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Kerry Concedes Election To Bush
WilliamGeorge points to this MSNBC story "that presidential candidate John Kerry has called George W Bush to concede the election. So it is over, and without a lot of extra fuss and recounts."
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We hear a lot of threats to move from silly starlets and disgruntled geeks, but I've never heard of anyone who actually did it.
By the way, if anyone actually did move overseas, we miss you, and you can come back whenever you're ready. We won't wait up, but we'll leave the light on for you.
See what I've been reading.
This is what annoys me. CONCEDING DOES NOT MAKE BUSH THE WINNER. He can concede and the election can still go the other way. It doesn't remove him from the race. Nothing's changed except they're announcing their predictions.
Developers: We can use your help.
ALL HAIL CANADA!
I'm American and lived in Canada about half my adult life and am one of the disgruntled geeks getting ready to leave again. I loved Canada. I'm sorry I didn't stay there and get on a citizenship track. I'll probably go someplace even cheaper and warmer this time and try to retire early.
The people in Canada are consistently a lot easier to live with than Americans. They aren't nearly as arrogant, stuck on themselves, and aren't socialized to think its their prerogative to shit on the rest of the world. Canadians can spot Americans a mile away since they are routinely assholes when they visit Canada. Canadians, at least all the ones I know, are consistently nice level headed people, hard workers, great partiers, its no accident they churn out great comedians, and THEY HAVE GREAT BEER. American beer sucks by comaprison. They have pretty strong socialist leanings but there are right wingers there just like here, they just aren't rabid like the American right wing.
If you are going to be an expat you need to be ready to deal with the immigration system which is the biggest hassle. It depends on where you are going but you usually need a job waiting, with a visa, though many countries like Costa Rica have pensionero visas where you just have to have a clean record and a proven investment income. Its designed to draw wealthy gringos who are looking for a cheap place to retire and spend their money. I think its a couple thousand dollars a year in interest, social security or investment income so its pretty easy to do. It is only a visa though.
The big challenge to being an expat is if you are really going to do it you have to ditch your U.S. passport and citizenship and get citizenship where you are going. It takes a lot of time and work to get citizenship most places and you need to make sure you pick a country where you are going to be happy, fit in for the duration, and a place that isn't like to explode in a revolution for example. Americans are too fat dumb and happy to revolt but there are places where radical changes do happen, often with the help of the CIA.
If you dont renounce your citizenship you get to file income tax returns with Uncle Sam in perpetuity and that means you are still supporting the mad dogs that now rule Washington. If you make more than than the exemption limit on foreign income you get double taxed, where you live and by Uncle Sam. I think the annual exemption was around $70K but I dont know what it is now. I'd heard the Republicans were moving it and maybe even lowering it to tax expats more though I don't recall what actually happened.
All in all carrying a U.S. passport and flaunting your American'ness has always been a bit of a negative around the world, people tend to envy you some and resent you some more. After the last 4 years I imagine flaunting American, and especially bragging about, in most of the world is going to invite nothing but negativity and grief. Canadains treat most Americans reasonably well because they are generally nice people but they aren't likely to really accept you and frequently will do their best screw you given the chance, just because you live in a country that tries to screw the rest of the world at every opportunity in every way.
@de_machina
I moved from the United States to Finland a month and a half ago due to the political situation in the USA. I was born in the USA and so were my parents, I'm not a returning former citizen to Finland or any such thing.
I'm posting in response to RealAlaskan's request for information about someone who had actually done the move. If people want to be angry at the content of my post, or troll, or whatever, that's on them. I imagine there are people who will read this who actually want to know.
Question part #1: why?
# It was depressing to wake up every morning knowing that my tax money and support of the American economy was being used to effect morally unconscionable things such as killing people for no good reason. Furthermore, from the moment I realized this was happening, it was my responsibility to stop letting others use my money and resources this way.
# I've learned that I've been lied to both about America itself, and America's role in the world, for my entire life through the television, school, and the work-sleep-die culture that persists there, and I'm angry about it.
# It was frustrating to be forced to see, every day, so many of the people around me (and a few of them otherwise very intelligent) living in a quasi-reality that is based upon these lies, their indoctrination being so complete that it was impossible to communicate what I'd learned to them.
# There are better places to live, and I believe I am now in one of them.
# Most importantly, I became convinced that I and the other people in America who came to understand the problems and recognize the lies were powerless to fix the situation, in spite of the fairy tale image that is put forth in our culture about the nature of American democracy allowing individual heroes to rise up and save the day.
Question part #2: how is it working out?
So far it is working out fine. Part of that is in the details of how I was able to move. I'm a self-employed internet consultant and I have three years worth of business licenses to prove it, and Finland appears to like self employed people. In order to live here legally, I had to get a residence permit from the Finnish government, and in order to do that, I had to first get what is known as a "favorable" work permit opinion from them, which meant basically that I had to show that I could support myself here, either through having found a job that I was legally qualified for, or being self employed. Thorough documentation of my self-employment got me the 'favorable' decision on my work permit opinion, and everything else fell into place. Total money sent to Finland to get both things out of the way: $164 and couple passport-type photographs, and the application process took 6 months from beginning to end. The stuff is valid for 1 year, and I have to reapply each year until I can get citizenship.
To get citizenship here, you have to live here legally for 5 years, and be able to speak one of the primary languages (Swedish or Finnish) when you apply. We'll see how that goes, as that is my plan for the future. Finnish is a very hard language to learn, btw, but within 5 years I hope to be able to get good enough.
So I now live in the Helsinki area and continue to work for my American customers. So far it is working out fine. My rent for this 2 bedroom apartment is around 480 euro/month and it is a decent sized apartment. One does not need a car to do most things around here. Each road of any size has a huge sidewalk the size of a lane of road, and this is for both bicycle riders and pedestrians. City-maintained bike+pedestrian paths also cut through every imagineable area one could presume one might fit, and the ones that cut through the woods are used as ski trails when it snows. The area is an interesting combination of urban + suburb, there are woods everywhere but at the same time, it is a real city. This place is a jogger's dream come true, and people of all ages ride bicycles all over the place. Even old people ride bikes.
P