Americans are retiring to Vietnam • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#231

Post by iudqnolq » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 9:57 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #199

iudqnolq wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats your definition of not accountable? Making an absolute and not relative definition sounds hard.

Just the everyday definition that people use in normal conversation, not subtle insinuation about political philosophy or anything like that. I’m accountable to my employer for showing up and doing solid work. A student is accountable to their instructor. I’m accountable to the government for my income taxes (and many other laws). It just means that there is a fairly clear set of expectations and a pretty reliable an…

Why does needing to be reelected not make a politician accountable?

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#232

Post by CPLX » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #218

CPLX wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Midwest like the Mayo Clinic?

Will you be living next to Mayo Clinic when you have your heart attack, or something closer to the median hospital in the region?

Like the Cleveland Clinic, Northwesten Medical, or University of Michigan?

There’s some confused thinking in this thread I think.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#233

Post by quaquaqua1 » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #232

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you be living next to Mayo Clinic when you have your heart attack, or something closer to the median hospital in the region?

Like the Cleveland Clinic, Northwesten Medical, or University of Michigan? There’s some confused thinking in this thread I think.

The 4 hospitals you've named will serve tens of millions of people?

How about the ambulances in Detroit which take 45 mins, or the south Chicago hospitals who refuse to treat gunshot wounds?

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#234

Post by tboyd47 » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

* Americans with Vietnamese spouses are retiring to Vietnam

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#235

Post by selimthegrim » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

rolltiide wrote: post #215

mancerayder wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes all that is geographically part of the Bible Belt: Shitty extremes of temperature Shitty hostile weather patterns Shitty viability of opportunities as a result of ongoing talent drain towards the coasts with everyone wondering why its so cheap Shitty isolationist mentality and nationalism to rationalize why their dystopian nightmare is okay Shitty extremes of religion that were literally kicked out of Europe Shit…

I’m sitting here in New Orleans chuckling at your handle

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#236

Post by mister_hn » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

CapricornNoble wrote: post #101

fxtentacle wrote: post #62

That guy must have been incredibly lucky with the timing. When I researched housing prices in the nice areas of Saigon in 2018, 50 square meter 1 bedroom apartments were sold at $300,000+. And "sold" here means you rent it perpetually from the development company to circumvent that 50-year land ownership limit. But that can put you at risk in case said company folds. Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Viet…

>>>Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Vietnamese women becoming rather disenchanted of hip cool American backpackers, the latter of which presumably read articles like this and decided to try their luck. The backpacker area of Saigon is considered more like a slum that you try to avoid at night. Hanoi's French Quarter is the same way, and I'm glad the local women are hip to the game. They'll ask you "where…

Going there for sexual tourism?

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#237

Post by mister_hn » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

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…

That's more expensive than South Europe cities

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#238

Post by brooklyndude » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

CapricornNoble wrote: post #101

fxtentacle wrote: post #62

That guy must have been incredibly lucky with the timing. When I researched housing prices in the nice areas of Saigon in 2018, 50 square meter 1 bedroom apartments were sold at $300,000+. And "sold" here means you rent it perpetually from the development company to circumvent that 50-year land ownership limit. But that can put you at risk in case said company folds. Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Viet…

>>>Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Vietnamese women becoming rather disenchanted of hip cool American backpackers, the latter of which presumably read articles like this and decided to try their luck. The backpacker area of Saigon is considered more like a slum that you try to avoid at night. Hanoi's French Quarter is the same way, and I'm glad the local women are hip to the game. They'll ask you "where…

I ate everything that I saw in Vietnam. Street food, restaurant food, food down dark allies. For months. Only had ONE single issue. For an hour. That's it.

There may be something more going on here?

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#239

Post by mancerayder » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

teamwork007 wrote: post #37

One piece of information the article doesn't acknowledge is that property rights in Vietnam aren't the same as they are in the US. So if a foreigner "buys" an apartment in Vietnam, they can only have it for up to 50 years. In other words, it's an asset that is steadily decreasing in value, and not one that the "owner" can necessarily hand down to the next generation at a higher or the same value unless changes are ma…

Well, you might be shocked to hear this is true of London as well. Very few areas have land you can buy without a land lease, called freeholds.

Large landowner (ex aristocrat) or government, what difference does it make? The land is forever not yours.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#240

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Dec 27, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #184

arcticbull wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it, literally and directly does, that's the definition of it. Your representatives are accountable to you via vote. If not that, then what do you think democracy even means?

I think democracy generally means that the population elects representatives who establish policy. That’s certainly true. But in what sense is the government actually accountable to an individual in any meaningful sense? If you are wronged by a democratic government do you honestly believe that you have a remotely decent chance of holding the government accountable? And how about for individuals who are among the lea…

I mean, this tends to be covered in high school civics classes.

The government is bound by a constitution. Violations of your constitutional rights are remediated on an individual basis through the judicial branch. You may individually hold the entire government responsible for violating your constitutional rights. This happens regularly.

The government is also accountable to you in aggregate through the voting process. Yes you don't get to vote on each individual issue, as you're not an expert on literally everything and have other things to do, so you delegate. Less delegation happens in America than in basically every other established democracy. You don't like what your representative did, vote for someone else, or run for office.

The least fortunate are the disproportionate beneficiaries of constitutional rights. Yes it's not perfect, and direct democracy tends to lead to squelching the rights of minority groups, but that's why America has a constitution plus 3 branches of government with various checks and balances.

Your employer has literally none of the above, which is why it has no business in your healthcare. If you get fired from your job and lose access to healthcare you don't get to run for CEO, you get to fend for yourself. If you're wrongly denied cover under a socialized medical system you can sue anyone and everyone involved and also vote them out, while still having access to the private markets to fend for yourself just as you would have if you left the company you worked at.