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This and That
More CIA numbers
The CIA updated its estimate for global external debt and GDP this week.
I have watched these numbers for years. This is the first time that I
have seen a significant drop in total debt and a meaningful expansion of
global GDP. Two possibilities. Either the CIA has the numbers wrong, or 2010 was a fluke that can’t be repeated.
I am going with the “this can’t be repeated” as the answer to the
puzzle. Either global debt increases significantly this year, or global
growth is going to have to slow down. You can try to fight Mother
Nature, but you can’t fight the basic laws of economics. In the world
that we live in Debt = Growth. This rule will not change.
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On Multifamily Default Rates
Fitch had this report out yesterday:
U.S. CMBS Market Trends: Large Multifamily Defaults Fuel 36-bp Rise in Delinquencies
Looking through it is a breakdown of default rates on asset classes. Multifamily homes are at the top of the Fitch list.
- Multifamily: 17.40% (from 15.63%)
- Hotel: 14.43% (from 13.99%)
- Industrial: 8.53% (from 6.24%)
- Retail: 6.88% (from 7.20%)
- Office: 5.50% (from 5.69%)
I find the bad result for Multifamily interesting. Not so much that the
default rates in the Fitch pools are so high, it is that the good folks
at Fannie Mae are doing so well with their portfolio of Multifamily
homes. The Fannie default rate is only .72%. The private pools are
defaulting at a rate 24X’s Fannie.
To
be sure there are different RE portfolios involved. That the results
could vary significantly is reasonable. But 24Xs? Either the folks at
Fannie have been doing a heck of a job, or they are sandbagging. I don’t
mean to imply they are fudging with numbers. There are too many bean
counters around for that to be the case. My suspicion is that Fannie has
actually done a heck of a job in HAMPing, HARPing and generally
extending and pretending their multifamily portfolio. That way they do
not have big numbers on the “serious” default multifamily line. Why on earth would Fannie do that?
If the measuring stick for “success” was: How many families did the government help out? Then it would behoove the government to help out a multifamily borrower over a single-family borrower.
It’s about the optics….
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More on “Hot Money”
George Washington had an article at Zero Hedge
with information that Mubarak may have stashed away $70b . I suspect
that this is more or less correct. This money will pop up all over. The
US, UK and the Swiss banks are no doubt sitting on the bulk of it.
Let me give you a likely scenario. Mubarak leaves. Whoever comes into power the first thing they say is “We want our money back”. This creates a potential problem. Whose $70b is it after all?
I wrote
about a subset of this earlier in the week. My focus was on the Swiss
bank angle of the story. I quoted from NZZ. Well NZZ is back on the
topic again today. I have no doubt that the NZZ is talking about it
because the Swiss bankers and political leaders are talking about it. And they all think that something is going to blow. The NZZ interviewed a private Swiss banker. I thought it was worth noting: (my translation from German)
NZZ: What
about a potential client such as a Russian oligarch who is now
legitimate, but has come to his first millions years before by dubious
circumstances?
Private banker: There are certain oligarchs, who were 10 or 20 years ago so bad that we do not do business still today. Other cases are less clear.
NZZ: And what about with countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Emirates, where state and private property may overlap to such an extent that the term "corruption "would be redefined?
Private banker: The acceptance of funds from these countries is, in principal, in order.
Read through the lines. If you were a crook ten years ago but are now
rich and respectable there is no problem to open a Swiss account. When
the private banker says that it is “proper” that Swiss banks should have
large banking relationships with the players from Saudi, Kuwait and the
Emirates what he is really saying is that they have boatloads of their money already.
This gets back to where I started. When Potentates lose their “Po” the
people left holding the bag are going to be asking for the dough. We will hear more of this in the weeks to come.
*************************************
The SEC is going broke
From the WSJ this morning:
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said Friday that budget constraints were hampering the regulator's ability to enforce the securities laws.
The agency doesn’t have the funds to hire market experts it needs to keep ahead of fraudsters and market manipulators.
The budget strain was forcing market analysts to use decades-old technology to "monitor trading that occurs at the speed of light.
This certainly is an American story. Two years ago the country was
brought to its knees over financial abuses that the SEC should have seen
coming. The Dodd/Frank bill that was passed with much fanfare a year
ago is actually just a joke . Now there is no money to do the follow
through. We are destined to revisit the sins of the past.
**************************************
On the labor force
You’ve seen these graphs before but they are worth repeating. The US has
gone through a structural change when it comes to labor force
participation. This phenomenon is not going away. A significant number
of people who were in the labor force a few years ago are now no longer
interested in finding work.
I find this fascinating. What the hell are all these people doing that have dropped out?
Just collecting UE and DI checks? Have they gone underground and are
now day workers getting paid cash off the books? We’re talking about 8mm
people here. 5% of the total workforce seems to have disappeared. How is that possible?
Should this trend continue for a few more years it will have very
significant effects on Medicare, Social Security and general tax
revenue. At the moment everyone in Washington is assuming that we are
going to revert to the labor force participation rates of 2006. With
that will come higher taxes at every level and the budget picture will
magically come back into closer balance.
But I think these workers are gone for good. Should that be the outcome
the budget picture is just a disaster for as far into the future as they
eye can see.
There are no “fixes to this problem and it will not go away. Ben
Bernanke is trying to fix this with a monetary policy that is upsetting
the world and accomplishing nothing good.
*******************************
Quote of the week
Texas Federal Reserve President Fisher during Bloomberg interview with Kathleen Hays:
The United States is the best looking horse at the glue factory.
Enough said.
»
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I am stumped by this. Someone else suggested that it was just inflation. There is more to this than that. The CIA numbers might be off. But not by this much and not in the relative direction of + GDP, -Debt. ??
Why is the ratio calculated against GDP? There are a lot of weird things calculated into that number that are not real or even "cash-in-able." Why not do it like I have to do it, relative to my income (okay, I have no debt, only savings). In this case that would be tax receipts, not GDP. Or net worth, what you could actually sell off and get $ for? Why is GDP what everyone looks at?
If this is a dumb question, be gentle with me.
I know you can't put a price on the globe, just for the record. But if everyone decided to settle all their debts now, the point is we couldn't do it, right? Because we have borrowed from the future. So why does GDP matter? It topped out, or not. We have to grow to earn to pay back the future. But we never could. That is the problem with the concept of interest, right?
Okay I'll shut up and listen.
GDP is just a number. I doubt it really measures things very well. It does not capture the black economy. It does not capture undocumented workers. But we have no other numbers to look at and make comparisons to. So they are used.
You should be able to save 5% of your income.
A successful company will have free cash flow equal to 5% of sales.
If you used that logic the global economy should be able to "pay off" the debt in 20 years. (5% a year)
Different look:
There are 7B people. Each would have to pay $500 a year for the next twenty to pay their share of $10k)
My point? It is practically and theoretically impossible to the pay off the debt over a visible period of time. Any attempt to do it would destroy the global economy.
Not only can't "we" pay any of this back there is a growing risk that some of "us" can't pay the interest. Without growth of global GDP there will be more and more who can't pay the interest.
That is why all the "deciders" are always pushing for ways to make growth go up faster. Look what Bernanke is doing.
Thanks for your answer. Makes sense.
My understanding is that if you have interest, then the system has to grow to accomodate it. No matter what you save, it will get out of hand because less money will be flowing through the system because some of it is going to pay off interest. Interest drains productivity is how I understand it. Thus you must grow the economy to pay the interest and still meet everyone's needs. Meanwhile resources are finite.
The savings thing is interesting. I am able to save over 50% of my pay, but I live very modestly. So some of this we could say is about growing expectations. But then again, if everyone acts like me, there will be fewer jobs to make less stuff. Can't pay the interest off that way, now can we?
Keep up your good work. Others have been somewhat critical, and while I might agree with some of the facts they present, I do not agree at all with their tone. You have a different opinion, you are not evil, you sure as shit are not the problem.
Peace,
MsCreant
You're on a roll there, Missy. I think the key to making all this work will be to keep those savings out of the hands of the Big Banks. Even if in a small local S&L if necessary. Of course, I keep it in handy little rounds of gold and silver. Those institutional savings have, historically, provided the fodder for real economic "free enterprise" growth. Not having that any longer, the Big Banks have created some really horrific financial WMDs. Woopee!
Theoretically, it is impossible. Empirically, all big countries significantly increased amounts of debt outstanding.
I think that CIA numbers are at best meaningless, and at worst - intentionally misleading.
You're first mistake, in this case, was taking the misinformation published by the CIA seriously:
Current GDP = $40 billion a month
Bond sales and monetization = $125 billion a month
$14 trillion dollar deficit currently
Living on the fringe, as massive U.S. job losses accountable to out-sourcing, obsolescence due to technology, contraction of GDP/private debt and government malfeasance has destroyed swaths of once prosperous jobs that ain't coming back.
A new paradigm has been reached, and no one is talking about it, yet...
+++ on point one. who trusts these guys. that's my biggest problem with karl denninger too... he eats what they feed him, apparently without question.
+ on point 2, add: under-the-table, and barter.
Transferred ownership into central banks.
this would not work - like in the US the debt in posession of federal reserve still counts as debt
I think that's exactly right. The derivatives and derivatives on derivatives are counted as "debt" on the books of private entities but listed as assets on the books of central banks. The banks now conveniently own a bunch of government bonds in lieu of the trash the central banks keep in holding accounts.
Don't forget about elimination of Mark to Market (suspension of GAAP for TBTF).
We're living in the void:
+/-3.2T....the very definition of global circle jerk.
Bruce,
I enjoyed reading your research, thanks for sharing it.
You may be too nice and "sensible" for your own good but I also appreciate it. You are one of my weather vanes. You wait a long time to call a crook a crook-- fair to a fault.
MsCreant,
"Just the facts mam, just the facts." BK is one of a kind.
Thank god there aren't more left-wing pseudo intellectuals on ZH - Comrade Brucie is enough!
Although as of late, it looks like CBK's stayed away from the BIG .GOV postings that got him junked-piled last week ;-)
Someone else said the U.S. dollar was the best looking horse at the glue factory quite a while ago.
I think an old saying. Still interesting that a Fed head would use it in this context.
Agreed! Such a statement by the FED is news.
Thanks for the post!
I think the mutifamily foreclosures are pretty clear. People don't have the money to pay rent. Where I live (People's Republic of New Jersey) it takes 5-6 months to evict for non-payment, sometimes longer in the case of a crooked/liberal judge. As a landlord you can't come up with the mortgage payment, or pay the confiscatory property taxes. Your loser investment property goes to the bank long before your own home, especially if you have some corporate entity shielding yourself. Even better, you let the bank have it and you pocket the rents during the forclosure process.
FTW. Burn the system to the ground.
Bruce, I suspect its a combination of underground economy, wiping out retirement accounts, 99 weeks of Unemployment insurance and then a direct hop onto SS or pension plan for those eligible...
+1.
I personally know people who are grabbing SS early, working for cash, wrangling thier way onto disability, living under a culvert (figuratively) until they qualify for SS, or some % combination of all-of-the-above.
Also there are students going to grad school, getting PHD's (one cousin working on his 2nd PHD) cohabitating in substandard housing, back w/ Mom and Dad, driving cabs, etc.
Surviving... but survival is no way to live.
nah. simplicity sucks. too much free time to worry about. better to get into debt and leverage your future. no physical, either. too much money tied up, unleveraged, when one is just beginning a "career". just get a mcmansion and a brand new corvette. prices? who cares @ these rates?
take it easy on them donk Q! we get lost so often, it's practically archetypal. fuking charts are never right! even if we could read them. shoals everywhere. dry rot up the ass. i'm still trying to figure out how we ever make it home.
all i can figure is we love and get along w/ kids so well, we can still learn from them.
fly peter pan!
slewie out.
I checked on this awhile back, and my understanding is multifamily dwellings as reported by the gummit are supposed to be "houses" which are broken into 2 or more complete living units--not including things like commercial apartment buildings. Would it also include cases where mortgage is held by an individual and units are rented out? Like a brownstone?
Anyone got a good handle on that?
"Multi-family Housing: The definition of multi-family housing varies from agency to agency. The definitions include:
- DHS/FEMA. For the purposes of the Rental Repair Pilot, multi-family housing means a property consisting of more than four units (dwellings). The term includes apartments, cooperative buildings and condominium.
- HUD. A property consisting of five or more units, also including health care facilities.
- VA. A property consisting of two or more rental units."
http://www.fema.gov/emergency/disasterhousing/glossary.shtm It would be an interesting argument to declare that assisting MFH benefits families under the HUD definition listed above.Aha. Well that makes perfect sense. The gummit doesn't know either, but they've got great statistics about 'em.
Some are on the dole, some are underground, some have returned to Mexico (or wherever).
Some are on the dole, AND underground.
It's all as good as it's gonna get...but leave the country to run to the epicenter???(Europe)...Puullleezzeee. Have a little patience; watch the Irish story unfold, watch the eastern european blocs run back to the farms & leave the banks & western Europe holding the Bag.
I'll stay here in sunny Fla. w/ some cash, silver & gold, & watch the story unfold
Good Luck in Europe Bitchezzzz!
Dealing drugs; the last bastion of free-market capitalism.
black markets are free markets!
and, yes, there are more people speaking spanish in mexico, now, than in many years.
i hear the hotel califonia's gonna be up for sale, shortly. all we'd hafta do is out-bid china. unlike portugal, holland, and nicaragua, you can never leave. damned radio anklets!
CIA? drugs? that's a stretch! that little peek uip the skirt of reaganomics was just a bunch of cointel, doncha think?
isn't the first axiom of swiss (and b of a) banking: it all comes out in the wash?
jeeeez! these charts wera BiCH after last nite! at least we're all in the same timezone, now. hunter s. thompson standard.
oh yeah: Who said this? "The United States is the best looking horse at the glue factory." that's the trouble w/ bloggerz. they never stay on point. my toxicity level is too low to look it up, so i'll hafta guess: mao?
thanks, bruce. who are you, really?
Biggest drug dealing gang in 'MeRikA = CIA
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/mena.php
You all aren't thinking like a murderous thug, of course a lot of that is due to political pie-in-the-sky delusions...
Things are NOT what they seem.
Oh, forgot to comment on that--yes, I know a few of these folks. The ones I know are mostly younger (under 40) and urban--they say they're "freelancing" (which means making not nearly enough to live on doing odd-jobs, off-the-books whenever possible) and are actually relying on supplemental payments from parents/relatives/exes who expect things to turn around soon.
Heh.
Wow. Quite a compilation. As usual, I appreciate your quirky view of these things because your ideas make me question the very foundation of the BS I've always been told. Always interesting. Thanks.
___________________
The CIA numbers and the invisible debt. Of course. Leave to the government, no matter how sophisticated the branch, to forget to look under the rug during an investigation.
The CIA, though? Like they don't know and are just blowing blue smoke?
____________
Multi-family dwellings cratering and not a sound in sight of anybody anywhere saying anything about it? Again, I'm shocked. /:
This is evidence of the government sweeping things under the rug and the "ultra-sophisticated" Fed pretending not to notice. The Fed is the place where all the blue smoke originates.
I wonder what would happen if the stock market found out about this...
______
The more fascinating topic to me is the possible repatriation of funds to sovereign nations by run-away bad boys. What a can of worms that is!
Do they do an investigation to find out whose money it really is (And the names of some insidious tentacles of the Carlyle Group and Goldman-Sachs come up over and over again...)?
Do they just give them the money to make them shut up so they do not reveal all the politicoeconomic machinations that have been in place for decades?
Do they simply release the money into the "general economy" to ramp stocks ever higher?
Where are they going to get $70 Billion cash? Where is it? Is it listed as sovereign money or is it subject to taxation? In whose jurisdiction are the taxes to be paid?
Mubarak took Egypt by surprise and the US government as well. It is clear that the US administration is sweating giant bullets on this one. The fallout and blowback on it are going to be brutal.
_____________
So the SEC is underfunded and the government oversight has been, shall we say, lacking? I don't want to go too far off into tin-foil-hat land, so I'll just leave it at this: can't really see the blue smoke if you've been blinded anyway.
_____________
Your analysis of the employment situation seems to fly directly in the face of this chart posted on ZeroHedge the other day:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/Person%20Want%20Job%20Now.jpg
I know the two measure different things but the reality is they are supposed to be measuring the same things.
Look! More blue smoke! Nine percent more blue smoke, in fact. Ain't that just grand?
:D
Orly, the Swiss are screwed. The Obama regime will blame them relentlessly for allowing Muburak to have stashed his money there in order to divert attention from their complicity in propping up Muburak for decades. No US media will even bother to discuss the billions Muburak stashed in US banks, no EU media will discuss the billions that Muburak stashed in EU banks, yet both the US and the EU will bash greedy, selfish and neutral Switzerland for daring to allow a US supported regime to bank with them.
Expect further articles from Bruce Krasting about Switzerland's evil bank secrecy laws. I just hope that if anyone ever comes after Bruce for money that Swiss bank secrecy laws let him down, he will have earned it.
Bruce, you know so well that the US is a mess, and given that ZH's notable Bruce Krasting is a Swiss citizen, I do expect you have a significant amount of assets over the US border already.
You are already perhaps aware that, in addition to tax havens like Monaco and Andorra, sunny and friendly and beautiful and low-cost-of-living Portugal, is offering people of independent means, the chance to move to Portugal and have zero income tax on foreign-sourced income for the next ten years.
For you this is especially easy, Bruce - given you are a Swiss citizen, you can live in EU countries with a minimum of paperwork.
But this can also be a route for other American gringos without EU roots, and who have a few hundred thousand to support themselves -
http://www.shelteroffshore.com/index.php/living/more/good-reason-to-reti...
does this mean that vegas will get the money or the bankers? the suisse are not still private are they? I heard that they dropped their privacy policy.
http://covert2.wordpress.com
Dudes forget Europe you'll just get fuked from a different position, buy a ranch in South America or Asia instead
Azannoth, EVERY country has its problems and issues. I too have decided that Europe will NOT be the place I bail to if I decide to leave the USA (unlikely, but possible).
If you choose South or Central America, I would advise ALL to go spend at least 8 weeks in a candidate country before committing. You will HAVE to learn Spanish. I do not know if an isolated ranch is really such a good idea, I have read stories of people in URUGUAY (relatively advanced in S. America) getting robbed & killed by rural gangs...
Do your research...
Bruce, my guess is that despite your many years of living in the US, you have not had anyone you personally know, brutally mauled by the US legal system, where they were jailed though innocent, or had their assets stolen by lawyers and bribed judges ... so you perhaps still have some illusions about the strange country in which you live. The illusions are normal because the US propaganda and media control is so good, especially about covering up for crimes of the US legal system.
Despite the brutal railroading that, for example, happened to another Wall Streeter, Martin Armstrong ... The facts of Armstrong's case, if you dig into them, are quite different than what you find in the American media (such as the CIA's favourite dis-info tool, Wikipedia).
Armstrong was jailed illegally for several years without trial, under the US 'contempt of court' extortions, because he wouldn't serve the gov't and the oligarchs at the big Wall Street outfits, and recently was almost murdered in his jail cell.
My own work in the US involved meeting some thousands of retail clients and business owners, and I eventually realised there was truth in the stories I kept hearing, as I met the victims myself. You realise that hundreds of thousands of the USA's 2.3 million plus prisoners, are innocent. And that's not counting the millions robbed by lawyers in other cases, people often defrauded by the lawyers they themselves paid to 'represent' them.
Indeed I realised toward the end of my time in the US, that I needed to keep my own assets in a Swiss bank account to make sure no US crooks 'confiscated' me before I departed ... turned out to be a great 'trade' too as the value of my holdings in Swiss francs increased over the dollar value of the deposits I had wired into the account.
Don't wait till it's too late, Bruce. Get yourself and your assets out of there.
Note to other Americans who would like to escape to Europe ... if you don't have roots in Europe like Bruce or myself, and you have about 50K you can access, you can do it and become a legal EU citizen.
One way is the ancient 'Dutch-American' friendship treaty, I think going back to the 1790s, which the Dutch still honour ... as a US citizen you can legally move to Holland, 'open a business' (some internet nonsense etc.) with about €6000 in a Dutch bank account ... support yourself for four years there (doable with about 1k or so per month per adult, or even a little less, living humble workers' style, on the cheap) ... four years later you are a Dutch and thus EU citizen, can live or work anywhere in the EU.
Also, there are huge number of stories of people going to old Communist Eastern Europe in person with some tens of thousands, PERSONALLY meeting some friendly gov't-connected 'immigration lawyers', supplying some cash, and showing they are not obnoxious people, and after a while getting EU citizenship in Hungary or Latvia or wherever ... which then, once again, gives you permission to live and work anywhere in the European Union. Chinese businesspeople are doing this ... so an American who is discreet and not loud-mouthed can probably pull this off too. This is not something to 'arrange over the internet', this is a go-there-and-meet-the-people only technique.
Good luck you people there inside the US Empire as it crumbles.
SO one can't just marry and get citizenship?
Indeed, quite right, marrying an EU citizen will do it, tho the mate will usually have a waiting period, 2 to 5 years typically, before getting citizenship.
If you are single, plenty of attractive Europeans looking for a mate.
And it doesn't need to necessarily be marriage, simple *partnership* will do it, gay or straight, in some EU countries.
For now at least, the Dutch are incredibly generous and receptive hosts. Residency permits are easy to get, and work permits aren't required, even if your residency permit shows you as a student. However, you are required to have health insurance. (http://www.learn4good.com/travel/groups/group2.htm)
That said, the Netherlands is a small country, roughly 16 million, and they're starting to feel overrun by immigrants. I don't have a link for this, but I think they are starting to institute a language requirement for citizenship, out of fear that their "Dutchness" will be diluted or lost under the immigration onslaught. That might be a deal breaker for some people; Dutch is not an easy language to learn, unless you grew up wearing wooden shoes.
I'd love to go to Holland, wooden shoe?
Health insurance is much cheaper in Western Continental Europe than in the US. In Europe it is easy to get along if you try to learn the local language and are polite, go along with the local customs and attitudes (sort your rubbish etc.)
Yes, every country here will have language requirements for citizenship, but in fact, Dutch or most other modern European languages are not very hard to learn, once you are here and can watch local television and hear it all around you.
For most European languages, it will take roughly 500-1000 hours to become a reasonable speaker of it. In other words, it is do-able. Most conversation uses only about 2000 words. Once again, finite and do-able. Many of us here develop some ability in four languages or more.
Dutch is the closest major language to English, and the grammar is much simpler than the other major 'West Germanic' language, German. It will take a little listening - maybe singing along with some Dutch songs - over a couple of months, to get used to the 'sound' of Dutch, but it is not hard and quite a bit of fun. Dutch is the majority (60%) language of Belgium as well, and Brussels is officially bi-lingual Dutch & French, though majority French now in the modern era.
Language learning is a funny process ... you work a little, you feel you are not advancing, and all of a sudden you are on the next higher level ... you find too it is a bit euphoric, and good for the brain, to use two or three languages every day, as I do in Brussels.
The Netherlands is a bit 'crowded' in the urban areas, but still has many relaxed spots and a beautiful countryside. A good place to start a new life in Europe. Americans wishing to get out, should not hesitate.
Lots of immigration there ahead of us, of the hyperintolerant islamic flavor, and no right to free speech or self defense(guns), plus a horrific demographic collapse in perspective. Holland will not make it beyond 2050 as a free country, and will definitely be rather poor by then, but some parts of it may be lovely in the mean time, for those who don't plan a for children they would take with them or have in that country. The neighboring countries of old europe are similarly screwed.
Free speech rights are actually much more secure in Europe overall than in the US, where they are typically extorted and denied via crooked lawyers and judges, often via financial extortion. Banning of freedom of speech happens in the US all the time, you just don't hear about it because of media control, and because banning of speech can include Google blocking the websites and case facts under US judge 'orders'. Americans still think their Constitution means something, but it died a while ago, it's just words ignored by US judges. There's a few stupid things here, but the US is much worse in terms of free speech.
Plenty, I mean plenty, of guns in Continental Europe, varies by country. Netherlands is restrictive, but we have guns all over Belgium, for example. The great American gun designer John Browning even died here in Belgium while getting guns manufactured here, that he couldn't get produced in the USA, and Belgians happily own many examples. In Switzerland gun ownership has even been mandatory for most adult males, part of the national militia. And so on.
You may be mixing up your image of guns in Europe, with the screwed-up Great Britain, which did confiscate all privately-owned handguns they could find ... but the UK is America's close 'partner'. The US will follow them eventually.
Big difference indeed is concealed carry, which is not done in most of Europe, tho we do have enormously low crime by US standards. I think Turkey is one European country where that is still available. But not 'packing heat' is a small loss compared to the vastly superior freedom and much better life here in Europe, while the US descends into fascism ... Interesting trick the US has pulled, taking away most human rights while impoverished, brutalised Americans imagine they are 'free' because they carry guns.
Most Muslims are great, wonderful, hard-working people. Brussels is 20% Muslim and a number are my dear friends. You are getting fed propaganda by the Anglo media. Actually it's nice to have Muslim people bringing a little religion and prayer life back to Europe.
Life is pretty sweet over here ... in fact a bit like the nicer small-town parts of the US circa 1960 as it was portrayed on the TV shows ... neighbourly and friendly, the streets safe at night downtown, the government not a fascist menace and in fact often quite helpful.
The brightest future for a young person, maximising opportunity, may be in South America ... but for some of us Europe will do just fine.
BankGuy,
Thanks for your very interesting comments.
Have I thought about moving to Portugal? Yes I have. But my roots are too deep here. So I just pay the price.....