The other day I found myself talking to some Dallas friends -- ordinary, conservative, middle-class professional, Christian -- about their thoughts regarding expatriating to Costa Rica. They think they could make a go of it there with their business, and besides, they think it'd be a good place to be if things got bad in the US.
I said that if things got so bad in the US that moving to Costa Rica seemed like a smart move, it'd almost certainly be the case that the situation in nations like Costa Rica would be much less stable. I mean, for all I know, Costa Rica is a fine place to live now. But in a world of great turmoil and instability, would you really want to be outside the protection of US laws?
But maybe others know something I don't. Tonight I got an e-mail from a professor friend in California, who said he overheard parents of his college students at an event this weekend talking about expatriating to Costa Rica when things go south in the US. The way the professor described these people, they could have been cognates of my Dallas friends. That normal people were talking like this struck him as very odd, and telling.
Tonight I got a call from one of my relatives. Middle-class, conservative, yadda yadda. We got to talking about the economy going downhill, and he mentioned that he'd recently been looking into property in, yes, Costa Rica.
What is this meme? I suppose anything could happen, but I really do find it all but impossible to imagine conditions getting so bad in this country that I would take my family and leave. Are people seriously thinking this way?
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I have been planning to move abroad even before the downturn. I am from California and have traveled to Texas, Texas is much better off. California has been chasing business out of the state for decades. Litigiousness (women's rights, gay rights, save the grasshoppers etc), high taxes, excessive regulations, cutting farmers water off and one anti business thing after another has taken its toll. On top of that many of the schools are in very bad shape, many are little more than armed camps with a heavily armed police force. I have never seen anything like this in any other county I have been to and I have been to many.
I know many who already live outside the US and are quite happy. Coast Rica is excellent but there is many other places too. And like so many others have said the news totally warps your view. Most have no realistic idea what it is like outside of there box. The one advantage America has is the ability to make money, it is easy to make lots of money here however it is very expensive to live here.
There many disadvantages. One is the lack of freedom. You see in American you are free to obey the rules. All things have pluses and minuses. Quality of life abroad is often better. For a guy you will find a vastly better social life with lots of romantic enjoyment.
Thinking out of the box can make a real difference, I know of guys who have gone to the Caribbean, Philippines and India to study to be a doctor. There are so many options if you think outside the box.
Retiring out of the US can afford a quality of life not attainable in the USA.
My wife and I have been planning on leaving America and heading somewhere in which we can be citizens in good conscience for years now (somewhere where children aren't legally slaughtered in their mothers wombs), but it now seems as if Herod Hussein OBortion and his senate henchmen are going to force us before we can properly prepare. We have had our eyes on Malta and Chile, though Costa Rica is on the list. If anyone else is planning on emigrating somewhere and is interested in further discussion, please let us know. It would be nice to pool resources.
I am starting to think Australia and New Zealand is more palatable than the US. I thinking of moving down under.
really nice post
Webroyalty
I totaly agree with you. I just recently started school in Amserdam and as the US is concrndd it's out of my reality now. I don't miss it. or any desire to go back. I feel much freeer here than I ever did in the US. I"m gay so I can marry here and that's a right that I didn't have in the US!
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