In the last four years I have seen a negative trend that leaves me shaking my head in wonder as Uruguay’s government does everything it can to make this country poorer. Prices have increased, and property prices have become ridiculous. From a business point of view, everything has become harder and more expensive.

But, THE WORST IS YET TO COME. Uruguay’s government has announced that it is giving up its traditional territorial taxation and will start taxing the worldwide income of its residents—including investment income.

In fairness, according to a friend of mine in the governing party, Uruguay was bludgeoned into this change by the OECD countries, especially by the USA and the EU, which threatened to ban Uruguay’s agricultural products if this new taxation was not enacted.

Nevertheless, the impact of this new tax law will be huge, especially on expats and immigrants who moved here based on the principal that their foreign investment income and pensions would be tax free.

The flight has already begun; even people who have gotten their permanent residency have left and more are planning to leave.

Those who can afford two homes in two different countries are debating whether it is worth living here less than 183 days per year, in which case they would not be tax resident (assuming Uruguay uses the OECD model on which the tax is based); and then living someplace else for less than 183 days (except the US which has different rules). With a couple of vacation days in a third country, they would then not be tax-resident in either place.

Those who cannot afford two homes are taking a hard look at Central America and Eastern Europe, depending upon their tastes and needs.

I am personally broken-hearted about this, but will probably still spend about 180 days here, and the balance in one or more of the other places in which I have business.

I wonder if anyone in government here has considered the results of this ill-advised decision?

Frankly, unless Uruguay provides some exceptions, like for pensioners, or at least concludes a series of double taxation treaties, without which some immigrants could find them paying taxes twice, the number of new residents will slow to a trickle, while the number of immigrants leaving, for at least a majority of the year will swell to a tidal wave that will have a huge negative impact on the economy as they spend their dollars or euros elsewhere.

I am taking a wait and see attitude before making any final decisions, but I am sifting through my options. I suggest you do the same.

The first thing you must learn is that the lines dividing the lanes are purely ornamental, and that if you insist on trying to stay in the center of what you thought was a lane of traffic, you will be an obstacle to progress.  If 5 little cars can travel alongside each other in 3 lanes, it would be selfish to try to claim a whole lane for yourself.

The second thing you must learn is to drive defensively, sort of like you would going through a war zone.  Uruguayans have a congenital visual deficiency which prevents them from being able to see clearly in the mirrors on their cars, thus, they simply don’t use them.  Consequently they will blithely dart in front of you with mere inches to spare and then be truly shocked if you tap your horn or glare at them.

Pedestrians are just a little worse than the drivers.  I have a sneaking suspicion that pedestrian fatalities are Uruguay’s secret answer to population growth.  One of my favorite pastimes is taking bets on which pedestrian is going to get run over in the striped pedestrian walkways along the Rambla.  Most of them do not have a traffic light, and the pedestrians sort of meander across the walkway in ones and twos, totally oblivious to the speeding traffic which threatens to turn them into roadkill.

Then there are the technical issues.  In most parts of the world, a solid green signal means you can go forward, turn left or turn right.  NOT HERE!

A solid green signal means you can go forward or turn right, but you cannot turn left, except on a one-way street, unless there is a green arrow signal.  Otherwise, you have to continue on until you can find a left turn without a signal, hold up traffic waiting to make the turn, and then meander back towards your target.  This is especially interesting when driving in Centro where most of the streets are one way; complicated by the fact that the one way streets alternate in directions, but only more or less:  one street will go left, the next 3 will go right, than 2 will go left, etc.

Another innovation brought in by the current government is the requirement that you must drive with your headlights on at all times.  Allegedly this is a safety feature, but, since it requires more fuel to burn the headlights all the time, and since the government has a virtual monopoly on fuel importation, plus high fuel taxes, it is a secret tax on the driving public.  (Who said the socialists weren’t smart?)

But, there are good point to driving in Uruguay as well.  Where else in the world can you see on the highway virtually every model car ever made from the Model T Ford to the latest BMW?

That was the straight forward part.

Our neighbor, Argentina, with whom we have so much interaction is still on Summer time for another week–this means that it is now 1 hour later in Buenos Aires than in Montevideo for the next 7 days. (We share the same time with our other neighbor Brazil, so there are no complications there.)

And then there is Europe.

We are now 1 hour farther away from Europe (3 hours earlier than UK time and 4 hours earlier than Central European Time (CET)), but only for 3 weeks. At that time, Europe will go off of summer time and there will be an additional hour between us.

Who said telling time was simple?

But, I beg to differ; at least in part.  Uruguay is not very Catholic, but the people here are VERY religious, and almost all of them practice what amounts to Uruguay’s State Religion (even those who are also practicing Catholics).

Need a hint?  Check out Uruguay’s flag–the emblem of its State Religion is emblazoned there….

The State Religion of Uruguay is SUN WORSHIP.  That’s right, good old fashioned (or should I say “ancient fashioned”) unabashed adoration of Sol Invictus, the unconquered Sun.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the popularity of this religion is that it has few commandments, lots of feast days, no fast days and everybody loves its required pilgrimages.

COMMANDMENTS:

I.  Thou shalt worship the Sun whenever possible, if only for a few minutes at a time between clouds or even in the dead of winter.

II.  Thou shalt wear as little clothing as the weather permits when worshiping the Sun.

III.  Thou shalt drink maté and eat bizcochos daily in honor of the Sun.

IV.  Thou shalt make pilgrimages to Punta del Este (or father East) as often as possible.

FEAST DAYS:

Any time the Sun is out, especially if you can find an excuse for not working and going to the beach instead.  Paros and huelgas (protests and strikes) are considered signs of special piety towards the flaming deity.

FAST DAYS:

Are you kidding?  Asado, chivitos and milanesas are ALWAYS appropriate.

PILGRIMAGES:

Trips Punta del Este are required as often as possible.  Special devotions are mandated every day from 15 December through the end of February.  The especially devout also make pilgrimages to Rocha whenever possible, and the ultra orthodox worship on the beaches there that are accessible only by 4 wheel drive army vehicles.

And if you think the Uruguayans are NOT serious about their religion, they even made a hole in the ozone layer so they could worship more intensely–beat that for dedication…

I am told that there are one or two “Ropas Grandes” (Big Clothes) stores in Montevideo, but since “big” is a relative term, I haven’t held out much hope of finding anthing useful there:  at 6’4″ (1.93m) and more kilograms than I care to admit, I think I need to be looking for a store that sells Ropas Enormes.

My nephew also brought the second of three parts of my annual vitamin supply (trying to get vitamins shipped to Uruguay is one of the nightmares of living here–you need permits from 3 different ministries).  Don’t get me wrong.  They do sell vitamins and supplements here, but, on average, I need to take six of the local pills for every one of the pills I can import from Yankee occupied America.  This means that instead of the 18 tablets and capsules I take daily, I would need to take about 108 if purchased locally.  That evens strains my Uruguayan nationalism!

That being said, I must admit that I try to buy as many things here as I can: the major exceptions being gigantic clothes, vitamins and handicapped specialty items.

They do have wheelchairs here–but the wheels they use are horrible.  They are bicycle wheels.  So unless you are a feather-weight, they don’t hold up very long.  A few places use plastic wheelchair wheels, but they seem to be made out of Red Chinese junk that last for 30 days or at least 1 hour after the warranty has expired–besides, who the heck can read the “Limited Warranty” when it is written in Mandarin characters?

We came up with a couple solutions to the bad wheels–the best has been putting 6 or 8 iron big spokes within the bicycle wheels.  This provides the strength necessary, but makes the chairs so heavy only Borko or a fork lift can carry them.

For virtually everything else I have found a good local substitute or work-around.

One of my favorite local solutions has to do with furniture.  You can have furniture “built to fit” in some of the smaller stores in the northern part of Montevideo more cheaply here than you can buy new furtnitureat some place like Divino.  So I had extra wide wing-back chairs and a love seat built.  Then, to add height to them (and also make them more handicapped friendly) I have metal frames with wheels built on the bottom of them–thus they are wide enough for my rather large bottom (or two or three average Uruguayos) and high enough so I am not chewing on my knees when I sit down.

One other work around I am trying does require the importation of a key element:  a US style sprinkler hose.  I bought one from Amazon.com and it is being shipped in via Miami Box.  (Since it is under US$50, it will come through customs without a problem.)  I had to buy it in the States because I couldn’t find anyone here who had any idea what i was talking about (and the idea of poking pin holes in a regular hose just didn’t seem feasible).

If you haven’t figure out where I am going with this, you are not from the South in the “Old Days”.  We used to call this “Florida Air Conditioning”–it works especially well on tile roofs, like I have now.

It really is very simple.  You put the sprinkler hose on the roof and turn it on during the heat of the day.  The evaporating water takes the heat out of the tiles and cools the rooms below them by several degrees.  So, unless the laws of physics are different south of the equator (which is a distinct possibility), it should work.  I will let you know.

Boy am I glad I used to build “Rube Goldberg” machines–that talent has saved me more often than I care to remember in the last 10 years.

In the last few weeks I had the opportunity to visit a small business that was so friendly and helpful that I decided to give them a plug here.  The business is Meerhoff Optica at the corner of España and Saramiento.

The manager waited on me personally, and spoke a goodly amount of English.  I purchased 4 sets of new lenses and one pair of new frames.  Without asking, he offered me a discount  because of the size of my purchase.  He also gave me without charge a new temple for my main pair of glasses as I had managed to break them for the second time.

I left all but one pair with them and he promised to call me when everything was ready.  Amazingly he did, about a week later.

When I went it to pick up the glasses I was given the same care and greeted with the same friendliness as before.  Additionally, the quality of the lenses was excellent (I am really picky about that because I use progressive bifocals and photogrey lenses)!

One of the very best things about living in Uruguay is the friendliness of its people–and the people at Meerhoff were an excellent example.

As a normal part of our  business we open financial accounts with various institutions around the world.  Mostl of them require a notarized account opening document or signature card.  In most places, even including the two islands on which I lived in the Caribbean, this is a piece of cake–here it is an indigestible lump of something I prefer not to describe in a family blog.

One cannot simply get one’s signature notarized here.  The Government won’t allow.  Instead, one must jump through a series of ever more expensive and difficult hoops in order to accomplish this erstwhile simple task.

We have been trying to open an account at a Bank in Poland to more easily load a new Visa card product we are getting ready to offer.  ALL we need to complete it is to have two signatures notarized.  But it CAN’T be done here.  Escibranos, the local name for civil law notaries (although the law isn’t very civil at all) can’t just notarize a signature, they have to notarize the whole document.

And God-forbid that the document is in any language other than Spanish (like Polish and English maybe), the document has to be translated into Spanish.  This means that I have the privilege of paying a public translator to translate an English-Polish bank account opening form into Spanish.  I don’t yet know if they translate BOTH the English and the Polish–(probably they do so they can charge twice for the same translation).

Then the document can be notarized.

End of story; right?  Wrong!  Because Uruguay is one of a handfull of countries that to not subscribe the the International Convention on the Legalisation of Documents, Uruguay does not issue Apostilles, which are basically an internationally recognized super-notarization.  Some other countries that do not have the Apostille include some important business centers as North Korea, Cuba, and Libya.

This means that the document has to be legalized before it can be sent to Poland.

So, after it is translated, and notarized, it must be sent to a court for review.

But we’re still not finished!  Then it goes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to finally be legalized.

But we’re not done yet.  Now, it has to be taken to the Polish Embassy in Buenos Aires (because the Polish Embassy here is now closed), after which it can finally be sent to the Polish Bank.

Easy:  US$500 and a month later, we have the document….

EXCEPT that the Court didn’t like two or three words in the notarization, so we had to start the process all over again.

NB:  For those of you who might think that I missed the obvious solution of going to the US Embassy to get the signatures notarized, I didn’t.  The Yankee Embassy will ONLY notarize documents intended for the US.  And espite the grandiose ambitions of King Georeg II, Poland is not yet considered a part of the US (except in some parts of Chicago–or maybe it is the other way around? Chicago is considered a part of Poland…).

For those who want to know more about the Apostille, see:  http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.status&cid=41#nonmem

Panama was incredible! It was the most dynamic city I have visited in years. It is clearly replacing Miami as Latin America’s primary financial center. There are more banks in one small barrio in Panama City than there are in Uruguay. More business is done every day in Panama than is done all year in Montevideo. Everywhere I looked new buildings were going up: not little buildings–20 to 40 story concrete and steel towers. Real estate values are soaring. One of my business associates bought office space on Avenida Balboa (Panama’s version of Rambla) a few years ago for US$73 per square meter. Offices in his building are now selling for US$3000 per square meter.

And the Internet was incredible… I think we have more bandwidth in the hotel than in all of Uruguay: a blazingly fast 11 MB in our hotel room.

For me, the best features of Panama were its restaurants. I had fantastic Chinese food, which is impossible to get here, and a surfeit of American junk food including Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Bennigan’s, TGI Friday’s, Popeye’s and Hard Rock Cafe.

Panama City is very much like Miami, except that they speak more English in Panama!

Would I like to live there? Am I sorry I moved here?

You’ve got to be kidding! Panama is like one big amusement park/shopping mall: a lot of fun to visit, but I surely would not want to live there!

Panama is hot. Panama is humid. Panama is crowded. Panama is expensive. Panama’s traffic is insane. Panama is increasingly dangerous.

For me Panama is a mirror image of Uruguay. Uruguay is a wonderful place to live, a good place from which to do business, but a terrible place in which to do business. Conversely, Panama is a wonderful place in which to do business, a good place from which to do business, but a challenging place in which to live (especially if you are a gringo).

One of the things I love about living in Uruguay is that I do not stand out in a crowd (except for the fact that I am a fat cripple in a wheelchair)as a gringo. Here, I look like everyone else. Panama caused me to have flashbacks of Costa Rica–Santiago and I were both clearly identifiable as foreigners. That could be that between the two of us we were bigger than any six Panamanians, but I think it is more subtle than that. Panamanians are certainly more friendly than Costa Ricans, but then so are North Koreans. Panamanians are certainly smarter than Costa Ricans, but then so is the average mule. Panamanians show more business savvy than anyone I have met this side of Hong Kong or Taiwan. But, Panama has an edge to it which is hard to define, but indicates to me that it could never be home–that I could never really belong there.

Panama is good for business and I will go back there often. If it was next door to Uruguay I might even work there and live here. But it is 7 hours away by plane and Uruguay is my home Regardless of whether you speak English or Spanish the sentiment is the same: home Sweet home – hogar dulce hogar!

Since I am Orthodox, my holy week comes a bit later and will probably be commemorated in a slightly different way.

Holy week, which is also known as Tourism Week (because everyone in the country tries to be a tourist this week), and by three or four other names I cannot remember, is the Uruguayan equivalent of US Labor Day weekend–it is the summer’s last hurrah and everyone tries to take a four-day holiday, if not the entire week. For the last time until Christmas Montevideo will become a virtual ghost town. Stores and restaurants will be closed and services will be hard to get.

This week is also only the second time since its inception in which our Thursday night Open House gatherings will be canceled. We will resume a week later on March 27.

To those of you Commemorating the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, I extend my prayers and best wishes.

Providentially for me, I enjoyed decent health until the accidents that crippled me in 1998. By that time I was living outside the United States, so I was able to afford health care even without insurance. (Admittedly, some of the health care was provided by practitioners whose credentials might be considered by some–anyone with an IQ above 30 –as suspect. I remember that on the island of Nevis they only had one class of physicians, and consequently even Chiropractors could prescribe drugs- “take two of these pills daily, and return three times a week forever”. The the university degree of the chief health officer of the island, a doctor whose name I do not remember, was R.N.)

But all of that changed when I came to Uruguay! Every legal resident who pays Social Security is entitled to choose from among several HMOs which are totally paid for by one’s Social Security contribution. In addition, there is also a government health service to care for the needs of the poor, and private health insurance as well (for which I could not qualify because of my pre-existing conditions).

Since I am working and paying social security I now have health insurance. Santiago researched the various plans and chose COSEM because it was reputed to have the best doctors and the newest facilities.
Eight days ago I went to COSEM for the first time to see a general practitioner in order to get a referral for a specialist. I was impressed with the modern facility. I did have to wait about an hour to see the doctor, but I have waited longer than that in the US and then had to pay $120 for the privilege. This visit cost me nothing. The doctor gave me a referral to a dermatologist to deal with the skin on my left leg which had been ravaged by a seven-year long staph infection.

Perhaps the most impressive thing was that the doctor did not tell me to put Dr. Selby ointment on my leg–in Uruguay Dr. Selby is the equivalent of “take two aspirin and call me in the morning”.

Santiago went to the front desk to make the appointment for me. He was told that there were no dermatologist appointments available for more than a month. However, the general practitioner had marked my need as “urgent”, so the scheduler told Santiago he would find an appointment for me quickly and call us with the time and day. That was Friday, March 7.

My appointment with the dermatologist was on Tuesday, March 11. I don’t think I could’ve gotten in that quickly in the US under any circumstances short of third-degree burns covering 80% of my body.

When the day came for the dermatologist appointment I cleared my calendar just in case there would be a long wait. To my pleasant surprise, there wasn’t. I was the second person on the list, and don’t think I waited more than 10 minutes. The dermatologist was knowledgeable, and gave me some prescriptions that have helped me tremendously. I started seeing improvements very next day. Some of the things the doctor prescribed were available right there at COSEM’s pharmacy and were extremely inexpensive. The rest we had to buy at a local pharmacy, but the price there was discounted as well because of my COSEM membership.

The whole process was easy, and frankly, encouraging. Virtually every encounter I have had with physicians in Uruguay has been positive.

I say virtually because there was one doctor that I had to endure who started out with the tired old litany of “you’re overweight”. Gee, really? I didn’t know that: I thought I was the perfect weight for someone 7’6″ (2.25 m). That encounter was actually pretty funny because, as she was talking, in Spanish of course, Santiago became visibly upset. He told it was because he knew I would not like what she said. I told him that I would absolutely not be angry or upset because I intended to ignore her completely.

Those who know me even casually know that I am a libertarian/right-wing nut. By rights, I should hate the medical system here. But I can’t, because even before I am a libertarian, I am a utilitarian; and Uruguay’s medical system WORKS!