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I'm not for communism, but did want to talk about your second point.

I think it's a little shortsighted to think that everyone wants to sit on their butts all day and let the rich pay for everything. I'd say a big part of the issue is there just isn't enough opportunity to support everyone working at decent pay. The Philippines is a perfect example of that. Way more people than the economy can support.

I have a good friend who owns some section 8 housing and his tenants are primarily single woman with a couple of kids. They are on public assistance and also getting disability payments for he kids who have ADD. People can make more money doing nothing, so why not kick back. The system is broken.

I'll thought I would add a little color to the numbers you threw out.

45% of Americans pay no federal income tax

With respect to the 45% paying no taxes. Everyone pays taxes, not everyone pays income taxes, but everyone pays taxes on almost everything they buy or consume. Those taxes go to the government. In addition, taxes are baked in to product costs in the form of tariffs, so there is another instance where they pay. The other misleading part of throwing that number out is that a significant number of those are retirees. They have to stop working at some time, don't they?



With respect to the "rich" paying for everything. They certainly pay more $$, but what I found interesting is that they don't necessarily pay a higher percent. It it harder for me to come up with 25% for them to come up with 25%. Who should we feel more sorry for? I know you don't feel sorry for anyone, and I'm not asking your for you feel sorry for me either, just asking you to think.


The images are from:
Who doesn’t pay taxes, in eight charts

I just find it curious that it's easier to sympathize with people that have more money than they know what to do with it, than people who barely survive from one day to the next. Do you really believe people chose to struggle from day to day?

 

Try Du Ek Sam...they have good Prices too....choosse a Brand and Model first, then look around and compare Prices....that way I got my Fridge in Du Ek Sam for the best Price

 

Do a little vote counting and you see how it works in Dumaguete. There are 2,500 trikes. The trike driver makes a living, so he get family votes to support his trike provided income. So maybe there is 12,500 possible votes coming from the 2,500 trike drvers (driver, mother, father, mistress and wife.) Since most of the time the trike drives rent the trikes, there are also 2,500 trike owners but many trikes are owned by a few, so less say 650 separate trike owners. Assuming the trike owners have family members support them (owner, mother, father, wife, mistress and GF*) then there is another possible 3,800 votes, So that means support form the trike industry could possibly provide 16,300 votes. There is a trike drivers association here in Dumaguete, so there is some unification of corps here.
In the Mayor's race Felipe Antonio “Ipe” Remollo emerged as the winner with 29,518 votes, so a possible block of 16,300 votes would receive some good pandering for votes.

So yes, the trike drivers association does have a large political influence in this town.

*please note that children of voting age, legitimate or otherwise were not included in this count.

 

My view of the 4th of July is like Memorial day. I think of the freedoms that used to be celebrated on the 4th as dead and gone like my brothers in arms that I memorialize on Memorial day.
I spent the last 25 years in San Diego where I saw at July 4th celebrations all over Southern Ca. more Mexican flags and Viva Mexico signs than American Flags. I witnessed after the first Iraq war El Cajon Ca. completely over run by Iraqi refugees shipped in and given tax payer money to buy up everything. Now That small city is referred to as little Iraq. Now in SoCal flying the American flag is considered insulting to people from other countries so political leaders are forcing people to remove them from their houses. There is even a movement to force a ban on singing the anthem at sporting events.
It is going to get uglier before it gets any better. I feel the American Culture is dying in this age of open borders and Globalism.

 

I used to think most of those who were homeless were due to bad luck and not enough jobs. Then I ended up homeless for a year back in 2002. What I saw firsthand opened my eyes to the reality. While a fair amount have chemical dependency issues and a handful have mental disorders most are their due to straight out laziness. They find it easier to do nothing and have someone else feed them than working and feeding themselves. When I was homeless I started off going door to door at business's looking for work w/o any luck (well who wants to hire on someone without a phone number or permanent address). I started to go to the local day labor place which I walked to but you could take a direct bus to from street that all of the homeless shelters and soup kitchens were on or a block away from. I noticed though that only 2 others from the homeless shelter I stayed at ever went and only 1 of them was daily as I was going. I started to get day jobs semi regularly after I was showing up daily looking for work at 6am when they opened every day and I never left until 11am if I didn't get work and did that for a couple weeks. Eventually I got hired on full-time as a regular employee and went from their. But I saw no one else cared to do that almost and many of them were males and females in the working age range from 20-45 and able bodied.

When I was homeless I also had a week long cash job that was easy as it could be. The company hired 20 guys (5 vans 4 per van) to put flyers on doors and paid $50 cash a day. Two guys would walk one block putting flyers on doors while the other 2 waited until the next block and it was a small couple block area before they drove to the next area usually a 10-20 minute drive. Easy as one could hope for and easy cash. Yet day after day most of the guys never showed back up and ended up being replaced again and again because they took their $50 and ran.

I learned that most who are homeless its become their lifestyle because they don't want to deal with taking care of themselves, having things to manage, having responsibilities, and having expectations put on them. They wanted a carefree life to do whatever they wanted as long as they had someone else to feed them and some clothing handout places that is all that mattered to them.

I no longer give money to homeless or even a sandwich which I tried once offering a fresh "6 Subway sandwich and got cursed at by a homeless beggar because he wanted money, not food.

 

This is one of those impossible to answer questions.

Typically you ask this because you are worried about a constrained budget. If you had a relatively strong budget you wouldn't need to worry about it. So the closest I could come up with is for the low end.

If you have the monthly income that will continue to come in and which allows you to live on your own in the U.S. then you'll likely be able to live a bit cheaper here. If you can't survive in the U.S. on your income (even at a hand to mouth level or by moving to a cheaper area in the U.S.) then you probably shouldn't come to the Philippines.

That's it. You don't really need numbers. You would just be over-thinking and over-planning. Any plan you come up with will just unravel once you get here. You're bored and day-dreaming of life on the islands. Stop it. Go read a book instead.

NOTE: If you aren't from the U.S. then the same applies to other Western nations.

 

I have to agree with Aces. Its the only place around to get specialty laser care setup. They have a doctor come in from Cebu to check you out but the laser surgery is done in Cebu. I went through Doctor Tan at Aces a few years back to have Lasik done on both my eyes. I was a borderline person that 10-15 years ago would have been impossible. I have never had an issue and Doctor Tan did an amazing job. 50kp for both eyes at that time while in the US I was quoted at $3-4k for both my eyes.