Brazil may scrap visas
Brazil is considering dropping visa requirements for US citizens. Currently, if Americans want to go to Brazil, they need to pay $100 and get a visa. This hurts tourism and a bill in Brazil’s Congress aims to scrap visa requirements for American, Japanese, Australian, Canada and New Zealand. This move surely would open up the Brazilian market for expats and tourists from these countries.
Laptop for Expats?
It looks like the One Laptop-One Child initiative is going to get under way. It seems like it has been forever in getting off the ground. Usually when something take forever to get off the ground, it’s because of bureaucratic bumbling. Experience says the bureaucratic bungling and bumbling is the best way to kill an innovative product, but this product is still looking good for us expats.
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Good Food
For expats all over the world, one of the top concerns about any locality is the food. For me, it is my number one concern. I like eating good food and anyone who has seen me will have to agree on this. I can’t handle too much of the local cuisine before getting intense cravings for the food I know and love. Mom’s chili and cornbread, Sister’s great tasting brownies, and Grandma’s homemade chicken noodles all bring about fond memories. The food is the thing I miss the most about the states. Oh, and the crock pot! Gotta find perfect crock pot recipes.
The biggest budget killer for expats living in other countries is eating foreign food. Not surprising, even in the states, foreign is always more expensive than the local cuisine. Sizzler beckons, but the price tag is outrageous on local earnings in Thailand. Most of the time, I stick with Thai food and yes it gets very boring. I have a rice cooker, wok, and hot water pot in my apartment. Sure I can make burgers and fries when I desire and can keep the monotony at bay, but still the food of my memories eludes me.
Well, my solution has been a crockpot. Yes, a simple 3 liter crock pot has satisfied some of my deepest cravings. Brownies, homemade noodles, chili and cornbread can all be cooked in the little old crockpot with very little recipe modifications. Throw in the chili ingredients in the morning, set it on low and eat a hearty dinner when I come home from work. I can easily have all the food that I have hungered for.
For more great crock pot recipes, visit Moms Who Know. They even have a great sugar cookie recipe. But you can’t make it in a crock pot!
Don’t eat beef?
The roaring economy of Argentina has been based on several successes, including a booming agricultural sector and an upswing in construction and industrial production. It appears as though one of the successes, a booming agricultural sector is putting heavy demands on the people of Argentina. Argentina beef is some of the best beef in the world and consumers around the world are buying as much as they can and the price of beef reflects this attitude according to this report.
The average Argentinian eats about 60 to 70 kilos of beef per year. Any price hike is felt immensely by the ravenous beef consumer in this South American country. The President of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, has decided to fight the high price of beef by first banning beef exports and now encouraging people to eat less beef. There are more heavy handed approaches such as price controls, but so far the President has decided to control prices through export taxes, export bans, and appealing to consumers to change their habits.
On the surface, this may seem like an anti-business initiative that hurts the Argentine economy, but I take this differently. This is a great opportunity for President Kirchner to look after the welfare of his people and control overpricing in the marketplace. Why should Argentine consumers have to compete with consumers in other countries for a product that benefits from the natural resources of Argentina? It is nice to see that in this age of globalization that some people are spared from the competitiveness that exists in the international marketplace.