ECUADORIOUS

It's taken about 10 years for me to realize that my quality of life in my native country--the United States of America--is quite poor and getting poorer, and that I have zero chance of being able to retire comfortably here, especially after COVID ate up all my savings. So I knew that I needed to take some kind of drastic action, and sooner rather than later. So that's what I did, and after a year of research, I determined that living abroad is the answer for me. But which country? On the list was Belize, Canada, Mexico (specifically Ajijic), Thailand (Chang Mai), Ecuador and Costa Rica. I considered things like weather, ease of visa application and income requirements, crime and safety, land ownership, politics and government, public transit and walkability, among others. I whittled them down one by one. Mexico was out due to the crazy cartel violence that's out of control there. Canada was out because the visa requirements are too stringent, and, of course, brrr. Belize wa...

I'm done with the United States of America. Our kids are graduating from high school but aren't able to read and write or do basic math. People can't even count back change--they rely on the computer to do that for them. Our roads and bridges are crumbling. Rent keeps going up. In 2020, my rent for a one-bedroom apartment here in Las Vegas was $1100 a month. Now, just a little over 2 years later, it's $1700 a month. In 2021, car payments averaged about $600 in Nevada. The average now is about $800 a month. The cost of health care is forcing people into bankruptcy. A family of four will pay an average of $1600 a month for health insurance, and about another $400 for dental insurance. And even with that coverage, they are usually still responsible for a percentage of the hospital bill, anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent. There are tens of thousands of homeless people in every large city in America, and that number is growing every day. Our police won't stop killin...