Good, Cheap, Stable

Image from PNG All under Creative Commons license

In software development, engineering and similar disciplines, there’s a common guideline:

Good, cheap, fast: You can have no more than two.

If you want something built cheaply and fast, you can’t expect it to be good. If you want it to be good and you want it done fast, it won’t be cheap. If you want it to be good but you want low cost, it won’t be built quickly.

In the rest of life, there are similar decisions to make. Do we want to live in a place that is good, cheap and stable? We may have to settle for just one or two of those.

Before I moved from the USA to the UK, for many years I had subscriptions and watched websites about living in another country. Emphasis tended to be on low costs, low taxes and a reasonable standard of living in that order.

By now you know I often rank such factors differently from most people. Put me in a training course about managing people, and I don’t put pay and promotion at the top of the list of ways to motivate workers. Show me a list of countries I could live in, and although I pay attention to costs and taxes, I put health care, aspects of the quality of life and aspects of stability higher on my list.

This week in a family discussion, my brother talked about people he knows who retired from the USA to Mexico so their pensions would be enough to live on. But in the past year the Mexican peso has risen 22% against the US dollar. For the expats, that means their pensions have lost that much buying power in Mexico. Their retirement is now squeezed instead of comfortable.

I intended to spend several years in Panama upon leaving the USA. I made a scouting trip, got a thorough medical checkup as a way of sampling the health care system, verified that I could drink tap water there without getting sick, found the community where I wanted to buy or build a house, found the people welcoming to foreigners and the country stable… Panama was cheaper than the States but not as cheap as Mexico. It had what I cared about most. As I had gone there, my money would have consistently had the same buying power as it would in the States because their balboa is pegged to the dollar and that was enough.

This year in social media I’ve noticed a small surge in people seriously taking steps to emigrate. When I first noticed it, they were mainly looking for countries where defenses against airborne disease are commonplace. Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan tended to be their choices. Now that so much of the world is burning, climate change is a factor too. Where is the air better, the temperature range more livable, food supply secure… and likely to stay that way the longest?

People can look for stability, but this year we’re getting stark messages from Mother Nature that stability cannot be expected to last anywhere. I mentioned intending to go to Panama for several years. I didn’t say I expected to spend the rest of my life there, because I didn’t. Models predict that their heavy rainfall will shift to the Amazon basin by 2040. The Panama Canal needs immense amounts of rainwater to operate. Revenue from the canal is the foundation of their economy. It underpins the steadiness of their economy and politics. I expected to need to leave as the rain tapers down.

For many people, that is shaping up to be the general story of their futures. We are entering an era of widespread human relocation. Various national security organizations have been studying how climate change is likely to reshape the human world and that is reportedly prominent in their findings. People will move in search of a better life. I moved. Maybe you will too.

If you’re thinking about it, remember the expats in Mexico who put money first in their choice. Good, cheap, stable… Pick no more than two. Don’t be too surprised if circumstances change and push you to move again, but choose carefully. Eventually you will make a move that you have to stick with.

Going from one country to another is hard even when the language and cultural shift is not extreme. Desirable countries are making it harder, trying to throttle the flow of newcomers. You can do it if you bring skills that your new country wants or enough money or both, and your health is good enough to look like you won’t unduly burden the health care system. That last item is why you will eventually have to stay put where you happen to be. When you reach a certain age or develop certain types of health conditions, it will become impractical to move to another country again. They will only let you in if you are rich.

So… if you want to go, do it soon and with eyes wide open. May your choice turn out well for you.