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But you know, there's a whole
list of options, you know, arranging

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from citizenship in the Caribbean to citizenship
in the European Union, you know,

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through the country of Malta, and
which of course gives you settlement rights across

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the European Union. So having access
to those member states is attractive to some

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people. Others just want to have
citizenships somewhere. Just in case, you're

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listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you just

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00:00:27,079 --> 00:00:32,719
can't find anywhere else to thrive in
today's trying times. You need the Financial

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00:00:32,799 --> 00:00:38,920
Survival Network now more than ever.
Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and get

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00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:48,759
your free newsletter and gift. Financial
Survival Network now more than ever, And

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welcome you are listening to and watching
the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,

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00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:57,600
Carrie Letz. It's four ten twenty
four, just mentioning that we're a

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third of the way through April and
we've already been through an eclipse, multiple

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earthquakes, civil unrest from coast to
shining from sea to Shining Sea, and

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you're wondering maybe maybe it's time to
get out a dodge. Christopher Willis is

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here with us now. Christopher,
you are, hey, first of all,

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a big fan of SNN FSN and
we appreciate that. And hey,

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you're an expert on overseas obtaining citizenship
and residency overseas or thrilled to have you

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eight as an American And where would
be the first place I should look to

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think about becoming a citizen of hekkery. Great time to be here and thanks

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for having me. Yeah, I
mean, that's a great question. It's

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kind of an open ended question because
it does depend on on the you know,

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each person's own motivations, the timelines, et cetera. And you don't

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necessarily have to leave the US.
It's more having an option to leave the

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US just in case. You know
how with the direction things are going,

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certainly as we're built up into November, is a lot of nervousness from a

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lot of people and wondering, you
know, what one situation is going to

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be, you know, in the
next six months, nine months, five

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years, et cetera. But you
know, there's there's a whole list of

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options, you know, arranging from
citizenship in the Caribbean to citizenship in the

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European Union, you know, through
the country of Malta and which of course

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gives you settlement rights across the European
Union. So having access to those member

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states is attractive to some people.
Others just want to have citizenships somewhere just

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in case. And there's also residency
programs. You know, Portugal has been

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extremely popular with Americans who are looking
to have status somewhere where if they wanted

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to go and hang out for a
little while, they can, but it's

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not necessarily getting them citizenship, although
they would be on a pathway to citizenship

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should they do enough time in the
country. Okay, so yeah, so

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explain residency versus citizenship because I know
many of you out there don't really know

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about that. Yeah, it's a
great question. So, so residency would

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be like having a green cart in
the US, So you have permission to

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stay essentially and definitely as long as
you and you were it on a regular

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basis, and if you spend enough
time, you can graduate to full citizenship.

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So the main difference by being a
citizen is you have the right to

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vote and you can hold a passport. So for many people is having the

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passport or the citizenship that allows them
to get a passport, which is sort

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of the ultimate prize or the Holy
Grail. Now, typically, you know,

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for Americans, passport was very strong, passport recognized internationally, not a

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big deal. But then you know, when the pandemic hit and at full

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swing and there was a travel ban
on Americans, it didn't matter who you

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were. If you're only on an
American passport, you weren't getting on a

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plane to go to Europe or to
go to Singapore, to go to the

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UAE or anything like that. So, you know, Americans had their wings

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clited, and we're well and truly
grounded, and a lot of people we

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speak to were saying, hey,
we're exposed here, so we've got to

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We've got to fill this gap and
get another option just in case something like

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this happens again. And so that
realizes the exactly we the you know,

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woke couple lot of people and said, hey, we need this because traditionally,

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you know, these citizenship programs were
for people who were coming from countries

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that had very poor trava. So
you're Nigeria and you're South African, your

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Lebanese, you know, you're Pakistani. People like that. They always had

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to get visas to go everywhere.
So these people. It really was life

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changing because they can now just walk
on a plane and you know, go

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to these places that they was it
was challenging for them to go to in

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the past. So I guess it
goes back to my original point. It

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does depend on the needs and the
motivations of the people. For Americans now

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it's you know, whether you spend
it as a non traditional insurance policy or

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a plan B. You know,
it's it's just something that's now becoming a

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necessity, you know, for the
wealthy elite. Right, Okay, so

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what's the cost involved, Well,
it varies. So Caribbean citizenship at the

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moment starting at one hundred thousand US
if you go down to donation rooms or

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there's real estate auctions as well,
and if people wanted to say divest out

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of the US, they can invest
in one of these countries and you know

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get that that too for you know, the two for one, get get

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an asset, but also use that
asset to qualify for economic citizenship. So

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some people are looking at it from
that angle because there's also a lifestyle element.

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Many Americans are familiar with the Caribbean
geographically very close, so you know,

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they may want to go and have
a beach holiday, you know,

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when the weather gets cold, if
you're up from uplands for example. So

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that's the starting point is around one
hundred thousand in the US. But I'll

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put a little asterisk right there because
there was a recent memorandum of agreement signed

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by the five countries in the Caribbean
that operate a Citizenship by Investment program where

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they're looking to increase the minimum from
one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand US

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and that's going to be They've ear
marked to June thirtieth of this year as

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the effective date for this to happen. So although it's one hundred thousand now,

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that could double very quickly. So
if people are interested, they should

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start looking at this quite quickly because
it will get more expensive. Okay,

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so how more is all the paperwork
to do? Well, the paperwork,

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it's if you're a white citizenship is
still there. They've got to know about

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you, right, So it's the
usual stuff of civil documents, you know,

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birth certificates, margtificatest et cetera.
Police checks, source of wealth,

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source of funds is the key part. Just to make sure everything was legally

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acquired and a variety of application forms
so they can understand you as an applicant.

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Because the due diligence is quite thorough, multi tiered, including obviously you

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know, apart from public domain SUSH, it's a third party dependent due diligence.

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Firms are going to verify the information
you provide, and then you're also

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got to have you know, you
need to pull your a poll, sanctions

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list, watch lists, all these
international verifications will be done as well,

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just to ensure that you're the right
type of person. Who's who's coming to

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the odds. Yeah, I don't
want any sketchy people coming over, right,

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No, exactly exactly, And just
in the second part of your question,

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you know, the cost of the
Caribbean is there, but you know,

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somewhere like Malta for a single applicants
is around about a million euro.

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But the difference being you're getting European
citizenship in about eighteen months as and you

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know you would cheat. I think
we can comfortably say that's a higher value

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citizenship than that of the Caribbean.
And or you could go down the Portugal

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route, which would be five hundred
thousand euro but it's going to take about

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eight years before you'd be able to
become a citizen of Portugal. So,

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you know, it's like most things
of life, you get what you pay

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for, right, So if you're
looking for European citizenship quickly, you're looking

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at the million euro price point.
If you're happy to wait half of that,

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and if you're happy with the Caribbean
as your country and citizenship, then

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it's it's one hundred thousand to start
with. Okay. So if we look

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in Asia, are there any opportunities
in Asia? There's not a lot in

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certainly in terms of citizenship. There
are some residence programs. They tend to

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be used more by Asian nationals who
are looking to you, you know,

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very much like in South America.
You know a lot of South Americans want

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to go to Uruguay or Paraguay,
for example, so they want to sort

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of stay within the region or their
continent. But for the American we haven't

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seen a big uptick of interest from
Americans looking to go to Asia. Okay,

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what about when we look at Eastern
Europe maybe that's not part of the

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EU. Are there opportunities there?
Yeah, there's a good example would be

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in the country of Ontenegro, which
is you know, trying to ascend to

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become a fully new member state,
and they did have a citizenship program,

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but they had some pressures from the
European Union saying, look, if you

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want to ascend, you're going to
have to make sure that this program is

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done unfinished. So there's we're seeing
some interest from some other countries in Eastern

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Europe, but nothing has come to
light yet, but there could be some

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on that of this year. Interesting
any other countries EU countries. What about

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Moldova or yeah, Moldov we did
have a program, but that that sort

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of die to death very quickly.
Greece is very popular, but again that's

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just a residency program that does not
have a pathway to citizenship. But Spain

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is becoming more and more popular.
The Spanish program is actually has lower requirement.

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It's you're a Latin American national or
your parents Latin national, so anywhere

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basically Mexico South. If you have
that heritage, you can benefit from a

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two year residency instead of ten years
before being eligible for full Spanish citizenship.

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But they're also going through a few
revisions to their program at the moment,

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so we may see some changes towards
the end of this year as it relates

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to qualifying for Spain. There's always
a butt with these programs, Christopher,

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you know there's always an if for
whatever. Yeah, the joys of governments,

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you know, change of governments.
You know, in Portugal they had

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a lot of pressure for affordable housing
for the local Portuguese and that's what changed

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their program and we're seeing a bit
of that in Spain now as well.

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So you know, immigration, no
matter what country is a political football,

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right and so you know that's never
going to change. And again depending if

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there's a change of government, that
can impact their immigration programs as well.

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Okay, what are some of the
pitfalls when you go start doing this?

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00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:07,000
Well, I mean it's the benefits
certainly have way in any risk here because

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you know, in you either don't
have to spend once you're a citizen,

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that's saying the Caribbean, you don't
have to spend any time. So the

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00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:16,120
passport's in your back pocket, you
use it as when if at all.

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Some people just like having the peace
in line, knowing that it's there.

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You know that the adage of it's
better to have it and not need it

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than need it and not have it. Right if you're looking to shame jurisdiction.

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You know, the Americans, you
still tax on your citizenship, right,

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00:10:31,159 --> 00:10:35,000
so if you were a Canadian or
a brit there's maybe a tax play

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00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:37,519
here for you as well, but
you know, not as much for the

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American client. So it really depends
on you know, lifestyle choices, knowing

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you can get somewhere should you need
it. Now, I'll give you an

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example. So you know, during
the pandemic again, there was someone who

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had a you know, multimillion dollar
property on the Caribbean island of Antigua and

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Barbuda, and he thought, I'll
just go hang out there, but he

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00:10:56,279 --> 00:11:00,360
never took out citizenship. He just
used to keep coming and going as a

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00:11:00,399 --> 00:11:03,639
visitor. But because the Caribbean island
is like many places, close their borders

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00:11:03,759 --> 00:11:09,000
to non citizens, he couldn't access
his property. So it's just again many

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00:11:09,039 --> 00:11:13,960
many examples why there's more benefits to
having this, and you're enhancing your freedom

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00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:16,480
so right, and this is really
what it's all about. It's giving yourself

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00:11:16,519 --> 00:11:20,600
more options should you need them.
And again this is where more and more

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00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:24,360
people are realizing it is becoming a
necessity. I couldn't agree with him more

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00:11:24,559 --> 00:11:28,840
Hey, people want to find out
more about you about how you can help

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00:11:28,879 --> 00:11:33,080
them. Is there a place you
can go Christopher? Yeah, the best

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00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:37,080
thing is go to our website Latitude
World dot com. My details are on

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00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:41,320
there under the team page information and
all the different programs that are available.

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00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:43,519
And then we can take some time
with you to understand you know why you're

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00:11:43,519 --> 00:11:46,360
looking to do, I understand your
deeds, and then we can make some

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00:11:46,399 --> 00:11:50,639
recommendations of what would be the best
fit. All right, excellent, Hey,

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really appreciate you coming on. I've
got a question for Christopher myself.

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Email addresses always kl Atcarrie LUTs dot
com. We've got a link to the

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00:11:58,639 --> 00:12:05,919
show. It's in the for this
interview on Financial Survival Network dot com and

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00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:07,960
you just have to go there loock
it and while you're there, sign up

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00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:11,320
for your free newsletter. Christopher,
appreciate you coming on, but a pleasure.

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00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:13,759
We'll talk to you again soon.
Thanks, Gerry, appreciate it.

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Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial
Survival Network, your solution to today's trying

183
00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:26,159
times. For the latest, go
to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival

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00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:28,639
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