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Americans are retiring to Vietnam

latimes.com

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Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#151

Post by mancerayder »

rolltiide wrote: post #125
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This obsession with cheap places to live intrigues me. In Memphis, TN you can rent a decent apartment in a shitty part of town for $300 a month. And Memphis isn't even close to the cheapest big city in the US. In Birmingham Alabama, you can't get just as hot as you can in Vietnam, and your rent will be pretty similar. Yes, healthcare and food are more expensive, but not that much. And you'll spend less on those two t…

Its not about the cheapest place to live it’s about not-Birmingham, not-Memphis The Bi-coastal Americans in this article will take communism on a bankroll over the Bible Belt, take a hint

Tropical weather and ocean access helps. A flat land with extremes of hot and cold, tornadoes and drastic divergences in daily temperature are more worrisome than being on the head with a Bible, personally.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#152

Post by technofiend »

trianglem wrote: post #133
colechristensen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this. Max out-of-pocket for insurance plans now is very reasonable. If you can afford a $250k house, you can afford the max out-of-pocket cost for many many years.

I just got billed $22,000 for a rabies course and I have good insurance. Four rounds of immunoglobulins are expensive.

Now you know why I'm waiting to see my PCP despite having earlyish symptoms of heart disease. Should I have a heart attack it's better to leave my wife a cheap, dead corpse and a life insurance payout rather than an expensive out of work husband. That's the calculus of the American medical system.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#153

Post by colechristensen »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #116
colechristensen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Why is one large bureaucracy better than the other?

Because I want to switch jobs without switching doctors loads of paper work, and health is the sort of fickle thing where if I get really sick they will always be able to price-gouge me so I rather remove the profit motive.

I've had several jobs, several insurance plans and a couple on the individual market.

Never had to switch doctors and the paperwork amounted to the receptionist asking if my insurance was current and handing them my card.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#154

Post by jgbond »

pcurve wrote: post #7

"They bought the four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom unit, measuring about 1,840 square feet along with a separate veranda, for about $250,000 in 2011." I'm sure it's a very nice place, but that sum is nothing to sneeze at. I wonder how much it costs now, and what is monthly expense is. Good thing is, American government has sensible reciprocal arrangement with many countries that offer national pension system that you don't n…

The apartment complex they’re talking about in the article is (educated guess, used to live there) one of the nicest and most expensive in the country. It’s overlooking the Saigon River and has luxuries and amenities that you wouldn’t have except at super luxury buildings the US.

You can live a pampered lifestyle that would not be even remotely within reach in the US on the same budget.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#155

Post by geomark »

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #42
CPLX wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there are some differences between Myanmar and Tokyo right? There’s a lot of countries in Asia.

Ironically some of the SEA countries probably have better medical services than Tokyo. You guys are criticizing me for calling Asia a monolith but I can assure you the difference between Tokyo and Myanmar is smaller than NYU and the Midwest

You are correct indeed. That's why some countries in SEA are major medical tourism destinations for many people from western countries.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#156

Post by wruza »

krapp wrote: post #130
wruza wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personality arguments aside: if we assume that “buying” an asian wife is an uncomfortable stereotype, doesn’t “status or wealth to attract a young attractive western woman” fall into the same category? What’s the difference (except life cost multiplier/divisor) that makes one uncomfortable and the other comfortable?

>What’s the difference (except life cost multiplier/divisor) that makes one uncomfortable and the other comfortable? Both are uncomfortable stereotypes, but we find the latter more acceptable because Western masculine ideals traditionally interpret the male in that situation as expressing his virility and alpha-dog status (while denigrating the woman as a gold-digger and whore.) Although many people are creeped out b…

This implies (well, directly states) that these asian women are only a step above prostitutes, while in fact either both are, or none of them, depending on the perspective. If the male cannot find a match, it is a failure by definition, but I do not see how this fails his masculinity.

Masculinity doesn’t have to be linked with local wealth (pressing/buying someone with money, connections and law doesn’t make one alpha-dog nor a unique problem solver), and I would add wealth actually tends to hide smaller balls, if you excuse a non-native speaker for this idiom. It is strange that traditions link those two, as a person may be just not interested genuinely in spending effort to accumulate so much bigger than usual money to simply get a normal healthy date and life. Masculinity is a thing that allows you to skip these steps altogether, unless women are heavily reprogrammed on money instead and everyone is okay with that.

Basically, it is a failure of a man to find a decent woman, but it is still unclear who is a failure in general.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#157

Post by Descartes1 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #114
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This obsession with cheap places to live intrigues me. In Memphis, TN you can rent a decent apartment in a shitty part of town for $300 a month. And Memphis isn't even close to the cheapest big city in the US. In Birmingham Alabama, you can't get just as hot as you can in Vietnam, and your rent will be pretty similar. Yes, healthcare and food are more expensive, but not that much. And you'll spend less on those two t…

You don't have to do anything to keep your American citizenship. You can't get rid of it without a significant amount of effort.

America is one of the only nations in the world that taxes its expats also. You can't escape the USA. You are the property of the tax farm.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#158

Post by Descartes1 »

refurb wrote: post #110
csomar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very expensive for Vietnam or relative to what you get in terms of infrastructure/law. They either got a bad deal or the market right there is crazier than the US.

The market is crazy in Ho Chi Minh City. Considering average wages are $5-10K per year, housing is outrageous there.

> "housing is outrageous there"

As is household debt.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#160

Post by Descartes1 »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #108
axaxs wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but you can't find an 18 year old woman to marry you as a modern day indentured servant in the midwest. Ninety percent or so of the old white men I encountered in SEA had his arm around some poor childlike girl.

In my experience that's significantly less common in Vietnam than in Thailand or the Philippines (having been to all three, and dated women in all three).

Thailand is no longer a particularly cheap country. Girls want cars and condos from their Western boyfriends. And they don't want old men.
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