Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S • Hacker News Board

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#131

Post by skh » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

assblaster wrote: post #65

uncoder0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really need to address the absolute cost of healthcare in this country before we can make any progress on nationalizing any portion of it. The pure costs are outrageous. We spend ~$10,000 per capita in 2017 vs ~$6,000 in Norway which has a similar per capita GDP. (PPP adjusted https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-... )

Actually that's not that bad for the United States since the obesity rate in the US is 4x that of Norway. If the US got its obesity rate under control, we could save a lot of money (less hypertension, less diabetes).

Do you have any studies that you can point to that support this view? It’s OK if you can’t or don’t. I’ve heard this point of view often but it doesn’t jive with my anecdotal experience.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#132

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

bruceb wrote: post #85

rootusrootus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC it's pretty common to walk across the border and then present yourself to immigration and ask for asylum. Assuming that is your only probable immigration method, since otherwise it's reputedly quite difficult to gain approval. Also, Canada handles the whole process a bit more humanely than the United States does.

are hundreds/thousands of people trying to cross in to Canada everyday? Easy when its only a few people, harder when its not.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/asylum-applicatio...

It looks like it's actually pretty proportional. And based upon that data, thousands of people are NOT trying to cross into America via asylum seeking every day.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#133

Post by tristor » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

dvdhnt wrote: post #124

tristor wrote: post #57

I find it interesting how many comments here and on other sites that linked the same article talk about this being tied to concerns around how their tax dollars are spent. It seems many people are not aware that the US is one of only two countries which taxes it's citizens no matter where they reside. Leaving the US is not enough if you wish to avoid taxation, you must also acquire citizenship in another country, and…

> Someone who has renounced their US citizenship is forever barred from ever getting citizenship, and their children are typically also barred from getting citizenship. In addition, they will pretty much always be denied a visa for entry, and they are ineligible for visa at arrival, and may have difficulty to get even pre-applied visas for visiting such as B-1/B-2. This does not appear to be true, can you provide sou…

I don't have a documented source, it's based on conversations I had at one point with State Department officials when I considered permanently emigrating to a country I'd lived in (In the EU) for a number of years. I wanted to avoid being double-taxed, since the FEIE wasn't sufficient to make me whole. I ended up moving back to the US (for non-economic reasons).

The thing you need to understand is that the State Department/US Government has extremely broad leeway under the law in how they process citizenship applications. What the letter of the law says is almost meaningless, what matters is that you get 1) Lucky, and 2) Don't have black marks against you. Denouncing your US Citizenship is basically the ultimate black mark, and you are frankly never getting past it unless you are personal friends with the President or something.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#134

Post by tlb » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #112

tlb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000 gets you down to 3% margin of sampling error. Asking the question in different ways can affect the results a lot more.

Not very knowledgeable of margin of errors but does 1,000 people, not women, really give you enough data to represent 30+ million females between 15-30?

Out of 1000 adults, you'd expect 125 to be women 15-30. That gives a margin of error for that subgroup of 9% (at 95% confidence level). They quoted 40%, so it's 95% likely to be between 31% and 49%.

The size of the population doesn't affect the accuracy of a survey, only the size of the survey.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#135

Post by kortilla » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

diob wrote: post #87

rootusrootus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it is dissatisfaction with the government's contract with the citizenry, combined with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing. So people who can leave for somewhere that more closely aligns with their values are doing just that. I have family here and I love the United States, I'm staying, and I hope we can make some more progress, but I to…

Right, our government is now setup to allow minority rule unfortunately. I can't foresee us moving forward when states beyond the coasts are insistent on moving backwards to a mythical idealized time. My main reason for wanting to leave right now is the state of healthcare. I already have one "preexisting condition" out of my hands, it's called sleep apnea. I'm in shape, it's just a matter of my anatomy. My costs are…

Do you not have health insurance? Why would a single illness cost you a million dollars?

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#136

Post by m0zg » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #83

m0zg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They better be able to prove their skills, since Canada only accepts skilled immigrants.

Or people seeking asylum. But yes, the Venn diagram of people who answered "yes" in this poll and those who would qualify for asylum is probably small.

Bah, asylym. I bet a significant fraction of those surveyed think they can just walk over the border and live there.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#137

Post by scottlocklin » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

arbol wrote: post #104

tristor wrote: post #57

I find it interesting how many comments here and on other sites that linked the same article talk about this being tied to concerns around how their tax dollars are spent. It seems many people are not aware that the US is one of only two countries which taxes it's citizens no matter where they reside. Leaving the US is not enough if you wish to avoid taxation, you must also acquire citizenship in another country, and…

How can the US tax foreign income? Presumably they would have no idea about your earnings abroad.

Well, you've never lived abroad... Google FACTA some time when you're feeling cheerful for a real downer. The IRS and Treasury basically treating the world wide banking system as their dominion.

Expats usually don't renounce because of the worldwide taxation rules (though they don't help); they renounce because of FACTA.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#138

Post by wwweston » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #101

skh wrote: post #16

Ultimately this indicates that people aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation. I’m all for supporting a government that supports the people. From my perspective we don’t have this and haven’t had it for some time. Other developed nations have better infrastructure, better social support system, near free higher education, free at point of contact healthcare systems. What we get in the U.S. is the most advanced…

People contently use this false dichotomy around military spending to avoid acknowledging that we spend just as much or more on health care and other social services per capita as the other western nations. How we spend that money is just horribly inefficient! We can have both the most advanced military and a solid social system if we can figure out how to get our social spending return on investment close to other w…

> How we spend that money is just horribly inefficient!

Well, it depends on what your goal is.

If it's to improve population-wide health care outcomes, then yes, we do a worse job than many other first world nations.

If it's to allow for a, ah, "vibrant" set of industries who can benefit from capturing social spending while providing mixed outcomes which we justify by enshrining the fundamental attribution error under the banner of "meritocracy" then perhaps we're being efficient after all.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#139

Post by rdtsc » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

> It's important to note that people's desire to migrate is typically much higher than their intention to do so -- as such, it is unlikely that Americans will be flocking to the Canadian border. In fact, since Trump's election, Canadian statistics show only a modest uptick in the number of Americans who have moved to Canada.

Reading the article at first it seems they intended to move, as in they were researching their options but it is not quite that, it's more of general musing of "maybe would like some day to move...". And Canada says very few actually moved.

This confirms to what I've seen in my circle of acquaintances of out maybe 4 people who claimed they would move to Asia, Canada or Europe, none actually took any steps to do so. I can't blame them, having moved between countries before, it is a huge hurdle. I had the initial thought of saying "You probably won't..." to some of them but figured it would just get them upset.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#140

Post by tristor » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

tcoff91 wrote: post #110

tristor wrote: post #57

I find it interesting how many comments here and on other sites that linked the same article talk about this being tied to concerns around how their tax dollars are spent. It seems many people are not aware that the US is one of only two countries which taxes it's citizens no matter where they reside. Leaving the US is not enough if you wish to avoid taxation, you must also acquire citizenship in another country, and…

I was under the impression that you only pay taxes to USA while living abroad if you move somewhere with lower income taxation than the USA, in which case you deduct the taxes paid to the other government from US taxes and pay the difference. This means most people don’t have to pay taxes to the USA while abroad because most countries tax you more than USA federal income tax rates.

That is not how it works. No matter where you reside, you MUST file a tax return every year. There is something called the Foreign Earned Income Exemption (FEIE), which is relatively significant but only applies to the first $100,800 USD to earned that year, and does not apply to limits on taxation against foreign owned assets.

If you are making a senior engineer salary at a US company but living abroad, you will be taxed quite heavily since you'll need to pay taxes in your country of residence, plus be taxed on income at the higher brackets over $100k in the US.