In the US, you don’t go looking for money, it comes and finds you.
Let’s rewind to High School.
In my Junior or Senior year, I can’t remember now to be honest, I was with my friend James in JC Penney and we were about to each buy a pair of new jeans. I don’t know how the universe aligned to have us both in need of jeans, but there we were.
We were teenagers, buying jeans, and so when the cashier offered us a 30% off discount if we each signed up for a rewards program, how could we say no? 30% off is a nice deal that we couldn’t pass up. At that moment, what we didn’t know was that we had both just signed up for our first credit card. A mistake we would both unwind over the next weeks with a priceless life lesson about money → make sure you know what you’re doing, or someone else will take advantage of you.
You see, that’s how it works in the land of the dollar. You don't go looking for money. Money comes looking for you, especially in the form of credit: credit cards, car loans, mortgages, student loans, etc.
Being raised in the US, you grow up on the dollar. Around 18, the credit card offers start flooding your physical mail, and honestly they start well before that. Kids grow up, as I did, with a paper route or a way to make money from an early age. The idea of money is everywhere here. Now, this doesn't mean that people are good with it or that it’s taught in schools, but it's always there. It’s ubiquitous.
Yet, here's the thing I've come to believe:
To actually understand money, you have to leave the empire of the almighty dollar. You have to leave the US.
To back up this belief, I’d like to share with you how time spent in three different countries has shaped my personal understanding of money and provided me with three different and unique PhDs in how money really works both locally and globally.
Argentina taught me about currency.
Back in the spring of 2008, I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While only there for four months, this one experience forever changed two things about me: the way I understand, watch and play soccer, and the way I think about currency.
When I was there, the peso was three to one against the dollar. Studying abroad on that exchange rate, I lived like a king. I could walk out the door with $20, about 60 pesos, and have dinner, drink wine, hit up a club, pay for taxis, and buy shots for strangers at the bar. Even in 2008, $20 in the US wasn't doing all of that. I was blown away by the raw power of the dollar, and by the power of standing on the right side of an exchange rate. Something I had never felt before. Something people in the US never have to think about: an exchange rate.
Walk down any street in the US and ask what the dollar is against the euro, the pound, the Mexican peso. Few people know. We have the reserve currency, so we never have to care. But ask almost any dude walking around Bogotá what the dollar is against the peso, and he'll get you close, as he’s checked on it sometime in the last week. Ask almost anyone in Europe what the euro to the dollar is and they’ll likely know, because it impacts their life. And, humans, for better or worse, really only pay attention to what impacts their lives.
Argentina was also a society that had lived through hyperinflation. Even in 2008, people were still talking about the 2001 crisis, and it stuck with them for good reason. As I write this, the peso is around 1,515 to $1, which is wild, as the currency has now lost roughly 99.8% of its value against the dollar since I lived there. The result of which is a scared society. One with zero faith in its banks and its government. Being around that up close was foundational and something I’ll never forget.
Guatemala taught me about remittances.
I've been in and out of Guatemala for more than five years of my life. I did the Peace Corps there, launched a company there, and I've sat on the board of advisors for a nonprofit there for nearly a decade.
I say this often, and it’s true: I know Guatemala better than any other country in the world.
And, in Guatemala, you can’t spend five minutes there without seeing or feeling the impact of foreign remittances. When I was there, remittances accounted for ~10% of GDP, which is a staggering amount of money, most of it earned by people working in the US and sent back home. It was my first real window into how money actually flows around the world: from places with opportunity to places with less of it, almost always from a stronger currency toward a weaker one.
The wild part is that Guatemala's Quetzal has actually been one of the most stable currencies in Latin America over the last 20 years, more stable than the Colombian peso, the Mexican peso, and light-years ahead of the Argentine peso or the Venezuelan Bolívar. And still, every single person in that country is either going to the United States, has been to the United States, or knows someone who is going or has been and I say that without hyperbole. I got off the plane there as a 22-year-old kid in 2010 to join the Peace Corps and the time spent in and around Guatemala has and continues to show me how the world actually works and how money actually moves.
Colombia taught me about being unbanked.
I'm a Colombian citizen, but I can't open a Colombian bank account. This is a longer story linked to my Colombian adoption history that could be its own article, but for now, the main takeaway is that in Colombia I can’t open a bank account.
And, the irony is that Colombia's financial system is genuinely modern. The two biggest banks run apps called Nequi and Daviplata that function like instant settlement digital wallets. For my US audience, imagine a product like Zelle, Venmo, and Cash App rolled into one, except smoother, and accepted almost everywhere. A guy selling coffee on the side of the road will take it. A taxi will accept it. It's not a credit card, it's more like instant debit, and it's everywhere. It’s what Bitcoin lightning feels like, but it’s not Bitcoin lightning.
Colombia has a fairly modern banking system, but alas, I’m locked out of it. And, being locked out has taught me more about being unbanked than any YouTube video or SubStack ever could have. It’s also forced me to create a hodgepodge system of third-party apps and crypto stitched together to move money in and out of Colombia. Like most things in life, you have to live it to understand it.
Each experience was a PhD.
Argentina taught me about currency, hyperinflation, and what happens to a society that stops trusting its banks and its government. Guatemala was and continues to be my crash course in remittances and the global movement of money from opportunity laden lands to those with weaker currencies. Colombia still shows me what it's like to exist outside the financial system.
These experiences and their subsequent lessons always make me wonder whether I would’ve learned as much about money in my life had I never left the United States. A hypothetical question I ask myself from time to time.
Most people raised and living in the US have never had to think about an exchange rate. Most have never been near a society that survived hyperinflation even if they interact daily with other people who have fled hyper-inflated economies. Most don't understand remittances even while surrounded by people in the service sector sending money home every week. And, while there are far more unbanked people stateside than most realize, as a % of population it’s much smaller than it is in other countries and is so taboo it’s hardly ever surfaced.
Argentina, Guatemala and Colombia are my PhDs in money, and every one of them required a passport, which leads me to reaffirm that if you actually want to understand money, you have to leave the US.
As always – nothing replaces action.
See you next Tuesday.
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