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people with ANY religious affiliation should be banned from politics. People with any political affiliation should be banned from religion. To save all of us from any more disasters, religion and politics should be banned.

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[quote=”sweikert925″]There are good people and bad people on both sides of the political left/right divide.[/quote]

Good lord! I find myself on the same side of this argument as Sweikert! Amazing.

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I suspect most visitors to Chicago are there for business not pleasure. For pleasure, people generally look for weather such as we have in South Florida and Costa Rica.
Weather is important to me. Chicago weather sucks big time. South Florida weather is better and the weather in the mountains of Costa Rica is the best. In fact, for me it is perfect.
Try and imagine how stressful it must be for a Tico in Chicago. He must spend a lot of time day dreaming about the idyllic country he left behind comparing it to the hustled pace and brutally cold winds of Chicago. Hell, you live in Chicago and you probably day dream about Cista Rica. So fess up and admit Chicago sucks and you would rather be in CR.

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Sweikert,

Chicago is cold, crowded, ugly and dangerous. According to FBI stats, East Chicago and Gary Indiana are among the top 30 murder capitals of the US.
No Florida city makes that list.
I am pretty sure I know why Ticos do not immigrate to the US in great numbers. But I have NO idea why anyone would choose to live in the frozen murder capital of Chicago. Maybe the politics suits them?

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[quote=”sweikert925″]According to [url=http://travel.trade.gov/outreachpages/download_data_table/2011_Visitation_Report.pdf] this US government report[/url] there were 168,722 Costa Rican visitors to the US in 2011. Maybe Ticos don’t like Miami and prefer Orlando – or the Grand Canyon, Niagra Falls, Los Angeles – or even Chicago(!).

Or maybe they visit Miami and just avoid you.[/quote]

I expressed an anecdotal opinion. (Chicago sucks, by the way) But you forced me to do a Wikipedia search. I found the following;
There have never been waves of migration from Costa Rica to the United States. The Immigration and Naturalization Service records indicate that very few Costa Ricans have actually tried to enter the country illegally. This is because, unlike other Hispanic groups, they have not been forced to emigrate to the U.S. for political oppression or extreme economic circumstances.

Most Costa Ricans living in the United States have settled in the U.S. for any of the following reasons: they have married American citizens and decided to move to the U.S.; they were raised by their families in the United States; they have been hired to work in the United States after completing a degree from an American university; they have found research opportunities that may not be as readily available in their country, or they have come to various jobs and trades in the United States.

Since 1931 only 57,661 Costa Ricans have immigrated to the United States. Hence, the number of Costa Rican emigrants has been increasing very slowly. This is a very different from the pattern of emigration from most other Central American countries. In fact, the other two countries in this region that have a continuously slow rate of emigration are Belize and Panama.[2]

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[quote=”sweikert925″]I’ve lived my whole life in Chicago. I’ve never met someone from Finland, Slovakia or Bolivia that was visiting here.

Therefore, it must be true that no one from Finland, Slovakia or Bolivia has ever visited Chicago.[/quote]

Miami is populated by Cubans, Nicaraguans, salvadoreans, Gustemalans and Panamanians. The Tico presence is remarkably and practically non-existant.
And bear in mind that immigration to the US from Costa Rica is perhaps ten times easier than from Slovakia. And who wants to move to frozen Chicago anyway?

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I agree with the “good government” issue. They are mostly bad news but some are much worse than others. I suspect the good thing about the Costa Rican government is that is has or exercises very little enforcement power,.no army and a tiny police force.
The point is, I meet very few Ticos in Florida compared to all of the other nationalities there.

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[quote=”sweikert925″][quote=”aguirrewar”]… the house in Tampa, FL is 2,200 sq/ft and only $900.00 in property tax.[/quote]
You’re not overpaying in CR, you’re getting a steal in FL. Ask anyone else who lives in (or recently moved from) the US who has (or had) a comparable house what they pay (or paid) in property taxes. On a per square foot basis, I pay more than triple that.[/quote]

Crap! I have to agree with you on this, Sweikert. The yearly tax on my house in South Florida is $5300. The yearly property tax for my 12,000 sq meters in Costa Rica is so nominal I am embarrassed to list it. I have never heard of a 1200 sq ft CR house paying $1200 in taxes. That doesn’t sound right at all.

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[quote=”Imxploring”][quote=”davidd”]we love puerto rico .com is tongue in cheek 🙂

I find it so funny.. that finally someone is waking up to the fact that taxation and over government regulation is not the answer..

and its still semi part of the U.S. Puerto Rico.

http://www.internationalman.com/tax-free-zone-video

pretty amazing actually.. and costa rica should wake up.

costa rica is obviously headed towards replicating the mother ship and its draconian laws.. to the point that attracts people like sweikert to actually consider relocating here..

If your on a fixed income .. this is not the place to be relocating to.

with U.S. corporatism overwhelming this little country.. (subway has 62 locations here..) and the incompetents in government..trying to come up with ways to tax

this country will not be the place to be.. sorry to say..

would love to hear Scotts thoughts on this.. and people that actually have some REAL world experience instead of .. well you all know who :roll::roll::roll::roll:

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Things are getting worse in CR…. like much of the rest of the world. The new “management” seems to have taken up where the last left off…. more taxes rather than cutting cost and encouraging investment. While I still love my escape pod in CR… the idea of using it for anything other than a vacation retreat is not an option now. The mandatory CAJA costs… and other new “ideas” the government have come up with will keep me from placing myself on the radar and applying for residency. I’m happy to play tourist during my stays… and comply with the stay requirements…tourists seem to get better treatment and receive more concern at this point anyway. I’m blessed to be able to maintain homes in a few nice places. For those unable to do so the idea of placing all your eggs in CR’s basket is a scary prospect. I love the place and the people. The way they are treating expats and future ones has me very turned off.

As to PR…. A lot of hype but if you look deeper there are major issues with the moves they’re making to attract investment and people. The likelihood that the “incentives” will be watered down or eliminated outweighs the effort.

He’s another view on PR.

http://www.nestmann.com/puerto-rico-dont-believe-the-hype?inf_contact_key=b260f646d9edb206da1b2ca76152f15db98d7f96426f02681a8d2226173fc57d#.VE00vGDD_mw%5B/quote%5D

I am leaning towards your way of thinking….keeping two homes may be a good idea. Whether or not one of those homes should be in the US is the bigger question.

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Just as I thought, Sweikert, you have no knowledge on this matter,just ignorant opinion. Thanks for wasting my time.

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So you believe the Fed and the government have things under control and that a dollar collapse or substantial revalue of the dollar is not going to happen?

There is a difference between being a practical optimist and being naive. Please list one source-individual who backs up your positive world view on the future of the world economy.

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[quote=”sweikert925″][quote=”sprite”]If, however, I am right, and you make no preparations, you will suffer great damage.[/quote]
Where did you get the idea that I don’t believe in making [b]reasonable[/b] preparations?[/quote]

Careful, you are going to contradict yourself. For what event(s)would you prepare if you truly believe the kooky nonsense to which you claim to subscribe in the main stream media? Are you perhaps giving some credence to Dr. Willie?

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[quote=”sweikert925″][quote=”sprite”]I am a positive person…[/quote]I’ll take your word for that, but that certainly isn’t the impression I’ve gotten from your many comments here.
[quote=”sprite”]I hope that Dr Willie and the many, many other credentialed experts who agree with him are all wrong[/quote]You seem to dismiss out of hand all of the evidence presented by even better credentialed experts who point to a different outcome. You automatically question their motives without questioning those of the doom and gloom peddlers who quite openly make money off their gloom-peddling.
[quote=”sprite”]you can put hope in one hand and you can defecate in the other and at the end of the day, guess which hand will still be full?”[/quote]Very colorful, but belief in the ability of people to figure things out and forestall cataclysms is not based solely on hope. There are certainly foolish, venal and corrupt people among those who run things but there are also wise, honest and well-intentioned people among them too. I happen to think there are more of the latter than the former, others can disagree. But the evidence of history shows that, mostly, we – all of us humans – have gotten to live better lives over the long arc of history, so which conclusion does that tend to reinforce?[/quote]

We will not agree on much since our information sources are mutually and diametrically opposed. Time will tell which of our world views was correct. I sincerely HOPE yours is correct but I strongly suspect mine is.
I prefer to err on the side of caution so I make whatever preparations my limited resources allow. Costa Rica is part of that preparation. I f I am wrong, no great damage is done to my position. If, however, I am right, and you make no preparations, you will suffer great damage.

Dr Willie apparently thinks as I do. He lives now in Costa Rica. This is a strong recommendation, in my view, to choosing Costa Rica as a refuge from the coming storm. Many of the wealthy class have already made such a move, buying compounds and land in Central and South America, among them the Bush family (Paraguay).

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[quote=”sweikert925″]And you believe that even though there has been nothing reported in the local press even remotely like that?

Is that the same Jim Willie who has [url=http://www.silverdoctors.com/tag/jim-willie/]published this series of preposterous “predictions”[/url] which qualifies him as a thoroughly insane kook?[/quote]

I am a positive person so I have to be careful to not foster false hopes… And I hope that Dr Willie and the many, many other credentialed experts who agree with him are all wrong.but, as the saying goes: you can put hope in one hand and you can defacate in the other and at the end of the day, guess which hand will still be full?”

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It sounds like your disagreement with Dr Willie is only a matter of timing and degree. That hardly makes his position crazy, does it?
It also sounds like you might be in agreement with those who desire a drastic population reduction. If so, the question of degree and timing becomes very important.

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