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Comment by fourthwaveska | Hacker News Reader

By most western standards my family teeters on the line between middle and upper middle clas.

We sold all of our US property last year; and now we are shopping for 4-6 unit buildings within 100km of Barcelona to get our Golden Visas. Our goal is to get citizenship and access to the EU then renouncing my US citizenship.

It isnt about money, I am juwt ashamed to have an American passport and know my tax dollars are being spent on war and murder in the name of christ and oil profits.

I was born an American and would prefer not to die that way.

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>By most western standards my family teeters on the line between middle and upper middle clas. (...) we are shopping for 4-6 unit buildings within 100km of Barcelona

I'm not sure this is what upper middle, much less middle, class is.

A family that can pay several millions for houses abroad just to get a visa to change citizenship is way above middle class, or even upper middle class for that matter.

Pew Research defines middle class: $53,413 - $106,827 year, and upper-middle class: $106,827 - $373,894.

The Spanish golden visa will require a €550k housing investment, then the normal amount of accrued in-country time for citizenship.

Maybe we’re sort of upper midde-class then. We gross about $200k consulting. Not rich, not poor.

We live in the developing world now so here we are definitely upper middle class/rich, and do not have millions in assets.

You are upper class. Yes you're not rich, but you're not middle class.

The middle class American dream is a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, 2 cars, and a dog.

You're talking about buying a half million dollar house in Spain because of a moral concern about global geopolitics. You're not middle class.

To be fair to the poster, they said that they sold their US propert(ies|y) which if they are older Americans probably releases an amount of capital that substantially covers the cost of the building they may acquire in Spain.

But yeah, when the median US household income is about $68k, early $200k a year puts you far outside the middle class, even if it doesn't feel that way. [ yes, cost of living in NYC or SF has some impact on this, but not much, given the median household income in those cities not actually being much above the national figure ]

Just a nit, but the San Francisco median household income is around $112k [1] for the same year as the $68k you mentioned [2]. I think 50% more counts as “much above the national figure”.

[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanfranciscocit...

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

Sure by these measures I'm rich, but I don't feel that way. Our current income isn't really indicative of the whole picture. Since I was diagnosed as Bi-Polar 20 years ago, I have averaged 2 months of unemployment per year, and just spent 13 months without income due to my inability to cope with the stress of the world.

Today I'm rich. Tomorrow I could be living in a van for 6 months like I did after the 2001 bubble burst.

I think it's helpful to consider that just because you are upper class does not necessarily imply that you are rich.

I know plenty of people with upper class hobbies. I couldn't say for sure if they are rich, but they certainly don't live a lifestyle that I was ever familiar with growing up.

Even taking a year off to de-stress... Someone without financial means couldn't make those choices.

And I've known bipolar people too. They worked when they could, and went on disability when they couldn't. They were never rich. Even when they worked, they were always struggling.

I'd never met anyone taking about buying a house in the Spanish hills until becoming a techie.

> I'd never met anyone taking about buying a house in the Spanish hills until becoming a techie.

I'm still not sure that's the differentiating factor here. OP made clear their moral objections, and sketched out part of a picture in which what makes this possible is not so much "typical tech money", but possibly "having owned a home in the US for long enough".

I have extremely non-tech but upper-middle class friends who in the past have discussed buying entire villages in Spain and Italy (they can be had for as little as $2-300k on the low end. These are not people who ever made "a lot of money", but they have owned homes for long enough that if they sold their house, they'd have capital to put into such a move.

Rich people love to say they're "middle class" or "comfortable"

The amount of the US where you can buy a detached single family home with a white picket fence and 2 car garage for significantly under half a million dollars is probably not as much of a majority as you seem to think.

Not everywhere is the bay area, where you'll struggle to find this for under $1.5M. But $500k is not that much for a house these days in a lot of the markets where huge percentages of the population live (from the tri-state area, to Boston, to Seattle, LA, Austin, etc.) and lots of middle class people live in houses valued at more than this.

Spanish tax and legal system is a nightmare. Have you looked at Portugal?

Yes, but my wife has spent the past four years learning Spanish and every time I suggest Portugal she gets a murderous look in her eyes.

My preference is actually Denmark, but it is an order of magnitude more difficult to move there, and my wife hates the language :(

Portuguese is not that different from spanish.

This argument also gets me icy cold stares of death.

It also reminds me of how mind-blowing it is that a country whose land-area is 1/5 of California managed to conquer almost 1/2 of South America!

I mean, I’m a native Spanish speaker and probably after a year I would be able to pick portuguese.

She just gave you an icy look of doom.

Look where the rich Spanish Twitch streamers are migrating: Andorra.

Don’t they have no capital gains tax?

Please don't take this personnaly as I'm not targeting you specifically with my comment: but I don't know how I feel about wealthy foreigners coming to a place, buy property and extract rent from locals, who may not even be able to afford ownership in the first place.

> Please don't take this personnaly as I'm not targeting you specifically with my comment: but I don't know how I feel about wealthy foreigners coming to a place, buy property and extract rent from locals, who may not even be able to afford ownership in the first place.

Weird statement. Don't worry, I wouldn't take your uncertainty about your own feelings personally.

However, I do understand you, and this is something we've struggled with. My wife is a Turk, and at first when we realized "hey, if we sell my house in Mendocino, we can live like princes in Istanbul, or kings on the Aegean", and once that novelty wore off, we decided that we weren't those people.

The argument itself can apply to anywhere. In San Francisco, I spent 10 years living in illegal punk warehouses where I was not a gentrifier, but then I spent 10 years living in Oakland, where I was a gentrifier, even though I'm from California.

Where does the line get drawn? Is it OK to have the $$ to buy a nicer place anywhere in my own country? What about my home state?

We still struggle with this question a lot.

I guess the line could be at: I made money in the US and benefited from being a US citizen, but now I pack my things and go live elsewhere so I can benefit from the wealth differential in that country and extract rent from people there.

Hmm. So it is OK for me to say make all of my money in San Francisco then go buy property in much poorer Detroit?

Now what if about 1/3 of that income came from my wife who is from a poorer country than Spain?

I guess if a bunch of wealthy people came to Detroit and bought properties and extracted rent from much poorer citizens with less upward mobility and nearly no chance to own a property of them own, that would be the same problem.

You’ve reminded me of that xray spex song, “I live off you”.

If you’re doing consulting. Check out the DAFT visa for the NL. Death stares or not, spend 5 years, get a permanent resident status and move to Spain.

Greece + Italy golden visas also worth taking a look at.

I wish! Greece was my secone choice (I used to study Lyra in Crete, and Rembetiko Bouzouki (Rembetiko style) in Thessaloniki and Athens.

We almost bought a flat in the Exarchia neighborhood of Athens! Politically/Energetically It’s what Berkeley was like in the early/mid-90s.

The day Trump was elected we were in Barcelona, and decided never to go back to the USA, flipped a coin between Spain and Greece. I always lose coin flips!

Yes! Also, not tied to golden visas, but in Italy we have this going on: https://1eurohouses.com/ . It is legit and not the classic Italian scam (it's sanctioned by the government).

>It isnt about money, I am juwt ashamed to have an American passport and know my tax dollars are being spent on war and murder in the name of christ and oil profits.

You know Bush isn't president anymore, right? That hasn't been a a popular (and I would say erroneous, even when it was popular) talking point for more than a decade.

I do find it interesting that expatriation trends seem to pivot in years with presidential elections, according to that chart.

> You know Bush isn't president anymore, right? That hasn't been a a popular (and I would say erroneous, even when it was popular) talking point for more than a decade.

The US performed military operations in eight different countries just during the Obama administration, some of the conflicts where not inherited, like the war in Syria and Yemen.

Those wars were payed by the US citizens regardless of whether they agreed with the war or not.

Obama invaded Syria "in the name of Christ and oil profits"? That justification was a myth, even when the Trotskyites-cum-Conservatives asserted it as truth 15 years ago.

Creating a belt of failed states in Central Asia has been a long-standing policy, if Wesley Clark is to be believed. I can only speculate what the real goals are, but "because Jesus" or "because Bush is dumb" was always fodder for the low-info crowd who watched the Daily Show.

> Obama invaded Syria "in the name of Christ and oil profits"? That justification was a myth, even when the Trotskyites-cum-Conservatives asserted it as truth 15 years ago.

Citation needed.

Yes Bush isn't president, but the failures and hatreds of the entire Bush family are still incredibly relevant today. If you don't believe that, look at the 10s of thousands of Afghans currently walking through Iran and Turkey to find refuge in Europe).

When you're the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, your decisions outlast your position.

I think the refugees are motivated much more by the financial incentives those governments provide. They usually pass through multiple safe countries to get to places like Germany. A modernized Plantation of Ulster has been the policy of every Western government since the 60s.

War and, I guess, the weather, are convenient narratives for these highly unpopular policies.

I’m guessing you have never volunteered at a refugee camp?

Would you like to? I ask in all seriousness. The UN has several programs which are basically refugee tourism.

Like missionary work but without forcing them to get baptized for their supper.

I did it in Turkey 6 years ago. Imagine 5 miles of tents in any direction. Most people who were there then are still there now.

I just realized, I never mentioned Bush, you did. See, I didn't even have to mention Bush, just his legacy, and you instantly knew what I was referencing.

Spain is a NATO country involved in many American wars in the past 30 years.

If you oppose US wars and hegemony you should have followed Edward Snowden and moved to a country that actually oppose American influence in the world.

>Spain is a NATO country involved in many American wars in the past 30 years

Which doesn't mean much. NATO is not some alliance, it's the US calling the shots and others doing as told, or else (insert diplomatic, economic, etc. pressure).

Re: Nato, fair point. There is still a difference between being bullied into submission to American hegemony and being part of the us empire.

I really, really detest cold weather and drunk people, both of which Russia has in abundance. Russia and China are just as offensive to my own moral compass as the USA.

Once we attain citizenship I’m going to try to convince my family to move to Esbjerg, at least for a few years.

The city on the west coast of Denmark? Is that a typo?

Yes, I love it there. My two closest friends moved there to study marine archaeology and within 3 years another 7 had moved there. We were married in Fanø. I’m old, I like the quiet.

Ideally we would spend our winters somewhere warm and the rest of the time in Denmark.

It's certainly nice in the summer. Long but not too long sunlight, warm but not oppressive. I guess if you just spend summers there it wouldn't be hard to arrange.

Summers really are lovely there. Now that I'm finally vaccinated I'm hoping to go spend 3-4 weeks hopping back and forth between Fano/Esbjerg and Copenhagen. My treat to myself after over a year of Covid-induced unemployment now that I'm vaccinated and working again.

This is correct, Spain supported the wars in Irak and Afghanistan, both with hundreds of thousands of casualties, most of them civilians. It's an improvement over paying taxes in US but still a dubious moral choice if you claim concerns over your taxes being spent on wars.

Congratulations, I would do the same but I do not have the means to do so.

Stop the cap

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