Survey (of 2000 people) says: 35% of Americans would expatriate

[Alan C.]

Survey says: 35% of Americans would expatriate

 

 A recent online poll of more than 2,000 adults by TransferWise, a peer-to-peer money transfer service based in the United Kingdom, revealed that 35 percent of American-born residents and emigrants would consider leaving the United States to live in another country.

This percentage greatly increases for those age 18 to 34. More than half of millennials, a whopping 55 percent, said that they would consider leaving the U.S. for foreign shores. Among them, 43 percent of men and 38 percent of women noted that a higher salary would be a factor in their relocation decision.

[mlsv2f]

I moved to Texas in order to obtain a higher salary and lower taxation, as much as I dislike some of the Texas big right wing government culture, it sure beats the Marxists that seem to be popping up everywhere else.

 

But back to your link, 

 

I think this is a big reason why the barriers are put into place such as taxation of overseas income, passports, requirement to get a visa in the other country just to stay there, an additional visa that is required in other countries just to get a job.

This is why communist countries typically don't allow you to leave. Socialism doesn't work when people can leave. Which is why the appeal of global socialism is so great to the followers, because it would eliminate border restrictions or barriers. This is the direction we are heading and its quite scary.

 

Steph made an interesting point once in a a podcast a few years ago

 

100 years ago there existed almost no income tax, no passports were needed, no visas were needed. Today, we have been made less free and we were 100 years ago. If these government wars were for our freedom, why have we become less free?

[iBlagg]

American news can be terrible. '35% of Americans WOULD expatriate' quickly turns into 35% of american would consider expatriating. As in it's a thought they are capable of having.

 

Do 35% of Americans even leave the country for a holiday?

[Thomasio]

Expatriating is quite a topic, but it's a relative concept, because the wish to move to another country requires there to be a country with better conditions.

I remember about 40 years ago many people in Germany saw the US as the land of their dreams, many tried to get a green card, or get married in the US, all hoping for a better life, but those times are long gone.

At same time the amount of people who would love to go to some other place has grown big time.

In a survey in Italy 2 years ago (not sure who did that survey, or how reliable the numbers are, I can't even find a link to the results on the web) over 50% of all people living in Italy said, they find Italy under the current laws uninhabitable, but at same time, given the choice between Italy and the US, they would rather stay in Italy.

 

The reason may come as a surprise, but in the survey people said, half of Italy is ruled by organized crime and the other half is drowned between greedy corporations and corrupt politics, but that's about the same in the US and at least Italy still has a functioning state financed free health care for everyone.

The most popular country to live for almost all Europeans is Germany, while Germans themselves would rather live somewhere else, they just don't know any better place, which shows, people choose the less evil, but a good place to live doesn't exist.

 

Of course that's unless you're rich, because if only you have enough money, you can enjoy yourself anywhere.

 

I believe this is the root of the problem.

This world has become a world for the rich, where a tiny minority enjoys life at the expense of the rest.

Where in old times people used to believe, if only you work hard enough, you can become rich and therefore everyone struggled to get there, today most people have discovered, wealth is a relative concept as well.

Almost anyone can can get there, but at any given time there can only be a minority of rich people, because their lifestyle wouldn't be possible if all people wanted to do the same.

The more people seriously try to get rich, the harder the competition for one of the spots on the sun side of life becomes, but the amount of people actually reaching it becomes smaller and smaller over time while the ones who reached the top become even wealthier.

By now most people have given up trying.

 

Whether or not the rich deserve their wealth is another topic and would (to my mind) very much depend on how they got it.

Fact is, the bottom end of society is working for the luxury of the wealthy and even if you believe the poor are just not intelligent enough to make it and the rich deserve to be rich, you will have to face the fact, the numbers of the poor are growing, by now they are such a large majority, they will soon find the means to organize themselves, because soon most of the former middle class including many well educated people will drop down to the bottom and they will overthrow the system.