4 ms·

Americans retirement plan should be to learn Spanish and save some money to live in Latin America. There are pretty good places where the QOL is good to retire

Americans retirement plan should be to learn Spanish and save some money to live in Latin America. There are pretty good places where the QOL is good to retire. Around 20 years ago I lived in La Paz BCS Mexico (small city near Los cabos). There was a decent number of old Caucasian folks chilling out at the malecon (broadwalk) everyday. That place is more expensive now, but there are others in central/south America with good cost/qol

zrn900 2y ago
Yep. The best retirement plan is to price-out and gentrify the locals in poor countries.
- robocat 2y ago
  Definitely a problem. Aside: the US retirees I saw in Mexico a few years ago seemed to group together in a few locales that were a bit wealthier or touristy. e.g. Puerto Vallarta and Ajijic. Pricing out thr locals occurs in wealthier countries too. Very noticable in my country (New Zealand) which encourages wealthy foreigners (Peter Thiel, Shania Twain) to buy up nice real estate over here. Our lefty government slows it down but then our righty government gets in and they open the gates for a couple of million down. A bad deal. One-off sales are shite economically versus recurring revenue. New Zealand's dear leaders don't seem to understand the value of selling subscriptions.
  - zrn900 2y ago
    > Aside: the US retirees I saw in Mexico a few years ago seemed to group together in a few locales that were a bit wealthier or touristy. e.g. Puerto Vallarta and Ajijic Yep. People in Spain started to label what is happening 'colonization'. They complain that the language you hear most in Barcelona city center is neither catalan nor castilian - its English. And some waiters can only speak English - they don't know catalan, castilian, basque, valencian etc. Gentrification is horrible of course - the city centers across Spain have become expensive even for white collar Spanish professionals like engineers, lawyers, doctors. There is going to be major flashback against rich immigrants at this rate - like how it happened in Lisbon. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/05/12/proto-gentrifies-are-digital-nomads-ruining-portugal https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/05/12/proto-gentrifies-...
    - xtracto 2y ago
      This is pretty interesting to me. The pattern is similar to what's happening between Mexico and the US: A lot of people emmigrated from Spain(Mexico) in the past , looking for better jobs and pay (I remember seeing plenty of Spaniards working in Scotland hostels when I traveled there). The locals (Britons/Americans) revolted against said immigration with the justification of lost jobs, and reduction of wages. Now the roles inverted somehow: Spaniards/Mexicans don't like people immigrating to THEIR country. Even if they do it legally and inject money to the local economy. Mainly because they are making the cost of living higher than what the locals can afford. I personally don't care people coming to gentrify Mexico. Globalization cuts both ways, and.
      - zrn900 2y ago
        > Now the roles inverted somehow: Spaniards/Mexicans don't like people immigrating to THEIR country. Even if they do it legally and inject money to the local economy. Its simply because that 'injecting money to the local economy' thing is a false proposition. A rich immigrant doesn't buy 100 shoes, 10 cars, or a dozen breads every day. They consume only as much as any other person would do. Their benefit to the local economy is negligible as a result. But... > Mainly because they are making the cost of living higher than what the locals can afford. ...the difference between the Spanish, the Mexican immigrants in the US and the new wave of (mainly Angloamerican) immigrants in places like Spain is that the latter are rich immigrants. Even in the case of a merely working class American or Brit moving to Spain, the immigrant has much more income or life savings than the average Spaniard due to the high cost of living in the US or the UK etc. So when they come to cheaper places, they directly gentrify even the white-collar professionals from the city centers and coastal areas. If a white collar lawyer and engineer cant cope up with the rising housing costs and food prices, there is no way that the average Spaniard could afford those either. So in the current dynamic, these rich individuals gentrify the people of the target nation out of their cities entirely, like in the case of Barcelona. Some locals started to call this 'a colonization' recently.
- BobbyTables2 2y ago
  I’d say you’re not wrong but it’s also not quite that easy. The intersection between “poor countries” and “nice place to live” is limited. I think we’ve largely forgotten organized crime still exists. North Korea and Russia may be cheap, but they have other drawbacks…
  - zrn900 2y ago
    > The intersection between “poor countries” and “nice place to live” is limited. I think we’ve largely forgotten organized crime still exists Nah, the income of the average golden visaer or digital nomad is already a few multiples of even some European countries' median wage. The difference is too high. They are gentrifying even parts of Europe.

zrn900 2y ago

Yep. The best retirement plan is to price-out and gentrify the locals in poor countries.

robocat 2y ago
Definitely a problem. Aside: the US retirees I saw in Mexico a few years ago seemed to group together in a few locales that were a bit wealthier or touristy. e.g. Puerto Vallarta and Ajijic. Pricing out thr locals occurs in wealthier countries too. Very noticable in my country (New Zealand) which encourages wealthy foreigners (Peter Thiel, Shania Twain) to buy up nice real estate over here. Our lefty government slows it down but then our righty government gets in and they open the gates for a couple of million down. A bad deal. One-off sales are shite economically versus recurring revenue. New Zealand's dear leaders don't seem to understand the value of selling subscriptions.
- zrn900 2y ago
  > Aside: the US retirees I saw in Mexico a few years ago seemed to group together in a few locales that were a bit wealthier or touristy. e.g. Puerto Vallarta and Ajijic Yep. People in Spain started to label what is happening 'colonization'. They complain that the language you hear most in Barcelona city center is neither catalan nor castilian - its English. And some waiters can only speak English - they don't know catalan, castilian, basque, valencian etc. Gentrification is horrible of course - the city centers across Spain have become expensive even for white collar Spanish professionals like engineers, lawyers, doctors. There is going to be major flashback against rich immigrants at this rate - like how it happened in Lisbon. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/05/12/proto-gentrifies-are-digital-nomads-ruining-portugal https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/05/12/proto-gentrifies-...
  - xtracto 2y ago
    This is pretty interesting to me. The pattern is similar to what's happening between Mexico and the US: A lot of people emmigrated from Spain(Mexico) in the past , looking for better jobs and pay (I remember seeing plenty of Spaniards working in Scotland hostels when I traveled there). The locals (Britons/Americans) revolted against said immigration with the justification of lost jobs, and reduction of wages. Now the roles inverted somehow: Spaniards/Mexicans don't like people immigrating to THEIR country. Even if they do it legally and inject money to the local economy. Mainly because they are making the cost of living higher than what the locals can afford. I personally don't care people coming to gentrify Mexico. Globalization cuts both ways, and.
    - zrn900 2y ago
      > Now the roles inverted somehow: Spaniards/Mexicans don't like people immigrating to THEIR country. Even if they do it legally and inject money to the local economy. Its simply because that 'injecting money to the local economy' thing is a false proposition. A rich immigrant doesn't buy 100 shoes, 10 cars, or a dozen breads every day. They consume only as much as any other person would do. Their benefit to the local economy is negligible as a result. But... > Mainly because they are making the cost of living higher than what the locals can afford. ...the difference between the Spanish, the Mexican immigrants in the US and the new wave of (mainly Angloamerican) immigrants in places like Spain is that the latter are rich immigrants. Even in the case of a merely working class American or Brit moving to Spain, the immigrant has much more income or life savings than the average Spaniard due to the high cost of living in the US or the UK etc. So when they come to cheaper places, they directly gentrify even the white-collar professionals from the city centers and coastal areas. If a white collar lawyer and engineer cant cope up with the rising housing costs and food prices, there is no way that the average Spaniard could afford those either. So in the current dynamic, these rich individuals gentrify the people of the target nation out of their cities entirely, like in the case of Barcelona. Some locals started to call this 'a colonization' recently.
BobbyTables2 2y ago
I’d say you’re not wrong but it’s also not quite that easy. The intersection between “poor countries” and “nice place to live” is limited. I think we’ve largely forgotten organized crime still exists. North Korea and Russia may be cheap, but they have other drawbacks…
- zrn900 2y ago
  > The intersection between “poor countries” and “nice place to live” is limited. I think we’ve largely forgotten organized crime still exists Nah, the income of the average golden visaer or digital nomad is already a few multiples of even some European countries' median wage. The difference is too high. They are gentrifying even parts of Europe.