westindies -- no tax burden - peace of mid -- great cllimate --but poor medical faciliates . give a thought
I still think you should me with us to the Dominican Republic. It is still somewhat a third world country, but they do have some tax benefits for those who want to manufacture there. High return on savings in the D.R. peso. Property values keep going up because of more foreign investment which is now becoming more popular for Americans (U.S.) Contact me about what we are doing Will, I can even meet you there since I will be going there for a week to check some things out. I have friends in 3 cities/areas that can give you pointers. Just don't get sucked into a house deal without knowing the area. Be willing to hire a maid and be part of the community. No religious government. Many people are Catholic by birth, so their religion doesn't even mean much to many of them, kind of like Mexico.
Malaysia is one of the countries I'd consider living in for a bit. The IT industry is vibrant and there must be tons of jobs. As a whitey I'd always be an outsider and I imagine that gets old but it would be great for few years. Shame [SIZE=-1]Ahmed Zaoui doesn't share the sentiment and join his wife and kids there.[/SIZE]
Australia. Come on how can you pass up our great land.. low crime, friendly people, great accents and perfect beaches!!
Australia's government is just too fascist for me. Taxes and restrictions on basic human rights are just too severe for me to consider Australia as a reasonable destination for an individual. In Australia, you can be sentenced to 14 years in prison for owning a pair of handcuffs or a bowie knife (good-bye Crocodile Dundee!). Yes, yes, I know that I don't need all of those "unnecessary" rights, but I am damned happy to have them and I don't have any intention of giving them up to a bunch of bureaucrats. In the short term, of course, the situation is even worse. Those fascist laws are having the logical effect -- crime is going up. After the latest round of laws to disarm the Australian populace, homicides went up and armed robberies skyrocketed (44% in just one year). And yet the government keeps going the wrong way and taking rights away from their citizens. It is no longer possible to think of Australia as a low-crime venue. See: http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/FailedExperimentRev.pdf http://www.gunowners.org/hlr-au.htm http://www.gunsandcrime.org/auresult.html http://www.nrawinningteam.com/auresult.html http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/6/26/12629 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=15304 I don't think it's too late for the Australian people to take back their individual human rights, but I don't see a lot of interest in it from them. Most of them seem to be quite content to live like prisoners on their own island. Unfortunately, with the Australian government collecting a whopping 47% income tax on top of a 10% VAT tax -- the government has no shortage of funds with which to defend its authority over the lives of individual Australian citizens.
Really? As a female, would you really be happy living in a society where women are both socially and legally treated as second class citizens?
I didn't look deeply into the D.R., based on some old conversations with people who I used to work with who were born there. Looking at it now, it seems much more interesting than I had imagined! Unfortunately, my house hunting is on hold. My wife has decreed that we much go see her friends in Singapore, and that while we are there we should visit China and Japan. Thailand and the Philippines may be on the agenda too. I really liked Singapore when I was there, but I'm not sure I'd like to live there. China is completely out of the question, for all of the obvious reasons. Japan is out because I really can't imagine living in a country that racist. Thailand and the Philippines I don't know enough about yet. Both are suffering from Islamist violence. I need to look deeply into their tax laws. My wife is always up for hiring a maid!
Is Japan really racist? I hadn't heard anything like that. My youngest brother was there 2 summers and was actually in some newspapers for being a white guy (with his friend) who were asked to teach the tea ceremony which is usually kept exclusive to the Japanese, but since these two knew the ceremony so well, they became the exception. My brother never mentioned anything about racism, but he also lived with people that knew they were bring exchange students from the USA. Tell your wife about the D.R. and how we are going there if you want to meet up with us.
Yep! You take the good with the bad and lead by example. Malaysian women have more rights than you'd expect and while there is alot wrong I saw as much mutual respect as I see daily here. You could always come to NZ... we love americans down here.
Hi Will, I can't argue with what you have said because most of it is right. At the moment we have a wonderful working economy, yes rates are at almost an all time high up but unemployment is at an all time low. My country or at least our prime minister doesn't like what I am too much. I am gay and in civil union to my partner and while life is basically very hard for us on many points of law I'm still quite content. Sure I would like some basic laws changed to recognize us but its not something I really get my skirt in a bind over. In all I would say living in a Australia allows me to be content. I've got a job, a house, 2 cars a partner who i love. Generally I'm still quite proud of being an Australian.
selltrib - judging by some of the general chat threads in this forum you'd be hard pressed to find any country more liberal than Aussie. Personally I think civil unions are a watered down compromise and marriage should be allowed but sometimes compromise is necessary. Will - on the facist-sliding-scale Aussie has to be better than most of South America surely? And the middle east? and eastern europe? Maybe not Holland, but their democracy allowed Pauline Hanson to have a voice. Ok, so she's facist - but in allowing her to be heard Aus showed that democracy is alive and well.
Yes and No. I'm not really pro gay marriage. Just give us the same rights and i'll be happy, I want to be safe in the knowledge that if i die tomorrow my partner doesn't have to fight my family to get access to my estate and she gets default custody of my daugther.
I'll put it another way. My wife was raised Muslim and if I went to Malaysia I would be going alone. My wife loves the idea, but NZ is hell for taxes. The U.S. is horrible for that too. Panama looks pretty nice right now. Governments in most of South America don't have the funding required to meddle into their citizens private affairs. To my mind, that is a good thing. The Middle East is completely unacceptable, for all of the obvious reasons. Holland is out mostly because we've both already lived there. I have a different viewpoint on gay marriage than pretty much anyone I talk to. I don't believe that the state should be involved in marriage -- heterosexual or homosexual. Marriage is a religious institution and government bureaucrats should keep their grubby little hands out of it. We should all be equal under the law, and that would be a heck of a lot easier if there were fewer laws to begin with.
Reading that I was amazed at a 47% tax rate & 10% VAT (total 57%)... then on second thoughts realised I pay 40% tax and 17.5% VAT (57.5%) which makes things even worse
You should move. Becoming an expat is an even better deal for Brits, because the British government doesn't try to continue to tax people after they move out of the country. Only Libya and the U.S. are that arrogant. Visit Expat Destinations and we'll help each other pick out new homes.
Didn't I read somewhere about an abandoned oil platform that was for sale? It would have its own sovereignty. You could make up the rules then.
I heard about that place years ago because a hosting competitor had secured the rights to use the place as their "super secure, off shore hosting facility".. I think they are still there, even after the fire.. Then I was approving listings over at the KingBloom Directory and low and behold one of the sites I was review was for Sealand... I probably spent about 2 hours there..., at the site, not the actually Sealand... It's for sale still..
Most countries have high taxes nowadays the only exeption is third world countries or rich little states like Andorra... In my opinion the only places worth checking out are the new members of the EU... Check Republic, Croatia, Lithuania....