A woman around age 30 who works for Cleveland Clinic here (yes, I know that it sounds like a contradiction, but Cleveland Clinic has a massive operation in SE Florida) shared her Floridian Origin Story. She and her now-husband came to Fort Lauderdale on vacation in 2020 and discovered that it was possible for young people to enjoy a mask-free lockdown-free lifestyle without being felled by SARS-CoV-2. The couple packed up and moved and never looked back to their deep roots in Massachusetts (the now-wife had grown up in a house that her grandparents purchased and her parents still live there).
How much tax base was lost via the transformation from Massachusetts to Maskachusetts? The immediately loss was modest, only about 5 percent of perhaps $250,000 in joint income or $12,500 per year in state income tax. Figure another $2,000 in lost sales tax and $5,000 per year in lost property tax (whether the couple had rented or purchased). A total of $20,000 per year.
What’s the long tail? The parents are executives back in MA and they’re approaching retirement age. They are planning to keep their house on Cape Cod, but live in Florida for most of the year so that they can spend time with their daughter and any grandkids. If the daughter hadn’t been driven to Florida by the lockdowns, mask orders, vaccine orders, etc., the parents wouldn’t have followed. The state will likely lose at least another $40,000 per year in tax receipts and won’t get the state estate tax that they’d hoped to harvest from the dead bodies of the parents. (See Effect on children’s wealth when parents move to Florida.)
Although Florida lacks both income and estate taxes, these folks are contributing to the Florida economy and tax base by living here. Thus, it seems that Ron DeSantis’s decision to reject Faucism and follow the Church of Sweden will pay financial dividends to the state for many decades to come.
Loosely related, sunset approaches at Pine Glades Natural Area, about 20 minutes from Abacoa.
Phil, this is such interesting news! Because I am the Leading Global Scholar of Black Studies Plagiarism, my mathematical skills are naturally lacking (only so many hours in a day, and my trips to the local bank to deposit my $1.5m salary checks take time!), I had some difficulty following your calculations.
But, here’s my question, which requires your advanced mathematics skills. Is it possible that the loss of tax dollars to Massachusetts from these Jail-breakers is actually more than offset by the increase in my tiny salary over the same period? As you know well, my salary is not befitting of someone of my reputation and stature, but it has risen from $879,079 in 2020 to over $1.5m in the most recent period. Your thoughts?
Prof. Gay: Thank you so much for all of the important research results that you’ve brought to our attention even if, like Albert Einstein (who copied from his wife Mileva Marić), they’re not exactly “your results”. Harvard made $11 billion in investment returns last year, not least due to the evil greedy Elon Musk and his government-dependent SpaceX company that plagiarized so much from our great NASA. At a minimum, half of the $11 billion should have been paid to you.
“Harvard made $11 billion in investment returns last year”
Effective fiscal year beginning 07/01/26, (Pres. Trump’s) “Big Beautiful Bill” increased the excise tax on Harvard’s $68B endowment income from 1.4% to 8%. This really is Beautiful!
Phil how about having some humility. After reading your work I also kind of agree that the world went mad during Covid. But the thing is, the entire world went mad. And there is nothing we can do about it whatsoever.
Countries around the world told their citizens to stay at home, and they did. All the rights and freedoms amounted to nothing. That’s the way it is. Also the end-impact was also nothing. Yeah maybe a half-dozen people moved down to Florida from Massachussetts. Most people stay put where they are. California is still California and New York is still New York. Undefeated. No real consequences of Covid.
Anon: I agree with you that New York scoops up a huge percentage of wealth and income via theft (finance industry fees) and that California scoops up a huge percentage of wealth via innovation and services that people pay for voluntarily, the concentration of wealth in both places would be yet larger if they hadn’t been so invested in Faucism. Adopting a similar approach to what the MD/PhDs of Sweden selected was a way for Florida to keep some of the money that otherwise would have been concentrated into NY/CA.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/nyregion/wealthy-pandemic-nyc.html
“The Flight of New York City’s Wealthy Was a Once-in-a-Century Shock” (New York Times, 2022):
When roughly 300,000 New York City residents left during the early part of the pandemic, officials described the exodus as a once-in-a-century shock to the city’s population.
Now, new data from the Internal Revenue Service shows that the residents who moved to other states by the time they filed their 2019 taxes collectively reported $21 billion in total income, substantially more than those who departed in any prior year on record. The IRS said the data captured filings received in 2020 and as late as July 2021.
About one-third of the people who left moved from Manhattan, and had an average income of $214,300. No other large American county had a similar exodus of wealth.
The Manhattan residents who moved to Palm Beach County had an average income of $728,351, IRS data showed.
Anon: Anecdotally, I am pretty sure that it is more than “a half-dozen” who moved from MA to FL due to the lockdowns. I wanted to get a CEREC one-day dental crown and searched for offices with the machine. The dentist turned out to be a Tufts graduate in her 30s. She had previously practiced in Boston, but moved because she didn’t want to be locked down, ordered to wear a mask outside of work hours, etc. Our neighborhood is only 136 houses, but there are at least a handful of families who moved here from California in order to escape the lockdowns and also a couple from NY/NJ. (There are some more recent movers from Maskachusetts, but I don’t know that they were motivated by the coronapanic measures specifically.)
“these folks are contributing to the Florida economy and tax base by living here.”
And consume zero Florida state & local government aid!
DP: That’s true. Given the numbers in Table 4 of https://www.cato.org/white-paper/work-versus-welfare-trade-2013 I am shocked at the number of Florida residents on welfare. They could collect more than 2X the benefits if they simply moved to one of the more generous states.
Over the past five decades, much of my immediate family relocated from the Greater Boston area to FL – 1975: paternal grandparents; 1980: father; 1985: brother; 1990: me: 2000: mother; 2005: cousin; 2010: aunt; 2015: other brother is a FL resident-snowbird. Basically, every five years. As well, a half-dozen childhood friends. Good times!
The concept of retiring to FL predates Phil’s move — you know? — they trade in their snow shovels in picturesque New England for sand shovels in Florida with its charming Southern culture. Or so the brochure states. Political motivation is what I guess we could whimsically call Phil’s New Deal, très nouveau.
NH: The concept of retiring to SE Florida is over. Our neighborhood in Florida is 20 years younger than our former neighborhood in Lincoln, MA. A typical pension isn’t sufficient to fund a Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, or most parts of Palm Beach County.
See https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/the-dream-of-a-florida-retirement-is-fading-for-the-middle-class-a29a5687 for example.
How was that photo taken? Has et tu gone over to the mirrorless religion?
TD: The expedition to Pine Glades Natural Area was not for my benefit, but so that the kids could enjoy a ranger-led walk and an astronomy club meeting. I just used my iPhone 18 Pro Max. I guess that qualifies as mirrorless!
Phil, you sliding on the side of camera phones is a betrayal of everything we thought you stood for! go at least for a real pocketable point and zoom.
Speaking of tax and high-paying jobs I wonder what your position is on career vs family life tradeoff, and careermaxxing vs lifemaxxing.
I had a professor back in college who had achieved a fair deal, including tenure and some low-level fame (no Nobel prize though). After all of that, when asked what had given him the greatest joy or satisfaction in life he simply replied “having children”. This was after a brutal struggle to have children, including IVF and all sorts of conception help that probably contributed to his divorce.
I am writing this at a tech job which I am miserable in. I am being underpaid and overworked for sure. I have no debt. I wonder if I should say fuck it all and retrain as a dental hygienist or nurse and live the three days on four days off life and cut my living expenses. And just spend the time not working instead. Or something.
I am one of those who moved out of FL(Tampa) to Asheville NC this year. Here are couple of reasons.
1. Expensive Home Insurance, even though not living on water. 2013 paid $700 now paying $4500.
2. Expensive Car Insurance.
3. Traffic is horrible. Infrastructure did not keep up with population growth at least in my area.
4. High property taxes. around 2.1%. In asheville it is .8%. even with 4% income tax in NC it is cheaper when you have $1.5 mil home.
5. wanted to see all 4 seasons.
6. Not many high paying jobs in FL
For posterity, “Faucism” is:
Blend of Fauci + fascism, referencing Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the chief figures in the White House Coronavirus Task Force, who emphasized the urgency of pandemic countermeasures. Coined by American politician Ron DeSantis during the COVID-19 pandemic who used the slogan “Freedom over Faucism”.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Faucism
Whatsoever is Phil and Florida going to do without their precious DeMentis? Oh, heh-heh I made a funny too!
I would hate to argue with Wiktionary, but AI apparently has no scruples. Our future (current?) overlord says (a) Ron DeSantis did not coin the term “Faucism”, and (b) that “Faucism” is not related to “fascism” (coined in 1919). AI cites “Calvinism”, for example, a term first used in the mid-16th century (Cambridge University Press). The philosophy that inspires today’s most successful politicians, such as Zohran Mamdani, AOC, and Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, is a term coined around 1885 (“Marxism”). Additional 19th century terms include Benthamism, Owenism, Fourierism, and Darwinism.
It is interesting that the New York Times’s elite editorial staff in 2022 credited Ron DeSantis with having coined the term. https://www.aspentimes.com/opinion/spreading-faucism-2/ is from Nov 1, 2020 by “JM Jesse” and uses “Faucism”.
A search on X reveals people using the term much earlier.
April 2, 2020: https://x.com/Mujhunter/status/1245894896558301184?s=20 (“Should we declare it to be a new Medical Ideology?”)
April 4, 2020: https://x.com/lautgesetz/status/1246644669183717378?s=20 (“I look forward to seeing the new school to emerge from this pandemic: Faucism”)
April 10, 2020: https://x.com/NebojsaMalic/status/1248758146551762944?s=20
April 13, 2020: https://x.com/Robertrblochjr/status/1249681224743948288?s=20 (ties to Calvinism and Lutheranism with the “religious” reference: “Ending Faucism, the pseudo-scientific religious system based upon the false prophesies of the fraudulent fore-teller of fake death will usher in a remarkable improvement in public health and safety.”)
May 12, 2020: https://x.com/catoletters/status/1260355522881978368?s=20 (“Faucism – Lysenkoism 2020 Style”)
An Urban Dictionary entry from 2022: “”Science” by decree in service of a favored political narrative. Relies heavily on modelling and cherry picking data to support the predetermined conclusion, while using institutions of power to suppress and censor actual scientific inquiry and debate. Basically Lysenkoism.”
I edited the Wiktionary page (my first time ever!) by adding a paragraph about the X search (did not remove the inaccurate etymology). Let’s see if it gets reverted.
Seeing people use TwitX as a reference for anything is my “beam me up Scotty” moment. I know Faucaccia was all like “first you get the pandemic, then you get the power, then you get the women”, you right. Sheeit…
Speaking of that, my opinion on all politicians is very similar to Samuel Langhorne Clemens’:
“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”
More like the weekly washdown of the aerator at the sewage treatment plant, nowadays — but he right too.
X is “used as a reference”? Are you sure it isn’t simply used an example of language usage? Dictionaries are supposed to reflect usage.
Phil, regarding your Wiki page editing, I notice that you have a Wikipedia article. On that article, it stated that you donated $20,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation back in 2007. I like to think that they have that statement there as a mark of shame to you for how bad Wokipedia has gotten.
“See, he bashes us, but look! He gave us $20,000 in 2007. Who is the real bad guy here?”
Phil, off topic here but I just saw Spencer Pratt’s latest Rocking Comments and had to share them. I know you shitted all over him last time (“Spencer Pratt has the same credibility issue as Bill Ackman. Ackman criticizes Ayatollah Mamdani’s caliphate in NYC, but won’t move out and stop paying taxes that enable the Mamdani Caliphate to do all of the stuff that Ackman says he’s against”).
But, his comments are so well done that they’re worth hearing.
BTW, your shit-fit on Spencer could equally apply to you too…you live in the America and pay Federal taxes that “enable” all the shitshows you regularly shit all over, right? If you were really a true purist, you would find another shithole country to live in. As Hunter Biden likes to say, Comprende?
https://x.com/spencerpratt/status/2113702354591863177
SPR: your idea is a good one, but the U.S. government got there first (2008) with an exit tax. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/expatriation-tax
The next frontier is state exit taxes, e.g., to confiscate 13.3% of assets when someone moves from CA to TX.
Massachusetts is in the forefront of trying to impose a state exit tax: https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2026/06/19/maskachusetts-starts-work-on-an-exit-tax/
Phil, you make a good point but the “long tail” of Federal taxes you are subjecting yourself to paying if you stay here in Amerika even for a few more years, let alone forever (god willing…Allahu Akbar!), is far greater than the one-time exit tax you would pay if you departed Amerika for another shithole country to follow your dream, and stop “enabling” the shithole policies in Amerika.
SPR: If you were correct then the government would adjust the expatriation tax rate until your idea no longer made financial sense. The technocrats in DC sometimes waste trillions of dollars, but they don’t make amateur-level mistakes.
Assume a person who expects to die in 2050, for example, and who has the option to migrate to a tax-free nation, e.g., Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Bahamas, etc. The exit tax rate must be set up so that paying the exit tax today is more expensive than paying some capital gains taxes in the future plus an estate tax in 2050 on whatever is left. If we ignore inflation by looking at real dollars or assume it to be 0%, but allow a 4% real return on capital from the stock market and use that as our discount rate, paying $1 million today is like paying $2.56 million in 2050.
For people who truly disagree with the U.S. government’s spending (and I have never said that I was one of them), the smart move is the Bill Gates approach: send all of the money, never subjected to capital gains tax, to Africa via a nonprofit org or foundation. This deprives the U.S. government of tax revenue and also removes the money from the U.S. economy.
Phil, your math is off. Ask any tax advisor or ask Grok/SI. They will both tell you that for almost any wealthy person, departing Amerika and paying the exit tax will result in lower future taxes vs. staying.
My prompt to Grok: “Suppose an American citizen lives in Texas. He’s 60 years old and expects to die at 90. He started a company at age 30 and has $100 million in assets with a basis of $0. The assets have no current yield, but appreciate by 4% real per year. Assuming that tax rates don’t change, will it cost him more, on a net present value basis, to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move to Monaco today and pay the expatriation tax or to wait until he is 90 and pay the estate tax. Let’s assume that he spends 4% real per year by borrowing against his assets at a negligible interest rate.”
Grok’s answer: “it costs more on an NPV basis to renounce now and pay the expatriation (exit) tax.”
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_8bf2ef51-cdf6-4f55-ad41-087b47622267
You’ve also ignored that people can continue being U.S. citizens and yet stop paying taxes on a current basis. That’s the miracle of life insurance. The WSJ covers some of the variants: https://www.wsj.com/buyside/personal-finance/life-insurance/high-net-worth-life-insurance
Finally, you’ve ignored that financially successful people often want to leave money to their children (unless they’re Bill Gates and want to ship all the $$ to Africa). There are specialized restrictions on transfer from someone who has renounced his/her/zir/their citizenship giving money to a U.S. citizen child, for example. The result can be that BOTH the exit tax AND the estate/gift tax end up being paid, the worst of all possible worlds.
Phil, in your example you seem to not be including any current taxes that you pay every year. Those obviously go away if you leave.
Taxes: I think our messages crossed in the “mail”. There is no reason for a financially successful person to pay personal income taxes every year. Look into private placement life insurance, for example (see https://www.ubs.com/global/en/wealthmanagement/insights/marketnews/article.3384071.html for an intro). An even simpler approach is to hold a basket of stocks that have either no yield or a minimal yield (the investor in that case is effectively paying corporate tax, but that would be true even if the same stock were held by someone in Bermuda or Monaco).
Moving to Puerto Rico is another strategy that substantially eliminates current taxation for a U.S. citizen, though leaving the U.S. citizen still subject to federal death taxes. https://www.gq.com/story/how-puerto-rico-became-tax-haven-for-super-rich
Private bankers always have in-house or closely associated insurance experts and tax/estate-planning lawyers. You’ll hear these folks say things like “the first thing that I tell customers is to move out of Massachusetts”, but you’ll never hear them say “the first thing that I tell the typical customer is to renounce U.S. citizenship and pay a massive exit tax.”
Phil, your Grok prompt says your assets have zero current yield or income so yes you will have no recurring tax payments. But, most wealthy people have the majority of their financial assets in stocks and bonds, which results in large amounts of interest and dividends, and hence large recurring tax payments every year. The elimination of these tax payments plus estate taxes by far more than offsets the one-time exit tax over your 30 year timeframe or less.
Phil, I just replicated your Grok query with the realistic assumption that our wealthy person has 50% of assets in S&P 500 and 50% in a bond index fund. The answer: cheaper to pay the exit tax and depart.
Well, I guess I’m not a wealthy person then since I have approximately 0% of my assets in bonds (I lived through the Jimmy Carter malaise years and don’t want to be paid back in worthless mini-dollars; I’d rather own a share of a toothpaste factory that can be profitable no matter the nominal value of the dollar). The current yield on the S&P 500 is 1% so I modified the prompt to reflect a 100% S&P 500 portfolio: “Suppose an American citizen lives in Texas. He’s 60 years old and expects to die at 90. He started a company at age 30 and has $100 million in assets with a basis of $0. The assets have a 1% current yield, and appreciate by 3% real per year. Assuming that tax rates don’t change, will it cost him more, on a net present value basis, to renounce his U.S. citizenship and move to Monaco today and pay the expatriation tax or to wait until he is 90 and pay the estate tax. Let’s assume that he spends 4% real per year by (a) spending the after-tax portion of the current yield and (b) borrowing against his assets at a negligible interest rate.”
Grok says “It will cost more (on an NPV basis of the economic impact on wealth transferred to heirs) to wait until age 90 and pay the estate tax.” So it makes sense to exit? If you scroll down a bit to “Important caveats”, Grok adds “This ignores IRC §2801 (40% tax on gifts/bequests from covered expatriates to U.S. persons). If heirs are U.S. persons, exiting can be far more costly and the comparison reverses.” Grok also adds “Exemption growth, possible valuation discounts, charitable planning, life insurance, or other techniques could change the stay-path outcome.”
So… if the life insurance and other high-net-worth estate planning options didn’t exist AND if everyone in the family wanted to renounce at the same time then maybe it would make financial sense for someone with the conventional goal of leaving money to his/her/zir/their descendants.
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_c5e4c4a0-d724-4ec4-b2a5-aca2885ff3ae
(This is kind of an academic exercise from my point of view. I hope that I didn’t give the impression that my life is devoted to minimizing tax liability. If it were, I’d have moved to Puerto Rico or pushed everything into life insurance. I don’t mind paying taxes here in Florida because I agree with most of what is done with the money. I also am a believer in much of what the federal government does, e.g., maintaining Interstate highways and airports. I would rather give money to the IRS than to Harvard/Claudine Gay!)
Phil, so the conversation began with my comment that you shitted on Spencer for living in California and paying taxes there that “enable” all their shithole policies (and, to be clear, I agree they are shithole policies!). I’m not an expert on Spencer (hadn’t heard of him prior to last year), but I think you and Spencer agree on most things, so I find your shitting on him a bit perplexing. I think both your and my tax analysis of the stay/leave Amerika decision shows you are “enabling” shithole policies by paying more “enabling” tax if you stay, just like Spencer (he in California and you in Amerika!) to some extent by your tax payments. Yet, you both “stay,” and both of you rail against said shithole polices, no? I would think you might consider him a Comrade in Arms? You may disagree, but I have to say his posts nail the current situation/events in Amerika just about as well as anyone else I’ve seen. They are effective and entertaining at the same time, and I think I’m not the only one based on the #s of views he gets on them recently!
California’s state and local governments are quite different from the governments of other states and cities and a move away from California can be accomplished in one day with no bureaucratic approval required and no exit tax to pay. The person who doesn’t agree with providing taxpayer-funded health insurance to undocumented enrichers, for example, can stop being part of that system after a 4-hour flight to Texas (see https://abc7news.com/post/california-health-insurance-low-income-immigrants/14245553/ ; admittedly, Texans still pay for health CARE for the noble undocumented because any migrant can go to any emergency room and receive free care, free services for the birth of a baby (who will then be a U.S. citizen), etc., and, therefore, this might be a distinction without a difference).
An American who disagrees with the U.S. federal government, which right now at least has quite a few policies that are diametrically opposed to California’s, generally cannot leave the U.S. without violating the laws of some other country (we are the only nation on the planet that has been dumb enough to allow unlimited immigration through an open border; even the suicidally empathetic Canadians have never done that). The golden visa-to-citizenship process in Portugal now takes 13 years, for example, so a person who physically left the U.S. in 2026 probably wouldn’t be able to settle down in Portugal until 2029 (getting the first visa) and wouldn’t be able to renounce his/her/zir/their U.S. citizenship until 2039 at the earliest. He/she/ze/they would be paying taxes to both Portugal and the U.S. for all 13 years (a much higher total tax rate because the U.S. won’t credit Portuguese taxes paid on U.S. holdings; essentially both countries want 23.8-28% of dividend income on U.S. corporate dividends). Then there would be a massive exit tax to pay in 2039. And, finally, there is no guarantee that it would work at all. The Portuguese could discretionarily refuse to issue a passport. The Portuguese could change their laws at some point between now and 2039, just as they did in early 2026 (roughly doubling the time required to get a passport from 5 years plus bureaucratic delays to 10 years plus bureaucratic delays).
If someone says “I’m hungry for a Big Mac” it is typically reasonable to ask “Why don’t you walk, bike, or drive 2 miles to the McDonald’s?” If someone says “I’m hungry for Isshisoden Nakamura” you don’t ask “Why don’t you go to DJT, transfer in Atlanta, fly to Osaka, take a train to Kyoto, get into a time machine to go back in time 6 months, make a reservation, get back into the time machine, walk into Isshisoden Nakamura, and chow down?”
https://guide.michelin.com/th/en/kyoto-region/kyoto/restaurant/isshisoden-nakamura
Phil, you bring up Portugal. Portugal looks like another California with shithole policies galore (funded by…crazy high income taxes!)…and maybe even worse than California in some respects? And, it has the “good fortune” of being a member of the EU so the Peaceful Islamic Terrorists in France, Spain and Germany can freely roam.
Also, to the extent that California goes south, it affects the entirety of Amerika, given its huge economy/population etc. Isn’t it a good thing for to have Spencer out there voicing the truth? Seems like his voice benefits all of us that rail against the shithole policies. It’s like living in shitty neighborhood with the shittiest house next door, which affects everyone with the nasty spillover. A good real-time example is Texas. Twenty years ago, no sane person would have predicted that someone like Talafreako could run, and perhaps win, in Texas! The same toxic shithole people that ruined California have move on to Texas (and other states). We now have a situation where the two most populous states (CA and TX) have become shitholes or nearly shitholes!
Is it possible that you, like Spencer, both stay and fight for a better future in the “best of the worst” places on earth (he in California and you in Amerika)?
Occam’s Razor says that while “it is possible”, it is also unlikely. The typical country is run for the benefit of its own citizens and, therefore, random people cannot show up and become citizens. The vast majority of Americans have to remain American citizens, and therefore pay taxes to the IRS/U.S. Treasury, because there is no other country that would be willing to give them citizenship. Americans have the freedom to move from state to state. Americans do not have the practical freedom to move to another country, become a citizen there, and, new passport in hand, renounce their U.S. citizenship.
(I do know a handful of people who gave up U.S. citizenship and/or U.S. green cards, but in all of those cases they already had a passport from some other country, e.g., because they were born in the Islamic Republic of the Netherlands or the Islamic Republic of the UK. I also know some people who’ve expatriated themselves, e.g., by moving to northern Spain. But the example family in Spain cannot easily obtain Spanish citizenship and they remain U.S. citizenship subject to U.S. taxation.)
Phil, I’m honestly shocked by your comment: “The typical country is run for the benefit of its own citizens and, therefore, random people cannot show up and become citizens.” Isn’t what we have seen in the U.S. (and California to the extreme), Portugal, France, Germany, UK (and on and on) in recent years proof-positive of the exact opposite?
Millions of people were welcomed into our country (and those other countries) by our governments with the obvious (and often outright stated) intention to grant them citizenship and thus construct an unbeatable voting block to expand and cement their shithole policies. California is the prototype for this–the result of a huge amnesty in the 1980s, which permanently altered the state and directly led to the shithole it is today.
I agree with you that the European nations that filled themselves up with low-skill migrants via an asylum-based immigration policy aren’t being run for the benefit of their average citizen, just as the U.S. government has pursued an elite-enriching immigration system since the mid-1960s (see https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216/ ).
But the European nations filled with low-skill migrants aren’t typical of countries around the world and might even be atypical for Europe. There are 193 UN member states. There are about 44 countries “in Europe”. I asked Gemini “Of the 44 european countries total, roughly how many have a substantial number of low-skill immigrants admitted under asylum or refugee policies?” and it righteously refuses to answer. Deplorable Grok, by contrast, says “Roughly 15–25 (most plausibly around 15–20), concentrated in Western, Northern, and parts of Southern Europe … The “low-skill immigrants admitted under asylum or refugee policies” primarily refers to the post-2015 inflows (and ongoing smaller ones) from the Middle East (especially Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq), parts of Africa (Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, etc.), and South Asia. These groups have often had lower average education/skill profiles relative to host labor markets (though this varies by origin; Syrians tended to be better educated than some African cohorts). This excludes the large Ukrainian temporary-protection cohort since 2022, which is European-origin and generally higher-skilled or more readily integrable… Germany (by far the largest absolute numbers—hundreds of thousands of Syrians/Afghans/etc.), France, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Luxembourg. These account for the majority of absolute stocks and ongoing applications. … Sweden (historically high per capita), Norway, Finland, and (to a lesser extent now) Denmark. High recognition rates and stocks relative to population in the past. … Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus (often high per capita or as arrival points), with smaller but notable numbers in places like Malta. Spain has also seen significant Latin American asylum claims in recent years. … Most Eastern and some Central European countries (Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltics, and several Balkan states) have admitted very few of these non-European low-skill asylum/refugee cohorts. They largely rejected or limited the 2015–16 arrivals, opposed mandatory relocation quotas, and focused instead on Ukrainians under temporary protection. Absolute and per-capita non-Ukrainian stocks remain low compared with Western/Northern Europe … the evidence points to roughly 15–20 countries having meaningful stocks or ongoing inflows of this type of immigrant, out of the 44 total”
Nobody is going to be able to show up in Taiwan, say “I come from a violent, dysfunctional, and poor society so I’d like to live here forever with welfare and a fresh passport please”, and get anything other than a plane ticket back “home”.
Yes, but you actually make my point. Most of the world’s non-communist and advanced economies have done exactly what the U.S. has (the big exceptions are of course Japan and Taiwan as you note)…they have welcomed in invaders so as to make them citizens thus permanently change the makeup of their societies. Exhibit A: France in recent weeks.
Just to leave it here, respectfully, your comments appear a bit smug. I get why you like Florida (what rational person wouldn’t), but none of the things that are great about Florida are unchangeable (even their constitution can be amended to allow for an income tax…I know, a painful thought!) over time and without a doubt they will be influenced going forward if the shithole polices expand (just as in Texas). In conclusion, it never hurts to have friends like Spencer in shithole states like California.
I’m sorry that you think I am smug. I did my best to explain why I don’t renounce my U.S. citizenship on Monday:
1) While there are some limited-government countries in the world more aligned with my personal politics than the U.S., e.g., Taiwan (less than 20% of GDP spent on government), I can’t think of a legal way for me to live in one of those countries and stop paying tax to support those things the the U.S. federal government does that I don’t agree with. Also, I don’t want to live in a place where I can’t speak the language or read signs. (Same objection to living in Miami!)
2) I don’t have a second passport
3) I don’t want to pay a massive exit tax and then another massive gift tax to my kids after I’m dead (i.e., end up providing MORE financial support to federal government policies with which I disagree than if I continued as a U.S. citizen).
None of the above are issues for a righteous American who moves, for example, from Florida to the abortion care paradise of Massachusetts because of a passion for abortion care being legal at 37 weeks (Kermit Gosnell would have needed to tweak his procedures only slightly in order to have been considered a pillar of the Maskachusetts medical community rather than a criminal suitable for imprisonment). It is not illegal for the Florida progressive to move to MA and rent an apartment or buy a house. The Florida progressive does not need even one passport to make the move, much less two. The Florida progressive need not pay an exit task to the Deplorable Ron DeSantis in order to move.
(And I agree with you that Florida could change. Now that Democrats have discovered the cheat codes of (a) what they call “socialism” (51+% of Americans don’t have to work while a minority is taxed to pay for their work-free lifestyle), and (b) Jew-hatred, I think that they could win almost any election anywhere. Who wouldn’t rationally vote for “make someone else pay for the entire cost of running the government”?
I am not operating under the assumption that things won’t change. Argentina had one of the world’s highest standards of living, for example. France was once a leader in science and engineering as well as a well-respected military power. Russia was one of the world’s fastest-growing economies in the 30 years leading up to the Revolution. The UK was the most powerful nation on the planet, both economically and militarily.)