Home › Forums › Costa Rica Living Forum › costa rican debt
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July 4, 2012 at 12:00 am #164809spriteMember
The attached article presents a chart by the CIA listing all world countries’ current account balance, (a country’s net trade in goods and services) in descending order of economic health. Costa Rica is towards the bottom about three quarters of the way to the last and worst of the economic basket cases, the United States.
Leaving the US for Costa Rica is still a good move, though. It is jumping from the fire into the frying pan….
July 5, 2012 at 3:45 am #164810AndrewKeymasterNot sure I understand the “It is jumping from the fire into the frying pan….” part of your post ‘Sprite’?
Scott
July 5, 2012 at 12:47 pm #164811boginoParticipantNot sure I get what the point is either.
July 5, 2012 at 1:38 pm #164812DavidCMurrayParticipantParsing what sprite writes is never a sure thing, but by writing that moving from the U.S. (with it’s massive debt) to Costa Rica (with its still monumental debt which, nevertheless, does not compare to that of the U.S.) is like jumping from the fire into the frying pan, s/he’s saying that one would be going from worst to very bad — from the fire back into the frying pan.
Yes, it’s a step in the right direction but whatever jeopardy that debt means for us, the situation would be less bad in Costa Rica than in the U.S.
Of course, that presumption is based upon the assumption that Costa Rica is equally able to face its debt as is the U.S. or that the significance of Costa Rica’s debt for its people (or maybe just for us expats) is equal to or less than the significance of the U.S.’s debt for its people.
Or maybe I’m wrong . . .
In any event, since there’s not a damn thing I can do about either country’s debt, I’m not going to overwork my few remaining functional brain cells worrying about it. There are plenty of other things to obsess about.
July 5, 2012 at 2:00 pm #164813boginoParticipantSince China was at the very top of the list maybe the moral is that we should all move to China.
Hmmmmmmmm. let me see:
China…U.S?……China…U.S.?…….China….U.S.? I think I’ll stick with U.S.
July 5, 2012 at 10:59 pm #164814spriteMemberyeah, David got my meaning. Although Costa Rica has a debt problem, it is still in a better situation than the US by far.
I believe there is going to be severe fall out from this problem for every country and while there is really no place to run, Costa Rica still looks like a much safer place to be than the US when the SHTF. In fact, if the chart is any indicator, the US is the absolute last place to be when this storm hits.July 5, 2012 at 11:07 pm #164815AndrewKeymasterI received the following email from one of our VIP members just yesterday:
“Thanks Scott, I will search more on your Discussion Forum. Incidentally, I enjoyed seeing you and some of your friends at the shooting range. Three weeks ago Betty and I applied for our CHL (Concealed Handgun License) after going to a class and qualifying at a enclosed range here in Dallas. The instructor said there are 20,000 permits per month issued here in Texas for this license. This tells you things are not all rosy in these days.”
Amazing eh?
IMHO there are many savvy people in the street who know what’s going on and what’s likely to happen, they know the official unemployment numbers are simply absurd, they know the “government” is preparing for and arming themselves for massive civil unrest and they are rightly anticipating some serious, very deadly problems.
Let’s hope we’re very, very wrong.
PS. Why Does The Department Of Homeland Security Need 450 Million Hollow Point Bullets?
[ http://www.activistpost.com/2012/03/why-does-department-of-homeland.html ]
July 6, 2012 at 12:16 am #164816spriteMemberSeveral years ago, before I woke up to the crisis, I was ambivalent regarding hand guns. (I now go to the target range here in Miami once a week since January) When I purchased my first pistol (9mm semi-auto Springfield) I was informed by the dealer that his business was through the roof. FBI stats report record level gun sales in the US.
This makes perfect sense considering what people in the US face now and will soon be facing. I know several others here in Miami who carry concealed as do I and statistics imply that one out of every two or three drivers on the road here has a pistol tucked away somewhere nearby. A good reason to keep road rage under control. But my impression is that armed citizens are rather more exotic in Costa Rica.
July 6, 2012 at 11:47 am #164817aguirrewarMemberCR is #144 under this chart
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html
$ -1,969,000,000, 2011 est
lots of negative numbers in there but what does this really mean??
some national debt is [u]OK[/u] but up to a point
moving to CR from the USA might help you up to a point in your standard of living
but some cities in the USA are bankrupt and they are cutting on Police, Teachers, Firefighters and City workers besides on Pension Plans
will your Social Security check be protected for the next 10 years??? I DON”T THINK SO!!!
used to be 20 years in the Military (USA) and you fot 50% in retirement, now they are thinking of changing the rule to 50% when you reach 62 years
the Federal workforce has not seen an increase in pay for the last 2 years
the US Post Office wants to reduce their workforce from 480,000 to 360,000 in the next 5 years
Detroit auto workers where reduced by 250,000 and so was their pension plans
The state of Florida does not have the right amount of funds in it’s retirement POT to pay the same amount in 10 more years
and the same will happen in CR if they don’t control their spending
July 6, 2012 at 11:59 pm #164818spriteMemberI often wonder what will happen when the social security checks for U.S. resident applicants in Costa Rica stop coming in. What does the Costa Rican government do with all those applicants? Send them packing? How bad will it get in Costa Rica?
And where would they go? Back to the center of an imploding empire?
Insolvency and inevitable implosion is not just a government and banking problem and fate. Citizens are at the very bottom of that food chain. Self reliance is the only solution but as things begin to fall apart, even that might prove too difficult for even the most adept.
July 7, 2012 at 12:55 pm #164819DavidCMurrayParticipant[quote=”sprite”]Insolvency and inevitable implosion is not just a government and banking problem and fate. Citizens are at the very bottom of that food chain. Self reliance is the only solution but as things begin to fall apart, even that might prove too difficult for even the most adept.[/quote]
Okay, sprite, you’ve made this exact point dozens of times now in this forum alone, so what’s your solution? Or will you just continue to flail away at this same doomsday scenario without contributing anything new or useful to the discussion?
If self reliance is, indeed, the only solution, just what do you recommend? Where do we begin? What’s your game plan?
Or are we to simply stand around wringing our hands with no clear purpose in mind but perhaps to wallow in our (or just your) own sense of dread, anxiety and foreboding.
Hey, maybe that’s it! Let’s all devote ourselves to a sprite-induced obsession with things over which we have no influence and which may never happen anyway. Maybe that’s the plan. Nothing compares to free-floating anxiety for ruining one’s enjoyment of life, eh?
July 7, 2012 at 3:04 pm #164820aguirrewarMemberI can see another of my posts has been deleted
makes me think, “WHY bother posting in this Forum”
do you MR. Moderator have an answer to this??
or is it that only what you consider the right posts can remain here
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