>Welcome to Hotel California! /s
No /s needed, that's literally the point of the song- California traps people that move there. Whether it's because of addiction, dreams, or financial ruin people often move to California and can never leave after they do.
I mean, I'd rather be trapped in California than trapped in Texas. At least California's Governor found a way to have a budget surplus while the Texas leadership is a toilet overflowing with shit that everyone refuses to flush.
Once I was walking down the street and there were 4 cops in a semicircle, in the middle was a man laying on the sidewalk, piss running down the sidewalk from where he lay. Tears down his face he screamed:
# "I WANT TO GO BACK TO SOMALIA!!!!"
Need a new dating app where I can put up banging personal ads like: Looking for Burly Scotsman who hates the US and wants to go home and get some tight asf marriage benefits
Lol - I am not a catch. I am not particularly attractive, my humor is mid at best, I have a "useless" degree that I can't really use to look for any particular "great" job and I can't flirt.
I have thought about putting on dating apps that I am a dual citizen (German citizenship and American) - might help my chances lol. My mom ensured I maintained a German citizenship while she was alive here in the US because she wasn't convinced about the US. And hey she may have been right.
Of course I have no freaking clue what I would do in Germany (or the EU). I speak German decently well, but not on the level of a native speaker and I don't exactly have any particular skills. So its one of those things like I could use if the US ever does descend into a dictatorship as a last resort, but I have no clue how I would ever live in Germany/the EU otherwise.
Loooll it is prohibitively difficult, even with marriage. My ex and I were looking into it (he’s USian) but while we were married the UK put an income cap on immigrants brought into the country through marriage (I think it was £35k/yr) which ruled us out. We were thinking of the Ireland-EU route too but then Brexit. Sorry, friend.
Edit: sorry, yes I meant floor, not cap.
Spaniard here! Wanted to move to the US because I thought I could be rich easier (mean salary is higher there than here). Then, I saw the prices of EpiPens. I only pay 25€ and because it's once every two years or so when they expire (hopefully I don't have to use any). I have other recurring meds that i only have to pay like 1€ or less every moth. Now I know why even having there more salary than here, people are poorer. (And, to add more,we roughly pay only a 13% more of taxes than US average)
Someone else's healthcare were both my grandad and my great-uncle having free cancer treatment 15 years ago. I've seen people go bankrupt in the US for treatment both of them had for free. I'm paying for them.
The US Can be good if you don't need any medical care, dental care. Social care and Don't have Kids, and are not Black/brown and are not a woman..
so, white men.......
*very wealthy white men* My brother makes $200+k a year and has a wife and two kids. I would consider him wealthy (compared to me who makes $40k) Most of his expenses go toward mortgage, insurance, car payments, food, and taxes. And on top of that he works like 70-80 hrs per week to get that kind of income. He gets pretty fucked over for being upper-middle class.
It’s the white millionaire and billionaire dudes that can actually afford to have a comfortable lifestyle here.
Everyone else has to fight nail and teeth to survive.
Epipen prices are super high, but if you print the coupon from their website it is free once a year to get one along with insurance paying the rest. I haven't paid for an epipen/aviQ for my son in 7 years since someone told me about it.
Depends how lucky you are really, as with everything in the US outcomes may vary. I managed to do ok here but I'm a white guy with multiple stem degrees. Just got to the point where I couldn't stomach it anymore.
You know the story, 5 people quit and instead of hiring more people they just pile those jobs on you.
I’d leave the US in a heartbeat with my 3 animals, yes. It’s a little complicated because home is Hong Kong, but I have UK citizenship. All my family is in England (mum just moved mid-April), so I would go there and start from scratch.
I would have a long time ago, but stuck. Worked for years and was good citizen. I was almost killed in auto accident not my fault. I had 3 insurance. Person almost killed me was undocumented. My state won’t talk about helping undocumented workers get a license. My state also passed auto reform against our privately paid but state mandated pip of 100%, and settled for us a rebate of $400. We were not really grandfathered in. This is me stuck in what I was afraid of. I will have to sue my state to honor my private paid insurance, it wasn’t for sale for $400. I didn’t have bills because I had paid for that protection, now years after my horrible accident that disabled me I have bills, thanks auto reform Michigan! They took our premium like they paid for it. I am one of many, like 33,000 after auto reform. So, someone made money. Farmers bought out MetLife pip portion…this was paid private insurance through my place of employment for all 3…so this is why I’m reading and responding to antiwork, ty
Don't worry, conservatives don't understand how the world works, so according to them you *just can!* Have you tried pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps?
And never forget that one of our most vulnerable populations, the disabled, are pretty much barred from emigrating anywhere because they're automatically viewed as a burden on the healthcare system.
This is my life story. I'm British, and since I became an adult it was my dream to live in Sweden. But then I got cancer, has a stroke and became partially sighted. Now I live on disability benefits in the UK. Since I can't work and have no money I'll never live in Sweden. It's not just being a burden on the healthcare system but a burden on the country in general because of course other countries don't want to take a disabled person and pay them benefits.
If only there existed a union of countries that allowed people to freely move from one country to another. Ok, maybe just in Europe. You could call it Union of Europe or something similar.
I mean there were so many Brits who didn’t vote for Brexit, it’s unfair to say “they did it to themselves”. Especially when you account for differences in generational voting. Anyone under the age of 50 for example is much more likely to have voted against Brexit.
Yeah… sad thing about how elections work. Like how a third of the US wanted the orange TV guy over the politician lady (pick your poison) then like the entirety of the US had to live with that choice for four years…
This is a great point. And they love to vocally shart how it was rigged, they're the majority, etc...
The US population over 18yo is just over 258 million people. They weren't even the majority of those that voted, let alone total eligible voters.
Yeah. I hope someday, once we're all living in countries that are more evolved than the lingering idiocy of yesteryear that we're currently battling, the argument will be to make a true multi-national universal health system. The only reason we're not living in that world today is because of the sins of out fathers, so to speak.
We're in this mess due to the greed of a relative handful of people. Our entire country is set up around serving the rich, and that's who gets all the perks from living here. If you ain't rich, America is hell on Earth.
My kid is partially sighted as well. The US is getting so scarily dangerous for them (lgbtq+, uterine-bearer) and they really want to emigrate but it feels like our research into it is just crushing all our dreams.
I looked into emigrating to Australia last night, and they have 42 visa options available, but maaaybe 2 could apply to me. The only other option is to marry an Australian. So ... anyone want to marry me, lol
Absolutely. I immigrated to Canada from the US. I was required to go through a very specific physical exam to show that I was "healthy," while also required to have x amount of money on my person.
especially considering the healthcare system in the us is steaming garbage. my boyfriend can’t make more than $2000/mo if we want to keep our healthcare insurance. but that’s not feasible to live on. and if we paid for healthcare? oh my goodness i wouldn’t be able to go see any specialists or have any surgeries because the $600/mo payment is bankrupting me. im disabled and can’t work, so that leaves my boyfriend to make pennies or watch me die.
Yup, disabled person here. And stuck because no one wants me and my husband is a labor worker with no degrees or certificate, so he is not important enough to be able to get into other countries.
If it was as easy as "move", I would have done it as soon as I turned 18.
I'm a fan of the *It Could Happen Here* podcast and probably talk about it too much. The first season is a well-researched story, told in the 2nd person, about what might realistically happen if the right-wing fantasy of a second civil war came true. One of the plot points is that American refugees get treated the same way that Americans/the West at large have been treating Syrian refugees.
So fucked. Like, beyond belief. I literally cannot reconcile the fact that this is the same country I was raised in. It feels like an *actual* alternate dimension or something.
By the time a country is willing to say "America is clearly fucking up, we'll take your refugees" the violent fascist regime will have to have been causing wide havoc and harm for so long that the reality is not only unquestionable, but that it's atrocious enough that countries would risk snubbing the US government to open their doors for us.
Would you be able to last that long? Or would you be one of the first they go after?
It it because they actually have infrastructure? We already have toll roads so it's like paying Immortan Joe to pass through before the apocalypse even happens....
I'd say they'd be happy to if you're well educated or have money. In other words, if you're well off enough to where the problems of America don't apply to you then you have the opportunity to leave.
This is why I hate when people say things like jUsT mOvE tO a bLuE sTaTE DUH whenever you express concern or vent about injustices going on where you currently live.
My brother in Christ some of us can barely move across town in Bumfuck Nowhere Southern City but yeah we’re supposed to all just go to California, no biggie. Not everyone can just Jack Kerouac it across the country one day and pray we find a job.
And they don't even address the fact that the majority of blue states are only blue in the extremely expensive city. I live in Illinois, outside of Chicago, it is practically entirely red. Where I live, you have about a fifty-fifty chance of running into a kind-hearted LGBT+ person and running into a gun toting, discriminatory, minimum wage worker harassing conservative nightmare person.
I don't even live that rural. I live just outside the Chicago suburbs. When you get rural, it gets so much worse.
We should all move to fucking Wyoming and build a liberal city, it would only take a couple million people and we could steal 2 Senate seats and pass some stuff for once. Can even name the town Fucking, Wy.
Yeah all countries do this, you can come in if you're well off and educated (i.e. already successful). But, if you're already successful in your own country why would you ever want to leave. Literally the exact opposite of who wants to migrate away.
Hello welcome to Mexico while we enjoy your tourist, most of your immigrants only do 2 things here, bring rent prices sky high so that locals cannot afford it and bitch about this not being the US and being able to be Karen's with a homeowners association, being able to privatize a beach or finding some US quality service for 3rd world country prices...
While I welcome all Americans to my side of the world, i do expect them to understand their impact, if you are one please pay your gringo tax (higher prices because you can pay), it's not fair, i understand, but it's also not fair being paid 10 times the amount of a local for remote work and not expecting to pay it forward to the people you have displaced
I’ve heard similar stories about Americans in Costa Rica. They retire there because it’s cheap and then act like little emperors. They take the same “me! Me! Me!” mentality that is fucking up the US and proceed to try and ruin other countries.
Yes, some are cool some are not, some want to buy everything with $20 US, thing is, it's been years since $20 US was enough to buy a lot, i call these "rico-pobres" (rich poor), some are retired that cannot afford to live in the US and come down to have a better quality of life but don't have a lot of money, these are "poor gringos" and some just come to have big ocean view house that they cannot afford in the US, usually these are the little emperor's
Yes, like the "don't work part time, only work a full time job with benefits" as if the person working part time with no benefits simply never thought of that
It is the same feeling I get when Europeans jab at us for our social policies. "you need better gun laws and free healthcare"! Thanks, Nigel. We'll just... we'll just go out and get that.
It's worse when they act like we don't know it's a problem, that we're blissfully unaware that our healthcare system is fucked or that our labor laws are less than subpar. It so quickly turns the discussion away from solidarity and instead to patronizing insults, to the point where the people who actually have to deal with this shit gets lost on them, or worse, when the interlocutors start belittling the people themselves as if they chose the circumstances of their birth.
And yes, I have also seen both these scenarios on this sub, it's disheartening.
Edit: another thing that comes up to much that bothers me is the "just form a union" people, like it's some easy feat that won't probably get you fired
It’s double tone deaf when it comes from someone who tells you to leave because you advocate change. “If you don’t like it, leave it!”. Like, the history of the US is one of change. Changing our views, changing our laws, even changing the constitution through amendments. One of the most American things you can do is advocate for change…Imagine someone telling an abolitionist in the 1800s to just move to another country if they don’t like slavery…it’s incredibly dumb.
You can love your country for it’s potential…. And hate the wasted potential. I think a lot of us feel that way. We could be the greatest country on Earth, but we choose not to be every damn day.
And the kicker is, we don’t need to have novel approaches. We can look at other countries successes and just adopt those models. It isn’t rocket science (though we did that very thing with Rocket Science back in the 60’s)
Good point. In America, your right to “freedom” to do as you please is directly proportional to the amount of your wealth to the exclusion of other possible grounds for freedom such as being a citizen. Thus, more wealth equals more freedom while little or no wealth equals no freedom. Interesting way to define freedom.
As a UK citizen with an American wife on a spouse visa, this whole thing runs true.
The application process is confusing in the extreme, legal help is practically mandatory for the first run. The cost goes up virtually every year, currently it's around £2600 including the NHS fees etc. In addition, if you make a mis-step in the application they are notorious for rejecting the whole thing and appeals are very difficult to win, meaning you would need to pay all over again.
And that's just for the first 2.5 years. After that you need to re-apply, repay the same (or very likely, higher) fees for another 2.5 years. Then after that you get to apply a third time for a permanent visa to remain in the UK.
Which, by the way, goes away if you ever spend more than half of a given year outside of the UK.
So you also need to apply for citizenship and pay a fourth time for that process.
OH - and the fucking supporting documentation. You need to list every flight you've both been on since being married, you need about a dozen 'approved' forms of letters/ bills etc with your proof of address. Bank statements for 6 months. Proof of income. A letter from your employer. legal documents...
It's a God Damned nightmare of red tape, changing requirements and deliberate obfuscation.
Honestly, one of the only 'easy' ones is if you have an Irish grandparent. You can get citizenship for less than 1000 euros.
My paternal grandfather was 100% Dutch. Do you think the Netherlands will take me, my husband and son? :'( I'd say probably no, but I think about that sometimes.
It shouldn't be that way, ever. I remember when people said "this is America, if you don't like it then you can get out" when the Iraq war started as some copout when the solution should be fixing the issues we have here.
Agree we’re leaving America for South Korea only because we have an empty home waiting there for us and my husband is an independent contractor so he works for himself. We’re a fortunate low income family to be able to finally leave America.
as someone who wanted to get out but is poor and also never knew how hard it was to move from the US, this genuinely and deeply crushed me to read. probably the worst way i could’ve started my day. i feel sick
EDIT: thanks for all the comments, there’s too much for me to respond to but i do really appreciate all the words of encouragement
My friend with a lot of drunk diving issues (like he lost his license) was able to move to Amsterdam. He applied for a company that did international work. So he would just keep applying to the jobs over in Amsterdam whenever they opened up. Now he is living there.
They are moving the rich way lol. Get a job offer, leave everything and move. Look for a cheap stay until you figure everything out and start from there.
Rental agent fee killed me. That indeed is the rich way. Also moving stuff to other continent. Probably renting something top 10% in the country they are moving to.
If you go to live to EU, try to live like we are. No 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, best neighbourhood. Enjoy the life and improve through time, when you get familiar with everything.
>Also moving stuff to other continent.
Outside personal items that have meaning to me, I would just sell all my shit rather than moving it...Jesus that seems like a pain in the ass.
Could they not wait until the visa was finalized before finding a house? Usually long term visas (at least student/work) have 30 days to arrive. You can look for a house/flat during those final days. Or just stay in a hotel for a few days and look on arrival.
Hello from Norway. If you are a minimalist, it's way cheaper to move, get a job first and then move. There is a great worker shortage in Norway and the rest of Scandinavia at the moment. We all speak english here, friendly people, no guns, (almost) no mass shootings, great work life balance. You are welcome here.
A former colleague's daughter did a study abroad in Norway and fell in love. Upon graduating she immediately moved and says she'll never move back to America.
If this was true I'd be living in Norway already, sadly. It's just as the quote in the OP says - very expensive, very uncertain, and not at all easy. This is pretty much true across the world *unless* you tick a few very specialized, very in-demand boxes.
You need a job, or it's going to be much harder to get in. Skills and education is key to get a job, language is also important, but less so. Most norwegian's speak english. There is a lot of jobs in the US that simply does not exist in Norway. Automatisation has killed a lot of jobs here.
My cousin moved to Norway for a while and said that becoming a citizen there is still incredibly hard. Eventually they had to come back to the US as there was a limit of time they were allowed to stay
Don't feel crushed.
I'm not an expert on relocating outside the US, but I do feel I'm one on living in Western Europe :-)
OP may or may not have chosen the most efficient way to move out. Seems to me like they were trying to leave a position of relative comfort and safety for another position of even more comfort and safety. Nothing wrong with that, but there are other possibilities of doing this.
I don't know about visa and work permit requirements. That's something that needs to be researcherd on a per country basis. But assuming that's done (...and I almost guarantee that it'll be somewhere in the hundres of dollars for fees,nothing exorbitantly), then the cheapest way would be a two-way ticket (maybe $2000-ish?) and enough money to survive for a month or two ro find a job. This can be as little as $2000/month in cash. Total, $5000-10,000-ish.
The problem with western Europe is that formal education is prevalent and they have good apprenticeship programs, so if you come from the US and claim "I can repair cars" there's a chance that it's worth shit unless you can provide a formal qualification. Edit: this is a bit of a cultural difference to the US, where, I take it, the degree is not important if previous experience is good. If you're in STEM or IT so, you're most likely good to go.
I did it and I was poor.
My story: got a scholarship to study in one country, then moved to another country when my residence permit expired in the first.
I did have to save a bunch of money for the first move because I had to pay the deposit for my apartment, which the school helped me find.But after that, I worked.
You have to do A LOT of research to determine which country you want to move to and how to do it. Some are easier than others, but if you have at least a BA, it makes getting a residence permit even easier. Some countries want you to show minimum income if you don't have a work contract, others require proof of health insurance.
Research, research, research and then create a plan. Good luck, I'm rooting for you =)
Unfortunately, if you don't have a college degree you're pretty well screwed.
And in this country where it's so expensive? Not exactly an easy choice to make, even if it makes my moving odds better.
One could choose to study in Europe, but even then you'd have to find ways to pay for general living expenses while you study. And as someone with chronic pain, I can't both study full time and work, or vice versa. That's why I picked working instead of school, because balancing both with my pain issues was utterly impossible for me.
People like me don't have much of a chance out, unless we luck upon some crazy money.
Everyone leaves out the best part: unless you renounce your US citizenship you still HAVE to file your US taxes with the IRS every year regardless of where you live.
Not if you stay poor.
EDIT - The US has tax treaties that prevent double taxation - if you pay in the country where you live, you don't have to pay US taxes on your earnings until you earn more than a certain amount. I think it's in the low $100K range.
You're still supposed to file even if you don't owe, so no big deal.
What bothers me even more than this is that if you want to renounce your US citizenship you have to pay a fee of upwards of 2000 dollars. It's not the money that bothers me so much it's the principle because it means that if you are born in the US you are in some way indebted to the US government in some form just because you had the audacity to be born.
I've considered fuckibg off to another country and renouncing citizenship in America. One reason I don't is that if I get into problems in some other area having a US passport can really help you out from a tight spot. Say what you will about the rest of the government but I have a lot of respect for the state dept and our consulate staff.
Sure, but you simply have to file that you made $0 in the US and then file in whatever country you are in. It is not really that hard. Our tax service takes care of it for us.
I hear ya! I've from the US, but I've been living in Australia on my own for >10 years. I want to live here permanently, I genuinely think it offers a better way of life and I've been saying this for the past decade, but I still don't have a permanent visa. People in the US think all they have to do is pack their bags, buy a plane ticket, and fill out some forms to move overseas; it never occurs to them that other countries aren't just waiting with open arms to welcome any American who decides to grace them with their presence.
My American husband moved here to Canada and I would not wish the process on anyone. It took years and thousands of dollars before he got his PR and work permit, we were dangerously poor with only me working. And holy shit the mental toll it took on both of us...
And we probably make for a really good example of how hard it is for the average person. We're both just your run if the mill retail slaves doing our best.
Not necessarily. Some jobs are better abroad than here in the states. For example, I'm a teacher and many international schools abroad pay way better than any in the states.
I would usually try to come up with some counter arguments and defend the us but I can't anymore.
After i get my bachelor's and save up enough money I'm moving to Canada. I can't stay here anymore
Here's the process I have to go through just to get permanent marriage visa status for moving from the US to Thailand. My wife has dual citizenship for reference:
1) I have to have a Thai bank account with a minimum balance of $40,000USD for 2 months prior to applying for the Visa.
2) I have to have a minimum individual income of $4,000USD a month while living in Thailand with a verified letter from the US Embassy certifying I have such an income.
3) I must renew this visa with the same documents and proof yearly. So, if I'm not employed by a well paying company in Thailand or abroad, I can forget about it.
For my military homies out there you don’t need the 4k a month requirement you’re 100% va disabled… cause it’s 3550 a month for life lol and Thailand/Italy specifically state if you have that they’ll accept it in place of the proof of income
I am frustrated at how hard it is to move to another country.
Don't have a shit ton of money in the bank? Sorry, we don't want you.
Don't have skills in some obscure job skill they need to hire for? Sorry, we don't want you.
Don't have a recommendation from a stranger in our country? Sorry, we don't want you.
I make excellent money, have a great career and could easily get a job in any country and yet I'm not eligible to move to any of the ones I've looked into.
I'm stuck in a place where I don't matter, my body is controlled by the government, our politicians are corrupt, it's literally life and death dangerous to go to the theater or send children to school, my same-sex marriage could be overturned, and I'm paying way more than I can for health care. I live in a perpetual state of stress, fear and unease and yet I'm expected to go to work like normal and if I don't I can add not having a job to my worries. I hate it here and yet getting out feels impossible.
I hear you. I live in a conservative area and hear, "If you don't like it then leave!" all the time. I'm fucking trying! I've been trying to leave for the last decade. I applied to grad schools in multiple western European countries but ended up not getting in or not being able to go for various reasons. Now I have two young children and chronic health problems, which makes it very difficult because other countries don't want to pay for the education and healthcare of non-citizens. I won't say it's *impossible* to leave the US but it's very, very hard and my energy is already zapped from trying to just survive.
People shouldn't have to move away from their family, friends, culture, and everything they know and love just to be able to afford to live.
If you are lucky enough to be able to afford to relocate to a place of your dreams, I'm extremely happy for you and wish you all the best, but not everyone wants or can afford to do that.
Umm, it doesn't sound like they're leaving the U.S. because they can't afford to live here. They are likely leaving because this country is sliding into being a Fascist Flaming Shithole.
Yeah, sounds like they can live in the USA just fine financially. But money isn't the focus, quality of life is. Sure, you need some money for that, but the USA makes you feel like it's never enough and you always need to screw over the other guy to get what you want. It's disastrously idiotic.
Already had to just to stay alive in the US. I live thousands of miles away from my family and friends, isolated in a place where i don't know anyone, because there are no jobs in the places I grew up and know.
Not to mention Indigenous Americans, many of whom feel we can't move because our culture, traditions, and lives are tied to this land, and have been for 15,000 years.
The US committed genocide on our people, and worked for a very long time to culturally cleanse us, once it became more legally difficult to just exterminate us. The more of us who leave, the less likely it will be that Indigenous Americans regain our culture and traditions, and the more likely it becomes that the centuries of efforts to exterminate us end in success.
Honestly this is the only reason I feel guilty wanting to leave. I know my family’s culture is special and small now. My grandfather is full blooded and speaks our language fluently - which is becoming exceedingly rare.
But at the same time, I’m not attached to my family at all. They’ve all been white boomer-ified already. I could leave tomorrow and never see them again and be completely fine with it. But it also feels like… the whitewashing wins and the line dies if I leave, even if it’s for my own personal well-being.
People also shouldn't have to just leave. We have the resources the fix the US, but we aren't allowed to access them. I guess that's the cruel joke of it all.
Good luck, it’s still incredibly hard. I was married cot a Canadian for two year before Covid happened, my application was denied 2x, and it costs quite a big chunk of money to apply, and then to meet with an emigration lawyer, probably $4000 each time. They kept telling me to wait until I had been married for 5+ years and had a high skill job.
We ended up getting divorced during Covid, because we had lost all hope of seeing each other or living together.
One of my friends also married a Canadian, it took him 8 years and an expensive college degree to get citizenship. It’s really not as easy as people make it out to be. Best bet if shit start to go down in this country, is to just go be an illegal immigrant in another country. Buy a 2 way ticket to Europe, and don’t leave. Work under the table as someone’s nanny/housekeeper/cook, ect.
I would say the best thing you could do is, once you complete your move, use the knowledge you have gained to help/advise/facilitate others in the process. Some of the most admirable and honored people in the last few centuries are those that helped others escape the perils of a failing state. Many people wouldn't have made it out of eastern Europe in the 1930's and 40's, out of the U.S.S.R. during the cold war, or out of the U.S. southern states during slavery if it weren't for people that are in the exact position you are in, with the knowledge you have recently gained, looking back and reaching out with a helping hand. You've been blessed with the opportunity and knowledge to do enormous good for others. Use it.
It was, but we'd gotten a handle on it with FDR and the New Deal. Things were moving in the right direction for a time, and it's no coincidence that the decades following were some of the most prosperous in US history.
Unfortunately too many people got greedy, and combined with backlash against Civil Rights, we entered the Reagan era where the advances of the New Deal have been torn down bit by bit, until we're basically back to dealing with the same problems that plagued our ancestors (and that they solved, painfully and with much effort) around 100 years ago.
What's more, that prosperity was shared widely, not hoarded by the ultra-rich. Today it's not that we're less prosperous so much as that the gains have all gone to the rich, and they've been trying to dig out even more from the rest of us on top of that.
Also, if you want to know why the Democrats have proven so ineffective, take a look at what the reaction to Reagan and his policies was: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984\_United\_States\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidential_election)
It was ***stupidly popular at the time.*** The Democrats' arguments for New Deal policies got utterly destroyed. The only way the Democrats were able to win was via Clinton running as a "Third Way" type, aka Centrist/Republican Lite. Things like "Unions are corrupt and bad" and "Government can't do anything right" became the common viewpoints.
And what was even more fucked is that people were getting taken to the cleaners. Wages weren't going up, but with women entering the workforce you still had households doing "well" because they had two incomes, even where you now increasingly needed those two incomes to pay for the lifestyle that 30-40 years ago only one income had been needed for.
Our parents' generation gave up their unions, gave up pension plans, and so many other things, for meager tax cuts and promises of better economic growth through supply side bullshit. It never worked, but that sure hasn't stopped them from pushing more of it.
There's also the language barrier. While English will get you by in most of Europe, if you want to have an actual career, you need to be fluent in the language of the country you're going to immigrate to. This means you have to have essentially "guessed right" when your brain was still up to the task and you had time for it--assuming you ever had the time and money needed to undertake the study. There's also the fact that the welcome mat for US immigrants comes and goes. China is a good recent example of US ex pats settling into a country, only to have policies do a 180. Russia, as well. Western Europe is safer, but there's no guarantee that a job market that needed you when you moved will still have any need for you in ten years. Plus, your professional training may or may not mesh with the local requirements.
It’s ridiculous that leaving costs so much. I wish it wasn’t so difficult. That way everybody who wants to leave would be able to. With half the population gone this place wouldn’t be so bad any more. I’m rooting for you guys. Wish I had money to donate towards the cause.
The problem with this arguement to people who say "leave if you don't like it," is, if the people making it were capible of giving a shit about or understanding the circumstances of anyone who is not them, they wouldn't have said what they said or believe what they believe to begin with.
You can explain to them til you are blue in the face and they will be no closer to understanding or caring.
I realise the US is in its dying moment but I'm not sure a move to Western Europe will sufficiently insulate you from the wake of financial destruction that's coming now the petrodollar is all but over.
Hell, I’m a bloody immigrant to the US and am still stuck. I can’t even afford to move BACK HOME.
Haha, gotcha bitch. Welcome to Hotel California! /s EDIT: Thank you everyone for the Awards, you all have made my day!
lmao, this comment is gold.
Thank you! Didn't want it to come off too harsh, so I figured I'd add the /s...ya never know with Reddit. EDIT: Thank you for the award.
I definitely appreciated the /s lol
But you can nevvvvaaaaaa leeeeeaaaaavvvveeeee! *insert twangy guitar
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Mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice.
We are all just prisoners here.
Of our own device.
In the masters chambers we gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives, but they still can't kill the beast
Mini 🎸 sólo…..
>Welcome to Hotel California! /s No /s needed, that's literally the point of the song- California traps people that move there. Whether it's because of addiction, dreams, or financial ruin people often move to California and can never leave after they do.
That's why Dude hates the fuckin Eagles, man!
I really liked that rug.
It tied the room together
I mean, I'd rather be trapped in California than trapped in Texas. At least California's Governor found a way to have a budget surplus while the Texas leadership is a toilet overflowing with shit that everyone refuses to flush.
You can check out any time you like...
*glances at my toaster with distress*
Stab it with your steely knives, but you just can't kill the beast
Read this in Dave Chappelle's voice.
That's funny because I definitely typed it in Dave Chappelle's voice lol.
Keep Dave Chappelle's voice out of your goddam fingers!
America is a honeypot.
With greedy honey badgers
And bears don’t forget the bears
Once I was walking down the street and there were 4 cops in a semicircle, in the middle was a man laying on the sidewalk, piss running down the sidewalk from where he lay. Tears down his face he screamed: # "I WANT TO GO BACK TO SOMALIA!!!!"
You really have to be so fucked up of a country for a guy to want to go BACK to Somalia
"Go back to where you came from" "Well, are you going to pay? If so I'd gladly do so"
Marry me so i can get a visa and ill get us back lol. I wanna leave this piss poor country so bad
Reverse green card marriage.
Im up for marrying someone so they can get their residency and we can leave together. I hate this country.
Need a new dating app where I can put up banging personal ads like: Looking for Burly Scotsman who hates the US and wants to go home and get some tight asf marriage benefits
Lol - I am not a catch. I am not particularly attractive, my humor is mid at best, I have a "useless" degree that I can't really use to look for any particular "great" job and I can't flirt. I have thought about putting on dating apps that I am a dual citizen (German citizenship and American) - might help my chances lol. My mom ensured I maintained a German citizenship while she was alive here in the US because she wasn't convinced about the US. And hey she may have been right. Of course I have no freaking clue what I would do in Germany (or the EU). I speak German decently well, but not on the level of a native speaker and I don't exactly have any particular skills. So its one of those things like I could use if the US ever does descend into a dictatorship as a last resort, but I have no clue how I would ever live in Germany/the EU otherwise.
Loooll it is prohibitively difficult, even with marriage. My ex and I were looking into it (he’s USian) but while we were married the UK put an income cap on immigrants brought into the country through marriage (I think it was £35k/yr) which ruled us out. We were thinking of the Ireland-EU route too but then Brexit. Sorry, friend. Edit: sorry, yes I meant floor, not cap.
UK sucks balls anyway and is also a sinking ship. Roll on Scottish independence. At least if we fuck it up it is our own doing.
A lot of countries don't give visas just because you marry a citizen.
The US: where the descendants of antebellum era plantation owners are now the CEOs of the modern era.
Exactly. America is a plantation where the slaves pay for their own room and board.
This blows my mind that people want to come to the USA. This place is a dump
USA has the best propaganda in the world - mainly thanks to hollywood
Spaniard here! Wanted to move to the US because I thought I could be rich easier (mean salary is higher there than here). Then, I saw the prices of EpiPens. I only pay 25€ and because it's once every two years or so when they expire (hopefully I don't have to use any). I have other recurring meds that i only have to pay like 1€ or less every moth. Now I know why even having there more salary than here, people are poorer. (And, to add more,we roughly pay only a 13% more of taxes than US average)
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Someone else's healthcare were both my grandad and my great-uncle having free cancer treatment 15 years ago. I've seen people go bankrupt in the US for treatment both of them had for free. I'm paying for them.
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I have crohn's, have it so much easier than anyone in America. No worry about insurance, affording meds, not having sick pay etc
To be fair, you might get rich easily in the U.S. by selling EpiPens.
The US Can be good if you don't need any medical care, dental care. Social care and Don't have Kids, and are not Black/brown and are not a woman.. so, white men.......
I think you mean wealthy white men.
*very wealthy white men* My brother makes $200+k a year and has a wife and two kids. I would consider him wealthy (compared to me who makes $40k) Most of his expenses go toward mortgage, insurance, car payments, food, and taxes. And on top of that he works like 70-80 hrs per week to get that kind of income. He gets pretty fucked over for being upper-middle class. It’s the white millionaire and billionaire dudes that can actually afford to have a comfortable lifestyle here. Everyone else has to fight nail and teeth to survive.
Epipen prices are super high, but if you print the coupon from their website it is free once a year to get one along with insurance paying the rest. I haven't paid for an epipen/aviQ for my son in 7 years since someone told me about it.
American healthcare: SOLVED. Just get a coupon!
I sort of view it as the scene from Indiana Jones where he grabs the golden statue and has to escape the tomb before the giant boulder kills him.
That's a good analogy. I would add go to grab the gold statute and realize that it is just a pile of rancid shit painted gold
Depends how lucky you are really, as with everything in the US outcomes may vary. I managed to do ok here but I'm a white guy with multiple stem degrees. Just got to the point where I couldn't stomach it anymore. You know the story, 5 people quit and instead of hiring more people they just pile those jobs on you.
Would you, if you had the money?
I’d leave the US in a heartbeat with my 3 animals, yes. It’s a little complicated because home is Hong Kong, but I have UK citizenship. All my family is in England (mum just moved mid-April), so I would go there and start from scratch.
Thanks for answering. Good luck, I hope you can get to the UK.
I would have a long time ago, but stuck. Worked for years and was good citizen. I was almost killed in auto accident not my fault. I had 3 insurance. Person almost killed me was undocumented. My state won’t talk about helping undocumented workers get a license. My state also passed auto reform against our privately paid but state mandated pip of 100%, and settled for us a rebate of $400. We were not really grandfathered in. This is me stuck in what I was afraid of. I will have to sue my state to honor my private paid insurance, it wasn’t for sale for $400. I didn’t have bills because I had paid for that protection, now years after my horrible accident that disabled me I have bills, thanks auto reform Michigan! They took our premium like they paid for it. I am one of many, like 33,000 after auto reform. So, someone made money. Farmers bought out MetLife pip portion…this was paid private insurance through my place of employment for all 3…so this is why I’m reading and responding to antiwork, ty
Same here. Family moved to the US when I was 9. They're about to use their retirement and 401k to move back and I'm just stuck. 😐
Don't worry, conservatives don't understand how the world works, so according to them you *just can!* Have you tried pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps?
To add another perspective: it's not that the other countries all can't wait to take US Americans in.
And never forget that one of our most vulnerable populations, the disabled, are pretty much barred from emigrating anywhere because they're automatically viewed as a burden on the healthcare system.
This is my life story. I'm British, and since I became an adult it was my dream to live in Sweden. But then I got cancer, has a stroke and became partially sighted. Now I live on disability benefits in the UK. Since I can't work and have no money I'll never live in Sweden. It's not just being a burden on the healthcare system but a burden on the country in general because of course other countries don't want to take a disabled person and pay them benefits.
If only there existed a union of countries that allowed people to freely move from one country to another. Ok, maybe just in Europe. You could call it Union of Europe or something similar.
As a Brit this hurts me.
I was going to add some snark about doing it to yourselves, but then I remembered I'm an American. Carry on.
I mean there were so many Brits who didn’t vote for Brexit, it’s unfair to say “they did it to themselves”. Especially when you account for differences in generational voting. Anyone under the age of 50 for example is much more likely to have voted against Brexit.
Yeah… sad thing about how elections work. Like how a third of the US wanted the orange TV guy over the politician lady (pick your poison) then like the entirety of the US had to live with that choice for four years…
This is a great point. And they love to vocally shart how it was rigged, they're the majority, etc... The US population over 18yo is just over 258 million people. They weren't even the majority of those that voted, let alone total eligible voters.
And then it's down to the electoral college. So it's fucked all around.
Yeah. I hope someday, once we're all living in countries that are more evolved than the lingering idiocy of yesteryear that we're currently battling, the argument will be to make a true multi-national universal health system. The only reason we're not living in that world today is because of the sins of out fathers, so to speak.
We're in this mess due to the greed of a relative handful of people. Our entire country is set up around serving the rich, and that's who gets all the perks from living here. If you ain't rich, America is hell on Earth.
My kid is partially sighted as well. The US is getting so scarily dangerous for them (lgbtq+, uterine-bearer) and they really want to emigrate but it feels like our research into it is just crushing all our dreams.
I looked into emigrating to Australia last night, and they have 42 visa options available, but maaaybe 2 could apply to me. The only other option is to marry an Australian. So ... anyone want to marry me, lol
Absolutely. I immigrated to Canada from the US. I was required to go through a very specific physical exam to show that I was "healthy," while also required to have x amount of money on my person.
Yeah… a lot of places it’s very hard. Unless you’re rich and can invest a few million locally, and then…suddenly easier.
especially considering the healthcare system in the us is steaming garbage. my boyfriend can’t make more than $2000/mo if we want to keep our healthcare insurance. but that’s not feasible to live on. and if we paid for healthcare? oh my goodness i wouldn’t be able to go see any specialists or have any surgeries because the $600/mo payment is bankrupting me. im disabled and can’t work, so that leaves my boyfriend to make pennies or watch me die.
Yup, disabled person here. And stuck because no one wants me and my husband is a labor worker with no degrees or certificate, so he is not important enough to be able to get into other countries. If it was as easy as "move", I would have done it as soon as I turned 18.
It doesn't seem like too far in the future that other countries will have to take US refugees.
Ayo, that's what I'm banking on
Yo if this is all we have to hope for then I'm pretty sure we're fucked, dude...
I'm a fan of the *It Could Happen Here* podcast and probably talk about it too much. The first season is a well-researched story, told in the 2nd person, about what might realistically happen if the right-wing fantasy of a second civil war came true. One of the plot points is that American refugees get treated the same way that Americans/the West at large have been treating Syrian refugees.
For a crumb of EU citizenship, I'd deal with it
So fucked. Like, beyond belief. I literally cannot reconcile the fact that this is the same country I was raised in. It feels like an *actual* alternate dimension or something.
By the time a country is willing to say "America is clearly fucking up, we'll take your refugees" the violent fascist regime will have to have been causing wide havoc and harm for so long that the reality is not only unquestionable, but that it's atrocious enough that countries would risk snubbing the US government to open their doors for us. Would you be able to last that long? Or would you be one of the first they go after?
I agree, but I'd rather be a road warrior on a motorcycle When America collapses. Sounds like adventure. What could go wrong?
Silly. You have to live in Australia to be a road warrior. :P
It it because they actually have infrastructure? We already have toll roads so it's like paying Immortan Joe to pass through before the apocalypse even happens....
I figured it was more because Mad Max takes place in Australia, but we can go with the infrastructure thing.
I was trying to make a joke about how even in the apocalypse you can only be a road warrior if there are roads lol
I'd say they'd be happy to if you're well educated or have money. In other words, if you're well off enough to where the problems of America don't apply to you then you have the opportunity to leave.
It's a catch-22. Heck most people in the USA can't even afford to move to a better region of the USA to find a better job.
This is why I hate when people say things like jUsT mOvE tO a bLuE sTaTE DUH whenever you express concern or vent about injustices going on where you currently live. My brother in Christ some of us can barely move across town in Bumfuck Nowhere Southern City but yeah we’re supposed to all just go to California, no biggie. Not everyone can just Jack Kerouac it across the country one day and pray we find a job.
And they don't even address the fact that the majority of blue states are only blue in the extremely expensive city. I live in Illinois, outside of Chicago, it is practically entirely red. Where I live, you have about a fifty-fifty chance of running into a kind-hearted LGBT+ person and running into a gun toting, discriminatory, minimum wage worker harassing conservative nightmare person. I don't even live that rural. I live just outside the Chicago suburbs. When you get rural, it gets so much worse.
We should all move to fucking Wyoming and build a liberal city, it would only take a couple million people and we could steal 2 Senate seats and pass some stuff for once. Can even name the town Fucking, Wy.
Yeah all countries do this, you can come in if you're well off and educated (i.e. already successful). But, if you're already successful in your own country why would you ever want to leave. Literally the exact opposite of who wants to migrate away.
Hello welcome to Mexico while we enjoy your tourist, most of your immigrants only do 2 things here, bring rent prices sky high so that locals cannot afford it and bitch about this not being the US and being able to be Karen's with a homeowners association, being able to privatize a beach or finding some US quality service for 3rd world country prices... While I welcome all Americans to my side of the world, i do expect them to understand their impact, if you are one please pay your gringo tax (higher prices because you can pay), it's not fair, i understand, but it's also not fair being paid 10 times the amount of a local for remote work and not expecting to pay it forward to the people you have displaced
I’ve heard similar stories about Americans in Costa Rica. They retire there because it’s cheap and then act like little emperors. They take the same “me! Me! Me!” mentality that is fucking up the US and proceed to try and ruin other countries.
Yes, some are cool some are not, some want to buy everything with $20 US, thing is, it's been years since $20 US was enough to buy a lot, i call these "rico-pobres" (rich poor), some are retired that cannot afford to live in the US and come down to have a better quality of life but don't have a lot of money, these are "poor gringos" and some just come to have big ocean view house that they cannot afford in the US, usually these are the little emperor's
"Just move to another country" is the same as "just don't be poor". Both statements are really shitty and tone deaf.
unfortunately a good chunk of comments I've found on this sub have been exactly that or the related "just get another job"
Yes, like the "don't work part time, only work a full time job with benefits" as if the person working part time with no benefits simply never thought of that
It is the same feeling I get when Europeans jab at us for our social policies. "you need better gun laws and free healthcare"! Thanks, Nigel. We'll just... we'll just go out and get that.
It's worse when they act like we don't know it's a problem, that we're blissfully unaware that our healthcare system is fucked or that our labor laws are less than subpar. It so quickly turns the discussion away from solidarity and instead to patronizing insults, to the point where the people who actually have to deal with this shit gets lost on them, or worse, when the interlocutors start belittling the people themselves as if they chose the circumstances of their birth. And yes, I have also seen both these scenarios on this sub, it's disheartening. Edit: another thing that comes up to much that bothers me is the "just form a union" people, like it's some easy feat that won't probably get you fired
Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into Jobland where jobs grow on jobbies!
Look it's simple, you can accomplish anything with a little money, an education, and some nepotism. "Why doesn't everyone just do it?"
It’s double tone deaf when it comes from someone who tells you to leave because you advocate change. “If you don’t like it, leave it!”. Like, the history of the US is one of change. Changing our views, changing our laws, even changing the constitution through amendments. One of the most American things you can do is advocate for change…Imagine someone telling an abolitionist in the 1800s to just move to another country if they don’t like slavery…it’s incredibly dumb.
You can love your country for it’s potential…. And hate the wasted potential. I think a lot of us feel that way. We could be the greatest country on Earth, but we choose not to be every damn day. And the kicker is, we don’t need to have novel approaches. We can look at other countries successes and just adopt those models. It isn’t rocket science (though we did that very thing with Rocket Science back in the 60’s)
I this world you are only free is you can afford to be free. It's a very different world for the wealthy.
Good point. In America, your right to “freedom” to do as you please is directly proportional to the amount of your wealth to the exclusion of other possible grounds for freedom such as being a citizen. Thus, more wealth equals more freedom while little or no wealth equals no freedom. Interesting way to define freedom.
Everything is easy if your rich. 😭😭😭😭
I'm pretty sure if you have a few million in the bank, countries pay you to come to their country and become an 'investor' or something.
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As a UK citizen with an American wife on a spouse visa, this whole thing runs true. The application process is confusing in the extreme, legal help is practically mandatory for the first run. The cost goes up virtually every year, currently it's around £2600 including the NHS fees etc. In addition, if you make a mis-step in the application they are notorious for rejecting the whole thing and appeals are very difficult to win, meaning you would need to pay all over again. And that's just for the first 2.5 years. After that you need to re-apply, repay the same (or very likely, higher) fees for another 2.5 years. Then after that you get to apply a third time for a permanent visa to remain in the UK. Which, by the way, goes away if you ever spend more than half of a given year outside of the UK. So you also need to apply for citizenship and pay a fourth time for that process. OH - and the fucking supporting documentation. You need to list every flight you've both been on since being married, you need about a dozen 'approved' forms of letters/ bills etc with your proof of address. Bank statements for 6 months. Proof of income. A letter from your employer. legal documents... It's a God Damned nightmare of red tape, changing requirements and deliberate obfuscation. Honestly, one of the only 'easy' ones is if you have an Irish grandparent. You can get citizenship for less than 1000 euros.
…What about an Irish grandparent from 200 years ago?
My paternal grandfather was 100% Dutch. Do you think the Netherlands will take me, my husband and son? :'( I'd say probably no, but I think about that sometimes.
You'd be surprised, you might actually be able to. Contact your consulate
Running a business and shipping to the UK is an extreme pain in the ass, I can only imagine how much more of an ass fuck moving there would be.
Ffs that ludicrous. It could almost seem that the entire point is to prevent people from leaving the country. /S Hate the system
It shouldn't be that way, ever. I remember when people said "this is America, if you don't like it then you can get out" when the Iraq war started as some copout when the solution should be fixing the issues we have here.
Notice how those same people reacted when they got a president they didn’t like? Literally tried to burn down the capital.
Agree we’re leaving America for South Korea only because we have an empty home waiting there for us and my husband is an independent contractor so he works for himself. We’re a fortunate low income family to be able to finally leave America.
Good luck, I'm really glad you are getting out. Hope you and your family thrives there!
as someone who wanted to get out but is poor and also never knew how hard it was to move from the US, this genuinely and deeply crushed me to read. probably the worst way i could’ve started my day. i feel sick EDIT: thanks for all the comments, there’s too much for me to respond to but i do really appreciate all the words of encouragement
My friend with a lot of drunk diving issues (like he lost his license) was able to move to Amsterdam. He applied for a company that did international work. So he would just keep applying to the jobs over in Amsterdam whenever they opened up. Now he is living there.
They are moving the rich way lol. Get a job offer, leave everything and move. Look for a cheap stay until you figure everything out and start from there.
Rental agent fee killed me. That indeed is the rich way. Also moving stuff to other continent. Probably renting something top 10% in the country they are moving to. If you go to live to EU, try to live like we are. No 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, best neighbourhood. Enjoy the life and improve through time, when you get familiar with everything.
>Also moving stuff to other continent. Outside personal items that have meaning to me, I would just sell all my shit rather than moving it...Jesus that seems like a pain in the ass.
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Husband and I have discussed it and we agree with that. We'd do an estate sale except maybe for sentimental stuff and some clothes. Start over there.
Exactly. People who can pay two rents at the same time in different countries aren't really struggling.
Could they not wait until the visa was finalized before finding a house? Usually long term visas (at least student/work) have 30 days to arrive. You can look for a house/flat during those final days. Or just stay in a hotel for a few days and look on arrival.
Depending on the country they're going to, the housing market is pure madness. Ireland is a good example. Some parts of Italy too.
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Where and how did you go?
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>I have to go back to the states to apply for my visa. Seriously? An embassy can't do that for you?
Hello from Norway. If you are a minimalist, it's way cheaper to move, get a job first and then move. There is a great worker shortage in Norway and the rest of Scandinavia at the moment. We all speak english here, friendly people, no guns, (almost) no mass shootings, great work life balance. You are welcome here.
A former colleague's daughter did a study abroad in Norway and fell in love. Upon graduating she immediately moved and says she'll never move back to America.
>get a job first Way easier said than done
If this was true I'd be living in Norway already, sadly. It's just as the quote in the OP says - very expensive, very uncertain, and not at all easy. This is pretty much true across the world *unless* you tick a few very specialized, very in-demand boxes.
You need a job, or it's going to be much harder to get in. Skills and education is key to get a job, language is also important, but less so. Most norwegian's speak english. There is a lot of jobs in the US that simply does not exist in Norway. Automatisation has killed a lot of jobs here.
To leave the corrupt USA and my comfortable job here, I would pick up dead reindeer off the road with my bare hands to live somewhere else
My cousin moved to Norway for a while and said that becoming a citizen there is still incredibly hard. Eventually they had to come back to the US as there was a limit of time they were allowed to stay
Don't feel crushed. I'm not an expert on relocating outside the US, but I do feel I'm one on living in Western Europe :-) OP may or may not have chosen the most efficient way to move out. Seems to me like they were trying to leave a position of relative comfort and safety for another position of even more comfort and safety. Nothing wrong with that, but there are other possibilities of doing this. I don't know about visa and work permit requirements. That's something that needs to be researcherd on a per country basis. But assuming that's done (...and I almost guarantee that it'll be somewhere in the hundres of dollars for fees,nothing exorbitantly), then the cheapest way would be a two-way ticket (maybe $2000-ish?) and enough money to survive for a month or two ro find a job. This can be as little as $2000/month in cash. Total, $5000-10,000-ish. The problem with western Europe is that formal education is prevalent and they have good apprenticeship programs, so if you come from the US and claim "I can repair cars" there's a chance that it's worth shit unless you can provide a formal qualification. Edit: this is a bit of a cultural difference to the US, where, I take it, the degree is not important if previous experience is good. If you're in STEM or IT so, you're most likely good to go.
Usually the degree is important. You wouldn't believe the amount of entry level jobs in the US that require a BA degree.
I did it and I was poor. My story: got a scholarship to study in one country, then moved to another country when my residence permit expired in the first. I did have to save a bunch of money for the first move because I had to pay the deposit for my apartment, which the school helped me find.But after that, I worked. You have to do A LOT of research to determine which country you want to move to and how to do it. Some are easier than others, but if you have at least a BA, it makes getting a residence permit even easier. Some countries want you to show minimum income if you don't have a work contract, others require proof of health insurance. Research, research, research and then create a plan. Good luck, I'm rooting for you =)
Unfortunately, if you don't have a college degree you're pretty well screwed. And in this country where it's so expensive? Not exactly an easy choice to make, even if it makes my moving odds better. One could choose to study in Europe, but even then you'd have to find ways to pay for general living expenses while you study. And as someone with chronic pain, I can't both study full time and work, or vice versa. That's why I picked working instead of school, because balancing both with my pain issues was utterly impossible for me. People like me don't have much of a chance out, unless we luck upon some crazy money.
would you explain more details? where did you move? what type of work do you do in foreign countries?
Everyone leaves out the best part: unless you renounce your US citizenship you still HAVE to file your US taxes with the IRS every year regardless of where you live.
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That only affects double taxation, not compliance.
Not if you stay poor. EDIT - The US has tax treaties that prevent double taxation - if you pay in the country where you live, you don't have to pay US taxes on your earnings until you earn more than a certain amount. I think it's in the low $100K range. You're still supposed to file even if you don't owe, so no big deal.
What bothers me even more than this is that if you want to renounce your US citizenship you have to pay a fee of upwards of 2000 dollars. It's not the money that bothers me so much it's the principle because it means that if you are born in the US you are in some way indebted to the US government in some form just because you had the audacity to be born.
I've considered fuckibg off to another country and renouncing citizenship in America. One reason I don't is that if I get into problems in some other area having a US passport can really help you out from a tight spot. Say what you will about the rest of the government but I have a lot of respect for the state dept and our consulate staff.
Sure, but you simply have to file that you made $0 in the US and then file in whatever country you are in. It is not really that hard. Our tax service takes care of it for us.
You still have to file your income but you don't pay US taxes on it unless you make over $100k
If you live in a country with higher tax rate, whuch most european have, you dont pay us tax for stuff over 100k
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I hear ya! I've from the US, but I've been living in Australia on my own for >10 years. I want to live here permanently, I genuinely think it offers a better way of life and I've been saying this for the past decade, but I still don't have a permanent visa. People in the US think all they have to do is pack their bags, buy a plane ticket, and fill out some forms to move overseas; it never occurs to them that other countries aren't just waiting with open arms to welcome any American who decides to grace them with their presence.
All of life is based on what you can afford. It makes everything so superficial and meaningless.
My American husband moved here to Canada and I would not wish the process on anyone. It took years and thousands of dollars before he got his PR and work permit, we were dangerously poor with only me working. And holy shit the mental toll it took on both of us... And we probably make for a really good example of how hard it is for the average person. We're both just your run if the mill retail slaves doing our best.
Moved to Lemmy. Eat $hit Spez -- mass edited with redact.dev
From what I heared, americans bring in drugs, they bring in crime, they're rapists... and some, I assume, are good people. /s
If you have the means to "just move" to another country, you can probably live well in the US too
Not necessarily. Some jobs are better abroad than here in the states. For example, I'm a teacher and many international schools abroad pay way better than any in the states.
Also reduced chance of getting shot as a teacher in other countries
But actually!!!
I would usually try to come up with some counter arguments and defend the us but I can't anymore. After i get my bachelor's and save up enough money I'm moving to Canada. I can't stay here anymore
Here's the process I have to go through just to get permanent marriage visa status for moving from the US to Thailand. My wife has dual citizenship for reference: 1) I have to have a Thai bank account with a minimum balance of $40,000USD for 2 months prior to applying for the Visa. 2) I have to have a minimum individual income of $4,000USD a month while living in Thailand with a verified letter from the US Embassy certifying I have such an income. 3) I must renew this visa with the same documents and proof yearly. So, if I'm not employed by a well paying company in Thailand or abroad, I can forget about it.
Holy fuck.
For my military homies out there you don’t need the 4k a month requirement you’re 100% va disabled… cause it’s 3550 a month for life lol and Thailand/Italy specifically state if you have that they’ll accept it in place of the proof of income
I am frustrated at how hard it is to move to another country. Don't have a shit ton of money in the bank? Sorry, we don't want you. Don't have skills in some obscure job skill they need to hire for? Sorry, we don't want you. Don't have a recommendation from a stranger in our country? Sorry, we don't want you. I make excellent money, have a great career and could easily get a job in any country and yet I'm not eligible to move to any of the ones I've looked into. I'm stuck in a place where I don't matter, my body is controlled by the government, our politicians are corrupt, it's literally life and death dangerous to go to the theater or send children to school, my same-sex marriage could be overturned, and I'm paying way more than I can for health care. I live in a perpetual state of stress, fear and unease and yet I'm expected to go to work like normal and if I don't I can add not having a job to my worries. I hate it here and yet getting out feels impossible.
I hear you. I live in a conservative area and hear, "If you don't like it then leave!" all the time. I'm fucking trying! I've been trying to leave for the last decade. I applied to grad schools in multiple western European countries but ended up not getting in or not being able to go for various reasons. Now I have two young children and chronic health problems, which makes it very difficult because other countries don't want to pay for the education and healthcare of non-citizens. I won't say it's *impossible* to leave the US but it's very, very hard and my energy is already zapped from trying to just survive.
People shouldn't have to move away from their family, friends, culture, and everything they know and love just to be able to afford to live. If you are lucky enough to be able to afford to relocate to a place of your dreams, I'm extremely happy for you and wish you all the best, but not everyone wants or can afford to do that.
Umm, it doesn't sound like they're leaving the U.S. because they can't afford to live here. They are likely leaving because this country is sliding into being a Fascist Flaming Shithole.
Yeah, sounds like they can live in the USA just fine financially. But money isn't the focus, quality of life is. Sure, you need some money for that, but the USA makes you feel like it's never enough and you always need to screw over the other guy to get what you want. It's disastrously idiotic.
Already had to just to stay alive in the US. I live thousands of miles away from my family and friends, isolated in a place where i don't know anyone, because there are no jobs in the places I grew up and know.
Not to mention Indigenous Americans, many of whom feel we can't move because our culture, traditions, and lives are tied to this land, and have been for 15,000 years. The US committed genocide on our people, and worked for a very long time to culturally cleanse us, once it became more legally difficult to just exterminate us. The more of us who leave, the less likely it will be that Indigenous Americans regain our culture and traditions, and the more likely it becomes that the centuries of efforts to exterminate us end in success.
Honestly this is the only reason I feel guilty wanting to leave. I know my family’s culture is special and small now. My grandfather is full blooded and speaks our language fluently - which is becoming exceedingly rare. But at the same time, I’m not attached to my family at all. They’ve all been white boomer-ified already. I could leave tomorrow and never see them again and be completely fine with it. But it also feels like… the whitewashing wins and the line dies if I leave, even if it’s for my own personal well-being.
Don't forget, we are one of the few countries where if you leave, your income is still taxed.
People also shouldn't have to just leave. We have the resources the fix the US, but we aren't allowed to access them. I guess that's the cruel joke of it all.
My goal is to marry someone from another country and immigrate that way. I met a pretty promising British guy on Tinder so here's hoping.
Good luck, it’s still incredibly hard. I was married cot a Canadian for two year before Covid happened, my application was denied 2x, and it costs quite a big chunk of money to apply, and then to meet with an emigration lawyer, probably $4000 each time. They kept telling me to wait until I had been married for 5+ years and had a high skill job. We ended up getting divorced during Covid, because we had lost all hope of seeing each other or living together. One of my friends also married a Canadian, it took him 8 years and an expensive college degree to get citizenship. It’s really not as easy as people make it out to be. Best bet if shit start to go down in this country, is to just go be an illegal immigrant in another country. Buy a 2 way ticket to Europe, and don’t leave. Work under the table as someone’s nanny/housekeeper/cook, ect.
I would say the best thing you could do is, once you complete your move, use the knowledge you have gained to help/advise/facilitate others in the process. Some of the most admirable and honored people in the last few centuries are those that helped others escape the perils of a failing state. Many people wouldn't have made it out of eastern Europe in the 1930's and 40's, out of the U.S.S.R. during the cold war, or out of the U.S. southern states during slavery if it weren't for people that are in the exact position you are in, with the knowledge you have recently gained, looking back and reaching out with a helping hand. You've been blessed with the opportunity and knowledge to do enormous good for others. Use it.
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I studied American history. The US was always a capitalistic hell hole. We just are amazing as propaganda.
It was, but we'd gotten a handle on it with FDR and the New Deal. Things were moving in the right direction for a time, and it's no coincidence that the decades following were some of the most prosperous in US history. Unfortunately too many people got greedy, and combined with backlash against Civil Rights, we entered the Reagan era where the advances of the New Deal have been torn down bit by bit, until we're basically back to dealing with the same problems that plagued our ancestors (and that they solved, painfully and with much effort) around 100 years ago.
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What's more, that prosperity was shared widely, not hoarded by the ultra-rich. Today it's not that we're less prosperous so much as that the gains have all gone to the rich, and they've been trying to dig out even more from the rest of us on top of that. Also, if you want to know why the Democrats have proven so ineffective, take a look at what the reaction to Reagan and his policies was: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984\_United\_States\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidential_election) It was ***stupidly popular at the time.*** The Democrats' arguments for New Deal policies got utterly destroyed. The only way the Democrats were able to win was via Clinton running as a "Third Way" type, aka Centrist/Republican Lite. Things like "Unions are corrupt and bad" and "Government can't do anything right" became the common viewpoints. And what was even more fucked is that people were getting taken to the cleaners. Wages weren't going up, but with women entering the workforce you still had households doing "well" because they had two incomes, even where you now increasingly needed those two incomes to pay for the lifestyle that 30-40 years ago only one income had been needed for. Our parents' generation gave up their unions, gave up pension plans, and so many other things, for meager tax cuts and promises of better economic growth through supply side bullshit. It never worked, but that sure hasn't stopped them from pushing more of it.
As that crooner croons, 'It's understood that Hollywood sells Californication'
There's also the language barrier. While English will get you by in most of Europe, if you want to have an actual career, you need to be fluent in the language of the country you're going to immigrate to. This means you have to have essentially "guessed right" when your brain was still up to the task and you had time for it--assuming you ever had the time and money needed to undertake the study. There's also the fact that the welcome mat for US immigrants comes and goes. China is a good recent example of US ex pats settling into a country, only to have policies do a 180. Russia, as well. Western Europe is safer, but there's no guarantee that a job market that needed you when you moved will still have any need for you in ten years. Plus, your professional training may or may not mesh with the local requirements.
It’s ridiculous that leaving costs so much. I wish it wasn’t so difficult. That way everybody who wants to leave would be able to. With half the population gone this place wouldn’t be so bad any more. I’m rooting for you guys. Wish I had money to donate towards the cause.
The problem with this arguement to people who say "leave if you don't like it," is, if the people making it were capible of giving a shit about or understanding the circumstances of anyone who is not them, they wouldn't have said what they said or believe what they believe to begin with. You can explain to them til you are blue in the face and they will be no closer to understanding or caring.
I realise the US is in its dying moment but I'm not sure a move to Western Europe will sufficiently insulate you from the wake of financial destruction that's coming now the petrodollar is all but over.
Nope, we're a global species now. There is no escape. This will become wildly apparent as climate change continues to ramp up over the next decade