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The inability to sell the house for what I want to get out of it. I think many people are in the same predicament; trapped by loss of worth and waiting it out. I have no language or cultural barriers. I love the country more than my own. I can work via the internet for 1/3 of what I make and be fine, but the equity is what would fund land purhase and construction costs.
Unfortunately, if you desire anything close to “scholastic achievement” in the US your [u]only[/u] choice is private school. The US public school system is dysfunctional and apathetic, especially after the 4th grade. I personally blame much of this on lack of a “real” college major requirement for teachers (education is a sorry excuse for a major and the easist), unionization and federal interference form the absolutely worthless Dept. of Education. The US spends more per student than any other nation with sub-par results = bottom third for 8th & 12th grade. When it comes to public education you do not get what you pay for (property taxes).
Escazu has a recycling station in the Biesanz Woodworks area and the disposal service will handle the recycleables. I also managed to find one in Ciudad Colon in a business park between town and the unmanned toll stations called Servicios Ecologicos. I would hope that someone like Coca Cola or Kimberly Clark would step up and have their own drop off stations. Escazu used to have drop-off stations, but they found to much abuse with garbage.
Lack of due dilligence always bites you in the rear at some point, but at least you did not purchase site unseen. What I am surprised by is that the owner settled for only 10% down.
The Coasts could not be more different in environment, ambiance and amenities. The west coast is much more developed and has numerous amenities in comparison. We are heading to Puerto Viejo tomorrow for some snorkeling. We were there in 2005; I do not even remember a gas station and the road was newly paved to PV only. Limon is 45 minutes away.
The east coast is extremely jungle like and there are significantly more insects. The snorkeling and diving are better, but the surfing is inferior to the west coast. The weather is also quite different – they get a lot more annual rain fall and higher humidity. The ambiance in the east is much more Caribbean / Rastfarian compared to the expat / international west coast. In general it is more primative.
The only way to know is go and never, ever buy anything site unseen in any country.As the web site master, you have a lot more latitude to clearly state what you believe and as most Brits, Scots and Irish (I have several friends of each), blunt and to the point. A very interesting comment from a contributor to MSN Money:
[i]The next burst of value is not likely to come in the United States and Europe, however, as our supply of talented people has grown faster than our supply of jobs. Wages are going down, the average age is going up, and arable farmland is shrinking. [u]And at a time when we need smart investment in physical and infrastructure more than ever, our government has decided to spend the nation’s rebounding abundance on a cockeyed concept of fairness — trying to make everyone even, regardless of merit, rather than letting the smart and ambitious use their funds to create jobs and wealth[/u].[/i]
Expatriation is much easier than most people think. It is the fear instilled by the government that stops people from going throuh with it. I have been researching the subject for several years now and communicating with people who have done it. It takes some planning, like liquidating assets over time. There is a two year window right now to roll a 401k over into a Roth IRA and pay the taxes on the “income” over two years. Most professionals exceed the threshhold and cannot make any contributions, but after 5 years it can be withdrawn. If you don’t have any assets in the US to seize, the leverage is gone. Also, you cannot expatriate unless you already have a passport from another country. Social Security will not exist by the time I am 55 and I have never considered it as part of retirement.
Lets face it, with all the debt that is being racked up by Oblahblahblahma, the government wants you as a wage earning slave.A sunrise, sunset and sunshine every day + no need for any heavy clothing, boots, mittens or ski mask? I lasted one Anchorage winter in 1986 after being there every summer from 1984. Transferred to Seattle as soon as I got the chance. Ex-inlaws moved there in 1955 with Air Force, started a law firm, was even AG for Alaska under Hickel. Hardcore place to live, even compared to Montana.
I am also more concerned with global toxicity. Quit cutting down the forests, plant 2+ tress for everything ever removed and the CO2 sink will take more out of the atmosphere, however, we are centuries off from returning to pre-industrial levels at current pollution levels (see NatGeo’s latest issue). The reality is that you cannot just switch the oil spiggot off and expect people to adopt new technologies in an instant, especially if the cost/benefit is so skewed that it causes an undue economic hardship. Bridging the gap is what I am a proponent of. If global toxicity is a major concern, then something other than silicon wafers must be developed for solar power, for its manufacture is quite toxic; Intel in Heredia has to dispose of byproduct outside of CR’s borders by agreement. Many solar voltaic silicon wafers are the rejects from the computer industry, which can be considered a recycled material. Thin film solar is a relatively new, much less impactive solution. This is just one example how quickly these new technologies can adapt with a consumer demand. What is often miss is the total resources consumed to create the infrastructure for new technologies. If the finite resources used to create an alternative exceeds a more established energy source, then the balance of resource impacts is actually detrimental.
Until the gap is narrowed between petroleum and alternative energies, there are millions upon millions of ships, trains, trucks and heavy equipment that will continue to run on oil for a long time to come. Railroads can haul the equivalent of 250 trucks worth of goods on the same amount of fuel.My ex-father-in-law experienced the Good Friday quake of 1964 in Anchorage (8.2 I believe). I have seen his pictures of 4th Avenue and 12′ vertical land shifts. He lost his entire office building on 8th & N. The entire neighborhood that slid into Cook Inlet is now Earthquake Park.
I felt the one coming that happened in Puriscal about 3 weeks ago while in Ciudad Colon. Having lived in seismic zones (AK & WA) for the last 23 years, I know an earthquake when its coming. That was the biggest one I personally felt in CR at a 5.2. You can’t live [u]anywhere[/u] on the Pacific Coast and not expect seismic activity. Here is another great web site that shows dialy earthquakes exceeding 2.0 all over the world. They are posted within the hour.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Opabh
You are going to get the treatment on “collector” cars hat old paying the highest % of taxes at 50% of black book vale I beleve. That would be a costly endeavor.
It is true, as mentioned previously on this forum that cars imported to CR are NOT the same models as US. A CR Toyota Land Cruiser is NOT a US Land Cruiser. There are many cars you can easily get in CR that you cannot in the US, such Pugeot, Renault and numerous Chinese brand cars and Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu, Hyundai and Kia diesel trucks and SUV’s.
The taxation on bringing a car in is set up such that a new car with the least % is equivalent to a slightly older car with higher taxation.
Can anyone give credence to the rumor that the taxation rates are about to be changed again to further the pain and hassel of purchasing a used vehicle with the goal of phasing out anything more than 10 years old?As the son of an exploration geologist who had been working in the Williston Basin in the mid-seventies, which is now part of the Bakken Formation (N. & S. Dakota to E. Montana, I was prematurely aware of the untapped reserves found in the region and put on the back burner, but which is now accessible due to technology. The current estimates put the total reserves at larger than the entire middle-east combined, right in our own back yard. This, in the conjunction with the deep water finds in the gulf would make the US self-sufficient for over a century, but that would be the continuation of the burning of fossil fuels and not current environmentally palatable, thus environmental impediments have been erected by a minority that impact the majority with respect to extracting this oil. Peak oil has not peaked yet, but based on the current 1-2% annual increase in consumption, the intersection in the graph is possibly 75-85 years off unless a huge increase is efficiency achieved, more alternative energy sources are utilized and/or substitute agricultutral based products for plastics are developed. Current automotive technology has made leaps in efficiency. BMW currently has a hybrid diesel sports car that achives 365 hp, governed at 150 mph and gets 90 mpg. VW is developming a 200 mpg hybrid diesel. The technology is there, just not available to the mass market yet. Alternative sources are ever increasing with wind and solar. Many plastics for the automotive inustry are derved from plant sources, th most hopeful being the algae based products. Jet fuel is being made from this an Bil Gates has personally ivnvested $1 billion in this industry.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Crises, weather real or perceived creates a desparate atmosphere for innovetion.
