almost 10% of U.S. households are looking at leaving

[Justin]

_http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=557107717

Funny quote from the video:

“1 out of 5 American households may want to leave the country? Why?? This is the greatest country in the world!”

and...

_http://online.barrons.com/article/SB119041441207935747-search.html?KEYWORDS=emigration&COLLECTION=barrons/6month

A New Life in Panama?
By BOB ADAMS
SEPTEMBER 24, 2007

IT WAS JANUARY OF 2006 AND COLEY WAS 39. He had written and asked if he and his friend Jon could talk to me about their idea of setting up an investment operation in Panama to work the Central American region on behalf of U.S. investors. So there I was sitting in a local restaurant, surprised that two young professionals with young families were seriously thinking of quitting their well-paid positions in the U.S. to start a business a few thousand miles away. Today, they are the owners of Latin American Venture Partners, successfully living with their families and working from their offices in Panama.

I've lived and worked overseas for four decades and have traveled to more than forty nations. My interest in moving to Panama was not related to retirement, though some retirement Websites that focus on Panama introduced me to the country.

After visiting and getting to know Panama, I appreciated that most of these Websites provided very little real information. So I set up my own Website, RetirementWave.com, to offer a view of the country without any commercial motivation. I saw it as a simple public service and I didn't waste any money promoting it.

I would have been happy to help a few dozen people get a clearer idea of the country; 200,000 visitors and 2,700 members later, I find myself with an unpaid job that takes a lot more of my attention than I ever imagined. The real surprise, though, is that more than 20% of my "Retirement Wave" members are in their 20s, 30s and 40s. They are not thinking in terms of retirement. They are interested in relocating to or investing in Panama.

They are part of a silent emigration of Americans, retirees and more, seeking to live and work in other nations -- and not just the wealthy nations of Europe.

How many? A State Department survey of its embassies and consulates in 1999 suggested a total of 4.1 million Americans living overseas at that point, but there's little good data. So my company, New Global Initiatives Inc., hired Zogby International to do surveys of adult Americans on the subject of relocation outside the U.S. With more than 115,000 respondents, we have the largest and, as far as we know, the only database on this topic.

We didn't focus on Panama or Central America; we collected information on every global destination. In refining our survey results, we first eliminated anyone relocating for less than two years, and anyone relocating because of the requirements of the government, the military or their jobs. We did include people who are not relocating but are seriously considering purchasing a vacation home or other property outside the U.S. This group is likely to include many who will later choose to relocate.

These results project the results of the surveys onto the entire U.S. population. The numbers are for households, not individuals.

• 1.6 million U.S. households have already made the decision to relocate. That figure has remained stable over the year and a half during which seven surveys were conducted.

• Another 1.8 million households are seriously considering relocation and are likely to do it.

• 7.7 million households are "somewhat seriously" considering relocation and "may" do it.

• Nearly 3 million households are seriously considering the purchase of a vacation home or other property outside the U.S., and another 10 million are "somewhat" seriously considering it.

Adding it up, almost 10% of U.S. households are looking at leaving the country, and another 10% are considering living outside the country part time. This silent emigration is ignored by nearly every population analyst.

These would-be emigrant households plan to spend an average of $260,000 on the purchase or construction of a house, and they plan to spend at least $36,000 annually on living expenses outside the U.S. In total, they represent the emigration of hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the U.S. economy.

The largest group actually having made the decision to relocate is in the households where the adults are 25 to 34 years old. Blame it on outdated 20th-century thinking, but I assumed this age group would be too busy establishing families and career paths to pull up stakes and move out of the country. Wrong. When it comes to a serious interest in buying a property outside the U.S., that youthful age group dominates. A lot of Americans are at various stages of considering relocation or buying property overseas, but the 25-34 age group is the one putting down the bucks to do it.

There will be plenty of social, economic, political and plain old-fashioned business consequences to this silent migration. The cost to the American economy could be more than just financial: Young Americans push new ideas into society. They build new companies and create new jobs. Stay-at-home Americans will be poorer without them, unless the country keeps the emigrants connected to the U.S., supports them and gets benefits from their movement into the new global culture.

 

[Laura]

No mention of the fact that the most likely reason they are leaving is that they see the U.S. as it is: a Fascist State rapidly headed toward destruction.

 

[Erna]

This article actually has a little relevance to an article on the front page of one of our major Sunday newspapers last Sunday.

The article said that the Republicans in the US had a new 'initiative' in response to emigration reform in the US. Since they (the Republicans) are of the opinion that the majority of Latin Americans who will soon gain legal citizenship in the US are inclined to vote for the Democratic Party, they are going to give citizenship to 25 million 'white, educated' South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders, in order to counter the vote.

The article said that people getting this citizenship will then have dual citizenship, that of their native country + then the US citizenship. It said that it is similar to the past when the US did the same thing with Irish and Jewish people. These individuals will then be able to roam freely between the US and their original countries, as the Irish and Jewish people apparently did.

They (the Republicans) are of the opinion that the people they give citizenship to will be more likely to vote Republican. The initiative was called something, which I can't remember, and I can't find that newspaper now, but it's something like 'Operation ...something...foireign...something

I don't know about Australia and NZ, but in South Africa dual citizenship is not allowed.

I just found this article a little odd.

 

[Erna]

Ah, I found the article:

www.news24.com/Rapport/Nuus/0,,752-795_2197222,00.html


I translate:


Americans are looking for Afrikaners to 'save' their country

The Republican Party in the US are in the process of discussing plans to recruit millions of Afrikaners, New Zealanders and Australians in response to illegal immigrants who who gain voting rights under a Democratic president like senator Hillary Clinton.

The Republicans will make a compromising deal with the Democrats: the Democrats can give amnesty to the 25 million illegal immigrants from Latin America, but then the Republicans must be able to recruit white immigrants from the southern hemisphere, which, according to them, will include all the white 'Afrikaners' in South Africa if needs be.

One possibility under discussion is to offer dual citizenship to 'Afrikaners', New Zealanders and Australians, similar like many Irish and Jewish Americans are currently enjoying roaming between Ireland, Israel and the US.

Mr. Robert J. Hoy, a Republican activist that calls himself a visionary and who is also the founder member of the 'Southern Strategy Movement', explained the plan to Rapport (the newspaper).

Hoy helped president Ronald Reagan to lure the Democratic Party working class into voting Republican.

Hoy says with the plan they want to show that 'the Afrikaner is not forgotten', but the idea is not to 'save' the Afrikaners.

"It is to save middle America which is squeezed dead in a sandwich of illegal immigrants."

Hoy says the amnesty plan of president George W. Bush (Republican) and senator Ted Kennedy (Democrat) by which illegal immigrants would acquire so-called "amnesty", would destroy middle America. The legislation was just shot down, but he believes Clinton (he doesn't doubt that she will become president) would pull the plan through to ensure a second term in the White House.

The American government estimate that there can be between 10 -12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

The people will get voting right automatically and soon, as citizens, they will be able to bring their families to America. Most of them will vote for the Democratic Party and that's why the Republicans need to counter that.

"First the image of the Afrikaner will have to be changed in America. They will need to be convinced that Afrikaners and Kiwis are basically Australians, people like us. They are our friends, our colleauges fighting alongside us in the frontlines against terrorism. One question I'm currently having difficulty with is this: What is currently good for the Afrikaner? Is it good to stay in South Africa or to leave the country?"

Hoy will soon visit South Africa to meet the "Afrikaners".



.........................

It sounds like they require more canon fodder.

It's not good English, I did this in a hurry.

...........................

 

[Joe]

We have reason to suspect that Canada has recently begun tightening its immigration policies vis a vis Americans, possibly in anticipation of many more Americans attempting to leave at some point in the not-too-distant future. US residents might be well advised to fasten their seatbelts and keep their eyes and ears wide open. Knowledge protects.

Joe

 

[Happyville]

We have reason to suspect that Canada has recently begun tightening its immigration policies vis a vis Americans, possibly in anticipation of many more Americans attempting to leave at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Having lived in Windsor for the better half of my life, I remember how free the boarders used to be between Canada and the US... As the following article points out correctly, it used to be no problem crossing the boarder and going for lunch... Now the bridge between Detriot and Windsor gets backed up for hours...

http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=3ccf4d2b-4b3b-4592-a91f-a0e7058ecf44&k=78419

The Windsor-Detroit border crossings have become like military checkpoints, a frustrated Detroit chamber of commerce vice-president said Thursday.

Expect things to get worse beacuse your Uncle Sam is making life hell to protect you!!! Americans have a strange way of looking at walls and borders, they think it keeps the rif-raf out, but it seems more and more like they are being shut in.

Travellers better not expect things to improve, officials said, forecasting security will get tighter to protect the U.S. from terrorists and other scourges, like drugs and illegal immigrants.