My last view yesterday of the US; one-way ticket.

Honestly, other than the fact that we were really confused about where to go due to poor signage (and missed our train twice and got lost when we were supposed to change trains), we enjoyed the train ride. We did pay for first class on for the Avanti West portion, but it was worth every penny. (Or am I supposed to say worth every p now?) And since we came from the land of very few trains that all suck, the actual train rides were great. And people were super helpful with our heavy luggage.

Hopefully OP can live with trading "needing a TV license for a TV no one uses anymore" and "actual healthcare" for a "failing democracy turned Christian nationalist oligarchy"!

Oi sunny boy u got a loisense for that loisense?!

Only if you have a TV. Theoretically, you need one to stream the BBC/ITV and such on a computer/phone, but the onus is not on you to prove that you didn’t. You’ll get letters asking to confirm that you don’t need a licence, and then threats of an inspection to make sure you don’t have a TV that’s on and being used to watch TV, though I’m not sure if they follow through with the latter. (In the analogue days, they had detector vans that either could detect TV tuners tuned to channels or were a bluff to get people to pay up, though they seem to have given up on that.)

Or learn the old "eat the TV before the inspector arrives".

I guess I'm showing my age, but hopefully enough old folks get it.

I've heard this joke many times, never understood it.

Does UK need licenses for everything or something?

And a stabbing license

Edit: Y'all motherfuckers need to get educated https://youtu.be/g1HQ3Eyu2Jw

You should have seen what it was like when we left the U.S. in terms of weather. This is far better. Thanks!

Glad to be here!

I am happy to share, but I am afraid it won't help many others. I am lucky because of who my father was.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-citizenship-british-parent/born-before-1983

Thank you!

Oh absolutely not. It's a much smaller population and being an island it's got a figurative and literal buffer to the rest of the world.

I have always loved New Zealand. It's like the cooler uncle of Australia minus all the spiders the size of my head.

And it's just a beautiful place. Makes me wanna go frolicking in the mountains with an elf, dwarf and old white guy lol

The world’s billionaires are heading back to NZ

BusinessDesk talked to real-estate agent Caleb Paterson, who works with a number of offshore agents and high net-worth individuals mainly out of the US and UK markets. He said interest had “definitely perked up” since National said it would repeal its ban on foreign buyers.

Foreign buyers, with the exception of Singaporean and Australian citizens, have been barred from owning NZ properties since 2018.

Assuming it makes up the next government, National’s plan would open the door to all foreign buyers to purchase NZ homes valued at more than $2 million, with a 15 per cent foreign buyer stamp surcharge clipped on, from the 2025 fiscal year.

Enjoy paradise while it lasts.

America's always cranking things up to 11, including fascism.

I'm not gonna pretend I know the exact details of how much of a slide and to what severity each countries election is going. I was nearly saying that it seems global we are in the middle of a shift right is all.

I would characterize it differently.

• Labour was hugely popular, I agree, but the popularity left when Jacinda Ardern left. She was a extremely charismatic figure; and Labour was at the end of two terms (6 years); with the halo effect gone a lot of the poor decisions they made were highlighted (a lot of the times unfairly).
• National along with Act and NZ First, pushed hard on the government debt rhetoric during the last election. Blaming Labour for inflation, which it had little control over, but it didn't matter the populous were hurting from low wage growth and high inflation. They were looking for a change.
• The center right bloc won with a decent majority, though not specular.
• National fucked up hard! during the negotiations with Act and NZ First. Luxon in a rush to form a government; gave away so much it is frankly baffling.
• In NZ politics:
  • The Green Party has stated they will never work with National or Act.
  • Labour have said they will not work with Act.
  • This forces Act to only be able to side with National, from Nationals point of view Act should be a minor player on the right of National.
  • NZ First are a bit of a wild card, Winston Peters the leader is an old cunning and in my opinion untrustworthy ally.
  • Te Pati Maori (TPM) will work with both parties, which ever gives them the most of what they want.
• National could have gone with TPM or NZF along with Act to form a government, they choose to go with NZF and between Winston Peters and David Seymour; got played like a fiddle. In one crazy political power play, Luxon had a meeting setup to negotiate with Winston and David, they didn't bother showing up and made him come to them in another city.

I could go on but, the politics here is just as complex as anywhere else. Overall we have shifted right, further than we traditionally have but not too much further.

The current government has made some truly stupid calls, and has scored a lot of own goals. Their popularity is very low this early in a parliamentary term. They have been in for a little more than a year; if things keep going the way they are, they may be the first one term government we have had in a long time. Our term of 3 years, is short, so most governments get more than one term to show what they are made of.

Well that's.... Good to hear? Certainly sounds better than whatever shit show the US currently has kicking off.

The “centrist” party leader (Winston Peters) is a whole thing that I can’t neatly summarize, but imagine a political party designed to cater exclusively to the oldest & dumbest 5% of voters run by that Monorail guy from The Simpsons

I cant neatly summarise him either, but I have disliked him immensely since he verbally abused myself and some other students at Waikato back in '93

For anyone is interested in NZ politics, I've been enjoying BHN

Hilarious that I, in NZ, can't see this!

Excellent list, I hope OP see's it!

Also, I should have added a caveat to that last bullet: learn how to make friends without becoming an alcoholic. Meetup.com is usually the answer for finding readily available like minded people interested in the same physical activity as you, but meeting a whole bunch of new people at once can be overwhelming.

That's a bit harsh. Like my old man always said, "you gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em; know when to walk away and know when to run."

Neither is easy.

People have been fighting for like 8 years now.

Its over, sometimes it best to just walk away.

I think so, but you have to earn them by proving that you can properly remove the beak and the legs as part of peeling a kiwi fruit.

Beautiful! Congrats on your escape :-)

Not the Tron?, god forbid.

If it then I guess welcome new neighbour...

If he's leaving over Trump, odds are good he's on the saner half of US drivers. The real road ragers with their emotional issues probably the most likely to fall for the rage-based fascist propaganda and all that.

That's great, I'm STEM too and had been looking at the same thing but seemed like you had to get a job before you could get the VISA and trying to line that up seemed like a chicken and egg situation with employers wanting people who were already work authorized?

I'm gonna stick around for a bit longer and try to clean this shit up. But it's never occurred to me to ask who'd want me if I wasn't staying.

Relevant (median salaries in the EU): https://www.levels.fyi/heatmap/europe/

I looked into moving to Germany a few years ago, I also work in IT. The part I had an issue with was figuring out how much I need to get paid to have a similar life style there. Taxes and cost of living is was different, especially if you want to live near a city.

The other issue is my wife works in health care but her job seems to be covered by nursing with a specialty in respiratory therapy. Here in the states we have people that are only respiratory therapists, couldn’t figure out how that would move over.

The only good thing may be the lift on psychedelics that RFK announced, but that's not worth the rest of the shit the Trump administration wants to do

Here's a few Trump's executive orders that make me hopeful for the future of the USA

1. Removing DEI from the government (the modern version people ok being racist) https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/insights/client-alerts/20250122-president-trumps-second-term--anti-dei-executive-orders & https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/keeping-americans-safe-in-aviation/
2. Unleashing American Energy: (https://www.hklaw.com/en/general-pages/trumps-2025-executive-orders-chart)

Also, DOGE is doing good for the people, very happy with the waste & people over 150 years old being cut in Social Security.