Flags remain; People Change
I was walking home from the grocery store during one gloomy day in Punta del Este, (Uruguay’s Miami equivalent) and I passed two locals. They were dressed like communists from the 1970’s on a US college campus, and one even wore the Che Guevara shirt. They were disheveled looking, like they were fresh off of a binge of marijuana (legal in Uruguay) and wore a winter tuque as part of their overall style.
While my style admittedly looked like I was a hurried father who threw on sweat pants because he forgot to pick up milk earlier–their style said “activist” and certainly didn’t signal money at all. As I passed them, I looked up to see a number of towering apartment buildings that go for a pretty penny each. I was reminded that this is a jet set region of South America and relatively speaking, an expensive country for Latin America. There was a divide here.
If you want to know what I’m talking about, please read this article here:
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Open Door Consultancy is part of On The Ball which operates as your personal strategist related to Plan B’s residencies, travel, 2nd passports, offshore regulatory structures and more.
Hang On…
But then I thought back to my article talking about where millionaires are moving amid the unprecedented levels of geopolitical risk, internal conflicts, bad debt markets and rising regulations/taxation (here: https://imontheball.com/open-door-consultancy-million-dollar-trends/). And I’ve thought that there is a setup developing in the world whereby the majority of desirable countries or places to live are not populated entirely by the citizens of that country anyway. The idea of moving to a country is only partly true.
Examples
- Cayman Islands: 53.5% of the population are expatriates, according to official Labour Force Survey data. Some tourism and economic tracking metrics cite up to 63%
- Singapore: 31.9% of the population are non-resident foreigners (1.98 million out of 6.21 million total residents). When including permanent residents and naturalized citizens, the total foreign-born population exceeds 40%.
- Switzerland: 26% of the permanent resident population holds foreign citizenship. However, because Switzerlandhas strict citizenship laws, looking at the place of birth is more telling: 31.7% to 32.5% of the permanent population was born overseas (the first generation of immigrants).
- Andorra: 56.9% of the permanent population consists of foreign nationals. Because Andorran nationality laws are exceptionally restrictive, the foreign-born percentage is even higher—reaching 68% of the population, with the vast majority migrating from neighboring Spain, Portugal, and France
- In Monaco, foreigners make up roughly 75% to 76% of the official resident population
And to my point… Argentinians are responsible for owning 70% to 80% of all real estate properties in Punta del Este. Historically, this figure was as high as 85%, but it has dipped slightly as the market diversified
So Who Cares?
This tells me three items to take into consideration when looking for a new home for your capital but also yourself & your family
- It makes sense to know your neighbor especially when times get rough. If you’re moving to Punta del Este to escape the presence of Argentinians, you’re making a bad move
- Wealth is on the move. You’re not the only one who is concerned about opening up a new account here and there–there are serious moves taking place around the world and people are escaping for their own reasons.
- The notion of a country is dying. The national anthem is the same, the bank holidays are the same, the flag is the same, the passports are the same color–but the country is changing radically from within and are not representative of the people on the ground anymore. What it means to be British, American, Canadian, German is genuinely up for debate at this point. As a result, morale, and attitudes for the future may be grim–and that matters if you’re jumping out of the saucepan and into the fire.
Reminder
There are a lot of factors to consider when moving to a new place–it goes behind tax rate, weather forecasts and national sports. Strategizing your international portfolio is a work-in-progress as the chess board is flowing with time. Countries and territories are changing whether we like it or not–so should you–otherwise, watch out.
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