Leaving America: Giving up citizenship

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Islamsmylife, Jun 12, 2011.

  1. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    No, that is not true.

    This isn't possible with student loans.


    Jim Rodgers was rich WHEN he moved to Singapore. Yeah, he's still rich.

    If you're a mechanical engineer there may be some good paid work in Asia. Some hightech skill involved with transporting goods via ship? That aside, there's always teaching English. Doesn't pay well, but, your kids could learn a new culture and language. There's not a lot of highly paid jobs waiting in China for Americans if that's what you're thinking. A soft life in Thailand may be possible if you can come up with something they want and need. Remember there are LOTS of westerners in "Asia" and have been for 400 years. They militarily colonized the entire region not long ago.
     
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  3. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Had a tiny effect on labour market systems as well. Bienvenue, medieval young rural UMC economics.

    I guess he's only defaulting on good will then.

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  5. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    Hey guys, let's go easy on the OP. I doubt he/she's thinking "Heh heh, I'm just here to worship Islam and screw the banks over while I'm at it." He/she's probably in a very stressful situation and feeling all kinds of regret over whatever happened to get them in that situation, so let's all try to be a bit more helpful yeah? I'm sure most of us are firmly against the idea of fleeing a country just to escape a debt and/or bad credit rating, so let's offer some constructive suggestions on how the OP can deal with it instead of bailing.

    Has anyone suggested the OP might consider seeking financial counseling? There are professionals who understand the issues at both the fiscal and psychological levels and could perhaps be of some assistance, just like there are counselors for troubled marriages and other personal issues. For my own part, the only reason I mentioned banks selling someone's debt to a foreign country is to find out whether this is actually done in practice, the way it's done when a creditor sells an unpaid debt to a collection agency at a reduced loss. But even more at issue, I don't know of any foreign countries that would accept someone in violation of the laws in their own home country, unless they're bringing a giant haul of money with them. I couldn't even see my Canadian government sheltering the OP from American prosecution unless he/she can provide evidence that returning to the US puts them in danger of serious harm.
     
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  7. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    I've read on these forums that Islamic money lenders can still charge interest on the profits once a venture proves successful. Is that true? If so it would be more generous than charging interest whether the venture succeeds or fails, but that wouldn't be the same as loaning purely in the interest of helping.
     
  8. Absane Rocket Surgeon Valued Senior Member

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    I meant "high paying" relative to the country you are working for. It's not hard to get a 30,000 USD/year job in South Korea and be able to save $1500 a month to pay down debts. Hell, in Taiwan you can make 45K+ a year and save even more. Some countries will pay a lot (again, relative to them) to have American talent. Though, I suppose the OP doesn't have any if he lacks the integrity in his life to pay his own debts.
     
  9. kira Valued Senior Member

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    How much does it cost to study in the USA anyway, why you should be indebted for so long...?? Here in Germany, it used to be free of charge, but since 3 years ago, everybody must pay around 500 Euro tuition fee per semester plus another 200 Euro for semester transportation (semester train/bus ticket). As a student, if I work only in the weekend, I can get between 400-600 Euro a month, so I have no problem paying my semester tuition fee. No additional entrance fee.

    And the reason they started charging tuition fee is because nobody wanted to graduate on time (a.k.a. lazy), everybody was too relax. At least, thats what I heard in one TV interview with a CDU politician (the party of the chancellor).
     
  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    The answer to that depends on what university you attend. Tuition at top schools could run 40k US dollars per year. And then you have to factor in living costs and book expenses on top of that number. State universities are less expensive. Graduate schools are pretty expensive. I was recently quoted 80k dollars tuition for two year masters program.
     
  11. kira Valued Senior Member

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    40 000 USD/year??
    Don't u mean maybe 4000? Are you a medical student or what? I know and heard that it is expensive in the USA, but 40 THOUSANDS???

    In Indonesia, I use to pay 30 Euro per semester (during my BSc), and thats already too expensive for us!!!

    Damn! Don't be jealous, but at the age of 32, by studying 4 years in Germany, I have been able to buy a house and a small land for my parent in Indonesia (coz it's cheap to buy house and land there), and I still have 5 digits saving here in German bank, although I admit that I don't spend my money to buy unnecessary things and I rarely travel. I also still paying for my brothers education who are studying in home country.
     
  12. superstring01 Moderator

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    There are trade offs to be certain, all the money the top notch universities have allows them to invest in crazy expensive research. On top of that, they still get grants from large corporations and government institutions to conduct research on their behalf. The result of this can be seen in the disproportionately high number of American universities at the top of the "Best" lists, those that churn out top graduates in their field and those that are at the forefront of new technologies and techniques.

    On the other hand, the European schools (except a few) have a "more is better" approach and get the "other half" of the expense from generous European governments.

    Here in the US, an inexpensive education can be found (there are, literally 4,000 colleges and universities here). It's just that there are a lot of expensive ones and they are the ones everybody wants to go to.

    ~String
     
  13. kira Valued Senior Member

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    Well, yea, if you say so. I know that the best education in the world is in the USA. However, I don't think it's good for poor people, especially if they are not bright. I mean, to take a life-long loan and couldn't pay it back I think isn't a very wise way to live, you must have a stressful life! In my opinion, if you can't afford for education, don't take loan, just send your kids to study in Europe. Some German universities are also world class universities, like TU München, Heidelberg (for the one who want to study medicine, especially), etc. In the Netherlands also, I heard the quality of education is very good, and you can study in English in that country, but I don't know how much people must pay there. Anyway, German language is also not hard, once you live here, you can learn it well eventually. Me, if I have children one day, I will educate them in home country until they finish undergraduate degree so that they can make networks with the people there, and send them to Germany if they wish to do a master or PhD degree. To take a loan is a big no no. Unless I am suddenly rich, I will never send my children to study in the USA. Although, no one asks....

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  14. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    It is all about having value in America . See our Government tells us we have no value unless we have a piece of paper that says we have value . Otherwise we are scum that uses up resources that people with value deserve more cause they have a piece of paper that says they have value . It is not always true for in America you can rise up and create your own wealth if you have the tenacity and will power. It is dwindling though. Becoming much harder to rise up . You just about have to cheat your way to success anymore. So pay the high cost of education or be scum as it relates to the work force. The cost is High because of the high pay of teachers , professors and administration . Administration now a days seems to make more than Teachers is the funny thing. Administration is eating up the world and what do they do ? Keep records ? , American Universities are businesses that churn out pieces of paper that insinuate you have some kind of value . The more expensive the the paper cost you the more it insinuates you have value . It is really kind of idiotic cause in reality butt loads of the churned out people have no more value than a Vietnam drunken homeless Veteran on the street . Give Me a Drink
    Anyway back to my point
     
  15. kira Valued Senior Member

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    How much do teachers and professor earn in the USA?? In Germany, I know that my professor earns about 6000 Euro a month (before tax), and I think they are probably paid by tax money (since the students pay almost nothing), but they still have a quite decent life. That you pay so high for education, it must be because there are markets (people who are willing to pay that much). What I don't understand is, the people who take loan, like the one in the OP. He couldn't pay it back because he doesn't get a good job, yes? It means paying so much (having a "high value" as you say) does not guarantee you to get a good job, so what's the point of paying much? I think it is better that you have a bad job or ordinary job, but live without debts. At least, that's what I am thinking.....

    p.s.: I am not gonna check your reply in the next couple of hours coz I'd like to take a walk a bit. C ya
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2011
  16. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    No, that is not a typographical error. Tuition, books, lab fees, etc., can easily cost that much at one of our better (or more prestigious, anyway) private universities, and as much as $60K at a few of the most elite schools.

    Public universities are considerably more affordable, and there's where you could knock off one of those zeroes. If you're a resident of the state, anyway. Tuition for students from another state is considerably higher, but still not as high as at the top private schools.

    Many of the top-tier public universities are as good as the elite schools. A degree from the University of California at Los Angeles or the College of William and Mary (a public university in Virginia) is on a par with Yale, Stanford and Notre Dame.

    America's two top private universities for science and engineering, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ("MIT") and the California Institute of Technology ("Caltech") are (arguably) in a class by themselves, yet graduates in those fields from other institutions, even modestly-priced state-run schools, have become famous scientists.

    In the USA the federal government does not have schools. All government schools are run by the individual states, counties and cities. Most states have a two- or three-tier system. In California, the University of California is the top tier, with almost 200,000 students on ten campuses; some of them have medical, dental, veterinary and/or law schools.

    The California State Universities, with twice as many students on 23 campuses, attract students with more modest budgets, and perhaps more modest academic records. Many of them have specialized programs geared to their communities, for example, Humboldt State University near our home in the redwood forest grants degrees in forestry. All universities grant Bachelor, Master and Doctor degrees. The State Universities have very modest fees (by today’s standards), making them attractive to students who can’t qualify for scholarships, as well as those whose records aren’t quite good enough to be accepted by the top tier.

    There is also a California Community College system with more than 100 campuses and three million students. These colleges only have two-year programs that culminate in Associate degrees. This qualifies the graduates for many vocational careers, but can also transform a student with a poor high school record into a scholar with better grades who can transfer to a university in the middle of his education and complete a bachelor’s degree.
    When I went to college in the 1960s, the government schools were very affordable and there was a tremendous wave of propaganda encouraging virtually all kids to go to college. This huge influx of students with mediocre grades and worse-than-mediocre attitudes resulted in a huge building boom, as new universities sprang up overnight like McDonalds franchises. But it also resulted in a lowering of standards. Today they offer “remedial English” to incoming freshman who can’t quite keep up with their reading and writing assignments—and I’m not talking about foreign students! Many of today’s university graduates read at the level that was expected of high school graduates fifty years ago, and their math skills are atrocious. (These are the people who grew up and became bankers; they invented the idiotic “sub-prime mortgage” which has virtually destroyed the American economy.)
    Good for you. But I hope soon you will be able to start taking vacations and buying a few nice things for yourself. You deserve it!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2011
  17. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    43,184
    It sounds like you guys are being ripped off. What do you get for 40,000 USD that we don't? And who is able to afford that anyway?
     
  18. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Err, not quite. There are several Military Academies, and dozens of primary and secondary schools maintained on military bases. But, yeah, it's apparently unclear whether it's even constitutional for the Federal government to establish a regular public university.

    The California State Universities do not generally grant Doctoral degrees. That's UC's gig. There are a few exceptions, but such degrees are always offered as a joint-program with some other university that does have a research program.

    A considerable percentage of UC students are transfers from the CC system. This has become increasingly popular lately, due to spiralling costs: it is becoming normal for even bright, highly-qualified students to do two years at the local CC (living at home) and then transfer to UC to spend two years doing their major requirements. This is done simply to keep the cost down, and not because the student couldn't get into UC directly. At UCSD, for example, fully 40% of entering students are transfers.
     
  19. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Bear in mind that University education isn't inherently any cheaper anywhere else (well, anywhere else in the first world). It's just more heavily subsidized by the state. Go find a list of education outlays as a percentage of GDP, and you'll find that the USA is ranked around the same as various other first-world countries.

    As to what you get for the price of an American college education: an education in the world's foremost system of higher education, with concommitant access to the most desirable parts of the world's largest economy.

    One thing that you get for the $40,000 you have to pay (as opposed to a more subsidized system) is that the majority of people who don't go to college don't have to spend their entire lives paying taxes to educate the minority that do. Instead, the people who get the college educations mostly pay for it themselves, and so don't burden the uneducated with the costs of their educations so much.
     
  20. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    any where from 50,000 to 300,000 American dollars maybe more. The thing is you will be a working stiff working 48 hr to 80 hr. a week to try and make ends meet with out that piece of paper . The more prestigious the school the more money you can make in the real world . There is a miss conception of all Americans being wealthy by other country standards . The cost to live is extremely high when you consider the cost you incur by being American. Yeah we have space because of the country size to population and our housing gives perception of wealth also , but when you start taking out the cost of living there is not much left in the average persons bank account. Most Americans live pay check to pay check or fall victim to welfare if they can't make it. At that point they are at poverty levels . I call Americans the working poor for the most part . I know the standard is a lot higher than many country's but our social slavery runs just as deep as any country . The way out for the most part ( unless you invent something every one has to have or catapulted to star status ) is that piece of paper from a prestigious university. That piece of paper cost you dearly , so it is a gamble , but one many people will take a chance on if they are excepted by a prestigious university . To elevate your families life is just as difficult for the American as is most places . The powers that be get you on the back end . So you get your piece of paper in hopes of having a future beyond social slavery and the powers that make it happen expect there cut of the pie for making it financially happen. Now many are screwed for it has been a long held belief that if you work hard you will succeed and reap the benefits of working a shit job while going to school to improve your worth only to fined out the opportunity no longer exists in the markets of the new reality no one has quite faced up to yet. It was a royal fuck job by government propaganda driving the education businesses of churn em and burn em . I understand how the person feels that started the post . He his screwed big time and will spend a good part of there life paying the debt . They were sold false hopes . Now you can see the bunches of Americans coming down on them that still believe the dream has validity . They will think different as there jobs too become obsolete and are forced to the welfare lines . As I was told as my construction business started to crumble from the housing crash that I could go mow lawn now and support my family. So Ah Yeah that sounds great a builder of extreme talents can now be a lawn mower Man . Oh wonderful joy joy I am going to jump all over that one . As you people with your supposed secure jobs lose them remember you to can be a new lawn mower person when it happens . Maybe a paper boy instead . I am going to continue with my music and bust the worlds gonads my self . It may not pay much , but at least I will get joy from busting the worlds ass with my plastic finger of the white man that Jimi Hendrix warned you about
     
  21. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

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    the 5% of elitist. There are others that are subsidized if they bright enough . My gifted first child made it through graduate school on grants instead of loans , Saved her money to buy a car and changed her mind and used it for school instead . then she worked for the university under professors doing research for a pittance . She has no student loans , but she is extremely gifted and is why she was able to do it. She belong in the University system by her own merits that the system could not deny. It was not payed for cause she was women , but because of her shear brilliance as a human being that made it happen . She has extreme writing skills that provided opportunity to get grants . She was a better writer than her competitors . Lots of hard work went into her success . She gave up lots of childish things when she was very young still and kept her focus . Like when she was 8 or 9 on she worker her butt off . Now she suffers from burn out to some degree . She might get the fire in her again one day , but I think the politics will have to change first for she can see very well that it is all just a political game of king of the hill and very little goes to actual human progress
     
  22. kira Valued Senior Member

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    1,579
    Thanks for the great explanation, Fraggle (and also Me-Ki-Gal and Quad)! I have heard about most of the universities that you mentioned and I can see why they become the best in the world. I mean, if you guys must pay that much, you all must be working very hard throughout the university. I have to ask myself though, if you produce that much graduates in California alone (as you mentioned currently there is about 200,000 + 400,000 + some 3 million students there), just how much attractive jobs available for them when they graduate? Also, since there are at least about 200,000 students paying (or getting loan to pay) about 60k USD/year, there should be at least that much good jobs available for them alone...? And what are the chances for the rest 3.4 million students to get the good jobs? Sounds like a lot of jobs to provide. Anyway, the USA is a very big economy, there must be a good job somewhere for everyone.

    Ha, thanks!

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    Actually, I feel quite ok, I consider living in Germany itself as a continuous vacation. I can travel for free in the whole province here, and I haven't even finished discovering this province. A lot of castles, amazing museums, beautiful parks, river sides, lakes, a lot of festivals (my province is famous for its festivals), etc. Most of the things here are for free and new to me, even the snow and autumn leaves, we don't have that at home. Also, it is very nice to travel by train or even bikes here, from where I live I can ride my bicycle until the border of the Netherlands, takes me just one day to go and back. So, I really have a lot of things to keep me occupied!


    Well, if you look at it that way, the majority don't get to pay, but they also don't get the access to the great universities?

    Ok, that's a lot (for a professor salary)! Anyway, if you convert the salary of the professors here in Germany, they earn also about 100,000 USD/year, but the students don't have to pay high for them. I mean, the poor and rich students here can benefit from the same professor. Also, since you must pay about 50,000 USD/year for a good education, doesn't that mean you have to work "for free" for about as much time you spent in the university? I mean BSc until PhD takes about 10 years, so you must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for education. When do you get this money back...?? And what happens to the people who can't pay back their students loan??

    I wanted to say that I am happy for you to have such a fantastic daughter, you must be very proud of her, but did you just say she suffers from burn out? What happens? I am really sorry to hear that! I hope she is (will be) alright.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2011
  23. scifes In withdrawal. Valued Senior Member

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    lol, not exactly charge interest on successful ventures.
    see, they do business with your money, whether you want them to or not, as long as your money is in their bank. however, you may want to share in their ventures of your money, that way you get your share when they make profitable business.
    but it also means if they lose money, you will too

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    .

    but overall it's more or less guaranteed, you rarely lose as far as i know, but your share of the profits is very small, like 2% and less, it's like 50$ monthly if you're lucky and daring, usually it's less (for small timers like myself), but you can raise the stakes or even do your own ventures or become the bank's partner if you have enough money.

    that's my modest understanding of it anyway.
     

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