I don't believe it's correct that we draw only as much as we contributed to Medicare and SS.

If you do not have an irrational fear of The Big Earthquake, Victoria BC. It's like Canada's...hmmm...Berkeley maybe but less left wing. Pretty expensive cost of living.

If you love San Francisco and just wish it had a higher cost of living and had more Portland types, Vancouver.

If you can see yourself embracing winter and you like very clean, safe cities, Ottawa ON (Canada's DC with much less poverty).

If you want to live somewhere horsey and Vermonty, the Eastern Townships in Quebec.

If you like Napa but also enjoy living without fear of running out of drinking water, Okanagan Valley in BC.

If you like Maine, any Maritime province (but New Brunswick is boring).

If you like Alaska but also enjoy a lot of fog and drinking, Newfoundland.

If you like Denver but with more hippies, Nelson BC.

If you like culture, fashion, and winter and don't mind light xenophobia, Montreal.

Flyover states - prairie provinces.

Toronto is kind of like Chicago but much less crime and less soul and no good music. But still a very cool city with some huge Chinatown areas, good eating.

If you like sort of the Catskills, upstate New York area, try the Muskoka or Prince Edward Country regions of Ontario.

Northern parts of Appalachia - Nova Scotia. We really like our bluegrass and have lots of poverty and beautiful scenery too.

If you like it South of the Mason Dixon line - sorry, you will freeze everywhere. Canada is not for you.

All kidding aside, a few months ago, I swear, I told my DH that if Trump becomes our president, I am moving to Canada.....today I see this post.

PLEASE take me with you, I promise to be a good girl!

A lot of fascinating options! I'm in Minnesota so I wouldn't have to go far and I could handle the climate.

I couldn't handle the weather or switching to metric and Celsius (half kidding, half not).

Nothing against Canada in general, but whatever happens, I'm staying put. I own my house, the climate's great, my loved ones are close by. I'd be embarrassed as hell if that horse's ass became president, but he's not gonna make me move.

I'm not getting into a Pro/Anti Obama argument here nor am I getting into a pro / anti government healthcare argument here.

Could have fooled me, since you brought it up.

Roarah-numerous studies have been done, and the average retiree receives significantly more from SS and Medicare than was ever paid in to the system. My parents are prime examples of this. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/feb/01/medicare-and-social-security-what-you-paid-what-yo/

My husband wants me to plug our city, Halifax.

It's beautiful.

It's inexpensive and we need people.

Close to Europe and an easy hop to London .

Lots of artsy stuff and universities.

Relatively mild winter as far as Canada goes.

Relatively low unemployment in the city.

Great for outdoorsy types, lots of ocean and clean lakes to swim in.

Fairly laid back and casual lifestyle.

Lots of construction making us feel very dynamic right now.

Small enough that you can still live close to downtown but big enough to have a resident Symphony and some theatre companies.

Robo - I love your analogies and while I haven't traveled extensively through Canada I did spend an all too short week in Nova Scotia. Now that DH is retired I'd like to repeat our trip - we were in Montreal for the jazz Festival and marveled that the streets were sweep clean by the time finished breakfast. We drove to Quebec and stayed at the Chateau Frontenac and loved ambling about the old town. Then we drove to Bar Harbor (with 3 kids in a station wagon) and took the ferry to Nova Scotia and spent the week traveling around the province.

Beagles - you're not alone. I don't think I've ever made a political comment here but I agree with most of what you just posted. I have an unnatural abhorrence of debate, too many attorneys in my family. I always come up with the perfect rejoinder after the discussion is long over.

Maire

Roarah, although a popular misconception, that statement is categorically untrue, Any senior on Medicare with a one week hospitalization including surgery and any stay in ICU has already received more than s/he contributed. Social security benefits far outweigh contributions as well.

returning to link to a Forbes article from 2012 that explains the situation well. And since 2012 the situation has gotten worse---healthcare is only more expensive and the benefit larger. And since wages have been stagnant, no vast increases in contributions from working Americans. As the article points out, this fiction that retirees have "earned" their benefits is belligerently and falsely promoted by the AARP.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisconover/2012/12/03/aarp-lobbies-for-100000-plus-medicare-subsidy-for-seniors/#1d6c65444dcc

I understand the costs but politicians use the term entitlements to warrant cuts and as such SS and Medicare should always,be in my opinion, referred to as earned rights that as such should be untouchable. This is why I take issue with labeling them as entitlements, whether they are or are not.

edited to add, if I have cancer my insurance company pays more than I put in or my car insurance company pays more than I paid to it when my car is in a crash these are not entitlement programs it is the game of insurance accounts.

I think the problem with many who rage against "entitlements" is that they actually want them for themselves but don't think others should have them. I also think too many don't understand that things would be much worse w/o them and are unaware of the history, what life was like for the elderly and such before SS and Medicare. There programs aren't created just for the heck of it. They are created to solve major problems.

Here is a better term that does not negate they are subsidized but also takes away the negativity attached to entitlements. Federal retirement benefits....

Social security and Medicare have little or nothing in common with your cancer policy or how it pays. SS and Medicare are the two largest entitlement programs that exist. Regardless of how you feel about it, they are NOT earned and they are the hallmark of a socialist society. Most people want to call them something else because they do not want to think of our society as socialist. It doesn't bother me, and I wish Medicare would be widened to include every US citizen, not just the aged.

Roarah, would you be content with allowing people to draw out only as much as they put into those programs, or are you satisfied that people are entitled to benefits regardless of their contributions?

adding that you may have misunderstood the term "entitlement," which is not an open invitation to cut benefits. It means that every person in that particular group gets the benefits......all people over a certain age, not just some.

Tips for Americans moving to Cape Breton

https://capebreton.lokol.me/p/14598

"7. When a Cape Bretoner asks you "What do you play?" Scrabble, Xbox, and ultimate frisbee are unacceptable answers. Acceptable answers include every musical instrument ever invented.

8. If you are having a hard time finding things to talk about with Cape Bretoners, ask them how they heat their house. They'll talk for five hours.

9. There are 3 religions on Cape Breton Island. The Church of Bruins, the Church of Canadiens, and the Masochistic Ministry of the Maple Leafs."

And if you want to know everything about Cape Breton culture, just watch this nature documentary: Moose falls on face, Cape Breton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGylDMu_0TU

Kswl, my DH paid into SS for 44 years and it is what sustains my life today, along with his company benefits. For you to say it 'isn't earned' boggles my mind. While I do have other financial benefits in the form of an IRA, annuities, and such, why in god's name would I choose to use that when he was paying into SS all those years? There are many who have NOT worked, yet collect disability/SS, and they seem to be the very people who feel entitled. You know, the ones who 'can't' work over a certain amount of hours because it will affect their disability, yet they are perfectly capable of working a 40 hour work week. Those people. I found your words to be 'uppity' as well as offensive to those who have educated themselves, worked diligently, and saw their SS as a savings plan for retirement~i'm assuming your SS will be donated to charity.

Remember that McMansion with the dead animals in the church? And the barn that wasn't a barn? Are there enough of us? I live in Iowa. Canada doesn't scare me. I would rather live in N.S. or PEI. My great grandparents all came from there. Even the ones that came on the Mayflower moved there. And then in 1844 they went to NY but only stayed a few months then back to Canada. They did that several times living in different northern states before staying here in 1859. I could do my genealogy research much easier if I lived there.

Canada doesn't want me https://www.canadavisa.com/assess/canada-immigration-assessment-form.htm

I don't think it isn't that you paid into it, patty v, but rather that you are likely benefiting by drawing out much more than your husband contributed. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it explains a bit of why the plan may be unsustainable as currently set up.

Robo, I don't know the Toronto music scene now, but I spent the 80's there for the most part. Stadium concerts at exhibition stadium by the Who, The Cure, The Police, Depeche Mode, David Bowie (RIP), etc. and then all the clubs and concert halls. It is pretty amazing that none of my friends or I married Canadian guys since that was all we hung out with.

I did like your post. Hmm, might need to think about the Okagun Valley. Any universities there for me? I'll have to check it out.

I know getting a job could be a bit of a problem, but I'd also consider Europe. We have no kids but would need to consider the cats and MIL. Would not consider Dubai, Qatar, or anything in the middle east although I have professional contacts there.

OK college (Okanagan College) and University of British Columbia would be your main choices :) Toronto gets great shows but the independent music scene is much stronger in Montreal. Can you tell I went to Uni in Montreal? There's a bit of a rivalry.

Patty, you are---because everyone is----getting a far larger benefit from Social Security than was paid in on your behalf. Your income is being paid not by his contributions, but by the contributions of people who are working now. His contributions were paid out to people drawing benefits when he was working. I am not saying you are wrong to collect them, obviously you are entitled to do so. I am saying that the benefit isn't accrued earnings from interest or investment of his contributions by the federal government, and it is a far greater amount than was contributed. If it is "uppity" to understand how social security is funded, I plead guilty :-)

I graduated from high school in 1955 & began working in an insurance office of an auto parts manufacturer a few weeks after. My first check was for $300, give or take a few dollars or so, which represented my first full months work plus an additional portion for a partial previous month---I seem to remember my starting salary was $260 a month. When I got my first check, I remember asking what my boss what the deduction of "$3.00"( I think it was called FICA) on my check stub was about, and my boss told me that it was a Social Security deduction. So in my first year of employment and for many years after that I had exactly 1% of my salary deducted for SS, and I believe my employer paid in the same amount. This was true of everyone---even those, usually men, who were making the then phenomenal amount of $1,000 a month (my dad made $9,000/year as a middle level executive back then)personally paid only $120 a year into SS for years & years.

Sometime in the 1960ties I believe the deduction percentage was raised to 2%, but even that was pretty miniscule. It was only in my much later working years that the larger employee/employer percentages paid into SS came into play. In the end, I worked full time, without breaks, for 40 years (I retired on disability at age 58 on my employer's disability policy). I know, without looking at any charts, that I have received, at age 78, MUCH, MUCH more in monetary benefits than I ever contributed. And unless one dropped dead at say age 68, without spouse or dependents, that was true for everybody of my pre-baby boom generation.

I do not begrudge anyone their social security benefits, I just wish there was a better way to fund SS than our present system. The periodic looting of the monies in the fund doesn't help its long term prospects.

kswl, there is no "trust fund" to be looted. That's a myth. The social security obligation is a burden like any other, backed by the full faith and credit of the US govt. They may choose to change how it is funded and they may choose to change how it is paid out, and they may choose to change how much of the payouts are taxed again to be recaptured, but there is no "trust fund". Money is fungible.

Just this morning I was wondering how difficult it would be to just pull up stakes and move to Toronto. I loved Toronto when I visited.

This country is having a meltdown. It's split in half to a point where a small number of voters are make huge decisions for all. Boundaries appear to be gone at every level.

The other day I posted a photo of a candidate's wife in Michigan where cities are being abandoned and children poisoned by the water so the city could save money. She was carrying a $1500 clutch and wearing her 20 carat engagement ring.

If the debate had been in Florida, California, New York or almost anywhere else, it wouldn't have been remarkable. But in an area where they cannot find the money to fix plumbing pipes that are poisoning people, I found it insensitive and clueless. FB friends pointed out to me that that's their brand.

If this is the best we have, we are well and truly lost.

I do know that Annie, and I should have put quotation marks around the word "fund," because while it is accounted for separately the money is "borrowed" for so many purposes that paper distinction might as well not exist.

Well, folks, for those of you thinking of leaving, just remember that they're ahead of you here, too. You must deal with FATCA, which for many expats has meant choosing between permanently coming back to the US or renouncing their citizenship.

http://www.bbc.com/news/35383435

If only they did FATCA for corporations, instead of rewarding them for shipping jobs overseas, a lot of problems would be solved.

Agree 100%, rococogurl.

Did they pull the other Trump thread? Did it get so contentious?

That was very weird, Annie. I looked for it last night and it was gone. Then there was a post by someone (linda, maybe?) asking where it went, then that disappeared, too, ASFAICT before it even had any responses.

It's still here, going strong. No one from hot topics has discovered it, thank heavens, I guess they are all too busy over there :-)

Where, kswl? I don't see it and evidently I'm not the only one.

I read it this morning around 6 am eastern time.

And it is still extant:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3733127/romney-calls-trump-dangerousurges-gop-to-vote-against-him?n=483

Huh. When I click your link, kswl, this is what I see:

Kswl2, your link above is a dead link for me.

The original thread is gone for me, as well as my starter thread I posted last night asking where it went. I, at least, have been censored.

ETA I see my starter thread now asking where the original went. It seems to appear/disappear each time I refresh my browser.

Well, that's disappointing. I have another outlet besides houzz for my decorating "fix" but found that Romney/Trump thread informative. I guess we're limited to discussing aging topics and books. (Themselves worthy of consideration, too.)

That's very weird, I am still able to pull it up on my iPad!

Very disappointing. I can't see Lisad's or the original. I don't understand because I felt the discussion was civil. The last I saw was last evening I posted that stories of gunfire at the Trump rally in Chicago were only being reported in the 'conservative news' outlets. i hope that didn't cause it to be pulled.

Kswl, what is the last post you can see on the original? After you refresh the page can you still see it?

Well, IRCC, this has happened before to a couple of long threads when they weren't actually being censored, evidently just as a result of a bug in the software. I hope they return.

Okay, just checked my ipad and I don't see either thread there, as well as on my desktop.

Maddielee, there were posts after yours. You didn't trigger this, I'm sure. :-)

I'm on my iPad, can not see either threads.

I wish that people who ask to have a thread pulled would explain why.

You can have an entire thread pulled just by asking?

Too bad the GOP doesn't work that way. I think it was pretty unanimous here that Trump should be gone. :-)

On the old gardenweb site, if the administrators were contacted threads would disappear. Houzz has been better about discussions, I'm not sure how or who can have a thread removed.

What I don't get is if someone doesn't like a thread why don't they just ignore it?

"my DH paid into SS for 44 years and it is what sustains my life
today, along with his company benefits. For you to say it 'isn't earned'
boggles my mind. While I do have other financial benefits in the form
of an IRA, annuities, and such, why in god's name would I choose to use
that when he was paying into SS all those years? There are many who
have NOT worked, yet collect disability/SS, and they seem to be the very
people who feel entitled."

Patty you have got to be kidding!!! You just told us that you are collecting money from your *husband's* Social Security benefit....and then you say something snarky about the many who have not worked yet collect SS?!?! Um, that would be the face in the mirror for you.

I can not see it either. I posted around 11 pm last night responding to Cindymac's post and this morning around 6:30 am it was gone. I thought it was a civil debate but maybe it got heated after I went to bed. Or maybe Trump had it pulled;)

It's back now, at least for me.