I love the Netherlands and have spent a few months trying it out as a place to live. It's among my favourite places: moderate weather, friendly people, a high level of personal freedom, very high rate of English speakers, clean and modern environment, good international restaurants, lively town centres even in smaller towns, most towns have rivers / canals which make them very pleasant to walk around. I could list many other positive things.
There are some (big) downsides though. Properties are very small and very expensive compared to other European countries, so you can't expect a high standard of living in this aspect unless you have plenty of money. Taxes are also very high. In addition to the usual income taxes, you pay a wealth tax and the threshold is very low (around 55k EUR in savings/assets) so this isn't only targeting very rich people. This makes it a pretty bad place to live if you care about investing and saving for the future.
If it wasn't for these last two points I'd almost definitely move there.
> lists all of the reasons why countries with taxes are nice to live in
> concludes by: "it would be perfect if not for taxes"
People wouldn't be as friendly and well educated if they went bankrupt when losing their jobs, getting a cancer, had to take $100k loans for uni, &c. the towns wouldn't be nice and clean if people didn't pay taxes for regular cleaning, ...
There are very very few countries with low taxes and nice quality of life for the average Joe, and the exceptions usually don't want you to move in. Try Albania or Bulgaria, you'll quickly understand why most people are mostly happy about paying taxes
I guess my complaint was more about the type of taxes rather than the concept of taxes in general. Income tax I can accept: it's the price of entry to live in the place and enjoy its benefits. Even then there's plenty of room for debate between the extremes of "ultra-low / no tax" and "very high", but let's set that aside for now.
But having a wealth tax with a very low threshold is something else entirely. It means that I'm not free to invest and grow the money that is already mine, that I already paid taxes on in the first place. It means I'll always be held back and prevented from advancing as much as I could. It means that improving your situation so that next year you're doing a little better than this year, is something that the system actively pushes you away from.
There are also practical problems with taxing wealth. Income tax is "easy": by definition you have the money to pay for it because it's charged on money that you've received. With a wealth tax, you might not have the money. For example, if you own an investment apartment or some other illiquid asset you can't just sell a piece of it every year to pay the tax. You'll either have to find the money out of income (assuming you have enough) or ruin your investment strategy by selling the whole thing when you didn't plan to.
It also distorts the risk/reward tradeoff: many investments might not make sense at all if you're suddenly paying 2% a year of the value.
>Taxes are also very high. In addition to the usual income taxes, you pay a wealth tax and the threshold is very low (around 55k EUR in savings/assets) so this isn't only targeting very rich people. This makes it a pretty bad place to live if you care about investing and saving for the future.
This was a deal breaker for me as someone on the FIRE path. It's neighbor, Belgium, is much better in this respect.
FIRE people are funny, I wouldn't retire in belgium even if I was paid for it personally. Do you just order by tax rate and move wherever the number is the smallest ? I never heard of anyone moving to Belgium for anything other than family or cross border workers
As a US Expat who just purchased a home in Amsterdam it's a hell of a lot better than paying $1.5 mil for a shack in Sunnyvale. We bought the apartment we were living in from our landlord (funny enough because they're going to start charging him extra tax for N+2 rental properties). It's worth it.
For one, they ruled that the wealth tax is against the EU human rights agenda. So they're scrambling to come up with a solution. Even with this tax, the projected weight isn't terrible. For reference my wife and I are CoastFIRE here with ~2mil USD in NW and the tax is marginal compared to our returns.
The new limit before being taxed is around 60K (€59.357), any amount on top of that is taxed (1.44%), so it is not like you are getting robbed blind. It is only fair that those that have a lot of money contribute so that others can participate in society with equal opportunity. Also, not all assets are taxed.
It's actually more like 2.2% for shares (5.88% assumed return taxed at 36% = 2.2%.
If you have an ultra-low risk investment strategy focused on value preservation and inflation beating (where your expected returns are in the low single digits e.g. 2 - 3%), that does start to look like being robbed blind.
> It is only fair that those that have a lot of money contribute
Really? 60k is "a lot of money"? Yes, it's a lot in the sense that many people have far less than that, but it's not "a lot" in the scheme of things when we're talking about saving and investing.
With 60k you'll be lucky even to get the down-payment on a mortgage for a small apartment, which you'll then be paying off every month for the next several decades. Should we be taxing people on their wealth before they've even had the chance to own their first home? I would argue that such a person can't legitimately be called wealthy.
I don't follow why it makes a difference? If someone wants to invest to improve their future quality of life, why would it matter how long they will live in a place for?
>"I love the Netherlands and have spent a few months trying it out as a place to live. It's among my favourite places: moderate weather, friendly people, a high level of personal freedom, very high rate of English speakers, clean and modern environment, good international restaurants, lively town centres even in smaller towns, most towns have rivers / canals which make them very pleasant to walk around. I could list many other positive things."<
Yes, and about half the Netherlands is below sea level, something I cannot abide.
Ah, yes. Of course, in the wake of the fall of the United States, everywhere else on earth will immediately flourish. Just my 2 cents, but before you leave, you might want to talk to some immigrants about what brought them to the United States in the first place.
I assume you mean people who have immigrated from the Netherlands to the U.S. in the past year? It'd be interesting to hear their thoughts, for sure. I don't think the data is available yet, but I expect those numbers are sharply down, so it might not be easy to find anyone to talk to.
100%. I mean people that immigrated to the US from anywhere though. I was joking with a store clerk and mentioned Germany as a potential escape vector. The lady in line behind me says in a German accent, "You don't want to live in Germany."
As if immigrants fleeing Nazis in WWII 90 years ago or folk from less wealthy regions of the world today are a barometer for the state of the Netherlands?
The Netherlands is already doing well today, and don't have the grim outlooks of the current US. It's not perfect and the fall of the US would have enormous impacts, of course, but this seems like a total non sequitur.
I'm not sure I understand your point, nor you mine.
I'm not commenting about the Netherlands specifically, I'm commenting about people leaving the United States for anywhere because they feel similar to you about "the grim outlooks of the current US". It's a common narrative, but about 10x more people immigrate to the US every year as compared to the Netherlands. A lot of people in the US are like, "Trump sucks, I'm moving to Spain." Most of them never will, they just like saying they will. They don't speak Spanish, have no contacts anywhere outside of the US, have never been to Spain, etc. I'm just suggesting that the grass is not always greener on the other side, there are always trade-offs and some of the best ways to learn about those trade-offs is talking with people that have lived in both places.
> some immigrants about what brought them to the United States in the first place.
What brought them to the US is that if they have a kid, now their kid is a citizen. Green card etc waived - you wouldn't deport a family would you? Now they nominally have zero income so they qualify for full on super duper welfare - food, house, medical care. Of course find a job, too - but has to be under the table because no green card. Meaning no taxes either. So free food, free house no rent, free medicine, no taxes. Medical care legally requires accomodations for foreign languages - don't need to speak English either.
I mean, if Japan said, "if you have a kid here, live here on our dime, eat on our dime, free medical care, no taxes" yea I would take that deal!! Can't blame em
Irony of the whole thing? This actually kinda solves the population crisis. Forces people to have a kid. Actually an interesting finding but poorly explored since the powers that be like to bury their head in the sand and pretend 50 million people haven't exploited this.
Other point is well, why did this even happen? Well, the landlords are quite happy to see the feds paying for rent, they'll collect that check, as with the food suppliers and the medical care practitioners - a very nice niche. And the small businesses are more than happy to pay someone under the table untaxed, lower overhead. So the people coming in illegally, they benefit, the people collecting the taxes paying for them, they benefit, everybody else, welp, there goes your tax money
You missed the part where those workers power large sectors of the US economy.
You think produce gets picked, meat processed, and/or construction completed without immigrant labor?
If the plan is to clamp down on illegal immigration, then immigration reform to loosen the legal pathways for low wage labor needs to be passed at the same time.
> That you'd give up so easily when your voice, presence, and vote, matters most.
There have been concerted efforts over the last couple decades (arguably much longer) to erode these things; gerrymandering, voter roll purges, eliminating/restricting polling locations and absentee voting, corporations and wealthy individuals have basically unlimited spend on electioneering and lobbying giving them a disproportionate voice, a worsening state of effectively dysfunctional/maligned politicians, corporate censorship, so on and so forth. In my state, a majority passed two state constitutional amendments and the establishment (gerrymandered) politicians didn't like that, spending the past couple of years rules lawyering, delaying, etc. to try to subvert the will of the people. Hell, they ignored multiple state supreme court orders on top of voter’s wishes.
Anyways, my point being that wanting to leave a country with increasing social, economic, and political troubles isn’t entitlement, anymore than you were entitled for immigrating to the US.
Personally, I agree that I’d rather stay and fight, not that I really can afford to do otherwise, yet I understand people frustrated about the notable decline we have seen in our lifetimes and worried about the knife’s edge we find ourselves upon regarding tyranny and authoritarianism.
And one thinks these things haven't been happening in other countries where one wishes to move?
What the GP is probably trying to say is that what the US is going through at present has been the default state for most of the developing world. And these things have been eroding in many of the western democracies for the past decade. Those that have been able to preserve it may not be more attractive in culture, geography or economic terms.
Hence the entitlement part where I think the people in the US took for granted what they have/had. We always realize the true value of something when we don't have it.
I don't assume that another country would LOVE to have me, I'd assume that I'd have to be an exemplary citizen to make it clear that I'm not another "ugly American".
The reason why I personally have been rolling the idea of leaving the country around in my head is because I'm gay and Hispanic (though born here), and I am NERVOUS about the direction this country is going. I do feel guilty about the idea of jumping ship, but it seems like it might be legitimately dangerous for people like me in the near future.
I probably won't leave, all my family and friends are here and it hurts to think about uprooting myself and leaving them, but it's NOT unreasonable. It's scary to be in an outgroup right now.
Sounds a bit like a Stockholm syndrome argument to be honest. There is nothing wrong with moving somewhere else because it aligns with your ideals and needs.
So how can an immigrant to the US not understand that someone might want to leave the country they're currently in because of the situation in that country?
As with such arguments, they never apply to the one presenting them. Immigrants are bad, but not me. Taxes are good, but not mine. Nazis are bad, but not my grandpa.
The evidence broadly shows that the people who vote for this will not change their mind. Not when their farming business is likely going to fail due to tariffs (~78% of farmers voted for this), not when their North Carolina saw mill that has been in the family for forty years is forced to close (Mackey’s Ferry Sawmill), not when their ACA subsidies and SNAP benefits are pulled. One's presence and voice is immaterial. One can both vote and donate to campaigns from abroad; there is literally nothing one can do on US soil you cannot do from abroad while not exposing yourself and potentially family to a slowly failing and degrading governance system, that by all observations and evidence, hates its citizens with policy.
As I often ask when problem scoping, "What is your time horizon?" Will things change in 3, 5, 7, 10 years? ~2M voters 55+ die every year in the US, ~5k per day (mental models are rigid, progress occurs one funeral at a time as Planck said). Young voters were very excited for this admin, and now that vibes have met reality, they are not so excited, with a roughly 50 point swing in favorability in polling. I expect a swing back, considering recent elections over the last few weeks, but it will take quite some time.
So, from a first principles perspective, if you can live somewhere safer, better, or other idea of more favorable while losing nothing, why not? You can always move back if the US gets its shit together, and if it doesn't, you have made a home and life for yourself somewhere more favorable. Leaving is not giving up, it is merely having a better life experience while sacrificing nothing except US in person work opportunities and proximity to friends and loved ones (if applicable) for the time horizon in question. Some may feel entitled to functional governance systems, and they should (imho) vote with their feet and wallets. It is a rational evaluation in a volatile environment.
And if another country is offering you a residency visa or path to citizenship, they clearly want you. You might not be aware, but the developed world is going through a working age population crunch due to structural demographics; skilled workers are in demand, as well as those with either investment, pension, or social security income.
The farmers and the sawmill operators are easily explained. I also listen to Bloomberg, lol. Those people are rich and most of their wealth is now diversified away from their businesses, and while they would rather keep those businesses alive because it's part of their family identity, they care more about reducing their taxes on their overall net worth.
It’s perfectly clear now that half the voters in the US are enthusiastic about fascism and white supremacy. Frankly, it makes me physically ill. Pockets of the country are great, but the nation as a whole is going to become another Russia in my lifetime and it breaks my heart. Why subject myself to this torture? The time to change our fate was 2016 and 2024 and we failed miserably.
Australian here, grew up in the great south-west, and then I lived in the USA for 15 years, decided it was bunk, switched to Europe and have now been in middle-Europe (Austria) for 18 years, with a year in the UK and a year in Japan, for context.
My quality of life has increased dramatically with every move. Europe as a place to live is just so much better than Aus->USA ever was .. better health care, better food, better people and culture.
Only thing that falters is the weather - but I tell you, there is nothing more joyous than Vienna in spring time.
Anyway, I've run the gamut on western civilization. I won't go back to the USA or Australia, no sir - and even if, only as a tourist, never to reside again. Ask me anything.
What's the reason you rank Australia below the US? As a San Franciscan, I recently visited Sydney and Melbourne for the first time and thought they were incredible. Food-wise, I don't think I had a single bad meal in Melbourne, and I wasn't even trying particularly hard to find the good stuff. I think I'd love the opportunity to live there someday.
Europe is wonderful, but to quote Joni Mitchell, "it's too old and cold and settled in its ways here." (Not to mention the looming spectre of war...)
From my personal point of view, and based on my personal history as a victim of Australia's heinously racist White Stolen Generation (and who was eventually returned to my birth mother because of her strong will), Australia is a totalitarian-authoritarian fascist hell hole that got away with genocide, and will bend over backwards to function as a lackey for the US' military-industrial complex. There's not a single racist war that Australians won't follow the USA into fighting. See also: Pine Gap.
My personal reason for leaving Australia is that I don't want to participate in a racist society. Read its constitution, its an utter embarrassment.
Tourists don't often get through this bubble, seeing only the shiny bits, but for those WSG's of us who grew up in the countryside, also with Aboriginal friends and family members, the dark underbelly of Australian society rubs us a bit raw - or at least it does in my case. Casual racism in Australia is like none other in the world, and I find it detestable, personally, so I have no desire to participate in its economy. I left as soon as I could, to follow my own American dream - which reality quickly revealed was little more than a Disney fantasy.
Europe has its own problems - sure, the Ukraine war is a catastrophe of uniquely European origins - but I'd much rather live in a country that isn't involving itself in the worlds wars at the moment. Austria has been an absolutely great place to raise kids with a cosmopolitan, international attitude that will stand the test of time - of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but in my personal case, its just been a better place to live, period. Only issue I have is the weather can be hard for someone who grew up on the beaches and in the outback, but the spring and summer always makes up for it.
The thing that truly disturbed me about life in the US was its nationalist groupthink, which seeks to justify the atrocities the American people enact on those cultures its ruling classes have deemed inferior. Same is the case with Australia. I guess I freely admit, that as a foreign ex-pat living in a non-native bubble, its a lot easier to avoid the groupthink by just moving to Europe - where of course it also exists in spades - but I'd rather live the life of a refugee or interlocutor than participate in the Wests' heinously racist wars.
My kids have been raised multi-lingual, speak German/English very fluently, and are also learning Russian and Ukrainian in school to prepare themselves for a future where Austria is, once again, a safe place for citizens of both countries to co-mingle, as they once did. That is a forward-focused quality of life issue that simply doesn't exist in either the USA or Australia: the kids in this part of the world actually want to learn each others languages. Just like it was the norm in Aboriginal cultures, incidentally. (You were considered defective if you only spoke one language...)
Even poor people carry phones that have the internet, news, weather, and a million useful apps. Food is available to everyone, nearly every church has a food pantry. Even cheap houses are climate controlled. Even the homeless have shelters in most places.
For garden variety household emergencies, GoFundMe is democratized charity. It seems it often comes to the rescue for people suffering terrible luck.
Healthcare is expensive, but ACA makes it more available than before. Even early retirees get it.
Cars are expensive, too, but the get great mileage, better performance, and last longer than what we used to have.
Having grown up in the 6s and 70s, I can say with confidence that even less fortunate people have better lives than almost everybody 50 years ago. ( At least as far as material things go. )
The people who are unhappy are often comparing themselves to other people as portrayed by media and social media. That’s a sure way to feel you aren’t doing very well.
>America is pretty great if you're in the upper 20% or so, and otherwise it's losing ground fast.
The bottom 80% is also going to find it hard to move to another rich country. Countries in general want highly paid professionals, not a 50th percentile desk jockey.
Perhaps, but the places where it’s arguably nicer (than US) to be bottom 50% are that way because of side-effects of America being how America has always been. Without things like US NATO membership, someone in, let’s say Europe, might eventually find themselves made forcibly familiar with what actual fascism is, by being “welcomed” into Soviet Union 2.0, now without the communist trappings. If you think Soviet bread lines are better than SNAP benefits, I don’t think you’ve read enough history.
When you say 'everything is better' are you just talking about higher compensation > *? Cause I can think a number of 'quality of life' things that europe does better.
Money can buy quality of life, and people earning 100-150k in USA per person in household do confirm this. And this purchasing ability is not linear, because of the fixed costs for many good and services. Previously many countries with low salaries had corresponding low cost of life (and cost of quality of life), but today the costs are rising faster than salaries everywhere across the globe, so the biggest winners are people who earn more in absolute values, hence rich Americans.
Guns and (relatively) freedom of speech (yes I'm aware it comes with asterisk) are the two big ones. If I left the USA it would probably be to a place with weak governance on these points in practice rather than on paper. Only Yemen, Iraq, Somaliland, parts of Pakistan, parts of Rojava and maybe KRG (Kurdistan), Idlib, and Palestine are only places I know of with looser (to me better) gun laws than America and out of all those I'd only really consider Somaliland & KRG & Rojava as places where a westerner could probably settle without getting their head cut off. Freedom of speech, IDK where, hard to find anyplace with looser speech restriction than America.
However if you are willing to go with de facto rather than de jure, plenty of places in Africa and Latam can be freer on these points, especially if you have a little coin.
Financially though, places like Dubai blow away the absolutely dystopic USA controls like FATCA and world taxation/filing, KYC, AML and other madness USA uses to keep an iron grip on traditional finance channels.
...do you really need examples? In America, *if* you have money, everything is better than anywhere else. Maybe Dubai can compare but there are some strong trade offs.
America has the best healthcare. Not the best value, but the best healthcare. It has low taxes, lots of world class cultural institutions, and varied beautiful geography. It is the Rome of our age. Corrupt, amoral, and exploitative? Sure, but with money you can overlook that.
And go where? Seriously I don’t know of another country that isn’t on the same authoritarian track, if not further along. If anyone has done a serious study and come up with a country that still has strong judicial independence, due process, lack of censorship and respect for private property, Id love to know
I split my time between a Midwest state and Spain. My children and family are safer when in Spain, imho. Ymmv, n=1. It is more humane to the human, and the health insurance for a family of four is ~$2k/year. There is no perfect, just good enough. I do not worry about gun violence there, I do not worry about them going without healthcare, I do not worry about their human rights being impaired, I don't worry about them as pedestrians getting harmed by careless drivers driving unnecessarily large personal vehicles on urban infrastructure hostile in pedestrians (Houston is actively removing a roundabout because their drivers are too incompetent to use it, for example). This is my success criteria, yours may be different.
> Seriously I don’t know of another country that isn’t on the same authoritarian track,
New Zealand? Canada? Japan? France? I mean you really aren't trying there.
> if not further along.
The only places further along are China, Russia, Georgia, Venezuela, and Hungary. Even Slovakia or Poland or Germany aren't as bad (though still troubling). It's really hard to be more authoritarian than the US is now still. The Feds claiming they'll keep going at Comey yet again really seals the deal there .
Not saying it's worth it for you, but there are lots of places.
The Comey case is interesting. I can certainly see it as "the US is trying to be authoritarian" (or at least the current administration is).
But the courts ruled in Comey's favor. There is no reason to think that, if the feds try again, the courts won't rule for Comey again. That's still "rule of law", no matter how hard the current administration is trying to make it otherwise.
Now, sure, in an ideal world the case should never have been filed. In a just world, he would not have been put through that. And in an even-somewhat-ideal world, the case would not be re-filed. Absolutely. But for all that, the situation in the US is not (yet) as dire as you are painting it.
Also, with the sole exception of Hungary, no place in Europe is remotely on the same authoritarian track as the US. And the democratic systems and institutions are much more robust, too. More consensus, less first-pass-the-post bullshit.
I wouldn't say every American should try to be an expat. I think we'd be better off as a society if everyone traveled abroad more. I know most can't afford that, but I'd be totally down for a state funded 'study abroad' program for bright students. Other places have ideas we can learn from (and vice versa)
The average American thinks the U.S is the best country in the world. I say that as an American. To your point if people saw how the rest of the world lives and how happy many of those 7.88 Billion people are they would start being more vocal about our endless cycle of work until you are 85 to be able to pay your property taxes.
In contrast, every time I travel extensively outside the US, I wonder what the fuck we’re even doing with our unfathomable wealth. Crumbling infrastructure, horrendous healthcare, mass homelessness and human misery, all while our oligarchs sit atop their piles of gold and tell us to work harder.
Readit News
There are some (big) downsides though. Properties are very small and very expensive compared to other European countries, so you can't expect a high standard of living in this aspect unless you have plenty of money. Taxes are also very high. In addition to the usual income taxes, you pay a wealth tax and the threshold is very low (around 55k EUR in savings/assets) so this isn't only targeting very rich people. This makes it a pretty bad place to live if you care about investing and saving for the future.
If it wasn't for these last two points I'd almost definitely move there.
> concludes by: "it would be perfect if not for taxes"
People wouldn't be as friendly and well educated if they went bankrupt when losing their jobs, getting a cancer, had to take $100k loans for uni, &c. the towns wouldn't be nice and clean if people didn't pay taxes for regular cleaning, ...
There are very very few countries with low taxes and nice quality of life for the average Joe, and the exceptions usually don't want you to move in. Try Albania or Bulgaria, you'll quickly understand why most people are mostly happy about paying taxes
But having a wealth tax with a very low threshold is something else entirely. It means that I'm not free to invest and grow the money that is already mine, that I already paid taxes on in the first place. It means I'll always be held back and prevented from advancing as much as I could. It means that improving your situation so that next year you're doing a little better than this year, is something that the system actively pushes you away from.
There are also practical problems with taxing wealth. Income tax is "easy": by definition you have the money to pay for it because it's charged on money that you've received. With a wealth tax, you might not have the money. For example, if you own an investment apartment or some other illiquid asset you can't just sell a piece of it every year to pay the tax. You'll either have to find the money out of income (assuming you have enough) or ruin your investment strategy by selling the whole thing when you didn't plan to.
It also distorts the risk/reward tradeoff: many investments might not make sense at all if you're suddenly paying 2% a year of the value.
Taxes these days keep up the ponzi scheme of european pensions and an influx of low skilled migrants that are not incentivized to work.
There is a a lot of budget between ur citizens not going bankrupt when they get sick and taking 50% of their salary.
This was a deal breaker for me as someone on the FIRE path. It's neighbor, Belgium, is much better in this respect.
For one, they ruled that the wealth tax is against the EU human rights agenda. So they're scrambling to come up with a solution. Even with this tax, the projected weight isn't terrible. For reference my wife and I are CoastFIRE here with ~2mil USD in NW and the tax is marginal compared to our returns.
If you have an ultra-low risk investment strategy focused on value preservation and inflation beating (where your expected returns are in the low single digits e.g. 2 - 3%), that does start to look like being robbed blind.
> It is only fair that those that have a lot of money contribute
Really? 60k is "a lot of money"? Yes, it's a lot in the sense that many people have far less than that, but it's not "a lot" in the scheme of things when we're talking about saving and investing.
With 60k you'll be lucky even to get the down-payment on a mortgage for a small apartment, which you'll then be paying off every month for the next several decades. Should we be taxing people on their wealth before they've even had the chance to own their first home? I would argue that such a person can't legitimately be called wealthy.
What if you plan to stay permanently? Does that change your priority for accumulating more personal wealth?
Yes, and about half the Netherlands is below sea level, something I cannot abide.
The Netherlands is already doing well today, and don't have the grim outlooks of the current US. It's not perfect and the fall of the US would have enormous impacts, of course, but this seems like a total non sequitur.
I'm not commenting about the Netherlands specifically, I'm commenting about people leaving the United States for anywhere because they feel similar to you about "the grim outlooks of the current US". It's a common narrative, but about 10x more people immigrate to the US every year as compared to the Netherlands. A lot of people in the US are like, "Trump sucks, I'm moving to Spain." Most of them never will, they just like saying they will. They don't speak Spanish, have no contacts anywhere outside of the US, have never been to Spain, etc. I'm just suggesting that the grass is not always greener on the other side, there are always trade-offs and some of the best ways to learn about those trade-offs is talking with people that have lived in both places.
What brought them to the US is that if they have a kid, now their kid is a citizen. Green card etc waived - you wouldn't deport a family would you? Now they nominally have zero income so they qualify for full on super duper welfare - food, house, medical care. Of course find a job, too - but has to be under the table because no green card. Meaning no taxes either. So free food, free house no rent, free medicine, no taxes. Medical care legally requires accomodations for foreign languages - don't need to speak English either.
I mean, if Japan said, "if you have a kid here, live here on our dime, eat on our dime, free medical care, no taxes" yea I would take that deal!! Can't blame em
Irony of the whole thing? This actually kinda solves the population crisis. Forces people to have a kid. Actually an interesting finding but poorly explored since the powers that be like to bury their head in the sand and pretend 50 million people haven't exploited this.
Other point is well, why did this even happen? Well, the landlords are quite happy to see the feds paying for rent, they'll collect that check, as with the food suppliers and the medical care practitioners - a very nice niche. And the small businesses are more than happy to pay someone under the table untaxed, lower overhead. So the people coming in illegally, they benefit, the people collecting the taxes paying for them, they benefit, everybody else, welp, there goes your tax money
You think produce gets picked, meat processed, and/or construction completed without immigrant labor?
If the plan is to clamp down on illegal immigration, then immigration reform to loosen the legal pathways for low wage labor needs to be passed at the same time.
That you'd give up so easily when your voice, presence, and vote, matters most. It's being tested right now, and leaving is the only way to fail.
Also, why do you think any other country would -love- to have you?
There have been concerted efforts over the last couple decades (arguably much longer) to erode these things; gerrymandering, voter roll purges, eliminating/restricting polling locations and absentee voting, corporations and wealthy individuals have basically unlimited spend on electioneering and lobbying giving them a disproportionate voice, a worsening state of effectively dysfunctional/maligned politicians, corporate censorship, so on and so forth. In my state, a majority passed two state constitutional amendments and the establishment (gerrymandered) politicians didn't like that, spending the past couple of years rules lawyering, delaying, etc. to try to subvert the will of the people. Hell, they ignored multiple state supreme court orders on top of voter’s wishes.
Anyways, my point being that wanting to leave a country with increasing social, economic, and political troubles isn’t entitlement, anymore than you were entitled for immigrating to the US.
Personally, I agree that I’d rather stay and fight, not that I really can afford to do otherwise, yet I understand people frustrated about the notable decline we have seen in our lifetimes and worried about the knife’s edge we find ourselves upon regarding tyranny and authoritarianism.
What the GP is probably trying to say is that what the US is going through at present has been the default state for most of the developing world. And these things have been eroding in many of the western democracies for the past decade. Those that have been able to preserve it may not be more attractive in culture, geography or economic terms.
Hence the entitlement part where I think the people in the US took for granted what they have/had. We always realize the true value of something when we don't have it.
The reason why I personally have been rolling the idea of leaving the country around in my head is because I'm gay and Hispanic (though born here), and I am NERVOUS about the direction this country is going. I do feel guilty about the idea of jumping ship, but it seems like it might be legitimately dangerous for people like me in the near future.
I probably won't leave, all my family and friends are here and it hurts to think about uprooting myself and leaving them, but it's NOT unreasonable. It's scary to be in an outgroup right now.
Are you not guilty of exactly the same thing from the perspective of your own country?
As I often ask when problem scoping, "What is your time horizon?" Will things change in 3, 5, 7, 10 years? ~2M voters 55+ die every year in the US, ~5k per day (mental models are rigid, progress occurs one funeral at a time as Planck said). Young voters were very excited for this admin, and now that vibes have met reality, they are not so excited, with a roughly 50 point swing in favorability in polling. I expect a swing back, considering recent elections over the last few weeks, but it will take quite some time.
So, from a first principles perspective, if you can live somewhere safer, better, or other idea of more favorable while losing nothing, why not? You can always move back if the US gets its shit together, and if it doesn't, you have made a home and life for yourself somewhere more favorable. Leaving is not giving up, it is merely having a better life experience while sacrificing nothing except US in person work opportunities and proximity to friends and loved ones (if applicable) for the time horizon in question. Some may feel entitled to functional governance systems, and they should (imho) vote with their feet and wallets. It is a rational evaluation in a volatile environment.
And if another country is offering you a residency visa or path to citizenship, they clearly want you. You might not be aware, but the developed world is going through a working age population crunch due to structural demographics; skilled workers are in demand, as well as those with either investment, pension, or social security income.
(think in systems)
If.
Are you really losing nothing?
Although if you have that much money life in the US right now probably isn't personally on the extreme decline.
My quality of life has increased dramatically with every move. Europe as a place to live is just so much better than Aus->USA ever was .. better health care, better food, better people and culture.
Only thing that falters is the weather - but I tell you, there is nothing more joyous than Vienna in spring time.
Anyway, I've run the gamut on western civilization. I won't go back to the USA or Australia, no sir - and even if, only as a tourist, never to reside again. Ask me anything.
Europe is wonderful, but to quote Joni Mitchell, "it's too old and cold and settled in its ways here." (Not to mention the looming spectre of war...)
My personal reason for leaving Australia is that I don't want to participate in a racist society. Read its constitution, its an utter embarrassment.
Tourists don't often get through this bubble, seeing only the shiny bits, but for those WSG's of us who grew up in the countryside, also with Aboriginal friends and family members, the dark underbelly of Australian society rubs us a bit raw - or at least it does in my case. Casual racism in Australia is like none other in the world, and I find it detestable, personally, so I have no desire to participate in its economy. I left as soon as I could, to follow my own American dream - which reality quickly revealed was little more than a Disney fantasy.
Europe has its own problems - sure, the Ukraine war is a catastrophe of uniquely European origins - but I'd much rather live in a country that isn't involving itself in the worlds wars at the moment. Austria has been an absolutely great place to raise kids with a cosmopolitan, international attitude that will stand the test of time - of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but in my personal case, its just been a better place to live, period. Only issue I have is the weather can be hard for someone who grew up on the beaches and in the outback, but the spring and summer always makes up for it.
The thing that truly disturbed me about life in the US was its nationalist groupthink, which seeks to justify the atrocities the American people enact on those cultures its ruling classes have deemed inferior. Same is the case with Australia. I guess I freely admit, that as a foreign ex-pat living in a non-native bubble, its a lot easier to avoid the groupthink by just moving to Europe - where of course it also exists in spades - but I'd rather live the life of a refugee or interlocutor than participate in the Wests' heinously racist wars.
My kids have been raised multi-lingual, speak German/English very fluently, and are also learning Russian and Ukrainian in school to prepare themselves for a future where Austria is, once again, a safe place for citizens of both countries to co-mingle, as they once did. That is a forward-focused quality of life issue that simply doesn't exist in either the USA or Australia: the kids in this part of the world actually want to learn each others languages. Just like it was the norm in Aboriginal cultures, incidentally. (You were considered defective if you only spoke one language...)
Even poor people carry phones that have the internet, news, weather, and a million useful apps. Food is available to everyone, nearly every church has a food pantry. Even cheap houses are climate controlled. Even the homeless have shelters in most places.
For garden variety household emergencies, GoFundMe is democratized charity. It seems it often comes to the rescue for people suffering terrible luck.
Healthcare is expensive, but ACA makes it more available than before. Even early retirees get it.
Cars are expensive, too, but the get great mileage, better performance, and last longer than what we used to have.
Having grown up in the 6s and 70s, I can say with confidence that even less fortunate people have better lives than almost everybody 50 years ago. ( At least as far as material things go. )
The people who are unhappy are often comparing themselves to other people as portrayed by media and social media. That’s a sure way to feel you aren’t doing very well.
The bottom 80% is also going to find it hard to move to another rich country. Countries in general want highly paid professionals, not a 50th percentile desk jockey.
However if you are willing to go with de facto rather than de jure, plenty of places in Africa and Latam can be freer on these points, especially if you have a little coin.
Financially though, places like Dubai blow away the absolutely dystopic USA controls like FATCA and world taxation/filing, KYC, AML and other madness USA uses to keep an iron grip on traditional finance channels.
America has the best healthcare. Not the best value, but the best healthcare. It has low taxes, lots of world class cultural institutions, and varied beautiful geography. It is the Rome of our age. Corrupt, amoral, and exploitative? Sure, but with money you can overlook that.
New Zealand? Canada? Japan? France? I mean you really aren't trying there.
> if not further along.
The only places further along are China, Russia, Georgia, Venezuela, and Hungary. Even Slovakia or Poland or Germany aren't as bad (though still troubling). It's really hard to be more authoritarian than the US is now still. The Feds claiming they'll keep going at Comey yet again really seals the deal there .
Not saying it's worth it for you, but there are lots of places.
But the courts ruled in Comey's favor. There is no reason to think that, if the feds try again, the courts won't rule for Comey again. That's still "rule of law", no matter how hard the current administration is trying to make it otherwise.
Now, sure, in an ideal world the case should never have been filed. In a just world, he would not have been put through that. And in an even-somewhat-ideal world, the case would not be re-filed. Absolutely. But for all that, the situation in the US is not (yet) as dire as you are painting it.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/1862716/542-days-brussels-brea...
Also, with the sole exception of Hungary, no place in Europe is remotely on the same authoritarian track as the US. And the democratic systems and institutions are much more robust, too. More consensus, less first-pass-the-post bullshit.
In my own experience, I quickly saw and stared to miss the many strengths of our way of life.
For the curious about which country it was, see my username.