The "Exodus" of European Farangs, The Trap.

[Moonlover]

On 2/12/2024 at 2:09 AM, swissie said:

In Europe, an increasing number of pensioneers relocate to "third world countries" as the pension benefits will not allow for a "decent-living" in their home countries anymore. (Political discussions concerning this matter are in full swing in Europe).

THE TRAP: Those undercapitalised "pensioneer-fugitives" have not the financial means to cover lenghty hospital costs nor are they able to pay for any private health insurance.

Only conclusion: Unless you have a fat wallet, stay in your home country once you have qualified yourself as "an old men" with limited financial resources.

- There was once a movie "No country for old men". Unless one has a fat wallet, Thailand is also just a "No country for old men".

Hopes, of finding financial relief by the "Thai-Family" or the Embassy of the home country in case of financial emergency are usually dashed quickly.

A tropical Paradise without a fat wallet is not available. Nowhere. Have known a numer of undercapitalised Farangs, claiming that upon their demise, they will die in their bed in Thailand. But those were exactly the ones that have run up astronomical hospital bills in the end. Much to the disadvantage of the Thai Hospital and Thai Society.

Again: Unless well capitalised, "Thailand is no country for old men". No matter how young your Thai Wife is.

 

Elitist nonsense!

[AlexRich]

2 hours ago, JackGats said:

Not true that elderly people in France were euthanized against their will. Quite the opposite, successive French governments have torpedoed any reasonable euthanasia bills.

 

Infamous retirement homes are a reality. But selfish old people who don't want to die are also a problem. Bring children into this world who never asked to be born, then expect the latter to sacrifice their lives caring for the old who live to be a hundred thanks to alzheimer's. There are 2 sides of the coin. Parents are entitled to have a life, but so are the children they selfishly catapulted into this world.

Here speaks a man who wishes he had never been born. 

[scottiejohn]

On 2/12/2024 at 2:53 AM, Nemises said:

Marry a Thai government employee

And you will certainly need medical and burial insurance!

😄

[Kalasin Jo]

On 2/12/2024 at 6:32 AM, Walker88 said:

Maybe this is more correctly aimed at younger folks, who still have time to build up some wealth. If you’re old, it’s too late.

 

Unless your pension and savings are substantial, they are unlikely to be enough to cover your living costs as time moves on, and no way it will cover end-of-life medical costs. There’s way too much debt in the world (often a result of entitlements and the need for governments to fund them). So to cover debt servicing costs, governments print more money, which is inflationary. The goal post becomes a moving target, as even if pensions try to adjust to cost of living increases, the money printed to cover the increases creates yet more inflation. Trying to asymptotically hit costs with rising pension amounts equates to failure and inability to pay. The goal post will move faster than any increase in entitlements. One and one equals two, not three. All retirement and pension systems are built on a Ponzi Scheme that always assumed ever-increasing populations. That has changed, and it changed at a time when debt is at or near unsustainable levels. Nobody paid into the system what they expect or need to get back, but via a Ponzi Scheme, we could long pretend to the contrary. Not anymore.

 

Older pensioners just getting by then have two choices, neither of which is pretty. Stay in Thailand, and as the body decays, just grin and bear it. It’s rather unfair for expats to foist care costs on to the Thai taxpayer. Your decline is not their fault, nor their patriotic responsibility. The other choice is go home and hope the home government will take care of you at the end. Even that might become unlikely, as shrinking populations in many Western lands means fewer working folks have to cover an increasing number of pensioners, and eventually the workers are going to bark and---cold as it might sound---say “let them die, as they are no longer contributing to the general good”. Eskimos used to put their elderly on an ice flow and push them out into the cold seas. Japanese used to send old folks to ‘the eighth place’. Such behavior has precedent.

 

So young people, start saving and planning for a future where public resources are going to be less, self-reliance more.

 

As for old people just getting by, have a nice day.

You are right. And with governments becoming more far right they will start to pit the paying in workers against the drawing out pensioner population. I seem to recall one UK PM was reported during Covid when the elderly were at greater risk and the largest cohort of those becoming seriously ill as saying just let them die.

Many Brits now of state pension age believed and still do that their National Insurance contributions were " buying" their future state pensions, NHS healthcare and a place in state care homes. I believe the founder of the British Welfare State, Nye Bevan, put it that way. But for years now the UK government line and in opposition that of the Labour Party too has been that the workers contributions are going towards state support for the current pensioner cohort not their future needs in old age and further more that the state pension is a benefit. Like other benefits available in the UK which for some time have been shrinking in terms of both value and eligibility, a benefit can be withdrawn, reduced or tinkered with. And it's been happening as the State Pension eligibility age and the number if qualifying years worked in the UK has been increased. Is it any wonder that the UK refuses to unfreeze the pensions it pays to eligible British pensioners living overseas? The frozen pension situation is a lottery for expats depending on where that pensioner is living. Live in most countries, but not all, it is frozen at the annual amount being paid when you moved abroad. For example living in Thailand and it is frozen, living in the Philippines and you get the same increase annually as those living in the UK, live in Canada and it is frozen, live in the USA it is not. For where and why a Google search gives information on this and on the now numerous campaigns to unfreeze it for all. Currently around 500,000 British State pensioners living outside the UK, around 3.5% of all British state pensioners, have frozen pensions some at now pitifully low amounts ( if you thought the current amount adequate).

It's also the case that if you worked outside the UK for most of your working life you will have no entitlement at all even on returning to the UK. Nor will you be entitled to free NHS healthcare on returning as a friend of mine here believed and hoped for ( he had cancer which after expensive treatment here killed him at 58 years of age, leaving a Thai wife and their daughter ) until you can show that you are habitually resident there, which can take months.

If you follow UK news at all you will have  heard alot about illegal asylum seeking boat people arriving undocumented on British Channel beaches, crossing in small unsafe boats from the French Channel coast. It's caused an uproar, mostly I think deliberately created to divert attention from the government's many other serious failures since brexit.

What we do not hear about is that the UK has, since brexit, quietly made it increasingly difficult by raising the financial requirements for a British citizen to live in the UK with their foreign spouse and family, to return there after years abroad  and  bring their foreign national spouses and children to live as a family unit in the UK with them. Some of those foreign spouses and children already there will soon have to leave being unable to meet the new financial requirements for renewal of the Home Office's Spousal Visa unless they have secured settled status, a scheme devised for EU nationals living there legally at the time of brexit, or better still  UK citizenship as my son's German wife managed to do. See Ian Dunt's recent substack piece on this here 

https://open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/p/the-price-they-put-on-love?r=8gki8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

[john donson]

until you get hit by a thai hospital bill ... not cheap anymore...