Monday, March 09, 2015
Be careful what you've wished for, or...
You just might have gotten it, and it's giving you an existential crisis.
My desire to establish a safe landing spot outside the good ole US o' A has been well established on this blog, but until recently, it's only been a hypothetical discussion. The online research I've done over the years focus primarily on getting a second passport, and that's certainly a valid aim, but further digging found that isn't automatically the best route. Unless you have a grandparent or parent from a select few nations, it's a difficult process. One, they tend to be expensive. If you don't have the money to purchase a house in Dominica or St. Kitts, or $1,000,000 to invest in Austria, you have the option of investing time instead, which should be a little more viable, if you have a skill set in demand. That's a big "if." For the average American who speaks only English, you had better be in healthcare or one of the hard sciences to qualify to move to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the like. Spend 4 years in these nations, and viola! You have a second passport. I had a similar chance in Chile as an potential ESL teacher, but the pay is terrible, and I would have to live there for 2 years without pause. The last option is marriage, but far more people marry Americans to move here than vice versa. Also, there's a good chance you'll get your ass taken to the cleaners in divorce court. This is one of the reasons I never married Anya. Of course, moving to a different country or marrying someone both have a middle step before obtaining that valuable travel document: a permanent residency visa.
The permanent resident visa, referred to from this point on as a green card no matter what the country and whether or not it's an apples to apples comparison, is a much easier alternative for the average American looking for a safe place to land without committing to living someplace full time or don't have the money to buy a passport. This comes with a trade-off. The visa can lead to a passport, but without the requisite time spent in-country, there's no promise of one. So unless I suddenly devote one month to rooting around Limerick, what other options are available?
The easiest option I've found is Panama. The Friendly Nations Visa allows citizens from a whopping 47 nations to get a green card with very little time or money. That assessment is relative, of course. Spending $12,000 for the visa, especially when $5,000 of that is a bank account in your name to show you're solvent, is much more affordable than buying a house in St. Kitts for $400,000 (plus legal fees), or donating $100,000 to Dominica. Very little time is required in-country. Furthermore, no matter how much time you spend in Panama, the visa is not a guaranteed path to a passport, which is awarded solely at the discretion of Panama's president, but as a decent place to start a business, and a good place to bank offshore, one could do worse. I've known about this program, but I never really had the wherewithal to start. Now that my fiscal discipline has improved markedly, I could do it without breaking the bank. Now that I can, now that it's possible, now what do I do?
Buddhists believe the desiring of something is more satisfying than getting it, and this moment I agree. Marketers define this as selling the sizzle, not the steak. Once this left the realm of theory and became tangible, I froze. I started asking myself hard questions, such as whether or not this was even a good idea. If I did get a Panamanian green card, what would I do with it? Am I truly willing to leave the USA? I didn't have an answer. I suddenly doubted if I wanted this in the first place. I thought of all the hardships, all the relationships I'd be forsaking, all work I'd need to do. When would I start taking Spanish lessons? (That's one of the easy ones to answer: any time I get off my ass). What would I do down there? Is this truly necessary?
The easy assessment to all of this is that I'm afraid - afraid of success, afraid of failure, afraid of change, afraid I'm too old to this. There's a kernel of truth to this, but I feel (hope?) these questions are indicative of deeper, more meaningful questions. Starting a process like this means that I believe that the negative projections I've been blogging about are coming true. It means that I accept the futility of hoping for a good outcome within the United States. Disillusionment is never enjoyable, though it may be necessary. Still, neither of the above realizations should be considered as such at all. These truths were assumed to be self-evident, unless almost everything I've written over the past ten years was just an exercise in Onanism. It isn't. However, all this begs the question: so what? What makes this investment in time and money a good decision?
First, the above paragraph is a textbook example of negative reinforcement: doing something to remove an unpleasant circumstance or stimuli. The example I like to use is an alarm clock. It forces you to wake up and turn it off, otherwise you're subjected to the sound it makes until you acquiesce. Negative reinforcement does work; people who work best under threat of a deadline are a shining example of the power of the phenomenon. This doesn't mean it doesn't have drawbacks. First, it stops working. Eventually the power of whatever threat you're trying to avoid fades. Second, it's stressful to the subject, and over the long term, unhealthy. Few people liked to be forced to do anything. Third, negativity is self-perpetuating. Finally, it probably isn't required to duck and cover anyway. A good bug-out location Stateside, well supplied and as close to self-sufficient as possible, would probably be enough to survive anything less than a total collapse of civil order or sudden descent into a dictatorship. I consider the latter more likely than the former. With these facts in mind, I need to find more and better goals for all this beyond just running away from some phantom fears.
So, there needs to be more reasons, but what are they? To find the answer, I had to go back to one of my original sources of inspiration: Neil Strauss' Emergency. I was reminded that a green card or citizenship is a sort of insurance policy against a breakdown of society, yes. Still, the best reason someone would want to do all this work and spend all this money is the increased freedom either status can represent. This could be anything from visa-free travel, easier offshore banking, access to free education, permission to work, even reduced expenses in the new nation. In the realm of easier travel, Chile has a national identity card that is recognized in all other Spanish speaking nations in South America. This card allows you to cross international borders without using a passport. All other participating nations have their own version of the card. The Schengen Area works similarly. It's difficult as a citizen of the USA to wrap my head around, but it's real. Getting a green card or a second citizenship gives me options that would not exist without it. Building something new, expanding your horizons, as well as the peace of mind this would bring are the reasons I'd spend all this money, and it would be worth it, even if things didn't fall apart.
Now that my questions have been answered, what's the next step? The Panamanian green card seems to be a two step process. First you open a bank account, depositing a nominal sum, then you go through the much more involved process of getting the visa. In theory, I could do the bank account right away, but I have a feeling my trip to Cancun will have the opportunity to open a foreign bank account, and I hope Panama is on the list. If not, I'll start tackling this in May.
My desire to establish a safe landing spot outside the good ole US o' A has been well established on this blog, but until recently, it's only been a hypothetical discussion. The online research I've done over the years focus primarily on getting a second passport, and that's certainly a valid aim, but further digging found that isn't automatically the best route. Unless you have a grandparent or parent from a select few nations, it's a difficult process. One, they tend to be expensive. If you don't have the money to purchase a house in Dominica or St. Kitts, or $1,000,000 to invest in Austria, you have the option of investing time instead, which should be a little more viable, if you have a skill set in demand. That's a big "if." For the average American who speaks only English, you had better be in healthcare or one of the hard sciences to qualify to move to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the like. Spend 4 years in these nations, and viola! You have a second passport. I had a similar chance in Chile as an potential ESL teacher, but the pay is terrible, and I would have to live there for 2 years without pause. The last option is marriage, but far more people marry Americans to move here than vice versa. Also, there's a good chance you'll get your ass taken to the cleaners in divorce court. This is one of the reasons I never married Anya. Of course, moving to a different country or marrying someone both have a middle step before obtaining that valuable travel document: a permanent residency visa.
The permanent resident visa, referred to from this point on as a green card no matter what the country and whether or not it's an apples to apples comparison, is a much easier alternative for the average American looking for a safe place to land without committing to living someplace full time or don't have the money to buy a passport. This comes with a trade-off. The visa can lead to a passport, but without the requisite time spent in-country, there's no promise of one. So unless I suddenly devote one month to rooting around Limerick, what other options are available?
The easiest option I've found is Panama. The Friendly Nations Visa allows citizens from a whopping 47 nations to get a green card with very little time or money. That assessment is relative, of course. Spending $12,000 for the visa, especially when $5,000 of that is a bank account in your name to show you're solvent, is much more affordable than buying a house in St. Kitts for $400,000 (plus legal fees), or donating $100,000 to Dominica. Very little time is required in-country. Furthermore, no matter how much time you spend in Panama, the visa is not a guaranteed path to a passport, which is awarded solely at the discretion of Panama's president, but as a decent place to start a business, and a good place to bank offshore, one could do worse. I've known about this program, but I never really had the wherewithal to start. Now that my fiscal discipline has improved markedly, I could do it without breaking the bank. Now that I can, now that it's possible, now what do I do?
Buddhists believe the desiring of something is more satisfying than getting it, and this moment I agree. Marketers define this as selling the sizzle, not the steak. Once this left the realm of theory and became tangible, I froze. I started asking myself hard questions, such as whether or not this was even a good idea. If I did get a Panamanian green card, what would I do with it? Am I truly willing to leave the USA? I didn't have an answer. I suddenly doubted if I wanted this in the first place. I thought of all the hardships, all the relationships I'd be forsaking, all work I'd need to do. When would I start taking Spanish lessons? (That's one of the easy ones to answer: any time I get off my ass). What would I do down there? Is this truly necessary?
The easy assessment to all of this is that I'm afraid - afraid of success, afraid of failure, afraid of change, afraid I'm too old to this. There's a kernel of truth to this, but I feel (hope?) these questions are indicative of deeper, more meaningful questions. Starting a process like this means that I believe that the negative projections I've been blogging about are coming true. It means that I accept the futility of hoping for a good outcome within the United States. Disillusionment is never enjoyable, though it may be necessary. Still, neither of the above realizations should be considered as such at all. These truths were assumed to be self-evident, unless almost everything I've written over the past ten years was just an exercise in Onanism. It isn't. However, all this begs the question: so what? What makes this investment in time and money a good decision?
First, the above paragraph is a textbook example of negative reinforcement: doing something to remove an unpleasant circumstance or stimuli. The example I like to use is an alarm clock. It forces you to wake up and turn it off, otherwise you're subjected to the sound it makes until you acquiesce. Negative reinforcement does work; people who work best under threat of a deadline are a shining example of the power of the phenomenon. This doesn't mean it doesn't have drawbacks. First, it stops working. Eventually the power of whatever threat you're trying to avoid fades. Second, it's stressful to the subject, and over the long term, unhealthy. Few people liked to be forced to do anything. Third, negativity is self-perpetuating. Finally, it probably isn't required to duck and cover anyway. A good bug-out location Stateside, well supplied and as close to self-sufficient as possible, would probably be enough to survive anything less than a total collapse of civil order or sudden descent into a dictatorship. I consider the latter more likely than the former. With these facts in mind, I need to find more and better goals for all this beyond just running away from some phantom fears.
So, there needs to be more reasons, but what are they? To find the answer, I had to go back to one of my original sources of inspiration: Neil Strauss' Emergency. I was reminded that a green card or citizenship is a sort of insurance policy against a breakdown of society, yes. Still, the best reason someone would want to do all this work and spend all this money is the increased freedom either status can represent. This could be anything from visa-free travel, easier offshore banking, access to free education, permission to work, even reduced expenses in the new nation. In the realm of easier travel, Chile has a national identity card that is recognized in all other Spanish speaking nations in South America. This card allows you to cross international borders without using a passport. All other participating nations have their own version of the card. The Schengen Area works similarly. It's difficult as a citizen of the USA to wrap my head around, but it's real. Getting a green card or a second citizenship gives me options that would not exist without it. Building something new, expanding your horizons, as well as the peace of mind this would bring are the reasons I'd spend all this money, and it would be worth it, even if things didn't fall apart.
Now that my questions have been answered, what's the next step? The Panamanian green card seems to be a two step process. First you open a bank account, depositing a nominal sum, then you go through the much more involved process of getting the visa. In theory, I could do the bank account right away, but I have a feeling my trip to Cancun will have the opportunity to open a foreign bank account, and I hope Panama is on the list. If not, I'll start tackling this in May.
