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That's A-S-S-S-C-A-M-P.com. Welcome to money for the rest of us.

This is a personal finance show on money, how it works, how to invest it, and how to live without

worrying about it. I'm your host, David Stein. Today is episode 507. It's titled,

Where You Live Matters. How Geography Contributes to Wealth.

Over the break, LaPerel and I spent about a month in Costa Rica. We spent time with our family.

Costa Rica is a beautiful country with high mountain peaks, rivers, beaches, the wildlife, flowers, absolutely

gorgeous. I typically, when I travel outside of the U.S. or travel anywhere, I don't do a ton of

research before I arrive. I find that once I'm there, then I have all kinds of questions in terms of how things operate,

why things are as they are. I knew Costa Rica. Tourism was a leading sector in the economy,

as was agriculture, bananas, coffee, pineapple, palm oil. I didn't know about palm oil, but down in the south where we spent

a portion of our time, there were a lot of palm oil plantations. I didn't realize till later that

Costa Rica also manufactures medical, electrical, and aerospace devices. My friend warned me,

as we plotted out an itinerary for Costa Rica that it is the land

of second gear, that it takes a long time to drive to places. When we picked up our rental car

for a month, the Ava's rental car agent warned me, never move your car if you get into an

accident. He was emphatic about that. And so when

...