On The Sidelines With Stephen

Another episodic request from a listener on my travel hacking strategies and some updates in 2024 in how we are doing it.

Answering a listener's question, "What would have you done differently at the age of 30?".  Well this is the complete answer, and you might be surprised by it.

I received this request for an episode from a listener. ‘First, thanks for doing the show.  I’ve been a loyal listener from back to the start.  I’m from the USA and I am uncomfortable with where things are heading here.  Can you explain your experiences with expatriation since you are now in Mexico?’   Absolutely.  Here’s the full details.

If you were to Google search the word ‘Debt’ you would find (in general) that most comments on it put it in a bad light.  Our parents taught us not to go into debt.  But after receiving a request from a listener to talk about debt, I’m going to give you the truth about debt and all the arguments for and against it.

This was a request from one of our Patreon subscribers who asked, ‘Can you talk about home security and camera for home monitoring if you have experience with them’.  So here’s the answer to how I approach it.  Hope you can get some value out of this.

After 5 years of doing this podcast, and other podcasts for my patrons, I’ve decided to stop doing it,  and will be stopping on episode 250.  Why?  Well take a listen and I’ll explain it all.

This episode attempts to give a state of the union in regards to AI, where we are, where we are going and the social and freedom impacts of this massive change we are all going to be faced with in the short term.

In 2024, at the recent SXSW convention in Austin, Texas, a movie was premiered that will be airing in April, called ‘Civil War’ by Alex Garland.  There’s been a lot of post-apocalyptic movies and TV series released over the past decade, but this one seems to have touched a nerve with the American people.  I want to talk about why in this episode.

Over the past 10 or so years, I’ve been noticing the divide between rich & poor is changing. After the 2008 GFC, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement protested against the 1% owners of the world, at the expense of the 99%, but alas – this didn’t change a thing. In fact it seems to have emboldened the uber rich, and the mission as just accelerated to consolida3on of power & wealth with a handful of players, at the expense of the rest of the world.

My wife & I were at a friend’s place in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico a few weeks back, and we were chaJng with a local Mexican lady who has built up a small fortune in real estate. When I asked her how she did it, it was a massive contrast to western methods and yet seemed enNrely logical. Growing up poor with no money, how she did it is amazing and her story brings hope for all of us.

While you are sleeping, there’s a risk to your enIre wealth and you probably never saw it looming. Your media never talked about it, most of those that are at least aware of it dismissed it as silliness or some conspiracy theory. But the risk has grown exponenIally in the past 12 months and now I think we are at Defcon levels of risk on this, and we should be openly talking about BRICS+

Age brings wisdom.  Age also loses flexibility in so many ways.  Things don’t stand still and one must adjust to the universe because it won’t adjust to you.  Having said that, I think that the attitudes to those seeking early retirement vs. those that are retiring because of end of career is very different and they don’t see eye to eye.  Let’s talk about that in this episode.

On a recent news story in Arizona, I was amused to see two news anchors (one an older gentleman and one younger lady) talking about a new AI infused technology that created handwriting of a person by using a robot.  Their reactions to this tell a generational story about social life & expectations in the USA, and so I wanted to expand upon this in this episode.

The advancement in technology brings a lot of fear, uncertainty & doubt to us. And recently one such invention appears to be doing this – GLP-1 inhibitors, used for diabetes but discovered to have massive impact on weight. The most common name you will hear is ‘Ozempic’. On this episode, I’m going to delve into this both from a medical & financial angle, and yes…. I’ve been taking Ozempic now for the past 2 months, so I’ll tell you my story with it as well.

On January 3rd, the US Federal short term debt showed up at $34 Trillion dollars.  This doesn’t take into consideration of the long term liabilities on the balance sheet of country that go to the promised social security & Medicare payments for seniors.  That would add another $80 Trillion to the tally.  But this simply is the accumulation of decades of losses on the profit & loss statement of the country.  In this episode, I’m going to float a theory on how the USA will clear this debt quickly, but I don’t think you are going to like it…

In this off script episode, I get real about the lies they tell you about 401Ks, IRAs, Superannuation funds, etc.  I explain what they promised and what was delivered and why it is far from optimal for retirement vs. residential rental real estate properties.

This is a little tale about the dangers of proprietary technology and, when I broke my own rules, it came back to bite me big time. Let this be a warning to you all – your first option should always be to find an open source version of anything you need.

I’ve made about 16 flights between the USA & Mexico in the past 12 months, and I’ve learned where the deals are, even if you are not using frequent flyer miles. On this episode, I’ll let you know what I found and where you can look to find super cheap deals.

This episode is a reset moment. Maybe one that is sorely needed. Our attention is all over the place these days, and yet we forget the simplest things that leads to true peace. As an embracement of the principles of a Simple Life, I give you something to think about – how you can survive in our journey through life, and to realize the wrong path that most of us are on.

A good friend of mine who works in the community college world in Arizona sent me an article that he found on why international students won’t come to the USA to study.  I spent the next 30 minutes or so explaining the entire reasons, and I thought you might be interested in the whole story.  Here we go…