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It hadn’t really occurred to me to seriously ask where an American could leave to and become a citizen. I’ve got a degree in Information Systems and I work I.T., which I would think would be relatively valuable somewhere.
There are a shit ton of companies in my area that are looking for IT people here in Germany, and I think thats the case all over Europe.
I looked into moving to Germany a few years ago, I also work in IT. The part I had an issue with was figuring out how much I need to get paid to have a similar life style there. Taxes and cost of living is was different, especially if you want to live near a city.
The other issue is my wife works in health care but her job seems to be covered by nursing with a specialty in respiratory therapy. Here in the states we have people that are only respiratory therapists, couldn’t figure out how that would move over.
Your wife’s job is going to be hard to translate to other countries. But if she has an education in healthcare, and it’s nursing adjacent, maybe reach out to the nurses unions in your target countries, they could maybe help you move forward. Everybody are screaming for healthcare professionals, so maybe the local health authorities would be able to help as well.
I have no idea about other countries, but in Denmark we have an agency of international recruitment and integration. They’re mostly involved with deportations, or so it would seem based on the news stories, but guiding potential specialists in translating their qualifications should be in their purview. Maybe other countries have something similar.
“IT” as in operations, networks, security, support, or? I mean a suitable background in networks and you’d make 130k USD plus pension as a networking consultant in Denmark. IDK about citizenship though. As with all the rest of Europe, we’ve seen a rise in right wing populism and are now suffering from its resulting inane immigration laws.
But if you’re in for the adventure, then you could look outside the list of English speaking countries. There’s The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, we all speak English and we all have healthcare… But don’t go to Sweden, they suck :-)
Good choice
congrats.
Hope down under treats you better
Great choice and good luck!
just remember to keep voting, don’t let what happened to Venezuela happen to you guys
My brother in Christ, the UK is already addicted to Middle East and Russian money, they don’t need drug trafficking money like Venezuela to ruin their political system.
Ahhh, the privileged leaving behind the many to suffer that want to leave but can’t.
Don’t say that on Lemmy. It’s full of the privileged pretending to be the meek, and they dont like to be called out.
Purity tests like this aren’t helping.
Sorry to say for you and me, but suffering under fascism doesn’t solve anything. If we don’t defect or rebel, we’ll just end up in mass graves.
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Isn’t New Zealand currently going through their own slide to the right? The Māori only represent like ~17% of the population over there. New Zealand just elected a conservative coalition.
Seems like you’re just moving from one place you (presumably) don’t agree with to a new place that also just signed up for shit you probably aren’t going to agree with.
I mean it looks beautiful but if your travel is for political reasons I fear you’re just heading to a different slice of the same.
Have a safe flight.
It’s nowhere near as bad here in NZ
The world’s billionaires are heading back to NZ
BusinessDesk talked to real-estate agent Caleb Paterson, who works with a number of offshore agents and high net-worth individuals mainly out of the US and UK markets. He said interest had “definitely perked up” since National said it would repeal its ban on foreign buyers.
Foreign buyers, with the exception of Singaporean and Australian citizens, have been barred from owning NZ properties since 2018.
Assuming it makes up the next government, National’s plan would open the door to all foreign buyers to purchase NZ homes valued at more than $2 million, with a 15 per cent foreign buyer stamp surcharge clipped on, from the 2025 fiscal year.
Enjoy paradise while it lasts.
These billionaires aren’t going to pillage NZ.
It won’t be like last time
You might have misunderstood me.
Billionaires aren’t going to NZ to sell subscriptions or strip mine the wilderness. They’ve already done that elsewhere.
They’re going to NZ to live out the coming apocalypse in a mansion with servants.
Billionaires aren’t going to NZ to sell subscriptions or strip mine the wilderness.
They’re going to demolish nature preserves to build mega-mansions and juice up the police force to press gang local indigenous people.
Just like they’ve done everywhere else.
Billionaires want to exploit people and places but they don’t want to live in an exploited place with exploited people.
As in don’t shit where you eat.
Ultimately I think billionaires wanting to spend their billions in NZ is a good thing for NZ.
Oh absolutely not. It’s a much smaller population and being an island it’s got a figurative and literal buffer to the rest of the world.
I have always loved New Zealand. It’s like the cooler uncle of Australia minus all the spiders the size of my head.
And it’s just a beautiful place. Makes me wanna go frolicking in the mountains with an elf, dwarf and old white guy lol
Just because an island has a smaller population doesn’t make it any more or less predisposed to egalitarianism, nor do large populations have to be predisposed to authoritarianism.
…I never said either of those things?
“It’s a much smaller population” literally your second sentence, or do you not comprehend your own writing? Why is their smaller population relevant?
I should have been more clear. I never said the words “egalitarianism” or “authoritarianism”.
That would be those “either” of the things I was referring to me having not said.
Smaller population simply means each person’s vote counts for more. Easier for small groups to have an effect when they only need to reach a smaller number of potential voters.
EDIT: spelling
Smaller population simply means each person’s vote counts for more.
What about the smaller tribes who live under strict patriarchies that can’t vote? Plenty examples of those in history and today (cults for instance). There are also examples of massive cities with egalitarian urban planning with no centralized temples or food storage. So again I ask, what makes you think population size has anything to do with their politics?
Please stop assuming that a) politics are the same as your country, and b) you haven’t been fed a load of “see, everywhere is right wing now?” propaganda
I never said the politics were the same as my country.
And many countries are currently in the middle of or already have elected right wing leaders. Not really propaganda when it’s verifiably a fact.
Conservative parties have always been part of liberal democracies. They could sometimes govern responsibly.
But the Republican party under Trump is something completely different. Trump, Musk and friends are there for state capture. You cannot compare them to New Zealand’s conservatives
Maori only represent 17% of the population however because of our founding document they have a permanent place in government and will always be heavily involved in governance.
Our country elected the national party which is right after two terms of our left wing government. Its expected since our elections always bounce between left and right. The current right wing government is stupid but nothing compared to trump. The controversy comes mostly from their coalition partners bills Act who are led by a complete moron.
Labour is going to win next election because national has fucked up almost every area they campaigned on.
a different slice of the same.
Hilarious that I, in NZ, can’t see this!
I thought it was your national anthem?
No that would be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5kmSgCPpXw
Same…
Much of the world is sliding to the right. And much of it is not sliding nearly as far or as fast as the USA.
I’m not gonna pretend I know the exact details of how much of a slide and to what severity each countries election is going. I was nearly saying that it seems global we are in the middle of a shift right is all.
America’s always cranking things up to 11, including fascism.
And then exporting our culture, so, strap in everybody
Rest of world: “America sucks! Bunch of fascists!”
votes for far-right candidates in their countries
It’s almost like capitalism isn’t the best way to organize civilization.
Marx has been proven right about that, at least.
Basically the global political situation back in the '30s.
But with the added existential threat of climate change!
My tinfoil hat is telling me they’re related.
Re NZ politics - Yes and no.
The currect situation is due to some very specific circumstances thst emerged in the chaos of the last 10 years.
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The centre left Labour Party & PM were hugely popular during covid & won an unheard of majority (normally our electoral system requires a coalition). A swing back to the centre-right was inevitable.
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The centre right National party, usually our most popular party, had their leadership retire & endured years of in-fighting that made them unelectable
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Because of this, they’ve bled a lot of voters to the “libertarian” & “centrist” parties (ACT & NZ First)
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Also because of this, the current National Party leader is rather inexperienced & has given up some things in the coalition agreements that are more extreme than the public likes leading to record breaking protests.
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The “centrist” party leader (Winston Peters) is a whole thing that I can’t neatly summarize, but imagine a political party designed to cater exclusively to the oldest & dumbest 5% of voters run by that Monorail guy from The Simpsons
In summary, less a slide right & more a correction back to status quo + a few unpopular chaos agents
I would characterize it differently.
- Labour was hugely popular, I agree, but the popularity left when Jacinda Ardern left. She was a extremely charismatic figure; and Labour was at the end of two terms (6 years); with the halo effect gone a lot of the poor decisions they made were highlighted (a lot of the times unfairly).
- National along with Act and NZ First, pushed hard on the government debt rhetoric during the last election. Blaming Labour for inflation, which it had little control over, but it didn’t matter the populous were hurting from low wage growth and high inflation. They were looking for a change.
- The center right bloc won with a decent majority, though not specular.
- National fucked up hard! during the negotiations with Act and NZ First. Luxon in a rush to form a government; gave away so much it is frankly baffling.
- In NZ politics:
- The Green Party has stated they will never work with National or Act.
- Labour have said they will not work with Act.
- This forces Act to only be able to side with National, from Nationals point of view Act should be a minor player on the right of National.
- NZ First are a bit of a wild card, Winston Peters the leader is an old cunning and in my opinion untrustworthy ally.
- Te Pati Maori (TPM) will work with both parties, which ever gives them the most of what they want.
- National could have gone with TPM or NZF along with Act to form a government, they choose to go with NZF and between Winston Peters and David Seymour; got played like a fiddle. In one crazy political power play, Luxon had a meeting setup to negotiate with Winston and David, they didn’t bother showing up and made him come to them in another city.
I could go on but, the politics here is just as complex as anywhere else. Overall we have shifted right, further than we traditionally have but not too much further.
The current government has made some truly stupid calls, and has scored a lot of own goals. Their popularity is very low this early in a parliamentary term. They have been in for a little more than a year; if things keep going the way they are, they may be the first one term government we have had in a long time. Our term of 3 years, is short, so most governments get more than one term to show what they are made of.
You make some good points, my comment was originally 3x longer at first but I cut it down in the interest of not rehashing 185 years of history
I was thinking of going into far more detail…but the comment was already getting long.
As a kiwi that left for the US, things are getting a bit strange in New Zealand. So many folks are becoming openly racist vs. what I see in the states. Granted, I don’t live in the south, but still… I was shocked when I went back to visit at the rhetoric being used.
NZ has always had a racist underbelly, they have become more emboldened since trump 1… with trump 2 I fear it will get worse.
Afaik the shorter version of this is: real estate crooks from the Queenstown area took over politics.
The “centrist” party leader (Winston Peters) is a whole thing that I can’t neatly summarize, but imagine a political party designed to cater exclusively to the oldest & dumbest 5% of voters run by that Monorail guy from The Simpsons
I cant neatly summarise him either, but I have disliked him immensely since he verbally abused myself and some other students at Waikato back in '93
For anyone is interested in NZ politics, I’ve been enjoying BHN
Well that’s… Good to hear? Certainly sounds better than whatever shit show the US currently has kicking off.
Fascism. The shit show in the US is called fascism. Help.
No one is coming to help. We are on our own.
That’s the mindset of how Yugoslav Partisans kicked out the Nazis and beat the Ustaca. But that wasn’t a piece of cake.
I’m a bit more optimistic. This is just the pendulum swinging back as it always does. Don’t worry it’ll probably swing the other way in 4 years most likely.
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Good luck man!
As someone that left the US a decade and a half ago, here’s some things to go ahead and start getting answers to so you don’t have to figure it out when the time comes:
- Figure out how to get a bank account (hopefully you’ve already worked this one out before arriving)
- Where to buy toiletries and medicine. Specifically deodorant. The UK is mostly spray deodorant where as I’m a stick deodorant person. At one point I was just bringing 4 sticks of deodorant back with me after every trip home. I’m not sure which way NZ leans but it was definitely something I hadn’t considered before
- Where to buy socks and underwear you’re comfortable with
- Figure out how the health service/insurance works. Go ahead and book dentist and doctors appointments 6 months in advance if possible so you get in the habit.
- Figure out how paying taxes works
- If you’re a US citizen, remember you’re still required to file taxes with the IRS every year.
- Learn how to make friends. I still haven’t figured this one out. Let me know if you do.
- Call or go to a Kiwibank, ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac bank branch in any mall in which ever city you land at (probably Auckland but could be Christchurch)
- Supermarket for toiletries. Pharmacy for medicine. Some larger supermarkets have pharmacies in them. Supermarkets are Pac’n’Save, New World, Woolworths, Freash Choice, 4Square. Pharmacies are Unichem, Chemist’s Warehouse, Random mum and pop one off pharmacy
- Both types of deoderant (stick or spray) are readily available. Lynx is typically known as Axe in other parts of the world.
- The Warehouse or Kmart for cheap socks and undies. Farmers for midrange stuff. Boutique stores for high range
- Public health care for emergancy and accute need. GPs are roughly $35 to $70 for a checkup or general appointment
- get an IRD number from the IRD, work out your tax code (its probably ‘M’) then tax is mostly automatically deducted and paid by your employeer
- really!? Sounds like a double tax whamy… Ouch
- join clubs, hiking club, cricket club, soccer club, rugby club. Pubs and drinking are popular too. Most pubs run a quiz once a week ask the announcer about joining a random team
Excellent list, I hope OP see’s it!
Also, I should have added a caveat to that last bullet: learn how to make friends without becoming an alcoholic. Meetup.com is usually the answer for finding readily available like minded people interested in the same physical activity as you, but meeting a whole bunch of new people at once can be overwhelming.
The deodorant availability trauma is real and brings untold migrant suffering every year.
Now playing Flight of the Conchords - Inner City Pressure
Trumpeter is currently researching what independent nation to rename yo NUSA…NewUSA.
NZ? You a billionaire?
Welcome! North or South island?
The mighty Waikato
Not the Tron?, god forbid.
If it then I guess welcome new neighbour…
No. But I go there for Sal’s on occasion.
Beautiful! Congrats on your escape :-)
He’s getting out!
Quick, drag him back in!
Nah, I want to see his dash cam later.
Nicest people in the world… until they get behind the wheel and turn into violent psychopaths. But then again, I drove mostly around Auckland.
If he’s leaving over Trump, odds are good he’s on the saner half of US drivers. The real road ragers with their emotional issues probably the most likely to fall for the rage-based fascist propaganda and all that.
