1996 seemed to be a pretty good year to be an American abroad. The U.S. was at the height of its global prestige. The State Department had several years earlier ended its policy of automatically revoking U.S. citizenship from Americans who naturalised elsewhere. And there was little motivation to give up the blue passport anyway: ordinary diaspora wage-earners with non-U.S. retirement accounts and mutual funds ignored all the international financial reporting forms created under the Nixon administration’s Bank Secrecy Act or the Reagan administration’s Tax Reform Act — and the IRS had no complaint because it knew that none of this paperwork could possibly generate more revenue than it would cost to process in the first place.
Yet this benign neglect of Americans abroad was by no means an expression of support. Homelanders were hostile to the idea of an American diaspora: in a national survey, nearly three-quarters of people in the U.S. thought that “living in America for most of your life” was an important part of being “truly American”. This widespread societal consensus on the territorial nature of Americanness was even supported, and supported quite strongly, by a surprising group: native-born Americans who had lived abroad for five years or longer, among whom 85% agreed with this proposition. And over the next decade, this view would only strengthen.
Overview of the General Social Survey
The General Social Survey is a biannual survey by the University of Chicago. Each iteration of the survey gets about two thousand respondents and sits them down for 90 minutes to ask them a series of questions on social issues; some questions are administered in all years, while others only appear in one or two iterations of the survey and then disappear. You can explore the GSS data online using this web interface from UC Berkeley, which generates convenient HTML tables you can easily paste into blog posts. GSS questions are referred to in the interface by somewhat-descriptive alphanumeric codes of eight letters or less; I’ve written those in capital letters below.
You get the most value out of the GSS by cross-tabulating answers to questions about social issues with each other — or with a wide variety of demographic variables (AGE, RACE, socio-economic CLASS, WORDSUM vocabulary size, political PARTYID-entification, etc.) — to look for correlations. Of course, you can only look for correlations between questions that were asked in the same year, and sadly some interesting questions stopped being asked — for example, up until 1994, attitudes towards specific countries (BRAZIL, CANADA, CHINA, EGYPT, ENGLAND, JAPAN, ISRAEL, and RUSSIA) were also surveyed, but they dropped these afterwards in favour of other, more Homeland-focused questions. Even certain demographic variables weren’t recorded in all years, e.g. military veteran status (VETYEARS), which was removed from the GSS in 1995 and only reappeared in 2010.
Finding Americans who have lived abroad in the GSS
| Frequency Distribution | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cells contain: –Column percent -N of cases |
BORN | |||
| 1 YES |
2 NO |
ROW TOTAL |
||
| ABROAD | 1: NEVER LIVED IN OTHER COUNTRIES | 82.1 1,007 |
5.4 6 |
75.2 1,013 |
| 2: LESS THAN 1 YEAR IN ALL | 5.1 61 |
5.0 6 |
5.1 67 |
|
| 3: 1 TO 4 YEARS IN ALL | 8.2 105 |
13.1 14 |
8.6 119 |
|
| 4: 5 YEARS OR LONGER | 4.6 56 |
76.6 83 |
11.1 139 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0 1,229 |
100.0 109 |
100.0 1,338 |
|
One easily identifiable group of Americans who have lived abroad, at least in the 1996 and 2004 GSS, are people who were born overseas to at least one US citizen parent (filter BORN(2); PARCIT(1-3)). These comprise 0.79% (23) of the 2,904 respondents to the 1996 GSS, and 0.82% (23 again) of the 2,812 respondents to the 2004 GSS. However, this group is rather small, so it’s hard to draw conclusions about them. This post instead focuses on the 222 folks in the 1996 GSS who were born in the U.S. but then went on to live abroad for some time (filter BORN(1); ABROAD(2-4)). This in itself is a surprisingly large number: it means that out of the 1,229 native-born adults who were asked ABROAD (not all survey participants that year were), 18% had spent some time living outside of the United States. 214 of those were living in the US at age 16 (REG16(1-9)), suggesting that they mostly chose to live abroad themselves as adults rather than going with family while they were still young. I’ll call them “returned expats”.
In the table above, returned expats are represented by the three cells above the total in the left-hand column. I further divide these into “returned long-term expats” (who spent five years or more abroad, i.e. ABROAD(4)), and “returned short-term expats” (who spent some time abroad less than five years. i.e. ABROAD(2-3)). “Homelanders” in this particular post exclusively refers to those who were born in the U.S. and have not spent any time living outside of the Homeland (ABROAD(0)). In all cases, I’m not including immigrants (BORN(2)) under those labels, since it’s not possible to sort out whether their time abroad was before or after they became Americans. Demographically, returned expats in the 1996 GSS were similar to Homelanders at the time. By race, 82% (181) were white, 15% (34) black, and only 3% (7) other. They were slightly more likely to be of high socioeconomic status, and slightly older.
Unfortunately, the GSS only asked ABROAD once in 1996, and PARCIT only twice in 1996 and 2004 — as we know well, Americans really don’t like to think about the fact that an American diaspora exists. This means it’s not possible to make longitudinal comparisons about “returned expats” at all, since they are only identifiable in the 1996 GSS. Also remember that respondents are people who live in the United States at the time of the survey; the GSS does not make any effort to find respondents among Americans living abroad. However, with those caveats in mind …
Why do returned expats think “true Americans live in America”?
As mentioned in the beginning of this post, returned long-term expats were far more likely than any other group to believe that living in America for most of your life is an important part of being “truly American” (AMLIVED). This was already a widely-held view among Homelanders: men and women, whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans all agreed at rates of higher than 70%. People with graduate degrees, political independents, and people of other race were least likely to think so, but among them it was still a majority view.
By age group, support was weakest among people who came of age during the Vietnam War (and thus may have remembered high school friends going into exile in Canada in protest), but again “weak” is a relative term: two-thirds of them agreed. Even 69% of naturalised immigrants who were living abroad at age 16 but came to the U.S. later (BORN(2); CITIZEN(1); REG16(0)) thought that true Americans lived most of their lives in America, apparently reading themselves out of the definition of “Americanness”.
| Frequency distribution | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cells contain: –Column percent -Weighted N |
ABROAD | |||||
| 1 NEVER LIVED IN OTHER COUNTRIES |
2 LESS THAN 1 YEAR IN ALL |
3 1 TO 4 YEARS IN ALL |
4 5 YEARS OR LONGER |
ROW TOTAL |
||
| AMLIVED | 1: VERY IMPORTANT | 46.8 455.7 |
27.2 16.8 |
37.2 36.4 |
52.1 26.6 |
45.2 535.5 |
| 2: FAIRLY IMPORTANT | 28.9 281.4 |
36.0 22.3 |
25.6 25.0 |
33.0 16.8 |
29.2 345.6 |
|
| 3: NOT VERY IMPORTANT | 19.2 187.4 |
29.8 18.5 |
28.3 27.7 |
11.7 6.0 |
20.2 239.6 |
|
| 4: NOT IMPORTANT AT ALL | 5.1 50.0 |
7.0 4.3 |
8.9 8.7 |
3.2 1.6 |
5.5 64.6 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0 974.5 |
100.0 61.9 |
100.0 97.8 |
100.0 51.1 |
100.0 1,185.3 |
|
So that’s the data table, but we’re still left with the question of how to interpret it. I’ll look at four partial hypotheses, each of which has at least some explanatory power without necessary contradicting the others.
The reactive patriotism hypothesis: Long-term expatriates often face local people with anti-American sentiments in their countries of residence. Rather than assimilating local attitudes, expats may respond with resentment. Opposition to living abroad might just be one component of their resulting increase in nationalism. Indeed, returned long-term expats were somewhat more likely (35%) to believe “my country, right or wrong” (IFWRONG) than short-term expats (29%) or Homelanders (31%), to agree that being born in the U.S is also an important part of being “truly American” (AMBORNIN: 81% vs. 59%, 73%), to agree that “it is impossible for people who do not share American customs and traditions to become fully American” (AMCULT: 40% vs. 31%, 36%), and to agree that “American television should give preference to American films and programs” (AMTV: 50% vs. 21%, 40%).
However, returned long-term expats were only about as likely as short-term expats or Homelanders to believe that the U.S. is better than any other country (AMBETTER: 84% vs. 79%, 82%), to agree that they’d rather be citizens of the U.S. than any other country (AMCITIZN: 92% vs. 90%, 94%), and to state that sports made them proud to be American (AMSPORTS: 73% vs. 68%, 76%). Returned long-term expats were far more likely (80% vs. 67%, 61%) to be in favour of foreign language teaching (FORLANG), though this attitude could arise either from antagonistic nationalism (e.g. “know thy enemy”) or from cosmopolitan sentiment, so it’s not really proof or disproof of this hypothesis.
The alienation hypothesis: Perhaps after more than half a decade of living abroad, returned long-term expats move back to the U.S. only find that they have lost a great deal of their ability to relate to the people of the country they used to think of as “home”, and realise that they themselves are no longer “truly American”. I doubt this is the case among all returned expats, but it may explain some portion of the effect. One interesting example of this: among returned long-term expats who did state that living in the U.S. was a “fairly/very important” part of being “truly American”, only half said that they would be “fairly/very unwilling” to move outside of North America in the future (MOVENOAM), a much smaller proportion than short-term expats (67%) or Homelanders (83%). This suggests that at least some returned long-term expats took the attitude, “I’m no longer ‘truly American’ and I don’t care, let me out of here again!”
The military hypothesis: Americans who lived abroad for five or more years and then returned are probably more likely than the general population to be in the military — indeed, military service was probably the reason many were abroad in the first place — and service members are likely to be more nationalistic. Perhaps this extends to a belief that civilian Americans have no business living abroad, though this is probably a stretch. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to determine this directly or to quantify its effect, since VETYEARS was not asked in 1996. One possible indicator is that 54% of returned long-term expats had “a great deal of confidence” in the military (CONARMY), against just 37% of short-term expats and 39% of Homelanders, though this could also be explained by the “reactive patriotism” hypothesis.
The self-selection hypothesis: as mentioned above, GSS respondents are all U.S. residents. Perhaps the people who did not feel that living in the U.S. was an important part of being “truly American” simply expressed their belief by remaining abroad and excluding themselves from the respondent population, while those who did feel it was important acted on that belief by moving back home so they could skew the responses to the GSS. This may tie in to the reactive patriotism hypothesis: those whose experiences of living abroad turned them into American ultra-nationalists were probably overrepresented among returnees. Unfortunately I can’t think of any way to use the GSS itself to support or disprove this hypothesis.
What’s so important about five years abroad?
An interesting trend in the data was the contrast between long-term and short-term expats, which repeated itself on a number of questions: the returned long-term expats tended to be even more nationalistic than the Homelanders they left behind, whereas the returned short-term expats were markedly less nationalistic. This might be due to their reasons for returning: short-term expats are more likely to have returned because their assignment came to an end and they had no opportunity to extend it even if they’d have liked to, whereas the returned long-term expats probably made an active decision to move back to the United States. Or maybe five years is some sort of important threshold that causes your attitudes to change.
It’s not just a psychological threshold either, but a very concrete legal one: the period of residence prerequisite to naturalisation in most countries is at least five years, unless you’re married to a citizen. Some places like Australia, Brazil, and Canada let you apply after your fourth year, though of course by the time you actually get all the paperwork ready to send off to the bureaucracy you’ll probably have finished your fifth year already; others as diverse as Chile, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom make it five years exactly, while most of the rest of the world requires even longer periods of residence. Only a very small number of countries, primarily Latin American ones like the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, and Peru, have significantly shorter periods of just two or three years.
And on a more mundane level, five years is the period of time after which many countries stop considering foreign residents as “expats” for tax and social security purposes, and start expecting them to make payments on the same basis as citizens. In both China and Japan, for example, five years is the threshold after which residents start paying tax on worldwide income rather than just local income; this ensures that English teachers and corporate transferees can come in for short-term work without having to spend days puzzling through dense thickets of kanji to try to understand how to report the bank interest they earned “back home” — until “back home” stops really being “home” and they’ve had the chance to acquire a decent command of the language, or at least the phone numbers of a few good international accountants.
In other words, five years is the point where external forces really give you a kick in the pants to assess your relationship with the society you live in: are you going to naturalise and become a full member, are you going to end your adventure and go back to the U.S., or are you going to try to cling to your identity as an “American sojourner” and accept being an outsider both in your passport country and in the place where you actually live?
Anti-diaspora sentiment in historical context
One last thing you should do while you’ve got that GSS window open: run a table for AMLIVED vs. YEAR. You’ll see that the number of people who believe that living in the U.S. most of your life is a “fairly/very important” part of being “truly American” went up from 74% in 1996 to 83% in 2004. As mentioned above, the GSS didn’t ask about time spend abroad (ABROAD) in 2004, so we can’t tell how many of those are Homelanders as opposed to expats, but it points to a cultural trend in the Homeland: they never liked the idea of an American diaspora of people permanently resident abroad but claiming a connection to the U.S., and as the world becomes more globalised they like the idea even less and less — a sentiment fueled, most likely, by dishonest media portrayals of rich Americans allegedly fleeing en masse to overseas tax havens.
This popular sentiment is not new, and up until the latter part of the twentieth century, the U.S. government gave voice to it through the nationality law. First there was the Expatriation Act of 1907, which stripped U.S. citizenship not just from naturalised citizens living abroad for more than five years, but overseas-born children of American parents who did not swear upon reaching adulthood that they intended to become residents of the United States. Then there was the Nationality Act of 1940, which punished voting in a foreign election with loss of U.S. citizenship, and stripped people born dual citizens of U.S. citizenship if they lived for just six months in their other country.
The underlying thrust of these laws is clear: if you live overseas as a dual citizen or for long enough to become one, your Americanness becomes suspect and the government will put you under quite a bit of pressure to either come back home or stop being a U.S. citizen. And clearly, large numbers of Americans continue to want their country to be a single-citizenship country, both for emigrants and for immigrants. Supreme Court cases like Afroyim v. Rusk and Vance v. Terrazas may have changed the law, and the State Department may have changed its enforcement policy, but they did not change the underlying national sentiment. They merely suppressed it until it could manifest itself in the form of alternative punishments for choosing to live abroad permanently or to maintain connections to other countries more substantive than a passport in a sock drawer and an occasional holiday to visit distant relations.
And finally, remember: in the unlikely event that Congress ever forms that commission to assess the impact of their policies on U.S. Persons abroad, they’re not likely to seek out emigrants and ask us directly for our opinions; instead they’ll find representatives from among returned expats, and as this post implies, those representatives may not share our attitudes and concerns.
@Northernstar
I also enjoy your commentary.
Yes, my family is also of the mindset that the USA is just the greatest country in the world, but yet I find it interesting to hear them complain non-stop about their government, their lousy lives, taxes, cost of gas, endless fretting over their property values, and how there’s just too many of those ‘kind of people’ coming their way and wrecking stuff, ad nauseum….Yeah. ‘E Pluribus Unum’ my foot on that one!
There is quite a few different cultures by where I’m at and I don’t feel ‘threatened’ by them. Nobody does. That’s because it’s all nonsense anyways.
@AtticusinCanada
Oh yes, maple syrup! Can’t forget about that!
Matter of fact, who in their right mind would be willing to pour flavoured high fructose corn syrup on their french toast? Especially when they know better?
One thing I did find a little weird at first was how margarine is much more expensive here. On the other hand, the butter is easily better here than in the US, and isn’t it better to have real butter on your pancakes with real maple syrup, instead of something fake?
Margarine is one molecule away from being plastic. Canada has it right. I love that margarine is more expensive here. Being a foodie I wouldn’t use margarine anyway.
These are all small things but, do indicate how Canadian we have become. And the best part for me is that my son is ALL Canadian. He is so vastly different from his American cousins in his attitudes towards life. I’m proud of that. And glad for him! And for all of your Canadian kids too! This discussion is important as it makes the idea that renouncing needs to be painful a moot point. It CAN be seen as something you do for Canada because of all this country has given us. From the food to the attitude towards life in general. It’s also not bad to travel on that Canadian passport. Last year we were in Jamaica. I wanted to do some volunteer work while there and in all my conversations with local people upon learning I preferred to be Canadian rather than American, without fail I was praised for that. People quickly warmed to me as soon as they heard that.. U.S.A. is not well thought of most anywhere outside those borders.
Precisely what a physi8cian friend told me when I asked him whether he recommended margarine or butter – margarine is almost plastic. He said to put some of both out and see which one the bugs eat. So I did. They ignored the margarine and we went for the butter. The message was clear. We quit using margarine 5 years ago.
@All
Thank you for your kind comments on my comments…I really, really do love Canada. Sometimes I feel like I was the ugly duckling in the USA but found my Canadian Geese family when I came up here to live and be Home.
Since we are thinking of Canadian food….Yes! those butter tarts…wonderful!!! and Canadian Bacon, which is called pea meal up here, vinegar on French Fries and poutine and Canadian beer… Maple syrup and butter!!!!
We have an abundant amount of clean water that I don’t want to see labeled as a commodity.
And I loved the Thunderbird clip…I remember watching the English version with my little boy on TV..He was a real space buff.. Remember Star Lost? We watched too. It was way ahead of its time. And Polka Dot door was a big favorite.
SCTV…great TV comedy series. The Blues Brothers are based on one of my favorite Blues Bands,, they are Canadians… Downchild Blues. Dan Ackroyd is good friends with them.
But for me the most important Canadian benefit is our Health Care. My husband and son were treated for their cancers in Toronto’s Sunnybrook . We had 3 years of treatment in Toronto’s SunnyBrook…They were diagnosed 2 months apart. My younger son had the same cancer as Ted Kennedy and the same treatments. I looked it up. My husband had Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Operations, Radiation, chemo, stem cell transplants, intensive care (5 weeks for my son) Psychotherapy for them and for the family. and finally Palliative care for them both….and there was not a hospital or doctor bill.. Most of their meds were given by the hospital.. It is a godsend when you don’t have to worry about medical bills and if you can afford the treatments. You can devote your time to helping them live and fight the cancer.
I did not have to declare bankruptcy.. AND the government gave me $2300 for each of them toward their burial costs.
It is great feeling to go right away to the doctor when you are first not feeling well and not have a bill. I am a senior so my prescriptions are $100 annual deductible and the rest are a $1 or 2 for pharmacy fee.
Canada, I stand on guard for thee, glorious and free. I will never leave you.
@northernstar….oh a big and warm hug for you!! Canada’s healthcare system also saved my son’s life. Five specialists at Children’s Hospital in Ottawa for well over seven years. SO many hospital stays, up to four visits every single week when not in hospital. So much was offered to us. It was then I knew I wouldn’t go back to the U.S. We’d have never been able to afford such care. He wouldn’t have lived there at ALL.
So yes, while we’re talking about this wonderful place, let us note that Canada doesn’t consider health care an option or an insurance industry lottery.
@AtticusinCanada
That is really good that our Canadian doctors could help your son. Up until Obamacare your son would have been denied health insurance perhaps, due to pre-existing conditions.
I believe health care is a human right. The USA is the only country that it is for profit. I liked one Canadian’s explanation as to why Canadians are willing to pay for less wealthy, less fortunate Canadian’s health care..”We are all in this boat together.” That is SO Canadian!!!!
I had good prenatal care and was astounded that nurses came to home visit after my sons were born. We walked out the hospital when they were born with no bills.
Speaking of lotteries…best to not be an American if you win the lottery. The American government demands their cut when you win, not our Canadian goverment.
@northernstar, Obamacare is a point for point blue print of a plan proposed by the far right wing Heritage Foundation. It’s not going to do what it’s being claimed it will and was a huge boon for the insurance and pharma industry who helped make the deal behind closed doors before there was ever a vote on it so they could get what they wanted out of it which was more $$$. As with most things the U.S. and Obama are lying about what Obamacare actually is and will do. It also totally took single payer off the table for generations to come even when he had a democrat majority. So, when it did pass it was another reason I was happy to live in Canada!! Obamacare is for profit on steroids. For instance, no you can’t be denied coverage BUT they are allowed to up your premium as much as they like under it. Insurance industry loves it and the day after Obamacare passed healthcare insurance *industry* stocks shot up. Let not the right hand know what the left hand did.
LOVE the care I have got here and the fact that Canada doesn’t argue whether or not healthcare is a right.
Everything else you said about the care here and the way society looks at the poor, the unwell, every citizen is seen to benefit and contribute. MUCH kinder attitude towards life in general.
LOL! abt. the lottery. My spouse and I have already discussed if we won anything that HE and my son will collect the ticket so I can protect them from my uncle who always needs to borrow cash but, doesn’t pay it back.
@AtticusinCanada
I am not that informed about Obamacare….this is a shame but I really not surprised. Corporations rule the US government…Profit is the god.
I loved it how you described your uncle and his hunger for your lottery money…LOL.
I was thinking we all have our unique stories of our coming to the Canadian pond. It would be interesting to gather them and put them in a book..
I love the book idea as it could document a very important journey and an interesting one. What makes someone come to the idea of “pledging allegiance” to Canada instead of the U.S. What does that look like for people? It’s not what most people think it is. Coming here originally did not involve a big decision about which country to go to. It was done out of a necessity. The journey to Loyalist was an interesting one. One I’m very grateful for.
Besides the Canadian health care system, which I have commented on extensively before, I am now in the midst of another Canadian event that I cannot imagine taking place where I lived in the US (although I know people come together in the US as well).
I have just been able to get back online, Saturday evening. My husband and I had to pick up my son and his roommate who live together in a supported roommate program as Camp Horizon special needs campers were evacuated on Thursday afternoon from the camp they were attending in the Kananaskis area of Alberta. As their supporting roommate took the week as vacation with them being at camp and is not back yet, my husband and I kept them at our home — until the area where we live was evacuated just before midnight that same day because of the flooded areas of Calgary. We have just found out that our home has been spared (though a barrier and green space and Memorial Drive is all that separates us from the raging, but slowly, slowly receding Bow River). I think we will be among the lucky ones to early on get back in our home as soon as gas, electricity, water and access for emergency responders is available for our neighbourhood.
We’re all safe and dry and very thankful for so many things in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, our home!
Thanks for good wishes sent our way!
Calgary! I’m so glad to hear you are safe and so is your family! Very glad to hear Camp Horizon campers were able to be evacuated safely. Very glad indeed!
Thanks, Atticus. As I know you can imagine, getting special needs campers out of a wilderness area was an amazing, heart-wrenching feat in itself. Genuine caring camp and medical personnel and counsellors in training too.
@calgary411
I am happy to hear you and your family were spared from the flood. I have been watching the news and it looks very damaging. It is even worse than the 2005 flood that happened there. We have forest fire problems sometimes up here in Northern Ontario, like last year. It got close but we didn’t have to evacuate..
@ AtticusinCanada – I find it interesting that there are many different reasons why we all came to Canada. It would be nice to see them in print. Maybe someday we can get together and contribute our stories. Canada Day is one day I am even more grateful….Now I am going out to see if I can see the Strawberry full moon.
Calgary, you’re back! I have been thinking about you a lot and hoping that your home, but most importantly you and your family were all okay. What an unbelievable week for so many in Alberta and southeastern BC.
Very interesting to learn that margarine is only one molecule away from plastic, but at any rate, butter just tastes better, anyway. So does half and half in my coffee. I can’t even handle non-dairy creamer! Blecch! Yay for peameal bacon, too. Too bad I’m the only one in the house that likes it, though.
How about those pickles that you can get on a Harvey’s hamburger? Or those hot peppers? I think their onion rings are probably the best out there, and their poutine is very good though I also like it at New York Fries. Back when I was still visiting, I used to get poutine off of one of the fry trucks parked just under the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia in the summer days. Yeah, it didn’t take me long to figure out that when it was time to play, the Port Huron side just wasn’t the place to be. So, I just went across the river instead.
Hell, I was already sold on Canada based on one day’s experience riding my 10-speed from Point Edward to Brights Grove, and I had wiped out while trying to turn into the Tim Hortons parking lot on the corner of Lakeshore and Waterworks Road. People actually stopped to see if I was okay. You know, it’s a shocking, and ultimately a really good human experience to say the least when it came to people actually showing concern, and I’ll tell you that there were similar incidents that have happened to me stateside, and I don’t think anyone ever thought to stop. Not one time. Oh, but there was one time where someone at least took the time to laugh at my expense. Nice, huh?
I actually remember Polka Dot Door when I was a kid and I even remember seeing reruns of Tales of the Riverbank, too. Back before the small town I grew up in had cable, and waaay before DTV broadcasts, we had a rooftop antenna that pull in Canadian channel 10 from London. I was probably the only kid in school that actually knew the Smarties jingle, and yes, I DO eat the red ones last. At least now I do. I only had to wait until I was adult so that I could go across the border myself to get a box! (and I thought M&M’s were great) And now, the Smarties I actually grew up with are now called Rockets. I still like those, too.
But I’ll have to agree, it is important to know that if you get sick here that you don’t have to both worry about getting better, and worry about going bankrupt at the same time. Obamacare is just about the biggest insurance industry cash grab that’s come down the pike, and I’m damn glad that I don’t have to participate in it.
And finally, once I do renounce, the first thing I’m going to do is buy myself a lottery ticket, knowing that at that point, my winnings will actually be mine!
@calgary411
Happy to hear that you’re doing okay. I’ve hearing that the flooding is pretty bad out your way.
@calgary…glad everything is ok for you and yours. The news is showing such horrible destruction.
@northernstar…may we be neighbours? Another northern Ontarian here. Located in the city that has the nickname that rhymes with the zoo. ; )
@The Mom
Hey! My wife and I used to live there! We’re trying to get back there after a year in Southern Ontario, because we just couldn’t deal with the pace of life down here, among other reasons.
@Eric
Coming back to the theme of your post, and how ‘Real Americans’ view Expats, maybe Sarah Palin was more right than I thought. Real American don’t give a S#$T about Americans abroad, and all is just wasted effort trying to change their minds.
It is every Expat for himself, and frankly, the U.S. is determined to self destruct, and in some ways, if FATCA moves it a little faster down the slope, then so be it. The fact remains, if you are going to live outside the sheltered shores of America your decisions are getting more and more simple, comply or give it up. You can complain, but Real Americans don’t care, so why do you? Your analysis certainly shows what the majority think, so might as well accommodate them. I am tired of arguing with them about why their view is myopic and wrong. Really discouraged, and I am compliant, NOW, and back in the homeland, right where I should be, or so I am led to believe.
@ calgary411
I’ve been watching all day to see a post from you. I’m so happy to hear that you and your family are okay and that your house has been spared. Truthfully I am having trouble wrapping my head around the enormous scale of this flooding. I can imagine it is even more so for you. Our creeks and rivers in SW Alberta are going down now and infrastructure repairs are underway. Take care and may the muddy, raging waters of the Bow River recede very soon.
Eric,
I suspect you are on to something about long term expats being more patriotic. In fact I have a post currently being edited about a former diaspora rep named Peter Alegi of the Federated League of Americans Around the Globe which long ago went out of business and when it was in business according to my sources it was basically a front group to sell telephone service by MCI. Basically they would sign up expats then give their mailing lists to MCI to solicit customers.
Quote from my post:
The hearing this Peter Alegi was speaking was on whether to make the FEIE unlimited. He was unsuccessful in doing so. However lets look at what legislation effecting American expats has been passed in the 20 years of so since Alegi’s appearance before Congress.
1. HIPPA 1996 Exit Tax and name & shame list
2. Reid Amendment
3. Qualified Intermediary Program
4. Patriot Act
5. 2004 AJCA FBAR Amendments and exit tax rules
6. HEART Act
7. HEROES Act
8. FEIE “Stacking” provisions in 2006
9. FATCA
10.Obamacare Medicare surcharge
Future: Carl Levin’s Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act???
Just to make it clear Peter Alegi actually testified in favor of citizenship based taxation.
The Mom . I live more north east…straight up Yonge Street a little before you curve west. Been to your neck of the woods , very pretty
Thank you, mjh. We have been allowed back into our home. Exception for our days in evacuation, my family is unaffected. My son will be working, as usual, in the Kananaskis area every day, now helping in clean-up. We fully realize how very lucky we are, unlike others who live close to us and elsewhere in the affected southern Alberta communities, many with no preparation time.