Thinking about moving overseas? Don’t do it!

When you leave your homeland you will miss it and all your friends and family, even if you hate most of them. Some of the family will call you a traitor, a coward for not staying and facing with them the anticipated crashes and wars you read about in the fake news. You will have to live that down and some will tell you (with hands on hips), if you insist on leaving, you have burned your bridge to return. That is usually the wife or husband making those burning bridge comments. Anyway it is difficult when if one or the other doesn’t dare to go to the edge of the primitive world with you. The old movie "South Pacific" comes to mind.

You will feel like you betrayed your country too because you won't be paying them taxes anymore, property and income tax, etc. This will bother you to no end if you are a tax payer because so few of you these days that everyone who does pay really counts a lot, a whole lot, because they are carrying the load of the not so lucky who can’t work and unable to pay. Below is a list of all that you will be depriving of their fair share of your productivity; particularly in America, if you have the selfish audacity to leave all this to others to pay in your absence:

#1 Air Transportation Taxes (You will have to pay this one more time)
#2 Biodiesel Fuel Taxes
#3 Building Permit Taxes
#4 Business Registration Fees
#5 Capital Gains Taxes
#6 Cigarette Taxes
#7 Court Fines (indirect taxes)
#8 Disposal Fees
#9 Dog License Taxes
#10 Drivers License Fees (another form of taxation)
#11 Employer Health Insurance Mandate Tax
#12 Employer Medicare Taxes
#13 Employer Social Security Taxes
#14 Environmental Fees
#15 Estate Taxes
#16 Excise Taxes On Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans
#17 Federal Corporate Taxes
#18 Federal Income Taxes
#19 Federal Unemployment Taxes
#20 Fishing License Taxes
#21 Flush Taxes (yes, this actually exists in some areas)
#22 Food And Beverage License Fees
#23 Franchise Business Taxes
#24 Garbage Taxes
#25 Gasoline Taxes
#26 Gift Taxes
#27 Gun Ownership Permits
#28 Hazardous Material Disposal Fees
#29 Highway Access Fees
#30 Hotel Taxes (these are becoming quite large in some areas)
#31 Hunting License Taxes
#32 Import Taxes
#33 Individual Health Insurance Mandate Taxes
#34 Inheritance Taxes
#35 Insect Control Hazardous Materials Licenses
#36 Inspection Fees
#37 Insurance Premium Taxes
#38 Interstate User Diesel Fuel Taxes
#39 Inventory Taxes
#40 IRA Early Withdrawal Taxes
#41 IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
#42 IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
#43 Library Taxes
#44 License Plate Fees
#45 Liquor Taxes
#46 Local Corporate Taxes
#47 Local Income Taxes
#48 Local School Taxes
#49 Local Unemployment Taxes
#50 Luxury Taxes
#51 Marriage License Taxes
#52 Medicare Taxes
#53 Medicare Tax Surcharge On High Earning Americans Under Obamacare
#54 Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax (if you don’t buy “qualifying” health insurance under Obamacare you will have to pay an additional tax)
#55 Obamacare Surtax On Investment Income (a new 3.8% surtax on investment income)
#56 Parking Meters
#57 Passport Fees
#58 Professional Licenses And Fees (another form of taxation)
#59 Property Taxes
#60 Real Estate Taxes
#61 Recreational Vehicle Taxes
#62 Registration Fees For New Businesses
#63 Toll Booth Taxes
#64 Sales Taxes
#65 Self-Employment Taxes
#66 Sewer & Water Taxes
#67 School Taxes
#68 Septic Permit Taxes
#69 Service Charge Taxes
#70 Social Security Taxes
#71 Special Assessments For Road Repairs Or Construction
#72 Sports Stadium Taxes
#73 State Corporate Taxes
#74 State Income Taxes
#75 State Park Entrance Fees
#76 State Unemployment Taxes (SUTA)
#77 Tanning Taxes (a new Obamacare tax on tanning services)
#78 Telephone 911 Service Taxes
#79 Telephone Federal Excise Taxes
#80 Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Taxes
#81 Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Taxes
#82 Telephone State And Local Taxes
#83 Telephone Universal Access Taxes
#84 The Alternative Minimum Tax
#85 Tire Recycling Fees
#86 Tire Taxes
#87 Tolls (another form of taxation)
#88 Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
#89 Use Taxes (Out of state purchases, etc.)
#90 Utility Taxes
#91 Vehicle Registration Taxes
#92 Waste Management Taxes
#93 Water Rights Fees
#94 Watercraft Registration & Licensing Fees
#95 Well Permit Fees
#96 Workers Compensation Taxes
#97 Zoning Permit Fees

There are even more areas that need that extra care, but this should be enough to keep you home tending to your dutiful part of supporting the homeland. Your country and eternally wise government would miss you and so much that one day they may just talk you out of ever thinking about leaving again.

Another temptation that some have fallen for that really sends a sorry message is when people suddenly discover they don’t need their credit cards anymore because so few merchants take them in the islands. Deplorable as it might sound, some people cut their cards up and send them back to the banks, often with rude messages about cutting the noose and especially after they charge them up to the limit buying all kinds of things before heading out. After all, you can always get a debit card in any overseas country. This breaking free of debt will cause you guilt, even when you are on the beach enjoying the sunset with your new bathing suit charged at Macy’s and your new naked native friend who can’t afford a bathing suit.

We have seen it time and again.

Unsecured bank loans tend to be treated the same dismissing way by some and the excuse often is; those crook bankers are responsible for all the trouble we have. "Serves them right." Some people just really go for it and revel in dispensing with their debt burden, knowing it can’t follow them very far. Frightful how some can feel so good after such dastardly acts. Hopefully you would never consider that option.

The problems just compound when you can’t indulge yourself at some fast food place and suddenly you find you are losing weight in the first week. Right there you will fear the worst. Maybe the loss is due to cancer? After all, that never happened before even when you were trying to lose weight. This will have you worried and headed for the nearest hospital, which you will be appalled to discover is free for all services - so they must be really bad at fixing people if they can’t sell medical services for any price. All your confidence will be shaken and even though people carried in are walking out you will wonder, how could that be? Nothing is for free. You will be longing for the reassuring high costs of medicine, after all, back home the motto is, "you get what you pay (too much) for."

The next really big consideration is; why is everything so cheap? It must all be inferior somehow. For instance, the super market is called the "open market" and for good reasons, it is open, no doors, no windows or rather all windows and just a roof. Inside there are clerks out of uniform everywhere behind many stands of fresh fruit and vegetables, which are in strange little piles on funky tables and so cheap you don’t dare buy any. None of them have little stickers on them that say nice things like inspected or approved. They are just crudely unpolished and plain. Some carrots look like they hit a rock and bent out of the way resembling a pistol, which by the way, you will hate this; no NRA, no guns, not ever the police have guns. No way to protect yourself here, cept with a smile, which works well thank God.

Think about it, things don’t add up here. For instance, how can you have a fresh green coconut with healthy coconut water in it for just 50 cents each? Something has to be wrong because to collect them someone has to climb 40 feet up in a tree with a bush knife and cut the coconuts down, then husk them and bring them to the market ready for you to puncture the soft spot and drink right there if you want. And right there you have to see that for what it must be; fake coconuts, gotta be at that price. The canned ones must be better.

Well the cost of labour at $1.00 to $2.00 per hour is what makes so many things so cheap. Surprisingly; there really isn’t anything wrong with the cheap fruits and veggies or the hard to get coconuts either, but you will lay awake nights pondering that phenomenon.

Even the low-cost labour is problem. When you hire someone to do gardening or house cleaning, you will feel guilty. If that isn’t bad enough, if you pay them more you will make enemies of the other heartless foreigners for messing with the system and even your overpaid staff receiving anything extra per hour will just think you are crazy. This will plague you week after week while getting your toughest jobs done. Some new comers just can’t take it and again long for their days back home where they would revel in seeing personal achievements from mopping their own floors, scrubbing their toilets, cleaning stoves and cabinets, and the joys of doing laundry.

If you read this far and you are still thinking about moving to the South Seas, there’s more.

No one is in a hurry to do anything or get anywhere out here, which slows everything down and will make you uncomfortable. Even going out to dinner, if you dare order the fresh Ahi Tuna for four you will think they had to go out and catch it before they serve you. Then when you pay the bill you get suspicious because 4 people can eat in the nicest restaurant, right by the sea, and for under $50.00 USD total, includes drinks. Of course they can’t charge any more than that because the service is slow and you hardly can get all four meals delivered at once. I know you would rather pay four times that and have them served all four at once. Well, there you go.

Things just take more time to get done in the islands, in Tonga in particular and cock-ups are routine.

For a good case in point of what you are in for, get this. An expat fellow from New Zealand needed to send a signed document to a law firm back home. He went to the Tongan post office asking for their express mail kind of service as he put it; "you know, where you pay extra and have a big special envelope." The clerk knew and brought the form with the big envelope to him to fill out and pay the fee. A few weeks goes by and the fellow comes storming back to the post office telling the same clerk that they need to do a "tracer", that the envelope never made it to New Zealand, that it was lost and needed to be tracked down. The supersized lady clerk just sat there and when he was done arcing she confidently told him; "It’s not lost." She got up and went to the back room and came out with it in her hand waving it in slow motion (like everything out here). "See…… not lost." The guy went crazy on her again questioning and reprimanding her why she didn’t send it. She bellied up to the counter and firmly explained that the express mail box wasn’t full yet - that’s why.They send out these big fat high price envelopes when they get enough of them to fill the express shipping box. "What…?" Now she was getting put out by this guy so she set him straight; "If you wanted the faster service, why didn’t you do like everyone does?" He gasped another exasperated "what would that be?" Her response; "Send it regular mail!"

What do you expect from a post office with a sign on the wall that says; "airmail goes by boat." Well, to be fair that is just from the island to the mainland 160 miles away.

There’s more.

Let’s talk about nuclear power. To your dismay, another shocker, there isn’t any nuclear power here and it doesn’t look good for ever getting it. The South Seas islands are just so behind in certain progressive things. In fact the whole Southern Hemisphere only has 4 reactors with three in South America and one in South Africa, so it is not looking good for any more. In the more advanced Northern Hemisphere there are 438 with 67 more coming on line, so right there you can see how backward these islands are. BTW, Japan is in the Northern Hemisphere.

Just to show off a little, we know that the wind and water currents don’t cross over at the equator, keeping what happens in the Northern Hemisphere, stays in the Northern Hemisphere. OK, so to be fair that is one plus for the Southern Hemisphere. Nothing is all bad. Well, except for politics of course.

Got time for one more example of what you might have to deal with if you should fall for the lure of the South Seas?
Nope?

OK then, till next time.

Wyoming Blankenship

Think for yourself