh, no identification. Um, hidden faces. That's sort of a uh a practice that allows the government plausible deniability if something bad happens because already bad actors, criminals are mimicking those uh those troops and showing up at people's doors in masks, identification, making the same claims and how are you to know who's who. Um and so if something does go south, it gives the government plausible deniability those were not our guys. That was somebody pretending to be our guys, right? Um, and obviously federalization of police forces and many municipalities starting with LA, then DC, next up looks like Chicago, you know, and all of these things, right? Look, you could justify every single one of them. The streets aren't safe, right? We need to clean that up. Immigration did get out of control. We need to clean that up. uh we're competing with global actors who have state sponsored capitalism as a course of business and it's tough for independent corporations to compete with that. If government can lean in and support then they should to be globally competitive. You can make a case for all of these developments and say you know you're you're being too sensational Jay. This is good business and it's the change that people voted for and therefore we should support it. And I I might say you're absolutely right. But then at least be honest and say we are choosing security and control over freedom and liberty. I mean that is I think a truth right I don't think we can ignore that. Um but what's your take Jesse on that trajectory inside the US? The US has been our primary first choice outside of Canada. We're just building optionality in Asia. But you know from both a cultural uh alignment standpoint. There's many states in the US that my family with more conservative and Christian values would find have found to be lovely places to be. Um and we can achieve a tax benefit by moving there as well. we don't achieve the cost of living but we tick two boxes right however I look at these trajectories and new precedents being set in the US and it's always so important to remember that if the party you voted for um kind of blurs the lines a little bit to get the goals that you think are important accomplished you can be happy about that all day long but American elections are like pendulums and in four years there's going to be the opposition in power and the same precedent will be set and they'll leverage that towards goals you don't agree with And so, you know, it's you need to be aware of that double-edged sword. Uh, what what's your take right now, Jesse? US trajectory and precedent and all this. Well, before I dive into the domestic issues within the United States, and most of my viewers are from the US. I'm guessing the same for your program as well. So, I love all my American friends. I I just want to point out that the American Empire externally has been one of the most evil actors in modern history. Um, you can just go down the list. I mean the the fact that people were making a huge deal and again I will get attacked in the comments from people from this I have when I speak about this on my own show when Iran was supposedly harboring or or starting getting so close to creating a nuclear weapon which Netanyahu has been talking about since the '9s for people who don't know that they're one day away from getting a nuclear weapon so we need to attack them. Um why is America allowed to have nuclear weapons and Iran isn't? That's completely insane. The United States is the only nation to actually deploy nuclear weapons in one of the most devastating fashions, wiping out tens of thousands. Not only that, they firebombed the hell out of Japan, which the death toll from that was larger than the nuclear bombs, but Hiroshima, Nagasaki, firebombing Tokyo, they completely wiped out so many civilians. And they're the ones who are the safeguard, the the keepers of the flame when it comes to nuclear weapons. And they're the ones who are allowed to say that nation's bad. They're, you know, they're evil extremist Muslim terrorists who want to destroy the world, so they're not allowed a nuke, but we are. Okay. Russia, yeah, that's fine. Um, as long as we have some sort of treaty with them. Israel, great. And they don't actually have to report everything. That's also good because they're our ally. But it it's you get into this situation where it's completely hypocritical and it's blindingly obvious if you just take a step back and look at it without having any feelalty to your nation or feeling that oh I'm an American I or Canadian saying what whatever country you're from. When you take a step back and look at the world from this angle you go this doesn't make sense. And so America's been a horrible actor on the world stage the worst in modern history of any nation on earth. I I can't imagine what other nation could even come close to the devastation they've wrought to achieve their own ends and to keep the American empire alive. And the truth of the matter is a lot of the prosperity enjoyed by America today is because of America's role as the global hegeimon and them keeping everybody else on a leash. I think that's starting to change now um in a big way. Now, when it comes to internal domestic policy and these kind of infringements of freedom, as a lot of people are looking at them, it's very tough to separate the signal from the noise. When it comes to these things, particularly with the media that we live in today, you'll get a lot of reports from one side. You either kind of only get a left or right bias. So, the right will say, "This is great. President Trump's finally cleaning up the streets. Look, here's a video of a person walking through DC and talking about, "Oh my god, my neighborhood used to be so dangerous and now thanks to Trump, it's cleaned up." You see these everywhere, right? And then you go to the left and you see the completely opposite type of videos. The agents, you know, un unlawfully entered my house, they did something, they committed a crime, just all the things you're talking about. So, it's so difficult to separate like, okay, what is actually happening here? Um, so it's also very difficult to comment on if it is kind of good or bad. I mean, everything's shades of gray. Like we were saying that there's always tradeoffs. So it's tough to comment specifically, but one thing I will say in terms of the what some would call creeping authoritarianism or creeping involvement of the state in places like America and especially in places like the UK is that I believe it could be inevitable and there's absolutely no way for it not to happen because largely in part to the fiat currency global experiment we've been living under since Richard Nixon took gold backing away from the US dollar and by proxy from the world because through the Bretonwood system most major currencies of the world were pegged to the US dollar which was backed by gold once that got removed and we live in a complete experiment since 1971. This is the first time in human history we've had a global fiat currency system where all of the world's currency is backed by nothing but trust in the government allowing government to create currency units at will that creates an endless debt and deficit spiral as we have seen and is now getting worse and worse. As it gets worse and worse and the government and those in power get more and more worried about having to pay these bills that come due which is absolutely impossible for them. And when they realize, okay, there's going to come a point where we are probably going to experience some type of calamity. I mean, 2008 was the last time we experienced an extreme calamity within the financial and the economic system. And we're kind of due for another one, particularly since a lot of the issues from that crisis were merely papered over and they weren't actually solved. And so as those in power see that we're heading towards that brick wall to maintain their power and to maintain their wealth, they need to subjugate the population as much as possible so that in the event of a calamitous decline, whether that's a a recession, a full-blown depression, or a collapse of the fiat currency system, I don't think that's going to happen. You know, people get pretty hyperbolic about this stuff and claim that, you know, the US dollar is going to die and, you know, there's going to be poverty everywhere and everything's going to collapse and we're going to be forced back onto a gold standard. That might happen. I see it more as a slow decay, uh, a grind down. But as that happens, people's standard of living gets destroyed by inflation, which is the outcome of of them creating more currency units to prop up the system, to prop up their debt. And that civil unrest can turn into riots and in the most extreme cases can turn into revolution. And that is what the people in power fear the most. So they're working to subjugate populations now as much as they can in advance. So once everybody is managed, however they want to do it. There's a lot of talk of the Genius Act and this whole stable coin um legalization or legislation surrounding stable coin use being kind of a way to implement financial controls without issuing official CBDC. So that could be part of it. But nonetheless, they are trying to coersse and control the population and normalize it as much as they can so that the possibility of revolution and of them and their small inner elite circle losing their power and influence is less. And that is their primary goal to maintain their power and influence at all costs. So that is how I see part of this that that these things happening are kind of a symptom of the problem that all goes back to to 1971. Some would argue goes back further to when Bretton Woods was implemented and and um you know before that uh a lot of countries had their own gold standards. Uh Bretton Woods kind of took that away and and tied it all to the US dollar. Um, so I I think these are all symptoms that are potentially completely unavoidable. You know, throwing people in prison for social media post, that's all part of this. And then nor we need to normalize this, right? So that other citizens think, "Yeah, that's correct. You shouldn't hate on immigrants or whatever you're doing. So off to jail." And then you maintain this control where it's normal for the government to be your god in a sense. And that's straight out of 1984. And I think that's happening. And I think there could be no way to avoid it. Yeah. And even if you man, so much of what you said and and setting those precedents, people may never even get on side with those activities, whether it's criminalizing speech, which you just mentioned there. But even if they don't get on side, people can become apathetic towards the outcome, you know, and then just sort of fall in line as a consequence. And they don't agree. They wish it wasn't the case, but they've got busy lives. They've got their own livelihood to worry about and their own priorities and families. And so they just become apathetic to what they're opposed to and ah, you know, and stumble down the road that way for a long time, right? And that's you kind of stumble into darkness that way just by not saying anything because saying something can take a lot of energy and carry a lot of risk. And who wants that? Who wants to welcome that into their life, right? Yeah. you know, and just at the jump, I know we got to wrap up here. Um, you know, you were discussing the American Empire as kind of the evilst actor of the modern day and and I from a from a global standpoint, you know, there's tons of evidence of that. And also you could say the same about every do you agree you can say the same about every preceding empire you know and that's how power was gained and maintained globally right through mass exploitation I mean the that's how hedgeons yes the colonizing countries right like that that was the the British the Dutch that is how they uh they created and maintained their power on the global stage so what happened was now that it wasn't cool to directly colonize or which it just means invade and take over other countries, you have to do it more subtly. You have to do it because they don't have democracy and we need to bring freedoms and democracy to their people. The fact that they have all of this oil and other natural resources, that's just a byproduct. It's it's not that important. What's important is we need to free the people from ex dictator who's running things, right? So it turned in they just obfuscated it and turned it into you know it's a branding campaign. Um double speak as as Orwell says. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. All right. Look man uh we didn't even get into precious metals and commodities and what you're looking at in the uranium sector. So love to do a part two and follow it up. But uh it was great chatting with you Jesse. Fun conversation very philosophical and I appreciate your time. Um uh looking forward to having you back at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference January 25th 26th. Jesse is going to be on stage m mainstage workshops keeping them busy for two days straight. And your course is live on the commodity university right now. Uh uranium 101 for anybody who's curious how to begin building a portfolio intelligently in the uranium sector. Jesse's course is amazing. Um and coming out with a part two shortly. There's also eight other courses, nine other courses live right now in the Commodity University. New course drops every single month, monthly masterminds with myself and the instructors. And of course, if you don't like it, a full money back guarantee. The commodityuniversity.com. And uh check it out. All right, Jesse, thanks so much for coming on, man. It's great chatting with you. Thank you. Anytime. In 2011, after a massive earthquake and tsunami occurred in the Fukushima region of Japan, three of the Fukushima Dai reactors melted down in one of the biggest nuclear accidents since Chernobyl. Now, in the aftermath of this, nobody died directly as a result. However, the world started to shut the nuclear industry down. Japan shut down all of their reactors. Germany and several other countries followed suit and nuclear energy was deemed a danger and an existential threat to humanity. Prior to this, uranium, the commodity that fuels these reactors, was ripping to all-time highs, a bull market that was unimaginable to most. And in the aftermath of this worldwide shutdown of the nuclear fleet, prices plummeted and uranium was in a sustained long-term bare market with the industry abandoned and all but forgotten by market participants. Now everything is starting to change. We are experiencing a complete 180° turn when it comes to the uranium industry and nuclear. Countries around the world are embracing nuclear energy. all sides of the political aisle from environmental activists to capitalists and everywhere in between. This is an opportunity unlike anything else I have seen in the commodities sector and it's there waiting for you to grasp. So join me as we dive into uranium investing 101.
How to Become an Expat and Multiply Your Wealth
Summary
Transcript
Have you ever thought about leaving the country, becoming an expat, finding a lower cost of living, lower taxes, higher quality of life somewhere else? Well, today my guest is Jesse Day, and both he and myself have done and are doing exactly that. Today, we talk about how and why you might want to consider it, too. Here is Jesse Day on the J. Martin Show, where we dissect the brightest minds in geopolitics and finance. Enjoy. This is Jay Martin. All right, I'm here with Jesse Day. Jesse, it's great to have you on the show, man. Happy to be here on the Jay Martin show. Always appreciate your work and um you're the guy who kind of got me into interviewing in the first place. So, it's an honor to be on the other side of the microphone with you. Cool, man. No, I'm looking forward to jamming with you. So, here's where I want to start. There's like a handful directions I want to go. But um a lot of folks have the conversation about leaving their country to find a better life somewhere else. Whether that is because they're not enjoying the political climate, whether they're not enjoying the tax structure, whether they're not enjoying the cost of living. But for most people, this seems to be an insurmountable challenge. And it's a big one, right? To leave the country you're from, everybody you know, and the culture you're familiar with and go somewhere else to seek a better life. That's intimidating. You've done it right. Uh and I want to talk to you about that today. So, let's break that down. First of all, what can you share about because you know, you actually struck out and you explored many countries before landing where you're at today and who knows if you're going to stay there, but for anybody who's not familiar with that journey for you, they didn't see your keynote at VR. Just walk us through where you're at and why and then we'll pull on some threads. Well, originally I moved from Canada to Beijing, China actually back in 2007. That was kind of my first experience being an expat. Uh, from there I was there for a year and a half and then I lived in Seoul, South Korea for 8 years. I worked largely in both countries in the broadcasting industry hosting travel TV shows mainly and stuff like that. So that was more of just a passion I had for Asian culture. Um, I had a lot of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese friends when I was in Vancouver, and I've always been fascinated by um, you know, kung fu movies and the typical stuff that, you know, your your Western person gets into when when they tend to to dive into Asian culture. And so, it was just kind of a a natural transition for me to then I I took uh acting for the camera in my university. And so then I went over to Asia and kind of was able to use those skills to then build a career there which was really nice. However, the real expat move came in 2021 October when I left Canada to move to Croatia and that wasn't for fun or to pursue a career. That was because I was extraordinarily alarmed with what was happening in Canada and I thought that I could no longer live in that society. It was just a sense that I can't be here. Now, I had planned by the end of 2021 to leave, but of course, um, Trudeau put in these insane, uh, restrictions where people who didn't take the government's prescribed medicine could not get on a plane and actually leave the country, which, by the way, to this day is one of the greatest human rights violations ever committed by a western democracy in modern history. It's not even talked about in Canada. And uh most Canadians have either buried it or they think it was great and are happy that it happened. Uh which is one of the reasons I left was the people uh because once I saw things begin with the passport system where you needed if you wanted to go have a beer with your buddies, you had to show evidence of taking two doses of the chosen medicine. Uh that to me was completely nuts. But what was more insane to me was people's reaction to it where I was in Vancouver, which was great. This is exactly how it should be. Um, and that's what really pushed me out the door because I thought, okay, well, if there's resistance to this, if the people stand up and and do something about it or demand that things change, perhaps we could see change and I want to believe that my country is going to go in the correct direction. But once I saw people take almost a look down their noses at those who don't have the past type of opinion of things, that's when I realized this is not for me. I've got to get out of here. So I'd been researching countries all around the world. I had a spreadsheet and I was just looking at countries mainly at the rules that they had in society. So this was height of the pandemic, October 2021 when a lot of countries were locking down and doing crazy stuff. So I was looking for the outliers, which countries out there are not locking down and doing crazy crazy stuff and are actually open and more free. And so that led me to the Balkan region firstly to Albania. I didn't go there, but this was kind of one of my initial uh thoughts was to potentially go to Albania because they were one of the only countries in the world that didn't even test you to come into the country and really no rules in society. And so I was thinking about that, but that led me to a greater exploration of Croatia, Serbia, um, Bulgaria, Bosnia, all these different areas in the the Balkan and former Yugoslavian regions. And I landed on on Croatia because there was an interesting balance of power between the prime minister and the president. The prime minister has deacto power there. Uh, he's kind of a puppet of Brussels and of the EU and he can implement policy. The president doesn't really have much deacto power although he technically commands the military and he is a public figurehead. So what he says matters. He shows up on television and gives his speeches and interviews and so there was a real clash between the two of them whether real or manufactured I don't know but there was and uh the president was staunchly against any sort of restrictions or rules and the prime minister was very for them. And then you had the third factor in play which was the Catholic Church. And Croatians much like Serbians look to their religion before they look to their government. And so the Catholic Association of Bishops in Croatia was against uh forced medical treatments and they made that clear in an open letter they released. And there was a lot of people who rallied behind that because they looked to their religious leaders for guidance. And then you had the president who was against it and then the prime minister was for it. So it was kind of this checks and balances in place and so there was essentially no restrictions at all. I at the beginning of the pandemic there was some some lockdown curfew stuff before I got there but as things moved along by the time October 2021 had rolled along there was no restrictions other than wearing a mask indoors and that was not enforced. There was no enforcement of that. So it was kind of up to you. And so it was an incredible uh difference. It was it was a breath of fresh air coming from Canada and stepping into Croatia. It was like being freed from a prison. I can't even describe the the feeling. Um and so Croatia, fantastic country. What led me to Serbia was the fact that Croatia does not have good long-term residence options unless you have Croatian ancestry or you marry a Croatian. I'm already married, so that wasn't going to work out for me. Um, and uh, besides those options, it's very difficult to get uh, long-term residence. You have to actually get employed. Um, and they're just looking for essential workers, like construction workers and stuff. So, it wasn't going to work out. Uh, and then so I discovered Serbia. I was visiting Serbia after I'd uh, run out my one-year digital nomad residence program. A great program, by the way, if you just want to go somewhere for a year. It's a 0% income tax rate, which is incredible. Um, and and they let you stay for a year. So I did that and then I was visiting Serbia after that and just found it to be very similar to Croatia in terms of the attitudes of the people which was faith first and complete distrust of their government. That's a real feature of former Yugoslavian countries. Um except for maybe Slovenia but that that's kind of a neither here or there. They they they are the only country that separated from Yugoslavia without firing a single shot and and formed a government without actually fighting or going to war. And they're a little bit more EU centric with their approach to things. So the people tend to have a bit more trust of their government there in my opinion. Uh but but here in in Serbia, people are staunchly mistrustful of their government. I guess that's a that's one way to put it. And so I like being surrounded by people who don't trust their government. I think that's the natural way to behave. Uh that makes sense considering the governments are generally always a predatory class and they are generally always criminals who've legalized their own crimes. Um that's a view a lot of people don't believe in because we're kind of caught in this my party versus your party struggle which blows my mind that people can't open their eyes and see they're all trying to just consolidate their own power and increase their own wealth. that is the goal of the political class and they will say whatever they need to do to bring about that end and um people here recognize that and so I very much appreciate that and so I've been here for almost 2 years now it's been incredible um great experience the Serbian people are always willing to lend a helping hand you don't even have to ask them in many cases they'll approach you to help you out with things they're very um open to foreigners being here and uh it's been fantastic so far so far. But, you know, it's really interesting because your incentive there, right? And I know there's more incentives including the tax structure in Serbia, uh, the tax structure in Croatia, and we'll we'll talk about that, right? Because I think that's important in addition to the cost of living, which is front and center for a lot of people, but you know what you started with there, you're like, you didn't mention that. You mentioned uh cultural misalignment, right? you were noticing a shift or um a general alignment in the Canadian population that you were continually feeling like an outlier from, right? And it man, that's a real thing. It's really tough to embrace that and that's I think a very hard thing for people to do is like I feel very politically homeless in Canada, right? Oh my god. You know, and I similarly think it's almost like unfathomable, very hard to understand why folks just because they feel one party is bad that the other one must be good. It's amazing that people still think that way. Um but I I all you can do is shake your head. It's mindblowing. I mean um and you know, I was joking with a friend about this just the other day. We we're getting back to the same era that you just discussed, the 2020 era, right? and and you know a lot of my family's American, my wife's American, as are my kids. And um you know, the situation in the US at that point was you had an elected leader being President Trump who was at the helm when that outbreak began. And he was the one from the podium saying, "We're going to expedite the um the uh manufacturing of this medicine that we're all going to need and uh we're going to get it in your hands in in super quick fashion." And it was the Liberal Party. It was Biden himself who was like there is no way we're taking the Trump jab. You know that you know this is you know they're absolutely opposed to the concept right of a mass roll out of uh expedited medicine that everybody would take. And then right after the election it was like the product didn't change whatsoever. was still manufactured by the same companies, the exact same ingredients, the same process, but we just, you know, replaced our arguments and all of a sudden it was the Liberal Party who was like went from there's no way we'd take the Trump job to just take the job, man. You know, it was like and and same, you know, the Republican party rotated underneath, took the other side of the same argument and no one blinked, right? It was like, wait a minute, did you need more evidence that they're all just lying? Like, what? But, you know, you can go through infinite experiences like that and people still just align with the party they think is less bad and then they become loyalists and it's just it's kind of mindbending. Yeah, I completely agree. And one thing I will say is when not everybody is the same. Some people will tough it out even when they're feeling like their values are no longer aligning with the culture. So, it's to certain degrees depending on how you feel about the situation. For me, I just felt like I didn't have a choice. I was ready to go to Botswana in Africa. That was one of the places on my list, which gets so hot that I would barely even be able to handle it. Obviously, much more um rough around the edges than even a place like Serbia, but I that was one of the places I was looking at because they had very reasonable regulations in place. Um I was willing to go anywhere. It it it didn't matter to me just to get out of that type of draconian control. And that's when I realized that my own freedom uh whether you want to call it bodily autonomy or just personal freedoms to choose what you want to do is the greatest value that I hold which I actually didn't know before the pandemic broke out. So that really drove a lot of my actions. So I want to break this down a little bit and maybe we can also get into the the tax incentives and the cost of living incentives. But my my goal here, Jesse, I suppose, is to draw out a process that people could perceive as a lot easier than they thought it was going to be. And whether that's because maybe the barriers aren't as high as you thought or the incentives are far greater than you thought. And so those barriers are just worth it, right? And um you know, we're doing a similar um uh process in in my family, right? We're spending more time abroad. My kids no longer are in the Canadian school system. They're in the Indonesian school system. We spend half our life there. We're going back in seven days. Um, we've got our own incentives for doing that and probably a bit of a different decision framework because my kids are always going to be at the front of any decision, right? It's like, right, I'm looking at cost of living, tax structure, personal freedom, but first it's like, what's the environment and community going to be like for my very young kids, you know? Um, but you know, we're coming to a very similar conclusion. Um, and so what would you say to somebody who's like, "Oh, it must be nice, Jesse. Must be nice that you got to do this, but like I could never because XYZ, right?" You must have had that conversation with peers from back home. Um, what's your take on that? I think the most common um reason why people are unable to relocate is because of their profession, right? they've built a career already in the country that they're in and so they find it really difficult to imagine being able to travel to another country and kind of start all over again. Um, what I would say to that is that you don't have to leave right away. And if you have thoughts that for whatever reason you think your life could be better abroad, then you can start making a plan. And it can take years. you could look at a two to three to even fiveyear plan to eventually relocate. And I don't think when it comes to Canada in particular that things are going to get better. And I think the same way about many Western nations, the UK being one of them, Germany being one of them, Australia, etc. One of the reasons for that is that during the pandemic, people don't put these two and two together. But when as a population you put up with the most brutal draconian restrictions imaginable during the pandemic and even have a large percentage of the population cheer on those restrictions and bully others into compliance. Now the politicians can do whatever they want forever until somehow that mentality changes in the population. But once you've gone that far you can't turn back. I think it will take the next generation or the generation after that to potentially write things because people also experience tremendous cognitive dissonance with their decision-m and nobody wants to admit they were wrong in those sorts of situations and so they will justify why they were right. And as long as they have that mentality, the politicians can now continue to control them because they've already bought into the fact that they were correct to follow these restrictions and bully others into doing the same. And so now you get sort of a a bizarre Soviet style system in a way. It's got elements like the the the place that Western countries are drifting into is like it's got shades of communism. It's got shades of totalitarianism and authoritarianism. It's kind of a melded new structure of governance in a sense where they use the concept of democracy as kind of a shield, but it doesn't really exist. So people aren't getting thrown in goolags yet. Although in the UK and Germany, people are literally getting thrown in prison for speaking out against mass immigration and other issues like that. But it's kind of a soft gouag system where or or a soft totalitarianism where you don't have, you know, the gestapo showing up at your door again except unless you're in the UK or Germany, but in a place like Canada, for example. But you do have this idea that what the government says is correct and if you go against that you're a conspiracy theorist or you're far right or you're a Trump supporter or something like that. So it kind of causes society to self-govern itself into kind of a a prison wherein the citizens exist. Uh which which to me means that it could potentially take decades for this situation to ever turn around in a place like Canada. the next or the next next generation. And people need to feel enough pain to then um to then make change. What we saw in Argentina with Javier Malay, somebody as radical as him getting elected, and I'm not saying he's good for the country or I'm not a fan, he's a politician, so generally I don't like him. But he is taking some things in the correct direction. And for such a radical figure to be elected, it took decades of failed socialist policies to the point where people were just in such abject poverty. They were suffering so much that they had to stand up and say, "Okay, we have to change something. This isn't working." And I don't think Canada is even close to that level of pain and suffering for for people to actually rise up and cause change. So that's just a prelude to say like I don't think things are going to get better. So you can plan ahead and do a three to five year plan and find a way. The obviously the ideal thing is to be able to work remotely whether that's to be able to be hired by a company who will allow you to work remotely or whether that's starting your own business uh some sort of online venture uh some sort of entrepreneurship where you're able to operate online. That is obviously the key to being completely free in that sense because then you're not beholdened to your country and you're able to move around at will. So getting that type of freedom of movement and still be able to be employed whether that's by an employer or self-employed in my opinion should be the key of your plan when you are looking to plan out however long you think it might take. if you're already in the fortunate position. Okay, I kind of was when I left, although my channel hadn't taken off at that point. It was just kind of starting to pick up. I wasn't making a large income from it. In fact, the income was very small. Um, my employer at the time allowed me to stay on remotely uh for for some time. So that was a great help but my situation was a little uncertain but I was still in a better position than let's say somebody who worked as an electrician in their you know country. It's very difficult to then get up and move. You want to try to go to a country where electricians are in demand and then you also want to go to a country where you speak the native language which is very difficult. You can't just, if you're a Canadian, you can't just come to Serbia, just as an example, and not learn Serbian and get hired as an electrician. And and if you do get hired here as an electrician, it kind of defeats the whole low cost of living um part of the equation because your salary would be dramatically lower to the point where it's not a low cost of living. So, there's a lot of factors to consider. Um, but I would say the the main one is to make sure that your plan includes being autonomous, being able to work remotely and um, preferably running your own business or being in control of of that aspect of what you do. So, plan for it. I I mean, like I said, this isn't an overnight thing. It can take years, but um, if you're in a position where you feel like you would be better served living abroad, then it's worth it in my opinion. Yeah. And you're right. It's not not everybody can do it. if you're tied to a local trade that just doesn't uh isn't going to translate very uh beneficially, that that is what it is, right? Um for sure. I I appreciate the sort of transparency there, but also a lot of folks could pursue this more than they think they could. Many companies still accept and reward remote workers, us being one. I've got people all over the world, right? And uh obviously there's exceptions to any rule, but there's options for sure. Um, now you know the Argentinian example you mentioned, they're just now getting their feet back under them. It's really important, I think, for Canadians to pay attention to that story because if you were to go back 105 years, you would have found that Argentin Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And there was a phrase known all over the world that was the wealthy Argentinian. The individuals who came from there and traveled the world always had dough in their pockets. And it was because they had a very robust commodity export industry, huge coastline, favorable governance. They had all the right ingredients for a booming economy. And they capitalized on that for a very long time. They got smashed in the Great Recession, Great Depression in the 20s uh uh and 30s and just didn't bounce back like a lot of economies did because they elected a very far-left leaning government who promised the people they would fix the economy, right? The government will regulate us back to prosperity. And that led to 80 years of uh sort of a lost century in Argentina and they're just now getting their feet back under them. You know, I'm massively simplifying, but the point of this is that a country can have all the right ingredients like Canada does. Massive exporter of almost every key commodity the entire world needs. Longest coastline in the world, longest shared border on the other side of which is the world's wealthiest and hungriest customer. Like we've got all the ingredients for success. And Canada is a very simple country. It's larger land mass standpoint than the United States with less people than the state of California. We do resources really, really well. And if we glorify that industry, the trickle down effect from the capital that floods and benefits everything else. But if we vilify that industry and think we can lean on something else as the core pillar, everything falls apart. Right? You need the core pillar to be strong and then you can lean on any other industries that are financed by the revenues from that core industry. In Canada's case, that's natural resources. We've had um obviously a very anti-natural resource um leadership for 12 11 years now. So, uh that is what it is. So, um three incentives maybe to look at living abroad. One is cultural which we talked about. Um another would be the cost of living which I want to get into a little bit and the other would be you know tax structures right and so maybe I'll go first from our standpoint we're looking at all those. I feel very politically and socially homeless at times in Canada. And so we've been looking for uh an opportunity to explore other cultures. We landed in in Indonesia. We tried a couple countries. We ended up here. One thing I've really loved about expat communities, not just in Indo, but actually in Costa Rica, Mexico, a few other places that we tried, is that politics are way less of the conversation. You know, you know, it's like we're not from here, right? We left where we're from to get out of that conversation, right? and let's just build great lives here, right? And so I've enjoyed that's been very refreshing. Very often in Canada when I have a conversation with with folks, the conversation is always sort of positioned through the lens of partisanship in some way, right? It's like people make it very evident they're a liberal or evident they're a conservative as like a precursor to what they're going to say next, right? And it's exhausting and I don't care. You know what I mean? And I found that to be absent far more often in expat communities and that's been lovely. Um, yeah, we we moved to Indo because of the cost of living. We're not residences there. So, we still pay Canadian tax, right? Uh, but we still achieve, you know, a 25 to 30% reduction in living costs. Um, which is substantial, right? And so that allows somebody in my situation to benefit from the Canadian health care system, which people can hate on, but if you know, look, if we had had our kids in the US, it would have been a five figure hospital bill every single time. I got three kids and a fourth on the way. That adds up. Yeah. Right. And for the for the status quo activities, public health care is great. Personally in Canada, I almost use exclusively private healthcare. Like I still pay out of pocket because I'm just I'm usually more progressive in my approach to healthare uh than the average person is. But for status quo things, uh it's great. And you know, I want that option available for the kids. So, we're still carrying the tax bill, but we're achieving the cost of living reduction, and that helps us massively. Well, you know, you live a life of of um of increased income. It's like if we have a 25% reduction in our cost of living, uh it's sort of the equivalent of a 33% increase in income. That's the reality on the ground. and we could live cheaper in Indo, but we just it's like what, you know, we could do a 50% uh cut in our cost of living, but it's like let's just go there and drink champagne on a beer budget. Like why not, right? That's kind of the the pleasure of it, right? Yeah. Um what's your take on that, Jesse? The three buckets, you move for the culture, you move for the tax structure, you move for the cost of living. Do you think that's a decent picture of what incentives people should seek out and look for? Yes, absolutely. And obviously tax incentives and cost of living incentives are a big one. Um, obviously it can be a sensitive topic when it comes to the cost of living issue when we're talking about these countries where the citizens of those countries have such a lower salary. So, I'm very aware of that. I got kind of checked by one of my Serbian friends when I made a post on X about, wow, look at how cheap groceries are in Serbia. I showed my grocery haul and I put the price in US dollars. Everyone was like, oh my god. My buddy's like, dude, my Serbian buddy's just texting me. that's insanely expensive in this country. I'm like, okay, I'm sorry. I get it. Um because the the the salaries are so much lower. And that's kind of my point of if you want to take advantage of that uh delta in the cost of living, then you want to be self-employed or have a source of income coming from the west where you are preferably not taxed by the west on that income. Canada is a country still to this day where you can become a non-resident and then you do not have to pay taxes. Um you still have to pay capital gains tax on any assets that you hold in Canadian brokerage accounts for example, but your income will not be taxed as long as you don't own a business in Canada and you're not operating from there. That's the Canadian side of things. The obviously in the US you get taxed wherever you go in the world, which is tough except for Puerto Rico. Um, so that's kind of the only option out there if you're looking to avoid taxes. Now, the cost of living aspect of things is obviously you kind of you can double your income in that sense, just like you said. Um, here in Serbia, things are about 50% cheaper than back home in Canada. I'm assuming it's basically the same with with many other western nations, that 50% uh reduction. So, that's certainly one reason. The cultural aspects make a lot of sense. I think one important thing to consider when you're moving to a new country is do your values align with the people and the culture of that country. For example, Serbia is an Orthodox Christian country. In fact, it's probably one of the last pure Orthodox Christian nations on this planet. And by that I mean everybody's Orthodox Christian, practicing Orthodox Christian. I mean, not 100% but a very, very high amount. Your average person you bump into in the street, they're an Orthodox Christian. They go to church. They they kind of um exemplify the tenants of their faith or they try to which is what I believe makes this nation such an incredible place to be from a people and culture perspective because they believe in the teachings of Christ and they try to convey that in their everyday life. For some people that would be terrible. Maybe they don't like religion. They they don't want to be around all this religious iconography and and be involved in a religious society. So then you should consider somewhere else. Um you know Albania is a Muslim country. So Indonesia is also a Muslim country and if you're not if if for some reason that's not favorable for your own belief system then perhaps you want to consider somewhere else. So a lot of these cultures in developing nations are very religious I guess is my point. And my thing is moving to developing nations, emerging economies, because why relocate from Canada to France? You're going to basically be in the similar situation with what the government's doing. You're going to be in a similar situation with the cost of living, with taxes, and all that. So, it doesn't really make sense unless you really love France and you really want to move there. And so I think um the morals and the uh culture that you go into need to align with your own if you're going to be there over the long run. So that's that's one thing to consider. How welcoming is that culture to foreigners? There's some cultures that are much more closed off to foreigners. I've heard Thailand is like this. If you move to Thailand as an expat, unless you just hang out in your own expat community, you really need to learn Thai and you really need to delve into the Thai culture and understand all of the intricacies of how Thai culture works if you want to integrate. I lived in South Korea for 8 years. I learned Korean and I spoke it fluently because that's another culture and another society where as a foreigner unless you do that you are always going to be an outsider and you are always going to be treated differently. Right? Serbia is not like that. Serbia is extraordinarily open and welcoming to foreigners. Um everybody speaks English basically. So the language is another thing you need to consider. If you move to a place like Japan, nobody really speaks English in Japan. People have a misconception that people speak English in Japan. They really don't. Um or even if they do, they don't like to speak English, especially to a random foreigner who approaches them in the street. They're very shy. They're very, you know, that they're not outgoing people and they don't speak much English. So, if you're going to move to Japan, then you'd better learn Japanese and be really serious about it. So, these are very important things to consider when you're relocating to a new area. Um, and what was the third part of that bucket you were saying? There was uh there was culture, there was kind of tax breaks and cost of living incentives. Cost of living. Yeah. Those three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you can achieve a better cost of living either through reduced expenses or through tax breaks. And you know, people often look at the tax structures of the countries they're going to move to and think that's the best way to achieve an increased income, which is true, right? If you're like, you know, making uh $500,000 income in Vancouver, you're keeping about 280,000 of that, right? It's a 44% effective tax rate. And so it's bonkers. What you need to understand about that though is that if you regain that uh $220,000 of income by moving to a income tax-free location, it's not like you get a 44% income rate. Any investor knows you get a 80% increase in your income. That's what moving from 280 back to 500 in your pocket feels like. That's an 80% increase. uh because you regain that loss. And uh however, in you know, if you're not willing to give up your residency, there's other ways to achieve similar income increases just by focusing on the cost of living instead. Yes, absolutely. And one thing to consider is that once you gain residency in another country, you now have two countries and two political jurisdictions that you can walk in the door and they will say, "Right this way, sir, when you arrive at the airport because doesn't matter if you're a non-resident of Canada, you're still a Canadian citizen. The same applies to any country you're coming from. So, you can just come right in whenever you want, no questions asked." Um, and then the same you have a residence permit in another location. And so now if something happens in one, you you always you now diversify your options. You now have double the options that you did previously. And you can now open a bank account in another jurisdiction. So you're now diversifying risk when it comes to your bank account. You could open a brokerage account in another country. And in many of these cases, some of these countries have access to markets where perhaps you don't have access to if you're interested in investing in frontier markets or emerging economy markets. Often brokers in the west don't have access to these stock markets and these exchanges. So that's another thing. You can diversify your your wealth and diversify your savings between countries and it's just an extra insurance policy and that's just with one residence permit in another country. Yeah. And I don't mean to like sound crass or whatever by starting with a half million dollar income. You know, anybody over a quarter million in Canada hits that 44% effective tax rate between federal and provincial, even if you're making 100 grand, 150 grand. Regaining that tax loss and then coupling that with the uh decreased cost of living multiplies your standard of living dramatically, right? And that's the incentive when you bolt those two things together. I want to ask you about you touched on the significance of faith in many developing countries and this is like front and center in my household right now. Um in Western Canada is probably the one of the best examples of the consequences of a society without faith. People are completely lost. They have no idea and they're seeking purpose in all kinds of weird places because they don't have that central purpose that faith provides. Right? And like I'm I'm just I'm a Christian, you know, my household is Christian, but even if you're not a Christian, you might be able to understand the utility of seeking God because of how that aligns so much of your life. And you talked about um just effectively the culture in Serbia, people live out Christian values and that's them trying to live like Christ. And that's going to include a lot of compassion and reaching out and helping your neighbor and you know being there for one another, right? if that's lived properly, right? You can bastardize these principles and they often are. Uh but even in in Canada, for example, right now, the difference in culture between the west and the east is stark. And you know, I'm part of a little church here in Squamish where we live, but there's multiple campuses. There's three campuses in the west. Uh and they just launched their first campus in the east in Toronto. And the growth of that new campus in Toronto has like 5x anything they've accomplished in the west. And that's simply just a reflection of people's aversion to religion in the west. And there's like this allergic reaction to um to uh some sort of a belief in God. It's really strange. But I think lacking that people end up squirreling down the weirdest rabbit holes trying to find purpose elsewhere because we need it, right? We I believe we need purpose. We need some kind of central alignment in our life. But you'll find you'll fall behind the weirdest ideologies and um belief systems if you're just trying to create that on your own. And I think that's behind a lot of the cultural fracturing that we're seeing in the west right now. It's just there's no central divine guidance, no central um set of principles that we all follow. And so instead, everyone looks for what might suit them or what they can cherrypick their cause of the day and get behind that. And and um it's it's a bit of a mess. Um, now I don't think you're a practicing Christian, but you enjoy the the culture as a consequence. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Um, one thing I will say before I dive into that aspect of Serbia is, well, first of all, when it comes to Canada and many Western nations, the religion has largely become science at this point. Trust the science. It's become the government and it's become environmentalism. I actually think one of the big reasons that Canada doesn't exploit more of its natural resources is because the people don't want that. They believe that's bad and that you're damaging the ecosystem and they worship the environment in the sense in in almost a religious sense. So any exploitation of natural resources even though it's the foundation for all of human civilization and without the exploitation of natural resources they would be living in caves and you know trying to light fires with sticks. But people don't put two and two together. They enjoy this privileged life that was brought to them by mining and the extraction of hydrocarbons. And then they demonize those very same things no matter what. It doesn't matter. Not a little, just none. That's the attitude of so many Canadian people. So I think the politicians are largely, you know, when Trudeau said there's no there's no case for liqufied natural gas to be sold to Japan and and European nations, a lot of people said that's what is he an idiot? I don't think he was an idiot. I think he was just reading the political climate and realizing that the majority of people who voted for his party and would vote for him again are the type of people who would cheer on such a decision. We don't do hydrocarbons anymore or fossil fuels as they call it or clean energy. Perhaps in the future we'll do clean energy with you. Trust me, in the in the circles we live in where everybody was cussing him out and saying how much of an idiot he is, there is a whole other world of people who were cheering him on and applauding him for doing that. And those are the people he was doing that for, not you and me. So people people get it mixed up in their heads. They think it's obvious, but people have a political agenda. Um, and a lot of Canadian people are against that. So the the one thing I will say about Serbia is the infrastructure is not good. Uh it's very unstable politically. We're in our ninth month now of anti anti-government protests. Some of them have turned violent. Um there has been clashes between riot police and protesters. There has been clashes between the ruling parties. Um let's put it politely and call them representatives and uh and protesters as well. Um so freedom isn't free. I I want to put that front and center first, especially when you're going to emerging economies. Now, Serbia is extraordinarily safe. It's one of the safest nations on Earth. There is essentially no crime. There's no sketchy people around to the point where it's a bit of a disadvantage when I go back to Canada or when I visit other countries in Europe because I'm so used to it being so safe and everybody to just be normal everyday people with their families going about their business that it's a little bit more shocking now when I when I I'm like, "Oh yeah, there's sketchy people doing weird things in some places and you have to kind of be careful." It doesn't exist here. I mean, people might roll their eyes at this, but but but it's a truth. However, you've got to realize there's a trade-off. As Thomas Soell said, there's no solutions. There are only tradeoffs. So, you're going to have to sacrifice some things. A lot of that might be your standard of living in terms of the comfort and convenience that you're used to. Part of it is going to be the uncomfortability of being in a foreign land. And despite the fact that yes, in Serbia everybody speaks English, it is a bit of a bummer to not be able to communicate in the local language. And people are okay with it to a certain extent. I've been here 2 years, I only speak really basic Serbian. I have to step up my game because once I hit that 3, four, 5 year mark and I'm still not speaking Serbian, people are going to start to be a little bit upset about that. So, you have to realize there's tradeoffs and you have to be prepared for for all of this. But when it comes to faith, yes, you're correct. I'm not a practicing Christian or uh I don't have any religion, but I believe that Orthodox Christianity is the religion that is most aligned with my own moral values, which is to try to do good as much as possible and never do anything to take advantage of other people for your own benefit. Um, and that is kind of the Serbian mentality in general. Obviously, there are scammers, swindlers, and and people all over the world who are not good people and and who either don't follow their faith or claim to follow it, but but in actuality are just using it as a cover. So, I don't want to paint a picture that it's a utopia here in that sense. But I I think that is very important to be in an area that aligns with your own moral values as I was saying earlier and Serbia just really does that for me because people are just so kind here. I really can't put it under any other way. I experienced the same in Croatia and I which is a Catholic society and I experienced the same in Montenegro which is also an Orthodox Christian society. Um and how I'm wondering how it is in Indonesia. Have you felt that that same way? Indonesia is largely a Muslim country. Correct. Well, Indonesian's largely uh a Muslim country. We spend our time in Bali which is a Hindu island. It's this little Hindu enclave inside Indonesia and it's very Hindu. Uh you see it everywhere. Um yeah. Um every day, every shop, every cafe has a little offering outside uh their front step burning every single morning. Um it's very devout. Um you know, Nepi is their sort of biggest national holiday. We've been there for Nepi a couple times. It's the day of silence and the entire island shuts down. All electricity. You're not allowed to leave your house. can't turn the lights on, can't cook, can't do anything. Um, this is a sort of reflection. They the day before nepi is massive celebration, lots of fireworks and parades and all this and they sort of attract a lot of attention to the island spiritually. And the next day is the day of silence and everyone's inside, blinds shut, lights off, the spirits. Kind of nice if you're if you're hung over from the celebration the night before able to sit there with the blind. not not a big alcohol consuming culture, but otherwise it would be. The Aussies take care of that when they're there. But, you know, the the the evil spirits show up at the island the next day and they find nobody there is the is the sort of tradition. So, they leave the island alone for another year. Um, but it's it's serious and if you um there's patrols that are in the streets on the day of silence and if they see lights on um you know they'll they'll knock on your door right away. Like it's and it's so cool cuz you go out in your patio on the night of Nepi and it's just the stars are brighter than ever. It's just pure silence and darkness. It's it's really cool. Having said that, if you offend the laws of Nepi that the patrollers will come to your door and it's never I'd never seen this, but apparently they will actually apprehend you and take you to the temple where you have to um offer some penance, you know, and and pray for forgiveness, I suppose. So but it's yeah it's an incredibly devout Hindu culture and I would say even as a Christian um all the benefits of a very aligned and spiritually conscious God-fearing society is there and we love it you know and it's such a welcoming familyoriented look out for your neighbor uh you know um value children like it's such a beautiful culture we absolutely love it and and I think a lot of that is derived from absolute unity inside the Hindu religion in on this island. Um, so it's lovely. You know, we've also there's, you know, great Christian community and we found a cool church that we go to there. Um, so we kind of benefit from both. Uh, my kids are learning Bahasa to your point about um, you know, being able to just be respectful of the local language even if you're not fluent in it. You know, my wife and I can like survive. You know, you can order a car, groceries, and say thank you and good morning, but pretty limited to be honest on our Bahasa at this point. People will appreciate even that simple that that's another thing about developing economies that people don't realize when foreigners come to the west very often and they don't speak much English. People like what's wrong with you? Don't you speak English? Type of thing. That's But it's totally the opposite in in many places. I would say most places in the world. If you come from a foreign country and you're willing to learn the basics, hello, thank you, give me a coffee, please, or what, whatever it is, you'll often be showered with praise over these simple phrases and and people are just happy that you're willing to put in a little effort. That's 100% been our experience in in Indo for sure. Yeah. And having said that, you know, also the locals are far more keen in that case to practice their English with us than to try to stumble through Bahasa with with them, you know. So, um, so that that's but that's been our experience there. I want to pull on something you said, you know, freedom isn't free and you talked about sort of the trade-offs you'll make and inevitably, right? Like there's huge trade-offs in Indonesia as well, of course. Um, I want to maybe put this lens over the United States right now and get your thoughts on this because, um, I, you know, a lot of American in-laws, they're very proud American patriots and they value freedom over everything else. Or at least that's what they say. And I, you know, kind of wonder if American freedom is just an remarkably successful branding campaign. Uh, and that's what that's what this is. Um you could look at the US today and say um you know state creep into capitalism is increasing at sort of an unprecedented rate. Whether it's you know the Nvidia deal, US government getting a kickback on chips sold to China. Um whether it is the US Steel and Nippon merger um the United States government was awarded event initially blocked that merger and then was compensated with a golden share in US Steel Corp. as a consequence of letting it go through and this gives them veto abilities on um US uh manufacturing and and outputs and uh exports and all this a lot of control gives them a board seat um all of this um taking the 10% stake in Intel just uh last week that's a new development now sort of unprecedented in the US that's like standard course of business in China that's that's state sponsored capitalism to a tea that's how deals are done every day it's new in the US Right. Um, you could look at that and say that's that's offensive to traditional American values. You could look at, you know, any sort of I don't know, run through them, right? Deportation without due process, effectively shipping people to uh a labor camp in El Salvador. Um, masked up troops now patrolling many cities. Uh, no identification. Um, hidden faces. That's sort of a uh a practice that allows the government plausible deniability if something bad happens because already bad actors, criminals are mimicking those uh those troops and showing up at people's doors in masks, identification, making the same claims and how are you to know who's who. Um and so if something does go south, it gives the government plausible deniability those were not our guys. That was somebody pretending to be our guys, right? Um, and obviously federalization of police forces and many municipalities starting with LA, then DC, next up looks like Chicago, you know, and all of these things, right? Look, you could justify every single one of them. The streets aren't safe, right? We need to clean that up. Immigration did get out of control. We need to clean that up. uh we're competing with global actors who have state sponsored capitalism as a course of business and it's tough for independent corporations to compete with that. If government can lean in and support then they should to be globally competitive. You can make a case for all of these developments and say you know you're you're being too sensational Jay. This is good business and it's the change that people voted for and therefore we should support it. And I I might say you're absolutely right. But then at least be honest and say we are choosing security and control over freedom and liberty. I mean that is I think a truth right I don't think we can ignore that. Um but what's your take Jesse on that trajectory inside the US? The US has been our primary first choice outside of Canada. We're just building optionality in Asia. But you know from both a cultural uh alignment standpoint. There's many states in the US that my family with more conservative and Christian values would find have found to be lovely places to be. Um and we can achieve a tax benefit by moving there as well. we don't achieve the cost of living but we tick two boxes right however I look at these trajectories and new precedents being set in the US and it's always so important to remember that if the party you voted for um kind of blurs the lines a little bit to get the goals that you think are important accomplished you can be happy about that all day long but American elections are like pendulums and in four years there's going to be the opposition in power and the same precedent will be set and they'll leverage that towards goals you don't agree with And so, you know, it's you need to be aware of that double-edged sword. Uh, what what's your take right now, Jesse? US trajectory and precedent and all this. Well, before I dive into the domestic issues within the United States, and most of my viewers are from the US. I'm guessing the same for your program as well. So, I love all my American friends. I I just want to point out that the American Empire externally has been one of the most evil actors in modern history. Um, you can just go down the list. I mean the the fact that people were making a huge deal and again I will get attacked in the comments from people from this I have when I speak about this on my own show when Iran was supposedly harboring or or starting getting so close to creating a nuclear weapon which Netanyahu has been talking about since the '9s for people who don't know that they're one day away from getting a nuclear weapon so we need to attack them. Um why is America allowed to have nuclear weapons and Iran isn't? That's completely insane. The United States is the only nation to actually deploy nuclear weapons in one of the most devastating fashions, wiping out tens of thousands. Not only that, they firebombed the hell out of Japan, which the death toll from that was larger than the nuclear bombs, but Hiroshima, Nagasaki, firebombing Tokyo, they completely wiped out so many civilians. And they're the ones who are the safeguard, the the keepers of the flame when it comes to nuclear weapons. And they're the ones who are allowed to say that nation's bad. They're, you know, they're evil extremist Muslim terrorists who want to destroy the world, so they're not allowed a nuke, but we are. Okay. Russia, yeah, that's fine. Um, as long as we have some sort of treaty with them. Israel, great. And they don't actually have to report everything. That's also good because they're our ally. But it it's you get into this situation where it's completely hypocritical and it's blindingly obvious if you just take a step back and look at it without having any feelalty to your nation or feeling that oh I'm an American I or Canadian saying what whatever country you're from. When you take a step back and look at the world from this angle you go this doesn't make sense. And so America's been a horrible actor on the world stage the worst in modern history of any nation on earth. I I can't imagine what other nation could even come close to the devastation they've wrought to achieve their own ends and to keep the American empire alive. And the truth of the matter is a lot of the prosperity enjoyed by America today is because of America's role as the global hegeimon and them keeping everybody else on a leash. I think that's starting to change now um in a big way. Now, when it comes to internal domestic policy and these kind of infringements of freedom, as a lot of people are looking at them, it's very tough to separate the signal from the noise. When it comes to these things, particularly with the media that we live in today, you'll get a lot of reports from one side. You either kind of only get a left or right bias. So, the right will say, "This is great. President Trump's finally cleaning up the streets. Look, here's a video of a person walking through DC and talking about, "Oh my god, my neighborhood used to be so dangerous and now thanks to Trump, it's cleaned up." You see these everywhere, right? And then you go to the left and you see the completely opposite type of videos. The agents, you know, un unlawfully entered my house, they did something, they committed a crime, just all the things you're talking about. So, it's so difficult to separate like, okay, what is actually happening here? Um, so it's also very difficult to comment on if it is kind of good or bad. I mean, everything's shades of gray. Like we were saying that there's always tradeoffs. So it's tough to comment specifically, but one thing I will say in terms of the what some would call creeping authoritarianism or creeping involvement of the state in places like America and especially in places like the UK is that I believe it could be inevitable and there's absolutely no way for it not to happen because largely in part to the fiat currency global experiment we've been living under since Richard Nixon took gold backing away from the US dollar and by proxy from the world because through the Bretonwood system most major currencies of the world were pegged to the US dollar which was backed by gold once that got removed and we live in a complete experiment since 1971. This is the first time in human history we've had a global fiat currency system where all of the world's currency is backed by nothing but trust in the government allowing government to create currency units at will that creates an endless debt and deficit spiral as we have seen and is now getting worse and worse. As it gets worse and worse and the government and those in power get more and more worried about having to pay these bills that come due which is absolutely impossible for them. And when they realize, okay, there's going to come a point where we are probably going to experience some type of calamity. I mean, 2008 was the last time we experienced an extreme calamity within the financial and the economic system. And we're kind of due for another one, particularly since a lot of the issues from that crisis were merely papered over and they weren't actually solved. And so as those in power see that we're heading towards that brick wall to maintain their power and to maintain their wealth, they need to subjugate the population as much as possible so that in the event of a calamitous decline, whether that's a a recession, a full-blown depression, or a collapse of the fiat currency system, I don't think that's going to happen. You know, people get pretty hyperbolic about this stuff and claim that, you know, the US dollar is going to die and, you know, there's going to be poverty everywhere and everything's going to collapse and we're going to be forced back onto a gold standard. That might happen. I see it more as a slow decay, uh, a grind down. But as that happens, people's standard of living gets destroyed by inflation, which is the outcome of of them creating more currency units to prop up the system, to prop up their debt. And that civil unrest can turn into riots and in the most extreme cases can turn into revolution. And that is what the people in power fear the most. So they're working to subjugate populations now as much as they can in advance. So once everybody is managed, however they want to do it. There's a lot of talk of the Genius Act and this whole stable coin um legalization or legislation surrounding stable coin use being kind of a way to implement financial controls without issuing official CBDC. So that could be part of it. But nonetheless, they are trying to coersse and control the population and normalize it as much as they can so that the possibility of revolution and of them and their small inner elite circle losing their power and influence is less. And that is their primary goal to maintain their power and influence at all costs. So that is how I see part of this that that these things happening are kind of a symptom of the problem that all goes back to to 1971. Some would argue goes back further to when Bretton Woods was implemented and and um you know before that uh a lot of countries had their own gold standards. Uh Bretton Woods kind of took that away and and tied it all to the US dollar. Um, so I I think these are all symptoms that are potentially completely unavoidable. You know, throwing people in prison for social media post, that's all part of this. And then nor we need to normalize this, right? So that other citizens think, "Yeah, that's correct. You shouldn't hate on immigrants or whatever you're doing. So off to jail." And then you maintain this control where it's normal for the government to be your god in a sense. And that's straight out of 1984. And I think that's happening. And I think there could be no way to avoid it. Yeah. And even if you man, so much of what you said and and setting those precedents, people may never even get on side with those activities, whether it's criminalizing speech, which you just mentioned there. But even if they don't get on side, people can become apathetic towards the outcome, you know, and then just sort of fall in line as a consequence. And they don't agree. They wish it wasn't the case, but they've got busy lives. They've got their own livelihood to worry about and their own priorities and families. And so they just become apathetic to what they're opposed to and ah, you know, and stumble down the road that way for a long time, right? And that's you kind of stumble into darkness that way just by not saying anything because saying something can take a lot of energy and carry a lot of risk. And who wants that? Who wants to welcome that into their life, right? Yeah. you know, and just at the jump, I know we got to wrap up here. Um, you know, you were discussing the American Empire as kind of the evilst actor of the modern day and and I from a from a global standpoint, you know, there's tons of evidence of that. And also you could say the same about every do you agree you can say the same about every preceding empire you know and that's how power was gained and maintained globally right through mass exploitation I mean the that's how hedgeons yes the colonizing countries right like that that was the the British the Dutch that is how they uh they created and maintained their power on the global stage so what happened was now that it wasn't cool to directly colonize or which it just means invade and take over other countries, you have to do it more subtly. You have to do it because they don't have democracy and we need to bring freedoms and democracy to their people. The fact that they have all of this oil and other natural resources, that's just a byproduct. It's it's not that important. What's important is we need to free the people from ex dictator who's running things, right? So it turned in they just obfuscated it and turned it into you know it's a branding campaign. Um double speak as as Orwell says. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. All right. Look man uh we didn't even get into precious metals and commodities and what you're looking at in the uranium sector. So love to do a part two and follow it up. But uh it was great chatting with you Jesse. Fun conversation very philosophical and I appreciate your time. Um uh looking forward to having you back at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference January 25th 26th. Jesse is going to be on stage m mainstage workshops keeping them busy for two days straight. And your course is live on the commodity university right now. Uh uranium 101 for anybody who's curious how to begin building a portfolio intelligently in the uranium sector. Jesse's course is amazing. Um and coming out with a part two shortly. There's also eight other courses, nine other courses live right now in the Commodity University. New course drops every single month, monthly masterminds with myself and the instructors. And of course, if you don't like it, a full money back guarantee. The commodityuniversity.com. And uh check it out. All right, Jesse, thanks so much for coming on, man. It's great chatting with you. Thank you. Anytime. In 2011, after a massive earthquake and tsunami occurred in the Fukushima region of Japan, three of the Fukushima Dai reactors melted down in one of the biggest nuclear accidents since Chernobyl. Now, in the aftermath of this, nobody died directly as a result. However, the world started to shut the nuclear industry down. Japan shut down all of their reactors. Germany and several other countries followed suit and nuclear energy was deemed a danger and an existential threat to humanity. Prior to this, uranium, the commodity that fuels these reactors, was ripping to all-time highs, a bull market that was unimaginable to most. And in the aftermath of this worldwide shutdown of the nuclear fleet, prices plummeted and uranium was in a sustained long-term bare market with the industry abandoned and all but forgotten by market participants. Now everything is starting to change. We are experiencing a complete 180° turn when it comes to the uranium industry and nuclear. Countries around the world are embracing nuclear energy. all sides of the political aisle from environmental activists to capitalists and everywhere in between. This is an opportunity unlike anything else I have seen in the commodities sector and it's there waiting for you to grasp. So join me as we dive into uranium investing 101.