Why Is Social Unrest Relevant? Image Source: http://jafrianews.files.wordpress.com
Wow, we sure took a lot of flak for our recent comments about the OccupyWallStreet movement. Many of you misinterpreted our article to mean that we defend big business and Wall Street, as though they have done no wrong (not at all the case if you read the article carefully, for t’was not the cat’s fault he over ate, t’was he who left the refrigerator door open).
But the biggest complaint we received was the supposed irrelevance of an opinionated political essay on a website like RetireWorldwide. We were told we should “stick to your knitting”, and “avoid personal political rants at the expense of your readers”. Some of you even lashed out with blatant insults that won’t be repeated here.
At the risk of further alienating our subscribers, we’d like to connect the dots between OccupyWallStreet, RetireWorldwide, and SocialUnrest.
When considering an optimum retirement lifestyle – which is likely the core reason why most of you read our blog – the risks of social unrest should be a top consideration, especially given today’s volatile social landscape.
So highly valid questions in your mind should be, “where are the risks higher for social unrest”, and “how could social unrest affect my lifestyle or investments?”
Sure, it would be easier for us to continuously pander images of white sand beaches, swaying palm trees, “paradise”, and the endless reasons why you will love being somewhere where you are not. But, in an effort to provide a more balanced and realistic global perspective, we have to consider political issues and risks associated therein, including those occurring in the USA.
Social unrest can take many forms – strikes, riots, “OccupyThis”, discrimination, war, and/or higher crime rates. We wonder how people who chose Athens, Greece as a place to retire are feeling about their choice right now, or how the folks in Bangkok, Thailand felt during the violent clashes between residents and the military a couple of years back, and now during terrible flooding.
We wonder about the potential for social unrest in the USA, Latin America and other regions. We wonder how the OccupyWallStreet movement will evolve – will it make the USA a more or less attractive choice for retirement? Is the #OWS movement the beginning of widespread social chaos, or the wake up call our politicians needed to set things right?
The answer is we really don’t know. Like Nasim Taleb explains in his book, The Black Swan, high impact, seemingly improbable events cannot be accurately predicted based on historical data, which throws most statistically and historically based predictions out the window. For example, the fact that the USA has not experienced an Argentinean-style banking crisis, does not mean it won’t.
Here is a reasonably good graphical source from Princeton that tries to measure various classes of risk around the globe, but we would not give a lot of weight to these types of graphical portrayals because they are largely based on known information, and what concerns us is the unknown.
We found it to be extra-ironic that our article about OccupyWallStreet garnered a lot of “why don’t you shut up” style complaints – admonishing the very type of free speech the movement is sustained by. While some of you found our “opinionative political rants” a good reason to unsubscribe, we trust that the wiser among you recognize the value of different opinions – whether you agree with them or not.
While none of you offered a well thought out retort to our perspective on OccupyWallStreet, we are surely willing to publish opinions that go against our own, in an effort to provide balanced and diverse perspectives.
Michael… GREAT job in communicating clearly and concisely. It is unfortunate that those who preach open conversation so often mean “open as long as you think the way I should…”
My wife and I applaud your discourse. We welcome the email and will be looking soon at at retirement location in the CALA market.
Regards to all, CM
I was delighted to read the entire blog and thought most of what was offered was insightful… did not agree with all, but yes to most.
My wife and I sincerely appreciate the spirit in which the information is offered…
Oh YES… in case it is relevant… I am one of those dastardly, greedy capitalists who has worked 46 years and made a little money… and now am looking at retiring somewhere other that the US to move my cash… and avoid taxes…
I can thank OWS and similar movements for pushing me over the top… am studying Spanish; have made a dozen trips for analysis (and fun)… and hope to contribute to a CALA economy soon… where they still appreciate capitalist investments… and want to create jobs.
Regards to all. CM
Nowhere in your original article did you even infer support for the banking cartel or “Wall Street”. It just shows how many people cannot read with decent comprehension, and anything that might shake their cocoon of a belief system is to be dismissed outright. As some has already pointed out – the US education system no longer teaches HOW to think, they teach WHAT to think. And damnation to anyone who won’t play the game by the “rules.”
The OWS movement is largely misguided because they want the government to do something about Wall St – failing to realize that these are the SAME PEOPLE. Part of the problem is that it really boils down to monetary policy. If there was a true free market a number of these banks would be gone – the pain would be severe short term but we would emerge with a better situation. Instead, the politicians let them gamble with other peoples’ money, subsidized the gambling, and then papered it over with taxpayer money when they lost the gambles. (And that includes the inflationary printing of more – since inflation is a tax that hits the lower and middle class.)
Why is it this way? Because the politicians WANT it this way! That is why getting elected is now a de0facto lottery ticket. The whole system is cabal, and expecting “them” to help “us” is ridiculous – as Mark Twain said, “If voting made a difference then they wouldn’t let us do it.”
I was one of the eight original respondents to your article last week. But having met Kathleen and Lief in Panama this summer, they seemed personalable, polite and both had a sense of humor. When I clicked onto your piece, I was glad to see it wasn’t about retiring but about current events. It was so well-written that I could’t decide whether you were a Republican or a Democrat. In fact, I raised the point that more anger must be directed towards our politicians than the people who have legally made billions on Wall Street to many of my friends. Bankers and hedge fund managers didn’t break the law, they manipulated the many regulations or lack thereof to their advantages.
Let the people who unsubscribe, unsubscribe. I probably wouldn’t want to retire next to such narrow-minded American anyway. It’s obvious that because of niche “entertainment news” in this country that people only feel comfortable watching FOX or MSNBC and never hear an opinion or thought that might threaten their beliefs or be self-serving. I would imagine you would have had fewer complaints if you had attached a porn site.
While you rightfully address that the potential for societal unrest should be a factor in determining the ideal place to retire, this whole OWS debate brings to the fore another important factor. I want to surround myself with like-minded individuals in my retirement. Anyone supporting the chaotic and obviously manufactured OWS movement does not fit that mold. Please tell me where the liberty loving, self reliant, responsible moral grownups are moving. I wish to leave the collectivist, dependent, irresponsible adolescents with maleable morality behind in the US.
I notice that the people who protest your frankness about political unrest the most are unable to articulate what it is they don’t like about it. They are products of an education system that teaches WHAT to think, not how to think. The scientific method, logic and reason are hardly ever applied in journalism or most other “professions” today, where consensus is the chosen approach — the blind leading the blind. “Oh, it must be true, the Wall Street Journal said so.” “No kidding?”
Hordes of confused people with no ideological undergirding or sense of who they are are the result. I hope those people stay where they are. We don’t need them here in Panama.
Good job!
http://laiglesforum.com/so-now-its-all-the-banks-fault/2768.htm
Excellent points, Michael.
You are quite right and being responsible to your readers to discuss societal unrest when folks are making decisions, on where to retire to or
where to evacuate, to depending on their discernment on what is going down in the United States.
In regard to the “Occupy” Movement, I have a couple of links that accurately portray the motives behind it.
http://www.truthin7minutes.com/wall-street-protests-the-surprising-truth-about-this-grassroots-occupy-wall-street-protest
Perhaps this article below gives us a hint… how these protests are really about pushing for another global tax on… stock sale transactions,… not on corporate Wall Street but on we the sheeple who are trying to engage in the American Dream of having a nest egg for their and their families future:
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/“occupy-wall-street”-to-push-for-global-tax/
Yep, no wonder the United Nations, the President and George Soros are sympathetic… the “Occupy”
movement is just more Socialism in Action.
As the adage goes, “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
We need to know what countries, or alternatives,
there are where there is not this kind of unrest
and pressure to increase government socialism to
the detriment of hard-working people. Thanks for
trying to identify those places.
Joe
Michael Manville is entailed to his opinion. He also needs to develop a thicker skin and learn to be less defensive.
When one writes an opinion piece, no matter how well reasoned or written, one is likely to get some criticism. Michael shows his arrogance, and his utter contempt for those who disagree with him, when he ends his defensive response with the condescending comment that “… none of you offered a well thought out retort to our perspective on OccupyWallStreet …” First, at least a couple of the opinions expressed were as well reasoned as those offered by Michael. And even if they were not as well written, why should they be? They were not written by people posing as professional journalists.
Winston Churchill said, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It performs the same function as pain in the human body. It alerts us to an unhealthy state of things.”
Michael, listen to the criticism and the pain it induces, and you may learn a thing or two. I recommend you subscribe to a publication like The Economist. It will teach you how professional journalists respond to those who criticize their opinions.
Best of luck with your future journalistic efforts,
Nigel Bristow
On the contrary, rather than hiding or ignoring my critics, I brought them to the forefront. If I could not handle criticism, I would not have emphasized their comments on my blog.
Blogging is not the same as professional journalism (or, I rather prefer the term “traditional” journalism, since professional journalism has very little meaning if you look at the likes of News Corp). Your use of terms like arrogant and condescending – how professional is that?
Blogging, in my opinion is freer and more creative, and for me, it is about starting a conversation and getting others involved in the dialogue. Social media has changed the game. The advent of the Internet enables different styles of discourse, which changes the way authors interact with their readers and express themselves.
I read The Economist all the time, it is one of my favorite magazines.
In many ways “We the people” are to blame for the government we have. However we are not the reason for the bad representation our government is demonstrating. “Trusted” elected officials are not acting in the interests of “the people…” The plutocracy that our government has become is reflected in the propaganda they spew through media like FOX and others. Our society’s ills are not an illusion. #OWS is only a bandaid to slow the bleeding before the hemmoraging begins.
I read the article and appreciate your candid viewpoint on the very serious problems facing America.
Yes, I like the nice toasty stories of how great the beaches are, etc., it gives me something to daydream about when I’m at work, but there’s a time for dreaming and a time for dealing with reality.
I have been traveling throughout Mexico and Central America for many years, currently looking for a safe and healthy place to retire.
I need to know as much as I can about any place I might think of retiring, not just how pretty the beaches are.
Your website provides what I need to make an informed decision on making this big move.
Keep up the good work!
Dear Maureen:
Perhaps you should read what you wrote. You say that OWS is against corporations taking over the elected government. You say go after the corporations. What good will that do? Don’t you really want to go after the elected Congress that has been compromised and is in the pocket of those horrible corporations? Once Congress is ‘by and for the people’ they should be incorruptable by corporations – and if one member is corrupted, vote him out.
When the piece came in about the OWS group, I immediately deleted it and discarded my feelings about you information just as I disregard the rest of information that is based upon what appears to be your thoughts that a US economy that builds in safety nets, health care, and other social services is a bad thing, while at the same time publishing the advantages to retiring in other countries where there is affordable healthcare an social services – albeit with generally fewer good financing packages. That seems hypocritical to me. However, I look for values where I can find them, and I am interested in possibly leaving the US because of the lack of social services that you condemn the country for needing. Now, I foolishly read the replies to your article, noting first that you were surprised at the numbers who were dissatisfied. Your printed responses seemed not to represent those numbers.
So, my feeling immediately became, “I do not want to go where there are people who feel or believe as the respondents might go. And, thus the belief that your information no longer represents who I am or might be, and I no longer wish to read any of it.
Freedom of speech works both ways, although those who say, “Thanks for speaking as you did in your article about OWS, as there should be freedom of speech.”
The other side of that coin is that others of us have the right to point out what we consider to be hateful, selfish, greed, bought governments, and unregulated corporations that destroy the planet and our lives. For those who’s limitations do not understand that, I suppose they will have to wait to see how far their greed will take them in the slide of the US to becoming a third world nation, something that they seem to desire to move to, and not away from. They might as well have patience and just ride it out.
Cancel my subscription immediately.
Sincerely,
Arnold Lewis
Thanks for writing about this subject although I have to disagree with you that OWS is missing the point. No they are not because the most of the people that are protesting are very well informed and have not bought the propaganda that the likes of FOX news has been putting out for years. What they know is that the US government is no longer a democracy but a corportocracy. Our lawmakers are bought and sold by the bankers, Wall Street and the corporations. Congress no longer works for the good for the people but instead for the good of big business. Wall Street is just one example of where this is evident. The greedy bankers need to be regulated. When they are not, because Glass-Stegal was repealed,they cause a worldwide economic crisis. There is more toxic debt out there greater that the GDP of most countries. The protests started on Wall Street because there has not been a single procecution for the fraud that has been comitted but that is not all they are intersted in or what they know needs to be changed. Most of the 99% know that this is just one symptom of a system that is rotten to the core. Don’t underestimate the people that are protesting. They speak for me and many more like me who know exactly what’s going on because we have turned off our televisons and get our information from reliable, non corporate sources.
It is good to hear some truth from the unfiltered media. The Givers always receive the truth with open arms but the Takers never like the TRUTH!
I commend you on the article. As for the OWS group, they sadly don’t have a clue what they want. There are as many “causes” as there are people particiapating. The Tea Party had a unitified message. Of course the liberal media call the all types of names. They love OWS folks. Hum……wonder why? A message to any OWS advocate…… You need to direct your demands to the right agency that created the problems…..THE US GOVERNMENT. If you hate big banks because they loaned you money for your education, then go back the the university that stuck you with a $40K bill. Asked them for a refund. If you hate big oil,then drill your own well and build a refinery. If you think insurance is too high, start your own company. If your think CEO’s make to much money, then work hard, climb the corporate ladder and when you make CEO you can pay yourself one dollar a year. The bottom line is..’ Step up, grow some gonads start your own company. You can hire 5 times the empolyees you need (all union of course), spend corporate resources to comply with never ending Govn’t regulations, sell your products and services for cost. You’ll go bankrupted, but HEY… you will feel good about yourself.
Keep up the excellent work. At least we/you can express our opinions and I appreciate your input about various places for all of us to consider relocating to.
The changes to the social and political fabric that are at least contributing to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, are also a big contributing factor why I’m looking to move to a “friendlier” location. So in my opinion, this is definitely a topic that warrants discussion on your website.
Your insights help us make informed retirement decisions. Thank you!
Michael:
I applaud your efforts to address all sides of the global unrest issue.
No one on this planet can predict the possible consequences of the OWS movement any more effectively than one could predict that the assassination of the 3rd heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1914 could trigger World War 1.
These kinds are events are powderkegs; some of which, have literally blown the free world apart.
Wear your rose colored glasses at your own peril. (Ignorance is curable….stupid is forever.)
Thanks Michael.
J
Good, step up and speak out. That’s what being American is all about. If a concept makes you uncomfortable, good. Think before you act and this is especially true if one is looking to retire outside the U.S. I’d rather hear opinions than keep my head in the sand and my backside exposed.
I second the sentiments directly above. Keep up the good work and thank you.
I can get political socioeconomic news other places – I used to come to your web sit for the “white sandy beaches” TAKE ME OFF YOUR EMAIL LIST
I want to commend you on your article. The retirement community needs to consider the long term effects of these social interruptions on their retirement investments. It affects all of us whether we support the direction of the Occupy Wall Street movement or not. We need to stay aware so that we can continue the quality of life that we worked so hard to attain.
I am one subscriber that felt your OWS article was a good one, and conveyed the truth that the OWS protestors have “missed the boat” in their rants, and in fact, many of them are calling for more State (the govt.) meddling in affairs, when it is precisely the State that has created the mess everywhere! How ironic also to see folks carrying some dumb “Down With Capitalism” sign and then patronizing a nearby falafel vendor, who has made out well with all his captive audience business. Maybe these loons think socialism/communism/Marxism produces falafel vendors!! Every communist system has failed everywhere, and crony capitalism is also a failure. However, laissez-faire, free market capitalism is the best system offering an opportunity for wealth for all. Wherever the State intrudes, you have failure – coercion and theft are all they know how to do – so recommending places to consider for an expat retirement should be headed by those countries (unlike the UPSA – United Police State of Amerika) that do not feel they own their citizens and have to interfere with all decisions. Even some corrupt govts. elsewhere are better than the UPSA, since they are so inept, they do not bother their citizens who choose to ignore them. Try that in Amerika! While there is no “one size fits all” panacea location that appeals equally to all, any place that has a huge presence of the State is bad news . . . since eventually their coercion and theft WILL affect you in a negative way!
Opinions are like orifices for the discharge of consumed and processed nutrients… everybody has one.
Yours may prove valid; may not. I enjoy reading opinions as long as they are not portrayed to be facts.
But even facts will yield differing conclusions depending on the filters through which they flow. You can’t separate the observer from the observation.
I thought there were a lot of good comments on the last post. Don’t give one or two negative people too much notice.
Your audience grew up in the 1960′s. We tend to embrace change. For you to take on the roll of social arbiter is ridiculous. Let us decide whether a political climate is appropriate for us.
I am in total agreement with you. Social unrest or the stability or unstability of every country in the world is in question today and will affect everyone in the near future. Those that think America will stand forever meed to do some serious research into history and present day politics. The picture ain’t pretty.
As for myself I am looking for a place where I can be remote and self sustaining at the most basic level. Survival will depend on it.
Keep up the good work! I don’t read rants, but I’m always willing to read thoughtful articles that take an approach different from mine on any subject. Sometimes I am upset by ugly remarks (there are too many of them), but I wouldn’t want to start denying someone the right to make an ass of him/herself.
I am in total agreement with you: we need to know the downsides of any area we are considering for retirement (even the USA!). So, yes, continue to inform us. We can read what you write, or not; that’s the reader’s choice.
Political,economic,legal and social conditions of any country should be considered.Of course in this volatile world,no place is immune to change.What looks good,now may not be so good in the future,and the reverse.
Keep up the good work! thanks!