I first encountered an expat community when I was serving my country in Korea. The bulk of the expats which I met in Seoul were American school teachers, teaching at on-post schools for dependent children of U.S. service members. The resultant journal entry was my first attempt at journaling as an adult. I was more than just a little bit intrigued by this group of people. They had been the furthest thing from my mind for a long time now, right up until I started thinking about writing this post.
Over the years I have given quite a bit of thought to living in a country other than the U.S. A bevy of motivators have been responsible for these fleeting thoughts. I imagine that nearly everyone who travels abroad goes back home with fantasies of moving to their recent vacation spot, but few actually follow through with it. We have a home back home, usually we have family ties to some piece of earth, for U.S. citizens it can be tough to get a job abroad – especially once you become old enough to actually know what you want to be when you grow up. Getting residency in a foreign country can be a much larger hassle than many of us want to take on. I’m sure it’s easier if, like the school teachers, you have sponsorship from an employer…but not all of us want an employer. For all the reasons that most of us decide not to take the plunge, the idea still lingers in my mind. Having been out of the U.S. for 14 months now, and thinking about my inevitable return I begin, again, to think about leaving…and staying gone.
I don’t intend for this to ever become a political blog. I rarely have a very strong opinion on anything political, save the snide remark I save to direct towards the dillweeds at the TSA (I know, I know, you work for the TSA and you’re not a dillweed – I was referring to your co-worker who is a dillweed of epic proportions). If I ever get energized about any political topic, it’s usually about something local to the place I call home.
When I read the details in the New York Times about the latest $700 billion bailout plan, it really turned my stomach and got me pretty upset. Dick Cheney received how much money when he “retired” from Haliburton? His compensation from Enron was how much? And he is not alone, he is simply the most visible to me. Politicians at all levels benefit greatly from this bailout, these same politicians have also benefited greatly from the poor decisions that these companies have made and now, they’re writing themselves more bonus checks backed by my tax dollars. This is the kind of thing that you hear about corrupt Venezuelan and Zimbabwean governments doing. Those in power are cashing in, and will leave the rest of us flat broke.
The alarming bit of the article I read about the new bailout is that Harvard educated economists are telling us that the current crisis is simply a matter of home prices falling. This simply isn’t so. Looked at real estate in the west? Home prices are mostly holding steady or going up. There may be cases where prices are falling, but these are isolated. Housing prices are going down where? Michigan maybe. This would be caused by a lack of jobs – not by market forces which can be legislated. Housing prices have been artificially high for several years now. Speculation has driven the prices up. It’s like a pyramid scheme…the first ones in actually can make money, but sooner or later, you run out of gullible people to buy into it and the scheme collapses under its own weight. The only way to correct housing prices is to let the market do what the market will do. By prolonging the inevitable, politicians and CEOs are merely extending their personal gains and extending the losses of hard-working folks who voted these asshats into office. Folks, we’re being taken for a ride.
The other driving force behind my renewed thoughts of leaving the U.S. is the overwhelming stupidity exhibited by – well, anyone who would vote for McCain/Palin – and believe me, there are a lot of them. If Sarah Palin represents what an American is, I don’t want to be one. Mind you, I’m not exactly an Obama fan either, and have absolutely no clue who Joe Biden is or what he stands for, but I do know that Palin spells trouble for America and that John McCain would be nothing more than another man of privilege that married into money if not for his P.O.W. status…hero? Meh…not in my book. Want to live in a Theocracy with a collapsed economy? Go ahead and vote for McCain/Palin. The voting public (wal-mart shoppers) seem to like Palin. My hope is that the upcoming debates will shed some light on how the candidates stand on the issues and expose Palin for the moronic, holier-than-thou piece of trailer trash that she is. The one positive note is that with a geezer and a redneck, Florida should be no contest this time around (I know, you’re from Florida and you’re not a redneck or a geezer…you are among a minority)
Now the question is, where does one move to? I mean, I certainly don’t want to renounce my citizenship, I am proud to be an American and if I happen to be part of a minority who doesn’t want to see my country plundered by corruption and greed then what options do I have until the next election or until this mess gets fixed up? Stay tuned as I will be exploring South America – the one continent I haven’t been on next (northern) spring/summer.
