A Third of Americans Would Leave America

[WVREDLEG]

Originally Posted by ditchoc

I have often thought about all the good things about the USA. If I really thought about it, I could fill up several pages on the benefits of living in the USA. So many thing we take for granted that simply do not exist in other places.

I did the analysis on moving abroad and could not find enough to justify it. It was predicated on making my retirement dollars go further, not disdain or hate of this great country. I too, have traveled enough to see the top, bottom and sides of the hemispheres and there are some amazing opportunities for the right person to experience life abroad.

Reality TV is not reality, but entertainment passed off as educational, such as many of the pseudo-reality about buying or renting and living in property abroad. The editors do a great job of leaving out the downsides of that beautiful villa by the sea or the brightly painted island shack. Those shows affect my perception of living abroad in a very positive way--it makes me want to move. Then I snap back into reality and even the most shallow research quickly counters perceptions.

Talking about living abroad and actually doing it are far apart, even in a fickle poll. There are some honest expat bloggers out there who tell both sides of the life--be diligent in your research, and most importantly, be honest with yourself. Some of the decadent pleasures afforded to us in the USA are harder to let go of than one believes.

[Meyerland]

Originally Posted by randomparent

I would gladly live as a resident of another nation for a few years, and that is actually a possibility for us given my husband's career, but give up my citizenship? No. I'm quite happy to be an American, and that's the position taken by most people who indicated they would live elsewhere. In essence, the survey indicates that Americans (at least the sample who took part) have a sense of adventure, not that they would permanently renounce their citizenship.

Yes, this. Some of U.S. have careers or spouses with careers that take them all over the world. I still want to be a US citizen, and will always move back.

[middle-aged mom]

Originally Posted by John1960

Land of the free ... to move to another country? A recent poll of 2,000 adults concluded that 35% of Americans would consider quitting the US and living abroad. That number jumps to 55% in the 18 to 34 demographic, per the poll by Transferwise, a UK-based money transfer service.

Survey says: 35 percent of Americans would expatriate

One- third of 2000 polled " would consider" leaving.

After consideration how many not already long time working and living elsewhere would actually do so?

[middle-aged mom]

Originally Posted by Ceece

My adult kids are actively pursuing dual citizenship with a couple countries. I don't know if any of them will pan out yet but documentation gathering has begun. Not that they WANT to leave necessarily, but they like the idea that they would have a choice if things ever get too bad.

There's an old saying :

When the U.S. sneezes, the world catches a cold.

[wildflower82]

Originally Posted by Ceece

My adult kids are actively pursuing dual citizenship with a couple countries. I don't know if any of them will pan out yet but documentation gathering has begun. Not that they WANT to leave necessarily, but they like the idea that they would have a choice if things ever get too bad.

Seems to me if the USA gets real bad, where else is going to be safer? People tend to look at other countries as if they have it together and will want Americans to enter, when America erupts.

I have a feeling many are going to be surprised they really have no place to go. On top of they spent time and money preparing to leave and did nothing to prepare for having to stay.

My family and I will either live or die right here in the USA......never even a thought of leaving.

[Delahanty]

Lol.

They'd consider it? Even when polling for presidential elections, pollsters know enough to give credence to likely voters rather than those who simply like to flap their gums.

What a crock of baloney.

[apexgds]

I wonder if they realize that unless they actually renounce their US citizenship, they'll still have to pay taxes?

[Oldhag1]

Originally Posted by John1960

Land of the free ... to move to another country? A recent poll of 2,000 adults concluded that 35% of Americans would consider quitting the US and living abroad. That number jumps to 55% in the 18 to 34 demographic, per the poll by Transferwise, a UK-based money transfer service.

Survey says: 35 percent of Americans would expatriate

There is a huge difference between "would consider" and "want to". Yes, we lived overseas for employment reasons, so obviously we were willing to consider it but we didn't seek it out. That's one of the problems with some poll results, too much of the time the results are all about how the question is asked instead people's true feelings.

[seasick]

Originally Posted by John1960

Land of the free ... to move to another country? A recent poll of 2,000 adults concluded that 35% of Americans would consider quitting the US and living abroad. That number jumps to 55% in the 18 to 34 demographic, per the poll by Transferwise, a UK-based money transfer service.

Survey says: 35 percent of Americans would expatriate

And they'd probably come right back again, unless emigrating to Australia.

[wildflower82]

Originally Posted by FlowerPower00

Canada is nice, they have clean drinking water, and health care.

This may change your mind: The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care by David Gratzer, City Journal Summer 2007

My health-care prejudices crumbled not in the classroom but on the way to one. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic—with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks.
I decided to write about what I saw. By day, I attended classes and visited patients; at night, I worked on a book. Unfortunately, statistics on Canadian health care’s weaknesses were hard to come by, and even finding people willing to criticize the system was difficult, such was the emotional support that it then enjoyed. One family friend, diagnosed with cancer, was told to wait for potentially lifesaving chemotherapy. I called to see if I could write about his plight. Worried about repercussions, he asked me to change his name. A bit later, he asked if I could change his sex in the story, and maybe his town. Finally, he asked if I could change the illness, too.


Clean Water you say: Clean Water Scarcity in Canada - Worldpress.org

"Our water smells like raw sewage right now," says Gull, head of the water treatment program at Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario. "It's very septic. … There's lots of bad stuff in here, lots of dead organic matter.
Chief Connie Gray-McKay of Mishkeegogamang First Nation, 500 kilometers northwest of Thunder Bay, has similar concerns. "Our water smells like iron and magnesium. People have allergic reactions to it, and their laundry turns yellow."
Attawapiskat and Mishkeegogamang are among the 112 reserves, out of 633, where the water is not considered safe to drink, according to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. In the past, says Merrell-Ann Phare of the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Research, as many as one in three reserves have lacked safe water. There are no statistics kept on how many people are affected, but "you're talking about quite a few people," says Phare.
The decline in water quality "is caused by human choices to pollute," says Phare. "There aren't always toxic contaminants, but there can be erosion, turbidity, agricultural runoff, fertilizer and manure. … These are legally licensed activities; our government says they will allow this, but they need to be taking into account the cumulative effects of multiple industries.

The dilapidated condition of many reserve houses also worsens the problem. "A lot of homes are not retrofitted for sinks and tubs, and we don't want to create a bigger problem by putting in pipes and then the pipes freezing," says Gray-McKay. Hence, she says, "some parts of the community have running water and some don't."
In households without indoor plumbing, Gray-McKay explains, "some people use slop pails. You know, like when you have your washroom inside the pail?"
The health consequences for the residents are often serious. "Children have rashes and gastrointestinal issues; there are complications of diabetes," says Phare. "The H1N1 epidemic was exacerbated in these communities because people could not practice sanitation measures like hand washing … so the virus spread and the infection rate was much higher."
Speaking to MP Charlie Angus in a Huffington Post video blog in October 2011, Dr. John Waddell of the Weeneebayko Health Authority blames dirty water and substandard housing for "infectious diseases of the respiratory tract and the digestive tract, colds, ear infections, strep throat, bronchitis and a variety of illnesses" as well as damage to the sense of self-worth of young people who are reduced to using a pail for a washroom.
Angus' video blog went viral and drew national attention to Attawapiskat's dire condition. But Gull says a lack of safe drinking water is nothing new on the reserve. "The first water treatment plant burned down in 1987. We built a new one in 1989 but started having problems with it right away because they introduced the wrong kind of treatment."
Faucets and pipes are also a recent development. "We only introduced running water and [plumbing for] sewage in 1996," he says. "Before that, we used watering holes and people hauled their water."

Pollution into the oceans: Canada Flushes Raw Sewage Into the Ocean
Canadian Coastal Cities Dump Raw Sewage in the Ocean
A number of municipalities throughout Canada persist in this practice that the Sierra Legal Defence Fund calls a “national disgrace,” particularly coastal cities where for many years the sewage could be dumped in open water and remain out of sight and out of mind for many people.
Unlike the European Union and the United States, Canada has no national standards for sewage treatment that cities and towns must follow. So while some Canadian cities have top-notch sewage treatment facilities, others have none.
Even Montreal, a seemingly world-class city, pumps 900 billion liters of sewage into the St. Lawrence River. Most of it receives primary treatment, which reduces the number of solids somewhat by means of a settling process, but 3.6 billion liters of that total enters the river as untreated raw sewage.

Good luck to those who think Canada is doing better than the USA!