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Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Place To Relocate?
New submitter tsakas writes: "I am an IT researcher from southern Europe looking for a good place to relocate. Markets are pulling the teeth out of the strong European countries by destroying the south. The U.S. is in debt and there is no way of telling how long this can go on. China and India are on the rise. Brazil and Australia are looking good. The question: Which city would you choose to go and start a family if you were to stay there for a) 5, b) 10 and c) 20 years?"
Earth is screwed
Google Fiber
Canada is the place to be IMHO. With the stable economy, the speedy rise of the IT sector and easy Permanent Residence options, it should be your best bet, both in the short and the long run.
Stay where you are. "I believe I have the nondisprovable ability to predict worldwide economic trends" is a terrible reason to move.
As a person who was born in one country, brought up in a second, did college in a third, married a woman in a fourth, and when back to live in the country I did college in, I do not belong anywhere. I would move to any country that provided me with an opportunity I was interested in. There are stupid immigration hurdles and such you have to deal with, and those are artificial constructs that we have created to slow the movement of people like me.
There is a saying in my parent's tongue. I am a pigeon, I fly wherever the seeds are. You should do that too.
China and India are on the rise. Brazil and Australia are looking good.
Can you speak the language? What are the immigration policies of these countries?
What benefits would that provide to the submitter?
It depends on what you value. You're from "Southern Europe". That's semi-specific. What sort of place are you looking for? Good schools? What kind of community do you want? What kind of language skills do you have and/or are willing to acquire? What sort of culture are you looking for?
Plus, your economic analysis is overly simplistic:
The U.S. is in debt and there is no way of telling how long this can go on.
If the US experiences a major economic collapse, there is no place in the world where you won't feel the effects of that. Or at least, no place in the world where you can hold a job as an "IT researcher".
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
But you said raising a family.
This means "where would you go so your kids will have the best opportunities in their lifetimes."
Unless money to travel and attend college abroad is no object, this requires a much longer time horizon than 20 years.
Unfortunately, any reasonably precise prediction of where the world - or any part of it - will be politically and socially 20+ years from now has a high margin of uncertainty.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Umm.. no. If you are going to North America, go to Canada. Specifically Western Canada. Crime is very very low compared to the US, the economy is very strong compared to everywhere else in the world, and we don't expect you to shed your culture.
No matter where you look, each location will have its own fair share of problems. Rather then picking a location based on economics and political issues, pick a location where you will be happy.
Now obviously, being happy is contingent on being employed and being able to live where you choose, but I guarantee you one thing, following the money does not always work.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Good weather. Anglophone. Fun people. Healthy culture. Melbourne was just voted the most livable city in the world again. Economy booming because of natural resources being mined out of the ground and sent to China. All you really need to adapt to is driving on the left.
I hear what others say about Scandinavia, and those countries truly have their shit together, but I'd find the long dark winters to be very depressing.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
One thing you have to keep in mind that China and India "on the rise" are still far worse off than US and Europe. There's no guarantee they'll be better in 20 years even if they sustain that rise, which they won't necessarily do - China in particular has a pretty nasty bubble ready to burst.
I'd stick to developed countries for the simple reason that you get some basic guarantees there that you don't in the third world should things go very wrong. For the same reasons I'd avoid US long-term - it's a good place to earn money during the productive period of your career, but not so good to retire in. If you're already in Europe, it's probably easier to go for one of the better developed countries there as they're more likely to weather the storms - Germany or France are two obvious destinations. Then there's Scandinavia - Finland looks surprisingly decent on many counts if you're willing to live with the weather.
If you are really bent on seeking something outside of Europe, consider Canada - a saner version of US on so many counts, especially economy wise. And you still have US nearby, which is convenient for shopping and some other things. Very easy to immigrate to, as well. Australia is also a very decent option, and if you're a believer in China long-term, you should consider them for the simple reason that it's in the same region and China is their major trade partner.
Sounds like someone who has never set foot inside the U.S. Our civil War settled this issue long ago, there is no getting out of the Union. If anything you will see solidarity and calls for war if our creditors decide to get uppity.
Good-bye
What's the Best Place To Relocate?
That's a tough question. Most areas are heavily acclimated to their current location. Anything non-trivial would have to swapped with something else, rather than simply relocated. Swapping even geographic close regions like North and South Dakota could have drastic unforeseen consequences; certainly swapping larger areas like France and Spain are right out. Perhaps a building or ballpark would be a good candidate for relocation, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
Any ideas /. ?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
why are you relocating? if you fear for the wellbeing of your family you should know the health insurance for american workers is generally inferior to that of many european nations especially when considering their family coverage. The public education is routinely inferior as well, and 40 hours per week for tech workers is conservative in many cases. You arent going to see much more than 1-2 weeks of vacation in the first year in the states, and several of the southern states are sadly virulently xenophobic.
can you clarify on what you mean by markets pulling the teeth out of strong european countries? You make it seem like you've simply become jaded by a spate of recent financial reforms. Strong Europeans are the backbone of strong European countries, so if you and others leave it simply leaves more room to turn the EU into a libertarian dystopia.
Good people go to bed earlier.
here's how I would do it: first 5 years in US, which probably won't collapse before then, and if it gets close, we'll just hornswoggle the Chinese into buying a bunch of movie studios like we did with the Japanese. Next 10 years in China. Make sure you pick up Mandarin. Parlay your ability to quote verbatim the scripts of popular 80's action movies into a career as executive of a floundering movie studio. Walk out of the office one day saying "I'll be back." Never go back. Next 20 years in Brazil, where you'll leverage your Chinese connections to become a major wheeler dealer in a revival of the opium trade. The most important thing is to leave no trace as you proceed. You don't want families 1.0 or 2.0 paying you and Conchita an unexpected visit in your Sau Paulo hacienda.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
The US's major creditor is also its biggest trading partner. China can't wreck the US economy without destroying their own. And if you think the US needs Chinese stuff, China needs US markets more. The debt is not a big deal other than as a political flamebait; if it was, institutional money wouldn't still be using dollars as a reserve currency and running up US equity markets.
Also FYI, be good at what you do and no financial crisis can hurt you.
History tells a different story.
Being good at what you do alone will not insulate you from financial crisis's, you also have to make good business decisions.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
But still...so far, we're still doing better than much of the EU which is going down the tubes...
And I can't imagine wanting to live in India or China...from the images I've seen of the general living conditions in each of those countries, I don't think I'd care to live there!! If nothing else, recent articles about India's problems with energy infrastructure.
I kinda go back to an old saying I hears..."...sure the US sucks, but it sucks a whole lot less than it sucks everywhere else in the world.
I'm quite pessimistic these days about the US economy...the printing of money and all as you've alluded to, but hell...I can't imagine it will be a lot better anywhere else in the world at the point in time.
I'm worried about the current administrations spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave....I hope it gets better next year, but I'm not sure of that. It would likely take a bunch of the politicians that cared about the US...to get in there, and not worry about re-election, and vote and do what has to be done.
Those steps would be unpopular with many, but to save the US economy in the long run, we're gonna have to cut a LOT of spending, and a lot of that is social programs, there's just no two ways about it. Medicare will likely go bankrupt in the near future if nothing is done.
And likely any thing seriously done to fix it...will not get you re-elected, but man...someone....actually a large group of folks need to get into office by whatever means....and sacrifice their political careers and fix things.
But, even with that diatribe....I can't see it being any better outside the US. Quality of life and all is still great here, better than what I've seen when I've been outside the country.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Living in a foreign place can be pretty lonely. It's no surprise that people are of the opinion that their own country is one of the best places to live. It's not a uniquely American phenomena. The handful of Frenchmen I know hold the same view of their homeland (save one, who actually like the US better than France).
I think it takes a certain personality to enjoy travel and new places. Some of us are homebodies, and I think it is unreasonable to view us as backwards or ignorant of the world.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Right now 10 year treasury bonds are selling at rates that mean investors *lose* money, accounting for inflation. Tell me again how our debt makes us in trouble?
The US's major creditor is itself. Foreign investment accounts for only 32% of US debt. China just happens to be the largest single foreign owner, but their ownership of total US debt is only about $1.2 Trillion or about 11% of total debt.
You are correct though, China's economy is very dependent upon the US and they do not have enough control, power, influence, etc, to crash the US economy.
I hail from Australia, and always felt that I was in a very small country with limited opportunities, despite everything going for it. Probably a fantastic country to raise kids or retire, but the economy isn't as big, and there aren't as many opportunities as, say, the US or UK.
I wanted out, because I wanted to swim in a bigger pond. It was a tossup between the US and the UK, and because I had an easy visa (something you might like to consider), I just went to London. The UK has big social problems (even more than the US, it has a huge, feral, festering underclass, and I get the impression that the UK is a *BAD* place to be down on your luck), but if you're good at what you do, you can probably afford to live in a good areas and send your kids to decent schools and generally stay away from all the shit. London is a huge, bustling, dynamic place that's fairly close by, and there's something here for just about everyone (unless you're poor, of course).
You're southern European, as you say, so don't forget that you have EU treaty rights. There are plenty of options for relocation within Europe.
That said, you wouldn't want to retire here. I certainly don't plan on sticking around past retirement.
1st of all: If I would want to start a family I wouldn't plan to go anywhere for less than 20 years. Times are unruly enough as it is. With children you want a good school, a good community and - most important of all - a good wife and her our yours or both families near by. Everything else comes second!
If you want to start a family you should even consider a career change if that is required to provide for the other things mentioned above. The family will be your primary fullfillment, not the job, so you might as well work as a bricklayer, provided the income is enough. Also factor in: Free housing or easy real estate from your family or in-laws, quality of life, happiness of wife (where does she want to live and raise children) etc. All of these are *way* more important than monetary income. Especially in times like these.
If I'd start a family again, I'd move together with my girlfriend in the town she lives, simply because her career is way more solid than mine right now. And I wouldn't care if I were the main caregiver to children and would be driving a dump-truck on the side. Be prepared to do that aswell if your future wife turns out to be the vice-exec of some uprising company or having and wanting to keep a more stable career than you aparently have right now.
2.) If you want to earn money in IT and are prepared to leave everything behind, you do the full monty and should get prepared to move anywhere within a few weeks notice, at any time and occasion. Singapur, Silicon Valley, Moskow, Dubai perhaps and maybe some high-polpulation areas in china are where the partys at right now. Live out of the suitcase or in microapparments for the next 15 years, rake in some stable cash or real estate and buy/build a home for your old age.
3.) If you aren't prepared to go full-on cyberpunk and move around the globe for the rest of your working career you should stay put right where you are and adapt. If the Euro goes belly-up and the world finally notices that the US dollar isn't worth the paper its printed on then you'll be glad if you've got some contacts to a local farmer and some real-estate and a small shed on it somewhere in southern europe. And maybe some solar panels to power your computers. I'd be happy if I had that. I'm living in a single room sharing flat with 6 people in Germany and right now things aren't looking up, even for an expert like me. Living expenses are through the roof, the IT staff shortage is nothing but a legend to keep wages at the 2002 minimum and inflation is ramping up allready.
Bottom line: Move for the family you want to start, and *only* for that, go fully international and prepare to relocate to Timbuktu if the money and/or the benefits package is right or stay put, get by somehow and prepare for some elongated worldwide economic downtime.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Speaking for my church.
We don't have the recession, we don't have the climate problem, we don't have gun, neither any strong social/cultural problem.
We do have a strong IT/software development infrastructure from aerospace to game field or financial institution.
We are a multilingual and multicultural city, you can find food and language from anywhere around the globe here.
We do have apartment or house that doesn't ask you a arm.
We do have nice commuting infrastructure, the metro (subway) are underground, some apartment building and office building have direct access to the metro... so you don't have to but your nose outside during the cold day of the winter or the hot day of the summer.
We have a unique family policy that put the children as a societal value (6-8 month of parental care for a new birth, cheap children gardening, real restaurant with children place...)
In the city of Montreal, you will find a lot of natural park and children park.
Park are big enough to do mountain bike, skying, and so on....
Lot of Europeans people work in the IT field in Montreal, you will not look that strange...
It's easy to have the canadien residence for a european
If you have a diploma from a know european university, you will have a job faster than the canadian residence.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Speaking as a naturalized American who spent 20 years living abroad, mostly in western Europe, there is nothing better than traveling abroad to convince even the most anti-American American (yes there are many, mostly of the 'grass is always greener on the other side' type) just how great the USA really is.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Well I'm from Canada, been to the UK and Italy as well as Switzerland and Holland, also been on missions to Kenya and Haiti, i can safely say that the U.S by far is the best place to be (even if they are printing money). Will that do for non-biased or will only the answer you want to hear be sufficient for you?
1. Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction
That sounds like a cure that's worse than the disease. Unless there's a very careful plan to phase that in gradually, that'll produce a fat pile of foreclosures.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Er, there's a rather large country with lots of open spaces right next door, that someone might consider as a viable option to the US or Europe. You know, Canada, that place where we've weathered the downturn better, are on track (in 2-3 years or so, unless Europe implodes) to eliminate the temporary deficits we ran up to keep our heads above water during the financial crisis and go back to running surpluses, have universal, single payor health care (at half the price per capita of US health care), similar standard of living, stable democracy, and politicians who are saner than the US ones, even if I don't like anything our current government is doing.
Just sayin'.
(We've got our own problems here, no question, but we're in better shape than the US, for the foreseeable future)
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
US Bond Rates (US Debt) is currently under inflation. Really that means countries are buying US dollars at a loss to them. In a global recession like this, the whole world is screwed. The US is strong enough to endure this. The idea of China is going to cash in all at once is ludicrous because if the US economy is killed so is China's.
What people don't seem to realize, we are in a global recession, during these recessions most of the normal rules of economics are messed up.
Recession isn't a lack of money but the lack of moving it around. So...
1. The Rich will hoard all their money they make. They will not start investing it out (trickle down) until the economy improves, right now many investments are too risky so they will hold on to their profits, vs using it towards growth.
2. Putting money in Low Yield but Safe investments. (High US debt,) US Bonds are the safest place to put your money... Yes at the rates you will loose money, but you will loose it at a slower rate then other investments.
3. Increased Crime, People who do not have an income will get what they want at any costs, also the rich who do have what they want will try every trick in the book to prevent too much loss. So more crime happens and the victims (sometimes poor, sometime rich) loose what is theirs, thus making life harder for them.
4. Radical Political Stance. Things have gone wrong. the guys in charge seem to be moderates and doing too little too slowly. Lets try to get someone who will make the trains run on time, and punish the opposition who possibly caused the problem in the first time.
5. Less funding on infrastructure. Things go in disrepair and we cannot benefit as much from it.
What happened with this recession (A very basic explanation/my opinion) is that it was building up for a long time (I would say from the mid 90's) Because between the mid-late 90's-mid 2000's we had a decade of bubbles (false economic success) First we had the y2k fix/internet tech bubble, we had a need to upgrade or redo our infrastructure to handle Y2K, being that a lot of it is just get new stuff, we started to take advantage of the new stuff (Aka Internet) so we had a bubble there, with young kids with Economy 2.0 and sell at a loss and make it up by selling a lot of it. After 2001/2 the infrastructure had been upgraded, and the stupid business models couldn't hold on for that long. So the Tech bubble popped. But at the same time, of the tech bubble popped we got the housing bubble. Like the tech bubble, we got a lot of bad (illegal) business ideas accepted by well known companies. Democrats and Republicans didn't do much to stop it, because citizens are getting the American dream of their own home, and the growth seemed endless. We saw signs of trouble but were ignorant of it because the bubble was keeping us going. After the housing bubble popped, we didn't have a strong bubble to go onto the next step. Thus a Huge recession.
It is a perfect storm that causes a downward spiral, that feeds itself. Unfortunately the only thing that will really fix it, is time. At some point there will some new invention or idea that will spur more innovation. The rich will want to expand again, and things will improve. Having this recovery be slow, although it is very painful for a lot of people, is probably a good thing over all. We are building strong fundamentals (which Bush was incorrect when he said that) again, our core values are returning, get rich quick isn't the mantra anymore. So things will slowly get better.
The United States has actually weathered the recession over all a lot better then most other countries.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And not start from the bottom of the pile in the first place.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
The better question is where can I relocate and survive outsourcing? Outsourcing is the number one threat to job stability no matter what country you are in. When I was younger I thought it was a problem with job being outsourced from more expensive northern states to cheaper southern states - it was. As I grew older I learned that was just the tip of the iceberg and that outsourcing meant you were competing against people all over the world. Outsourcing means that your job can be sent all over the world.
It doesn't matter where you go, you will face the same problems. Not only that you will also face all of the challenges of being an immigrant. Over the years I have talked with IT people from places like India and even there they outsource their jobs to other firms.
The bottom line is that you have to find a job that is difficult to outsource. There are ways to do this, for example find a job that can't be outsourced out of the country for national security reasons. Find a job that involves working directly with people and requires face to face interaction as a consultant. Find a job that requires your presence and not your skills.
You can be replaced, and companies will spend a fortune to do do it because in the long run they /perceive/ that they will save an even larger fortune by doing so.
All the houses are crap and Mike Holmes is going a round fixing them ONE AT A TIME!!!
1.) very reasonable priced health care ! (contributions will be transfered by your employer to the insurance company from your salary)
- the health care insurance company is not allowed to pick, they have to take anybody
2.) good job market
3.) reasonable priced rent
4.) you can mostly get along with speaking english,
but learning german is not that hard,
Example: that iranian young women whose face pic was taken from facebook by western media due to a name glitch, she was prosecuted by the mullahs,
got asylum here and after only one and a half year she is fluent and speaks execelent, she was on radio last week.
If you want to learn german the national public radio (not npr) has a livestream,
http://www.dradio.de/
you can also find places on the internet where you can watch our exported tv series ("Der Tatort" which translates as "The Crime Scene" or "Derrek" these got even dubbed with japanese language for Japan of course!!)
5.) state forced sponsored pension (will be transfered by your employer as part of your salary) after your 67 birth day these insurance benefits will be paid
6.) disabled persons & families are last to be fired (workers rights)
7.) strong unions
8.) from north to south, funny speaking people
9.) reasonable wages
When you negotiate your salary keep taxes and other things in mind (~%43 will be subtracted from your salary) so just add it beforehand !
10.) IT, Tech & Engineering Jobs
I love my country so I'd like to present my country to people in this world, european, african, asian, indian.
Think of finding a job ?
-> Try Germany!
If by "Europe" is doing badly you must surely mean the Eurozone. Unemployment in Norway/Sweden/even formerly bankrupt Iceland is very good. If you're having kids, the 2 months mandatory paternity leave in Sweden would be nice. You'd get to spend time with your kids and not have to work all the time and it allows your spouse to keep a career too. The governments themselves are very stable with the lowest levels of corruption in the world (if only Greece could say the same!), allowing the high tax rate to give you a decent rate of return on services you receive.
In short, it's the southern European welfare state on steroids but done responsibly.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Of course if money is your primary choice, I would suggest Australia.
As someone who thought the same a few years back, I'd highly discourage this as a course of action. In Australia, I made far more money than in my native New Zealand, but it was all eaten up with the ridiculous cost of living. Sure, some places might be cheaper than Sydney, but good luck finding a well paying job outside of Sydney (if you do, grab it - it probably WILL be worth it).
Since moving to Hannover, Germany, my pay stayed around the same or increased slightly and my cost of living went down by more than 50%. I feel significantly better off here than I ever did in Sydney.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
You don't understand the definition of "insolvent". US GDP is approx $15 Trillion. The total output of the US economy in 1 year would be sufficient to pay back all Federal debt. This is like having in income of $80,000 a year and owing $85,000 dollars. Insolvency would be more like if federal debt was 10x GDP.
The US - still the best place to live
That's simply not true. The best places to live are canada, australia or northern europe.
e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_most_livable_cities or http://money.msn.com/family-money/the-worlds-15-best-places-to-live/ etc.
For a southern european the best (and by far easiest) bet is simply northern europe, including germany, but preferably somewhere not in the euro zone. Even somewhere that is indexed to the euro, but not on the euro.
The US can be lucrative if you're in IT. But it has unnecessarily long work hours, bad health care, and a persistent civil rights and racism problem that aren't worth dealing with if you can avoid it. Not that europe doesn't have racism problems too, but they're different than in the US, so why deal with the US problem at all? If you go to the US and have kids you have to worry about the education they'll get, how you'll pay for post secondary etc. In a civilized country those are problems, but at 1/10th the magnitude, so why would you deal with it? Healthcare is the same sort of problem. If you're going to the US you may as well talk about brazil, russia, china, there are all very lucrative opportunities but you can also end up really screwed if the police or government or just some random local asshole decides they want rid of you.
If you're seriously worried about politics then the US and UK in particular are bad places to be. Both have political parties (the conservatives in the UK and the Republicans in the US) pushing thoroughly discredited economic policies on their own country, and that again, is just not worth dealing with. It's not that their problems aren't solvable, it's that the people in charge are deliberately not solving them. Germany is in the same boat, but their discredited policies are fucking over the rest of europe, rather than themselves.
Failing a european solution, which from an immigration perspective is by far the easiest, your second choice is probably canada. Australia is probably more lucrative, and you don't have to worry about being dragged down by the americans the way we do in canada, or buried in our own internal political stupidity (the french separatists in quebec, the Alberta-ontario split on oil vs manufacturing etc.) but canada is much closer to europe physically, which makes going home a lot less painful.
Then it's a matter of immigration. I'm not 100% sure on australia, but I would think they have the same thing as everywhere else, if you have paper IT skills it's easier to get immigration, at which point any of canada, australia, new zealand all work reasonably well.
The problem is the questioner is an "IT Researcher". It's hard to know what exactly that means. Is that a PhD in some IT field looking for a faculty position? Then basically anywhere you can find a job is the right answer, because faculty positions are decent everywhere. If you're looking for private sector research that's much harder, because it depends what you can do exactly.
It's not that there aren't great opportunities in second and 3rd world countries, there are, but if you don't know your way around the local system it's very hard to capitalize on those without a lot of money to start with. If you're just looking for a job to settle your life down with, then go somewhere with a high per capita income, decent vacation time, decent education and decent healthcare (on which the US gets 1/4, canada australia 3/4 and northern europe 4/4).
Hmmm. I disagree, as someone who left the US and moved to Canada to start a business.
The process is actually exactly as easy here, overall, my taxes are comparable- maybe slightly lower (Washington vs Alberta), and the crime rate in this city is substantially lower, despite it being a very close approximation of the same place in the US (Seattle vs Calgary).
Canada's economy has a stronger growth outlook for the 5 year horizon than the US, the dollar is stronger than the greenback (though that's bad if you're exporting) and the housing market has been much more stable. Plus, I don't have to shell out $900 per month per employee for health coverage. I'm not sure I could afford to do that, I'd probably just go without... And that sucks, but it's the price of being an entrepreneur in the US, and that's pretty fuckin' lame if you ask me.
If you look at studies, the US has a lower economic mobility and a higher prevalance of "social class" being an indicator of future success than almost any country in the world (it rivals Russia in this way).
Having seriously lived in both places and having moved to Canada to start a business, I'm going to tell you that you have been fed a line of patriotic froth and while you're free to blather on with your opinion, it's pretty funny to watch from here.
It is a huge Deal!
No, really, it's not. Saying it's a huge deal doesn't make it a huge deal.
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/pages/textview.aspx?data=yield
Your debt is at negative interest rates for anything past 10 year notes. 16 trillion dollars is spread across 330 million people.
What matters isn't how much debt you have. That sounds strange, but hear me out. If you owed me 1 million dollars but I was charging you 1% interest a year (10k/year) you could probably manage. If you owed me 100k at 10% interest a year the net cost is the same. So then the issue with the US is whether or not your interest rates are going to magically spike (which despite all the predictions they haven't), and if they do whether or not you can still pay the debt off. Which you can.
The US debt problem is *entirely* an artificial political construction. Right now you should be borrowing several hundred billion dollars a year more to fund job creation (in this case in particular probably infrastructure rebuilding) so you can get the economy back to growing. Paying people unemployment when you could pay them to do work is simply stupid. Leaving people unemployed when there is work that needs to be done and you can borrow money at negative interest rates to pay them to do it is willful damage to the economy.
The way out of any debt problem for a government once the economy picks back up (which is different from a person) is to manage the money supply to keep interest rates low relative to nominal GDP growth (nominal GDP grows with inflation, productivity and population), and then make sure you have sensible tax revenue, especially when the economy is doing well. The US has a nominal GDP growth rate of 5% a year over the last 60 or so years (and remember the government can tweak that number itself with inflation and immigration), so even running a 4% of GDP deficit (which right now would be about 640 billion dollars) is still shrinking the relative size of the debt, which is all that matters.
He knows exactly what exponential means.
You must have led a pretty sheltered life to say that.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
You've never been to Australia, mate. Better quality of life. EU style healthcare so you don't lose your life savings when some doctor surprises you with his out-of-network facility or lab fees. If you get cancer and are too weak to work you don't lose your health coverage, so there's at least some chance of continuing medical treatment undisrupted to possibly beat your disease or at least leave your kids an inheritance. Better work-life balance, longer vacations, less expensive to fly from Oz to hundreds of tropical destinations. A road trip could take you to any type of landscape you prefer (though mostly desert in the interior, but no worse than the American West).
Australia doesn't have as many "enemies" as America, so traveling with an Aussie passport is generally safer, and it isn't as likely to get nuked off the planet in WW3. Only problem is so many people want to move to Australia that immigration is tight. But if you're under 40 and have technical or trade skills you'll probably get in. It helps to speak English like a native speaker, as well as if you come from a Commonwealth country. The Aussies, due to geography, have an advantage trading with China, India, and other nations in the Pacific Rim. Very little national debt, so economy is great, but trying hard to get more immigrants with high-tech skills. Lots of land in the interior, though water is in short supply, so sustainable agriculture for a growing population could be an issue in the future. If China ever seeks military expansion like Japan in WW2 then Australia could be a target for invasion, but what are the odds, right? China on the warpath wouldn't be good for anybody in the way, and the USA is more of a threat to China than Australia. All said, thousands of miles of ocean separating Australia from the rest of the world means that military threats can only come from heavily industrialized nations with substantial military forces. There is illegal immigration, but limited to boat people, so no porous border issues to worry about. Little to no terrorist threat to Aussie soil, though occaissionally Aussies can be targeted in hot zones if the terrorists can't find any Americans. Australia tends to be more "out of sight - out of mind" and generally not considered a threat to any other nations. Aussies also benefit from being a Commonwealth country, making future travel or immigration easier. Better social safety net for people down on their luck (though some abusers too lazy to work, so taxes are higher than the US). Relationship with indigenous people can be touchy at times due to abuses in the past, and some present-day conflicts over sacred sites, but Australian aborigines tend to be easy to get along with. Much less racism compared to KKK and Black Panthers in America. Murder rate is lower as well (4.2 in US vs. 1.0 in Australia, per UNODC). All in all its hard to imagine a much better place.
*High work hours are easy to fix -
http://squirrelers.com/2010/10/20/vacation-days-by-country-how-do-we-rate/
By moving to europe. US 25 days off a year. Just about everywhere else on the list, more than 30, with some over 40. Even working a shitty call centre job in ireland will get you 5 weeks vacation. Finding that in the US or canada if you're not a professor is basically impossible.
*Health care is not an issue with health insurance (salaried IT worker). US physician skill level, medical equipment, drugs, and access/availability of care are top notch.
False. Lose your job, lose your insurance. You also pay a lot for inferior care. Even those insured in the US get bad care. The problem in the US is that you actually get a lot of treatments (even covered ones) that aren't very good, and insurance providers are interested in reducing costs or attracting customers with flashy treatments, not trying to provide the best care for the minimum cost. This is why, for example, the poorest in the UK get better healthcare on average than the richest in the US. e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/world/europe/03health.html?_r=1 and the UK system provides better outcomes for everyone.
Lets not get into things like lifetime caps on insurance, or not getting preventative care covered, because Obamacare will theoretically help but it's still an enormously wasteful system.
I saw significantly more racism/hate of specific foreign cultures/immigrants when living in areas of Finland
Without a doubt. Europe has a racism problem. It's just a different racism problem than the one in the US. If you're used to the one in europe why bother getting used to the one in the US? The racism problem in europe is going to get worse before it gets better as it becomes 'blame the turk' 'blame the arab' 'blame the indian' 'blame the roma' etc. for all that ails them, and their lack of jobs.
but they're often expensive
Unnecessarily expensive. As an american you are in many cases likely to get a better education for less money by being a foreign student in Canada or europe (paying 20k a year in tuition) than by staying in the US. Some of the state schools in the US aren't bad and aren't soul crushingly expensive, but every school in canada australia or europe is 'not bad and not soul crushingly expensive'.