I don't know how much gumby may have learned about being british* as an expat, but I've certainly learned a great deal about being american — fish and water and all that.
Sorry mate, for some reason I thought I'd remembered you had a Spectator sub and hence had you coloured pom in my head-canon. My monkey brain must be overwhelmed trying to keep track of all the HN handles. (at least I didn't call you Kiwi!)
Good memory: I did have a sub to the speccy, including when Boris Johnson was editor (a job he was, surprisingly, quite good at). Excellent writing, almost entirely utterly deranged.
There is no evidence early humans all migrated from Africa once evolution kicked in on the Continent. Are you suggesting indigenous Africans that stayed aren’t human? Brave position.
(Only responding in pedant mode because “I presume you know” is so…malodorous. Don’t throw stones in glass houses.)
Actually, what is the real point? The last inhabitants that the Europeans kicked out had themselves stolen the land from some earlier prehistoric tribe. Such is the circle of life. European immigrants to the Americas were not special in this regard. Someday, it will happen again.
Not so obvious. Origin stories for First Nations peoples are themselves narratives with their own particular validity, and some don’t mention an early migration.
The Western anthropological narrative of migration for these peoples is just another story, only valid within its own limited world-view. The relevance of anthropological evidence in engaging Native worldviews continues to be an important point of discussion in some (drum) circles.
I am one of those Americans who relocated to Mexico in the past few years. I still spend some months a year in the US for work and family, but the majority of my time is spent in a medium size pueblo outside of a major city. Mexico is very welcoming, although some knowledge of Spanish is necessary outside of the tourist areas. The people are wonderful and the internet is fast and cheap.
To be honest, it's really hard to articulate to people that still live in the United States. But it feels like the country has turned rotten. You feel it any time you interact with a customer service person. Restaurants, stores, especially any kind of "gig economy" service like getting food delivered. They hate serving you and hate their job. Social media has turned what used to be quietly held opinions into bullhorns and raised up walls where you're either on one side or the other. Outside of a few places, you have to drive and who knows if the person who just cut you off has a gun.
Also when you leave, you realize how much of American society is constructed around the idea of curtailing legal liability. It's why you have to fill out a 50 page form to get your teeth cleaned. It's why you have to go to the doctor and get a new prescription every year for a medication you've been taking with no problems for a decade.
It's why even when you have money, you have this sense in the back of your mind that you could still lose it all. Meanwhile, you see the truly rich treating the markets like it's a playground.
I moved to Mexico last year, and I felt safer. Like, not just physically safer but psychologically safer. People (not just in customer service positions) are more polite. The society feels more cohesive. Things here are easy if you have some (not even a lot) money.
Mexico is definitely not a perfect country - has tons of problems. But it's easier to insulate yourself from them if you're an ex-pat/immigrant and have money. That's the honest, kind of ugly answer.
>Mexico's image in the US media is quite negative, especially regarding safety.
Yes, and every scene of Mexico in a TV show is sepia toned. It's very funny to me.
Mexico's problems are basically:
- Drug cartels
- Poverty/Bad economic prospects if you're born there
- Government corruption
But Mexico is a very complicated place that is very different depending on what part of the country you're in (kind of like the US in that way.) There are places where the cartels are barely active and the police have a huge presence. There are "wealthy" areas of Mexico that wouldn't look out of place in the U.S. There are places in Mexico you definitely should not live or raise your kids. But you could say the same thing about many places in the U.S.
Having money allows you to live in safer areas with better public services, just like in the U.S. It just takes a lot less money.
I don't have kids, but I have expat friends here who do and I have met their kids. Some of them speak 3-4 languages. There are quite a few international schools that are "private" but again - a private school tuition in Mexico is nothing like a private school in the U.S. and they're very good schools.
The same Mexico with violent corruption reaching all the way to the highest levels of government? It sounds like you've insulated yourself from the astronomical violence of Mexico in one of its towns that caters to you but it's not the truth of the country: you're living in your own kind of walled up community town and telling yourself it's representative of the country at large.
Mexico is hardly a uniform country, much of American media on Mexico is limited to high crime border areas, not the nicer parts of the country. If you compare the countries:
They come out to be relatively similar overall. It would be like using St. Louis as an example of crime that someone living in SF will experience: the scales are completely off.
From your own data I see a 98% higher murder rate. No, it is not a uniform country but it is deeply, deeply corrupt. That the state is so thoroughly compromised is well-known. The commenter I replied to used their own anecdata to extrapolate to the whole of Mexico, which is a mistake.
"You feel it any time you interact with a customer service person. Restaurants, stores, especially any kind of "gig economy" service like getting food delivered. They hate serving you and hate their job."
Have you traveled widely within the United States (including 'boring areas')?
I've experienced this feeling in places like where I currently live, NYC, but don't feel it as much where I grew up in a boring suburb.
Not to say there aren't other problems. But I get nearly the same feeling of safety as I did in Europe or Asia.
> It's why you have to fill out a 50 page form to get your teeth cleaned. It's why you have to go to the doctor and get a new prescription every year for a medication you've been taking with no problems for a decade.
I had to fill a 10-page form, and drive to a GPs office twice to sign documents in order to get a GP that would accept a new patient - after 4 months.
Compare this to Indonesia where I walked in (yes, no appointment), to meet a GP and set up a relationship the next day.
When I share this story among my American friends, they think I exaggerate. "How can anything be so smooth? There must be something wrong with those countries". They never realize that in fact, something is wrong in America. And imo, it is the legal red-tape that tries to write complicated laws, statutes and policies to limit liability or to catch people in gotchas to limit benefits.
Whether or not service people are nice to you doesn’t seem important, but Americans are generally nicer than, say, any European.
I don’t know if you’d like Japan. Sure, they’re extremely polite, but “omotenashi” basically means “the customer is always wrong” - you get what they’re offering, no customization allowed.
Actually, it matters to me quite a bit. And the fact that that’s the thing you zeroed in on in my comment is exactly what I’m talking about.
You automatically assumed I’m some difficult to please customer- which isn’t the case at all. Obviously you will have to take my word for it, but your response is extremely telling about the attitude that people have these days. You immediately launched into an anecdote about Japan (the fuck?) and how they don’t customize food orders.
Lack of customization is pretty much global standard. France for example is the same. If you want to change something in your meal, go cook it yourself, at home. Or just buy what we serve and eat it.
This kind of thing doesn't happen in countries with functional governments. I predict that within 20 years the US military will be conducting frequent counterinsurgency operations inside Mexico (complete with drone strikes) in order to prevent a complete collapse.
Most Americans are extremely polite compared to Indians at least. The first time someone randomly greeted me on the street I thought I was being scammed. Maybe just a mexico thing?
I too live in Mexico and have for over a decade. If you say you feel physically safer here, it's because you live in a bubble of safety that's probably the result of having enough money to carefully choose where you reside and having picked a place where crime and insecurity haven't quite filtered to yet. Despite this, it's grossly mistaken or even dishonest to paint this country as a safer place than the U.S. The police are almost uniformly corrupt throughout, and where they don't engage in frequently criminal levels of corruption and extortion, they're often simply inept and unresponsive. God help you if a family member should be a victim of a serious crime or kidnapping here. You will very likely receive a terrible if not outrageously corrupt police response. Exceptions exist, but they're not at all the norm.
Now moving onto crime: Though certain parts of the country are safer from it and some places are remarkably peaceful, no honest person should understate how generally pervasive violent crime of many types has become throughout a growing percentage of the country. NO, IT IS NOT about just drug cartels or people involved in the black markets. Extortion, kidnappings, assaults and murders have reached a point where they affect many people from all sectors even if they're often careful.
Now obviously, Mexico isn't some caricature from a Hollywood movie in which one dodges bullets just by stepping outside, and it's possible to be fairly safe in many parts of the country. However, danger and an inability to respond effectively to crime if you are a victim of it go hand in hand and are much more common than many bubble-ensconced expats claim. The murder rate in the country is 6 times higher than it is in the U.S as a whole, in 2021, murders have reached their highest levels since the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century, and this not to even mention forced disappearances, unreported murders or the numerous types of lesser violent crime that are widespread.
To claim that you're physically safer in Mexico than in the U.S is an exercise in extraordinarily selective thinking or very particular, completely non-general circumstances.
Again, I live here, have for many years and have many friends throughout this country from all levels of the socieconomic ladder. Many of them have been victims of crime in many situations. All have at some point been the victims of police corruption.
Just to add: There are of course many stories and cases of bad police conduct in the U.S and in many incidents, police investigate poorly or react badly to situations, but overall, the general trend is that if you report a serious crime, it will receive a reasonably professional and often very strong investigative response. It will at least be generally incomparably better than how things would be in Mexico if the same were to occur, in this country where only 2% yes, 2% of murders (never mind lesser crimes) are ever solved by police.... People who complain about shitty police service in the United States are right to do so and point it out, but many of them have never seen just how bad it usually is in a country like Mexico.
What's more, basic self defense is practically forbidden. One can sniff their nose at U.S gun laws all they want but at least in most places a basic right to self defense when the police don't arrive on time and one's life is in danger exists. In Mexico, we have an absolutely perverse situation in which police barely respond in meaningful ways, crime is rampant, criminals are heavily armed and easily obtain weapons, but normal civilians risk going to prison if they should carry even non-lethal weapons for self defense, or use a gun in their home to protect themselves against and assault. Why do the police arrest them more often? Because such people are much easier pickings than a real criminal and it's an opportunity for safe extortion. This is very common, and grotesque.
U.S self defense laws are much better as an alternative. Europeans disdain such gun laws, but at least in most European countries where self-defense with weapons is often essentially forbidden, at least the justice system and policing are both functional. In Mexico they emphatically are not, but with the same sorts of highly restrictive laws against civilians who take defense into their own hands. I challenge anyone to defend such a legal landscape.
>To claim that you're physically safer in Mexico than in the U.S is an exercise in extraordinarily selective thinking or very particular, completely non-general circumstances.
That's fair. And I think my comment was unintentionally misleading. I was not saying that Mexico is a safer country than the United States. I was trying to explain my perspective. I personally feel safer here, because of neurosis I've built up after living in the US for almost 30 years. Even when I've interacted with police. Because a cop potentially wanting a bribe is more predictable/understandable to me than a buzz cut guy with an assault rifle who could kill me like its nothing and get away with it. That's what the police are like in the United States.
But I also live in Merida, which yes is a non-general, very safe city. But even when I was in CDMX I felt generally safe walking around, going to restaurants and malls.
>That's fair. And I think my comment was unintentionally misleading. I was not saying that Mexico is a safer country than the United States. I was trying to explain my perspective.
Fair enough, and I'm sorry if I came across as harsh in my own counterargument, but after all these years here, I've grown tired of some expats trying to whitewash how Mexico often is out of misguided political correctness or politeness towards the country. Politeness is fine as long as it doesn't paint dangerously false pictures.
>Even when I've interacted with police. Because a cop potentially wanting a bribe is more predictable/understandable to me than a buzz cut guy with an assault rifle who could kill me like its nothing and get away with it. That's what the police are like in the United States.
There are many examples of U.S police getting away with legal immunity against killing people who turned out to not be threats, but more often, they at least may face legal consequences if they commit a blatant murder or act of violence, and at least in many cases civil settlements happen that don't often get reported. Your take on Mexican police is almost certainly tainted by how they treat you as a foreigner and particularly in one of the safest cities in Mexico's single safest state, Yucatan.
Police in Mexico are more generally very dangerous under the wrong circumstances and have been implicated in more murders and disappearances than I can even number off the top of my head. And victims of their frequent violence can forget things like legal proceedings or civil settlements in all but the most unusual media-hyped cases. I'm sorry, but i'd say there's just no comparison. I'd suggest being more careful in making assumptions about Mexican police when you deal with them in the future. Where I live (a small city close to Puebla), municipal, state and federal police have been implicated in numerous murders, beatings, torture cases and so forth. All this aside from an endless stream of petty abuses that are openly, outright corrupt.
As for Merida, as I said above, known to be one of the absolute safest large cities in Mexico. Lovely place too, if you don't mind the heat. Mexico City has a fairly safe central part of it, a sort of bubble of reasonably moderate crime rates and few attacks against foreigners in particular, but remember that a vast other majority of the city is much more dangerous than that, and especially if you try entering the outer urban regions to the east and south of the city, or further out, entering Estado de Mexico.
With all that said, I continue to love this country after all these years.
>To be honest, it's really hard to articulate to people that still live in the United States. But it feels like the country has turned rotten.
I get this feeling on the rare occasion that I watch US news. It feels like wheels have come off.
>You feel it any time you interact with a customer service person.
My Wife and I were flying business back to the US for our honeymoon on a US carrier. Requests to the flight attendants were met with annoyance. On the few times I've been fortunate enough to fly business with international carriers, you're genuinely appreciated and treated well.
>My Wife and I were flying business back to the US for our honeymoon on a US carrier. Requests to the flight attendants were met with annoyance. On the few times I've been fortunate enough to fly business with international carriers, you're genuinely appreciated and treated well.
Are you and your wife by any chance not white?
My mom is white and my dad is Asian. The difference how they are treated in upscale environments like for example business class at American carriers can very disturbing at times to say the least.
> But it feels like the country has turned rotten. You feel it any time you interact with a customer service person. Restaurants, stores, especially any kind of "gig economy" service like getting food delivered. They hate serving you and hate their job.
A couple months ago I opened up Facebook and saw ads for this company [0]. I immediately think "oh it's just a sham designed to peddle as many ADHD pills as possible" like 5 seconds later (because I'm cynical at this point, sorry). Of course the company denies all wrongdoing and is firmly committed to "helping people" or whatever
This dynamic right here: this fake smile in the public's face, all of this fluffy marketing bullshit about "wanting to help people", this is the American disease right here.
America might look nice and economically developed from the outside, but it's full of maggots like this on the inside. Much like the above corporation
> And unlike emigrants from other countries, Americans go everywhere. We’re the most widely distributed people on the planet. No other nation has as few people concentrated in its top 10 (or top 25, or top 50) destinations, a Washington Post analysis shows.
This is a fascinating statistic.
On the one hand, a major part surely must be that there's no "leveling up" economy to move to, you're already at the top (putting aside concern about the massive inequality for a second).
But I also have to wonder how much of it has to do with geographical isolation. The US only borders two countries, and is really far away from all of the other ones, save for some small nations in the Caribbean. And so while we might find many Europeans concentrated in nearby countries you can visit by train... since Americans have to take such a long flight to start with, they just wind up going everywhere since it's not like anything's especially more convenient?
My experience meeting Americans abroad is that most of them feel extremely surprised and cheated when they see how people live in other countries.
Prior to moving, they usually did not even consider that the change could be an upgrade. They come expecting a worse but cheaper place where they could live an adventure, and only after the fact they consider staying.
I would say that your comment about not being possible to level up is an example of that. Yes, the US has the largest economy, but by that logic, the second best place to move to would be China, which I think you would probably not agree with.
An immigrant would not consider macroeconomic data, but rather make judgments calls such as “I am a teacher. How likely am I to get hired? What salary can I expect? Can said figure buy me a good life in that country?” And I think that under those terms many Americans would have a lot of alternatives to level up to. It just seems that the possibility does not even register.
> And I think that under those terms many Americans would have a lot of alternatives to level up to.
The standard of living of even the bottom quintile of Americans is surprisingly high, even compared to other rich nations. This is often misused by conservatives to reject initiatives to improve economic equality, but that doesn't make it any less factual.
Combined with the difficulty of moving internationally, let alone the difficulty of establishing oneself as a migrant once you get there, and the fact that those with the greatest reason to move will be the ones with the least means in terms of assets and marketable skills, I don't think the current situation is at all surprising.
To the extent Americans are surprised by the standard of living elsewhere, I suspect that says more about American prejudice than anything of economic substance. Americans can be shocked because we're a very insular nation--knowledge about other countries is filtered through our culture wars, where the reality of living conditions elsewhere are variously exaggerated or diminished according to the motivations of our political and cultural factions. (The same is true to varying extents in other nations, but being so large, wealthy, and culturally hegemonic globally, America is one of the few countries that can be remain so insular and ignorant almost passively. Other large countries, like China or Russia, seem to have similar levels of ignorance, except they must rely much more heavily on deliberate censorship to prevent reality from intruding.)
> most of them feel extremely surprised and cheated when they see how people live in other countries
As an American who has lived in several countries around the world... I think there are two parts to this.
First is that everyone's always impressed by the things that are better in other countries. Americans are absolutely envious of free healthcare, maternity, four weeks paid vacation, subsidized day care, and so on.
But when Americans start talking about moving somewhere else, then they discover that after-tax salaries are only a fraction of what they make back home. That getting a decent apartment requires "connections" or years of waiting. That so many of the conveniences and efficiencies taken for granted in the US are nowhere to be found.
Funnily enough, ex-pats often go through a first 6 months of "everything here is better!!" followed by another 6 months of "damn, everything here sucks because it's so much worse".
But really, any "extremely surprised and cheated" I would chalk up mainly to "the grass is always greener". Americans (like everyone else) know about the problems at home, but it takes time to learn what the problems are elsewhere.
(Also, nobody's talking about GDP overall, GDP per capita would be the statistic, so the competition would not be China.)
For many countries who nominally have free healthcare, the service is so abysmal that people would rather pay the expensive private healthcare than possibly die due to worse treatment
I've had the misfortune to be knocked off a motorbike in the UK, when my knee just .. burst apart on impact, and also knocked off an e-bike in the US. I drive a car now :)
Both were pretty much the same in terms of treatment. The UK had a harder job patching me back up because I was more broken, but they did it very well indeed, and the after-care/rehab was far more in-depth - because it was more needed, of course, I only broke an arm in the US.
A few things stick out as memorable.
- Running around checking insurance for all the post-event stuff (I had bruising on a significant chunk of my body, there was a lot of "fixing" that to do) and making sure various doctors were in-network was a major frigging hassle in the US. Not particularly what I wanted to be focussing on...
- The (probably overworked) Dr in ER asked me if I was allergic to anything while he cut my clothes off, and I replied "cars, apparently" - thinking that it might be useful to show I wasn't dazed and could still think properly. No, that was a mistake - I got a 5-10 minute lecture on how this wasn't funny, this place was a hospital etc. etc. I just shut up, we all have bad days - I wasn't having a great one myself that day.
But the quality of actual medical care was pretty much the same, maybe with the slight edge to the UK because of how well they fixed up the mess that was my knee - sufficiently so that it doesn't even "ache in the rain", and cycling was something I could do without thinking twice..
The experience though - that was much nicer in the UK. No worries about anything... Need an ambulance when I couldn't walk ? No problem, one was sent. Have a nurse pop around to do some physio for the months afterwards when I was out of the wheelchair ? Great, we'll do that. And of course, no paperwork, or chasing/arguing with people whose job it is to prevent you getting care, because that costs money.
So, no, the service is not "abysmal". The service is fucking excellent. The US could learn a thing or two...
As far as I'm aware, the UK is a country, and therefore falls into the group you identify with "For many countries who nominally have free healthcare". If you want to restrict replies to your comments, then you ought to be more specific with your comment in the first place and identify India by name, otherwise your statement is a bit of misnomer.
I have no idea what the state of healthcare is in India, I've never been there; the problem, of course, is that there are lots of other countries (eg: dotted around Europe) with free-at-the-point-of-need healthcare, and most of it is excellent.
> a major part surely must be that there's no "leveling up" economy to move to
You could go to Switzerland or something. Maybe it's more of a case that emigrating from one of top economies means that those people are realizing that economy is not everything for them.
>In other top destinations — Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Australia and other advanced economies — most Americans arrive on purpose. Or at least that’s how it looks at first glance. But when you scratch the surface of almost any American emigrant, you often find a series of accidents.
I moved to Singapore for a 1.5 year expat assignment when I was 25. My project finally ended 4.5 years after arriving, during which time I met my girlfriend and got married. Rather than repatriate, we decided to stay in SG. I've now been overseas for 13 years. Nearly my entire professional adult life has been spent overseas, I'm not sure how'd re-integrate back into an American office.
My story is a lot like other foreigners I meet in Singapore.. get moved over for a project and decide to stay. It's an easy and safe place to live with great travel around the region. Unfortunately, most of us who've been here long term (and are still not permanent residents) are getting priced out by the flood of expats coming in China and Hong Kong.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] thread* cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loved_One
I'm australian, not british, and like the people in the article have been in the US, and the other countries I've lived in, pretty much by accident.
(Only responding in pedant mode because “I presume you know” is so…malodorous. Don’t throw stones in glass houses.)
What does that mean, exactly?
The Western anthropological narrative of migration for these peoples is just another story, only valid within its own limited world-view. The relevance of anthropological evidence in engaging Native worldviews continues to be an important point of discussion in some (drum) circles.
Not only Northeast Asia. Africans migrated to the Americas directly via the Atlantic and indirectly via the Pacific long before Columbus.
Also when you leave, you realize how much of American society is constructed around the idea of curtailing legal liability. It's why you have to fill out a 50 page form to get your teeth cleaned. It's why you have to go to the doctor and get a new prescription every year for a medication you've been taking with no problems for a decade.
It's why even when you have money, you have this sense in the back of your mind that you could still lose it all. Meanwhile, you see the truly rich treating the markets like it's a playground.
I moved to Mexico last year, and I felt safer. Like, not just physically safer but psychologically safer. People (not just in customer service positions) are more polite. The society feels more cohesive. Things here are easy if you have some (not even a lot) money.
Mexico is definitely not a perfect country - has tons of problems. But it's easier to insulate yourself from them if you're an ex-pat/immigrant and have money. That's the honest, kind of ugly answer.
How does being an expat and having money help insulate from Mexico's problems? What are prospects like for your kids?
Yes, and every scene of Mexico in a TV show is sepia toned. It's very funny to me.
Mexico's problems are basically: - Drug cartels - Poverty/Bad economic prospects if you're born there - Government corruption
But Mexico is a very complicated place that is very different depending on what part of the country you're in (kind of like the US in that way.) There are places where the cartels are barely active and the police have a huge presence. There are "wealthy" areas of Mexico that wouldn't look out of place in the U.S. There are places in Mexico you definitely should not live or raise your kids. But you could say the same thing about many places in the U.S.
Having money allows you to live in safer areas with better public services, just like in the U.S. It just takes a lot less money.
I don't have kids, but I have expat friends here who do and I have met their kids. Some of them speak 3-4 languages. There are quite a few international schools that are "private" but again - a private school tuition in Mexico is nothing like a private school in the U.S. and they're very good schools.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Mexico/Uni...
They come out to be relatively similar overall. It would be like using St. Louis as an example of crime that someone living in SF will experience: the scales are completely off.
Have you traveled widely within the United States (including 'boring areas')?
I've experienced this feeling in places like where I currently live, NYC, but don't feel it as much where I grew up in a boring suburb.
Not to say there aren't other problems. But I get nearly the same feeling of safety as I did in Europe or Asia.
I had to fill a 10-page form, and drive to a GPs office twice to sign documents in order to get a GP that would accept a new patient - after 4 months.
Compare this to Indonesia where I walked in (yes, no appointment), to meet a GP and set up a relationship the next day.
When I share this story among my American friends, they think I exaggerate. "How can anything be so smooth? There must be something wrong with those countries". They never realize that in fact, something is wrong in America. And imo, it is the legal red-tape that tries to write complicated laws, statutes and policies to limit liability or to catch people in gotchas to limit benefits.
I don’t know if you’d like Japan. Sure, they’re extremely polite, but “omotenashi” basically means “the customer is always wrong” - you get what they’re offering, no customization allowed.
You automatically assumed I’m some difficult to please customer- which isn’t the case at all. Obviously you will have to take my word for it, but your response is extremely telling about the attitude that people have these days. You immediately launched into an anecdote about Japan (the fuck?) and how they don’t customize food orders.
"Mexico Prison Break Near US Border Leaves 17 Dead, Gang Leader on Run" https://news.yahoo.com/mexico-prison-break-near-us-191932044...
This kind of thing doesn't happen in countries with functional governments. I predict that within 20 years the US military will be conducting frequent counterinsurgency operations inside Mexico (complete with drone strikes) in order to prevent a complete collapse.
Now moving onto crime: Though certain parts of the country are safer from it and some places are remarkably peaceful, no honest person should understate how generally pervasive violent crime of many types has become throughout a growing percentage of the country. NO, IT IS NOT about just drug cartels or people involved in the black markets. Extortion, kidnappings, assaults and murders have reached a point where they affect many people from all sectors even if they're often careful.
Now obviously, Mexico isn't some caricature from a Hollywood movie in which one dodges bullets just by stepping outside, and it's possible to be fairly safe in many parts of the country. However, danger and an inability to respond effectively to crime if you are a victim of it go hand in hand and are much more common than many bubble-ensconced expats claim. The murder rate in the country is 6 times higher than it is in the U.S as a whole, in 2021, murders have reached their highest levels since the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century, and this not to even mention forced disappearances, unreported murders or the numerous types of lesser violent crime that are widespread.
To claim that you're physically safer in Mexico than in the U.S is an exercise in extraordinarily selective thinking or very particular, completely non-general circumstances.
Again, I live here, have for many years and have many friends throughout this country from all levels of the socieconomic ladder. Many of them have been victims of crime in many situations. All have at some point been the victims of police corruption.
What's more, basic self defense is practically forbidden. One can sniff their nose at U.S gun laws all they want but at least in most places a basic right to self defense when the police don't arrive on time and one's life is in danger exists. In Mexico, we have an absolutely perverse situation in which police barely respond in meaningful ways, crime is rampant, criminals are heavily armed and easily obtain weapons, but normal civilians risk going to prison if they should carry even non-lethal weapons for self defense, or use a gun in their home to protect themselves against and assault. Why do the police arrest them more often? Because such people are much easier pickings than a real criminal and it's an opportunity for safe extortion. This is very common, and grotesque.
U.S self defense laws are much better as an alternative. Europeans disdain such gun laws, but at least in most European countries where self-defense with weapons is often essentially forbidden, at least the justice system and policing are both functional. In Mexico they emphatically are not, but with the same sorts of highly restrictive laws against civilians who take defense into their own hands. I challenge anyone to defend such a legal landscape.
That's fair. And I think my comment was unintentionally misleading. I was not saying that Mexico is a safer country than the United States. I was trying to explain my perspective. I personally feel safer here, because of neurosis I've built up after living in the US for almost 30 years. Even when I've interacted with police. Because a cop potentially wanting a bribe is more predictable/understandable to me than a buzz cut guy with an assault rifle who could kill me like its nothing and get away with it. That's what the police are like in the United States.
But I also live in Merida, which yes is a non-general, very safe city. But even when I was in CDMX I felt generally safe walking around, going to restaurants and malls.
Fair enough, and I'm sorry if I came across as harsh in my own counterargument, but after all these years here, I've grown tired of some expats trying to whitewash how Mexico often is out of misguided political correctness or politeness towards the country. Politeness is fine as long as it doesn't paint dangerously false pictures.
>Even when I've interacted with police. Because a cop potentially wanting a bribe is more predictable/understandable to me than a buzz cut guy with an assault rifle who could kill me like its nothing and get away with it. That's what the police are like in the United States.
There are many examples of U.S police getting away with legal immunity against killing people who turned out to not be threats, but more often, they at least may face legal consequences if they commit a blatant murder or act of violence, and at least in many cases civil settlements happen that don't often get reported. Your take on Mexican police is almost certainly tainted by how they treat you as a foreigner and particularly in one of the safest cities in Mexico's single safest state, Yucatan.
Police in Mexico are more generally very dangerous under the wrong circumstances and have been implicated in more murders and disappearances than I can even number off the top of my head. And victims of their frequent violence can forget things like legal proceedings or civil settlements in all but the most unusual media-hyped cases. I'm sorry, but i'd say there's just no comparison. I'd suggest being more careful in making assumptions about Mexican police when you deal with them in the future. Where I live (a small city close to Puebla), municipal, state and federal police have been implicated in numerous murders, beatings, torture cases and so forth. All this aside from an endless stream of petty abuses that are openly, outright corrupt.
As for Merida, as I said above, known to be one of the absolute safest large cities in Mexico. Lovely place too, if you don't mind the heat. Mexico City has a fairly safe central part of it, a sort of bubble of reasonably moderate crime rates and few attacks against foreigners in particular, but remember that a vast other majority of the city is much more dangerous than that, and especially if you try entering the outer urban regions to the east and south of the city, or further out, entering Estado de Mexico.
With all that said, I continue to love this country after all these years.
I get this feeling on the rare occasion that I watch US news. It feels like wheels have come off.
>You feel it any time you interact with a customer service person.
My Wife and I were flying business back to the US for our honeymoon on a US carrier. Requests to the flight attendants were met with annoyance. On the few times I've been fortunate enough to fly business with international carriers, you're genuinely appreciated and treated well.
Are you and your wife by any chance not white? My mom is white and my dad is Asian. The difference how they are treated in upscale environments like for example business class at American carriers can very disturbing at times to say the least.
A couple months ago I opened up Facebook and saw ads for this company [0]. I immediately think "oh it's just a sham designed to peddle as many ADHD pills as possible" like 5 seconds later (because I'm cynical at this point, sorry). Of course the company denies all wrongdoing and is firmly committed to "helping people" or whatever
This dynamic right here: this fake smile in the public's face, all of this fluffy marketing bullshit about "wanting to help people", this is the American disease right here.
America might look nice and economically developed from the outside, but it's full of maggots like this on the inside. Much like the above corporation
[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftc-launches-probe-of-cerebrals...
This is a fascinating statistic.
On the one hand, a major part surely must be that there's no "leveling up" economy to move to, you're already at the top (putting aside concern about the massive inequality for a second).
But I also have to wonder how much of it has to do with geographical isolation. The US only borders two countries, and is really far away from all of the other ones, save for some small nations in the Caribbean. And so while we might find many Europeans concentrated in nearby countries you can visit by train... since Americans have to take such a long flight to start with, they just wind up going everywhere since it's not like anything's especially more convenient?
Prior to moving, they usually did not even consider that the change could be an upgrade. They come expecting a worse but cheaper place where they could live an adventure, and only after the fact they consider staying.
I would say that your comment about not being possible to level up is an example of that. Yes, the US has the largest economy, but by that logic, the second best place to move to would be China, which I think you would probably not agree with.
An immigrant would not consider macroeconomic data, but rather make judgments calls such as “I am a teacher. How likely am I to get hired? What salary can I expect? Can said figure buy me a good life in that country?” And I think that under those terms many Americans would have a lot of alternatives to level up to. It just seems that the possibility does not even register.
The standard of living of even the bottom quintile of Americans is surprisingly high, even compared to other rich nations. This is often misused by conservatives to reject initiatives to improve economic equality, but that doesn't make it any less factual.
Combined with the difficulty of moving internationally, let alone the difficulty of establishing oneself as a migrant once you get there, and the fact that those with the greatest reason to move will be the ones with the least means in terms of assets and marketable skills, I don't think the current situation is at all surprising.
To the extent Americans are surprised by the standard of living elsewhere, I suspect that says more about American prejudice than anything of economic substance. Americans can be shocked because we're a very insular nation--knowledge about other countries is filtered through our culture wars, where the reality of living conditions elsewhere are variously exaggerated or diminished according to the motivations of our political and cultural factions. (The same is true to varying extents in other nations, but being so large, wealthy, and culturally hegemonic globally, America is one of the few countries that can be remain so insular and ignorant almost passively. Other large countries, like China or Russia, seem to have similar levels of ignorance, except they must rely much more heavily on deliberate censorship to prevent reality from intruding.)
As an American who has lived in several countries around the world... I think there are two parts to this.
First is that everyone's always impressed by the things that are better in other countries. Americans are absolutely envious of free healthcare, maternity, four weeks paid vacation, subsidized day care, and so on.
But when Americans start talking about moving somewhere else, then they discover that after-tax salaries are only a fraction of what they make back home. That getting a decent apartment requires "connections" or years of waiting. That so many of the conveniences and efficiencies taken for granted in the US are nowhere to be found.
Funnily enough, ex-pats often go through a first 6 months of "everything here is better!!" followed by another 6 months of "damn, everything here sucks because it's so much worse".
But really, any "extremely surprised and cheated" I would chalk up mainly to "the grass is always greener". Americans (like everyone else) know about the problems at home, but it takes time to learn what the problems are elsewhere.
(Also, nobody's talking about GDP overall, GDP per capita would be the statistic, so the competition would not be China.)
Both were pretty much the same in terms of treatment. The UK had a harder job patching me back up because I was more broken, but they did it very well indeed, and the after-care/rehab was far more in-depth - because it was more needed, of course, I only broke an arm in the US.
A few things stick out as memorable.
- Running around checking insurance for all the post-event stuff (I had bruising on a significant chunk of my body, there was a lot of "fixing" that to do) and making sure various doctors were in-network was a major frigging hassle in the US. Not particularly what I wanted to be focussing on...
- The (probably overworked) Dr in ER asked me if I was allergic to anything while he cut my clothes off, and I replied "cars, apparently" - thinking that it might be useful to show I wasn't dazed and could still think properly. No, that was a mistake - I got a 5-10 minute lecture on how this wasn't funny, this place was a hospital etc. etc. I just shut up, we all have bad days - I wasn't having a great one myself that day.
But the quality of actual medical care was pretty much the same, maybe with the slight edge to the UK because of how well they fixed up the mess that was my knee - sufficiently so that it doesn't even "ache in the rain", and cycling was something I could do without thinking twice..
The experience though - that was much nicer in the UK. No worries about anything... Need an ambulance when I couldn't walk ? No problem, one was sent. Have a nurse pop around to do some physio for the months afterwards when I was out of the wheelchair ? Great, we'll do that. And of course, no paperwork, or chasing/arguing with people whose job it is to prevent you getting care, because that costs money.
So, no, the service is not "abysmal". The service is fucking excellent. The US could learn a thing or two...
I have no idea what the state of healthcare is in India, I've never been there; the problem, of course, is that there are lots of other countries (eg: dotted around Europe) with free-at-the-point-of-need healthcare, and most of it is excellent.
You could go to Switzerland or something. Maybe it's more of a case that emigrating from one of top economies means that those people are realizing that economy is not everything for them.
I moved to Singapore for a 1.5 year expat assignment when I was 25. My project finally ended 4.5 years after arriving, during which time I met my girlfriend and got married. Rather than repatriate, we decided to stay in SG. I've now been overseas for 13 years. Nearly my entire professional adult life has been spent overseas, I'm not sure how'd re-integrate back into an American office.
My story is a lot like other foreigners I meet in Singapore.. get moved over for a project and decide to stay. It's an easy and safe place to live with great travel around the region. Unfortunately, most of us who've been here long term (and are still not permanent residents) are getting priced out by the flood of expats coming in China and Hong Kong.