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Ralphs. Fresh for everyone. ♪ Today on Radical Personal Finance, it's live Q&A. ♪ Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

My name is Joshua, I am your host, and today it's a live Q&A show. These shows have been AWOL for about a month and a half, as I have been dealing with a colicky baby, and helping my wife, and traveling quite a bit, and been kind of all over the place.

But I'm excited to bring them back, and hopefully they'll be back for good. ♪ My best of intentions are that each Friday I do a live Q&A. If you're new to the show, I limit these shows to patrons of the show, which are people who sign up to support the show on Patreon.

You can do that at patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance. Patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance. That helps me to limit the number of people who call into the show, so I can give good attention. Sometimes we have a lot of callers, sometimes we have just a few. I also have a number of written questions lined up from listeners of the show who just can't call in on the live schedule.

And so, if time allows, I will get to some of those. A couple of interesting international questions lined up for when we get done with the live callers in today's show. I have some questions on what life is like if an American citizen moves abroad, in terms of keeping their systems and their infrastructure in place in the United States.

And then also some questions on what happens if... for birth tourism, for an American citizen who's thinking about doing birth tourism. But we begin with some of the live callers first. We go to James in Massachusetts. James, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today, sir? Joshua, I just want to say thank you for my wife and I and my son.

And honestly, you helped us convert a bit of this existential dread around finances into hope and action. So, thanks for that. So, my first question is, we paid off about almost $200,000 worth of debt in the last three years. I would love to say it was through sort of just like using my income, but I made some investments, specifically cryptocurrency.

I work in the space and I made some investments a few years ago that paid off. I took money out of the market and paid off about $125,000 worth of student loans and put down a down payment on a house. The market went down. I kind of forgot about what I was still holding.

Long story short, the market is back up. We have about $50,000 worth of debt from still from actually the tax bill, which I didn't properly pay the first time I took money out. My question is, we'd like to get the last chunk of money that we owe to creditors paid off.

And I don't know if I should take the remaining amount of cryptocurrency out of the market entirely at the risk of increasing my tax burden at the end of the year, or if I should use my income. What is your household income? It is $190,000. And household expenses? Household expenses are about $4,000 a month.

So if you paid off the $50,000 out of income, how long would it take you simply to cash flow that? I was hoping to do it within a year. It should be $190,000 income take off expenses if you're spending somewhere in the range of $50,000 a year, then there should be enough wiggle room between $190,000 and $50,000 to pay it off in certainly less than a year unless I'm missing something or unless your estimates of income and expenses are woefully wrong.

With regard to cryptos, do you want to still be in the market? Would you be selling everything just for this? Or is this just kind of a, "Hey, I've got some profits. Should I take them and pay off the debt?" This is, well, I think they're good, relatively good holdings.

I have about $150,000 worth right now. And I think they'll go up, but I also don't, I mean, it's so volatile. I just really can't, I can't say for sure whether it's going to go up or not. It could go to zero as well. Of course. So I just don't know.

I really want to be maxing out my 401k and doing other things. I just kind of have a lot of balls up in the air in terms of where I should be prioritizing the assets I do have versus the income I have to tackle this goal. Because we want to be out of debt.

That's our first goal. And then we want to invest seriously starting from there. And is the full 50,000 that you owe, is that all tax debt to the IRS or is it to various creditors? $40,000 is to the IRS and actually 38,000 as of yesterday, after a check I sent them.

And about 12,000 is a car loan. And so, yeah. Well, I mean, here's my thought. In reality, there's not a clear financial answer to the picture. The IRS debt is not charging you a high interest. I'm going to assume also that your car debt is kind of just a modest interest rate.

So those things, those debts are not super dangerous, super expensive debts. If the IRS debt is on a payment plan and if the car debt is on a payment plan, they'll just naturally pay off over time. But if you and your wife feel like they're hanging over your head, then I would say it's good to clear them off, primarily for the emotional release of having them gone.

Because of your income, if you have been earning $190,000, if it looks like you can continue to earn $190,000, because of your income, I think that it's a relatively short-term plan either way. If you kept these debts here and just simply lived on $4,000 a month and put everything extra against the debts, you would be debt-free in, you could do it in six months, right?

Maybe a little more, a little less, but probably about six months. If you pay, if you take cash out some crypto and write a check to the IRS and write a check to pay off the car loan, you can reinvest another $50,000 into the crypto market in another six months.

So it's not really, there's not a really compelling answer one way or the other. If you told me, "I'm absolutely committed that I'm just going to let these debts pay off over time, but I'm going to keep investing on the side and stacking up cash and we're going to keep our income, our expenses really low and save a lot of money," I'd say, "Okay." Or if you said, "I'm going to go ahead and pay off the debt and then do it," I'd say, "Okay, there's nothing really compelling here." As long as you keep the ratio there of $190,000 of income to $50,000 of annual expenses, you've got an excess $100,000 of cash flow, which means that at these, I just assumed 40,000 of taxes and then 100,000 of excess cash flow for the 150.

So as long as you keep that ratio, everything is good here. Here's what I do like though about your going ahead and paying it off. Three things. Number one, if you have gains in the crypto, you know as well as I know that that market can be extremely volatile.

It may go up incredibly well, but it may also not go up. In general, due to our built-in fear of loss, I think we usually feel good when we take gains and do something meaningful with them. Doing something like cashing out some of your portfolio to pay off debt would probably be a worthwhile thing so that if the markets evaporate and if you're wrong in your bets and all of a sudden your particular basket of crypto falls apart, then I think you'll at least be able to say, "Hey, at least we got out of debt." And I'm okay with that because you're not getting totally out of the market.

So if you've got $150,000 in your portfolio and you say, "I've still got $100,000," there's still plenty of money in there for it to run if prices continue to increase. But taking some profits and doing something that's going to impact your life is generally pretty good. Number two, you've said in the conversation that paying off your debt is your number one goal.

And the wonderful thing about paying off debt as a number one goal is that it's clear. And you've paid off so much debt in the last couple of years, regardless of how you got there, it doesn't matter. You've paid off a lot of debt and there's just this last little bit hanging on.

So I say finish it off and enjoy the freedom of being debt-free. Which brings me to number three. If you are debt-free and you remain debt-free, I think that will open up your opportunities for investing and your career prospects. If you're working in the crypto space, which is what I understood you to say, you know that's a very volatile market.

If I were in that situation, I would never want to be in a situation where I had to make monthly payments beyond a very basic level. I would always keep myself in the position where my goal is to make a million dollars a year, but I want to be able to live on the income of a bag boy at the grocery store if I had to.

And the way to do that is to be debt-free. So because you're in such a volatile market, I think there's a lot of value in being debt-free. So for me, I say cash out the check, make sure you count enough to pay the taxes, do it in a tax-efficient way, but pay off the debt.

And then in six months you can replace it. Stash the money in your 401ks. You can do all that still. There's plenty of time still this year to make those contributions. That's my answer, James. Thanks, Joshua. Any other follow-up questions before I go on to the next caller? I think I'll call in another time.

I'll get past this challenge first. Congratulations on all the progress on paying off the debt. And I'm tempted to derail the rest of the Q&A show and just talk about crypto. My audience feels that I have ignored it and hopefully in the coming months I will stop ignoring it.

We're going to Chuck. Chuck, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today, sir? Well, my question basically has to do with the money we have in 401k and IRS funds, IRA funds, and deciding where to keep that right now in the market with the major choices being between large cap equity stocks, bonds, and in their interest-earning cash equivalent within the plans we have available, given the market's kind of at a record high right now.

I just want to get your thoughts on it. I know you don't have a crypto ball. So do you have a financial advisor that you work with or are you a DIY investor? We do a lot of it. Do you? I have financial advisors available through various plans that I'm in.

One of them is a state retirement plan. I have three financial advisors I can talk to you through there. But I guess my worldview and my wife's kind of aligns with yours and that the nation's debt and things like that you've talked about on other shows. So I don't know that all the financial advisors necessarily take that into account.

So let me real quick just say one thing there. I try to say this in any show I talk about with regard to things like national debt, et cetera, that I do not see a direct link between a discussion of something like national debt and the stock markets of a sovereign country.

I don't see that as a direct causal relationship. In my thinking and in my research, I could see very well that the stock market measured in the whole could certainly continue to increase and do well even if a national government is not doing well. And in fact, I think that you could make a good argument that actually could be the case.

Let me give you a simple example of a reasonable argument somebody could make. It could be argued, if you buy a certain economic theory, it could be argued that if a government keeps taxes low, that can stimulate the economy. That's a pretty decent argument. And in fact, what you see is most governments generally believe that.

People in political parties will have certain theories that they will espouse. They'll say, hey, we believe in high taxation. But if you get into a situation where an economy is in recession and things are really struggling, you'll often see that various political parties will all vote either some loudly or some quietly for lower taxation.

When you have an opportunity for lower taxation, generally, you'll see a jump in company and corporate activity and you'll see a corresponding increase in stock prices. Painting broadly, but that seems to be something that you can observe over time. But that lower taxation could mean if a government doesn't cut spending to correspond to the lower taxation, that lower taxation could mean that a government would increase its deficit, thus increasing its national debt, thus leading in a worse direction.

So it's possible, I would say, it's possible for government finances to be heading in the wrong direction and it's possible for a stock market to be heading up. So there's not a direct kind of causal correlation where I could say, I'm pretty confident that the US government in coming decades is going to effectively pass through bankruptcy.

I see that. I believe that. I don't see any way out of that. But that doesn't mean that I think the stock market is going to crash this year or that doesn't mean that necessarily I think that every person with retirement accounts has to pull all their money out of the stock market.

So I see them as different. I see them as related. And I don't know exactly what will happen. But the stock market question conversation is in some ways a little bit separate from the question of national debt. I think you still have to rely at this point in time, I think you still have to rely on the basic practices of good financial management that are taught by the mainstream financial advice industry.

I think that it's good in your personal life to be wary. So for example, I would have a, I would personally prefer to have a much higher level of cash available than probably many mainstream financial advisors would suggest. That fits my way of saying that the best way to solve for the unknowns is to protect yourself.

Let me expand on that for a moment so it makes sense. I can't control what the stock market does and I can't control what a perfect portfolio can do. But I can look at my own life and I can assess my own needs. And I can assess the likelihood of certain events happening.

So it's possible that if I'm a really great financial theorist, I could design an ideal portfolio that could, that's going to suit through any, basically anything that could happen. But for me, it seems more comfortable just to rely on the tools that I know, such as having instead of six months of cash in a bank account, to have a year or a couple years worth of cash in a bank account.

Because if I've got a couple years worth of cash in a bank account, then I can just, that's stable, then I can look at an investment portfolio that is dropping due to market conditions and say, I know a couple years is going to make a big difference here. So I don't, I personally am uncomfortable with the extremist perspective of the dollar is going to zero, those markets are all going to crash, we should just put everything in cash or buy silver coins.

That doesn't, that doesn't click with what I see or what I have experienced. But I'm probably more cautious than other financial advisors. But I don't see necessarily that the way to solve that is with some special portfolio approach, but rather with a better understanding of personal finance. So now let's talk about the most important question, which would be when you would do something with the money.

The basic advice is you have to look at your time horizon. And I think that advice still holds true. So in your case, Chuck, these are retirement assets. When do you think you would start wanting to take money from these portfolios? We're both about 45 and we're wanting to retire around 55.

We're probably actually already in a financial position where we could do that now if we chose to, but we're running a business and the business is doing well and we like our work. So we're going to continue for at least 10 more years. Okay. So your investments are, your assets are invested in retirement accounts that are in mutual funds, kind of mainstream mutual funds, and then in your business.

Do you have any other investment classes outside of those two basic investment classes? Yeah, as far as total assets go, we probably have about 30% in real estate that we own. I'm talking outside of our house, investment properties, then office equity in our house. And then we have retirement accounts and then we have enough cash on hand to, we probably pay our bills for a year or two years with cash on hand.

Yeah. So in that case, I don't see any reason why you should adjust your stock portfolio to try to account for an unpredictable future in, for an unpredictable future in things like sovereign debt, et cetera. If you're 45 years old and you think you might like to retire at 55, you have by definition the shortest time horizon you would have for these assets is going to be 10 years.

More likely these assets you would be, you would leave alone for at least 15 years. So as not to trigger early, early distribution penalties on the money, since you have other cash, you have real estate and you have business. My guess is you certainly wouldn't touch this until 59 and a half.

Although you could, as we've talked about in other shows, you could still use these as part of, as part of funding an early retirement. So you've basically got a time horizon or time perspective of 15 years going out to your expected lifespan and at 45 years old, your and your wife's expected lifespan pushes out into the eighties or nineties, the older you get, the longer your expected lifespan.

So I would, my guess would be by the time you arrive at retirement age, your expected lifespan could very easily be 95. So you've got about a, in that case, you've got a 15 to 15 to my math is failing me 40. I'm not going to try it 15 to 45 year time horizon on these assets in these retirement accounts.

So this, you've got a long-term time perspective. Now, the other magic words that you said was you have a business doing well, the business doing well means you're unlikely to have any need for cash unless the business goes down. You're unlikely to have any need for cash in the coming years.

You have plenty of cash flow, so you're not going to be rating the investment assets. You also said what's music to my, to my ears, you have a significant amount of money in real estate. The thing I love about real estate is of course it has certain advantages, but one of the big advantages is it's close to you.

You can touch it, you can change it, you can see it, which is more likely to make you, in my opinion, a better stock investor to have a balance of things working out. So from those facts, I wouldn't change anything about my investment portfolio just based upon the possibilities of, uh, of, you know, increasing government debt.

What I would do is I would keep my investment portfolio invested in the asset classes that are likely in the long term to have the highest rate of return, which would be in a heavily stock portfolio. Unless you have a strategy where you're involved as an active manager and saying, I'm going to adjust my portfolio for the market conditions, I'm going to move in and out of investments, you're working with a financial advisor, something like that.

I would stay tilted towards a heavy stock portfolio and I would stay tilted for maximum growth in those accounts. I wouldn't start to change and try to say, well, I'm going to try to predict this certain small change in the market. I don't think it's necessary for you. Okay.

That makes a lot of sense. It makes me feel better hearing you say that. Good, good. I guess rereading the national news every day just gets you concerned, but I appreciate your words on that. Well, it's not that there's no reason to be concerned, but there is, and I'm trying to affirm there is reason for being concerned, but in your situation, I don't know what else you could do.

If you would be devastated by your stock market investments declining by 50%, then I would be concerned, but I don't think you're going to. You have a successful business. If you have enough money that you could retire now, you're clearly wealthy. You have money in real estate. You have money in cash.

You might, I'm not sure if you've taken my how to survive and thrive during the coming economic crisis course, but I would commend that to you because we talked there a lot about offshoring. I would make sure that I had a basket of currencies, that I had money offshore, that I had a plan to go offshore myself if necessary.

If we wind up in a place of severe and intensive economic crisis in the United States, which is less likely than almost any other country in the world, so we got to acknowledge it's a low probability scenario, but if that were to happen, I think your best solution, um, is to have money and assets positioned offshore.

You might adjust your portfolio a little bit. So if you're, if you are happy with the stocks that you are, um, that you're, that you own, maybe fund your 401ks, but adjust it in another direction where you see things being better. Maybe purchase some offshore real estate, maybe start another line of business.

Um, you know, make sure you have a portfolio of precious metals, make sure you have a portfolio of basic, um, you know, personal preparedness items, you know, food, things like that. But in your case, a few checks and that's, that stuff is done and squared away. So I think you're on the right track.

And at this point, I don't see any sense in the idea of just saying, oh, things could be bad for the next. Here's my opinion. I think fairly soon, I've been wrong on this so far, but I think fairly soon we'll go into, uh, recession. There are many good reasons to think that'll happen.

Who knows how that works out with the timing of it. And I'm convinced personally, the next recession will be long, deep and difficult, but that's not going to affect your retirement assets because 15 years to start pulling money is more than enough time for you to adjust to whatever happens three or four years from now.

If you were 65 years old saying, I'm going to quit working today, I would adjust in a different direction. But in your case, I don't see the sensibility of it. Make sense. Yeah. And thanks for the recommendation on the course. I think taking that course is a good idea and it's on my to-do list.

Yeah, it'll solve for you. Listen, I wrote it myself and it's my answer to these questions. And it's basically that I can't bring myself to go all in on disaster. I think there's too much evidence that, uh, there's too much evidence that we should generally expect that things will in the long run get better.

If you, if you look on all sides, there's too much evidence to think that to just say, well, everything's just going to get worse and the world's going to wind up in global catastrophe. I, that's hard to, that's hard to defend. That's a really hard position to defend. So I can't personally feel comfortable with this idea of I'm just going to go for the worst case scenario and take this uber pessimistic scenario situation that many people, um, take.

But on the flip side, I am uncomfortable with the incoherence of the, it, things are always rosy position. You can't say that just because this has never happened in the past, it doesn't happen. It's not going to happen again. There are problems. We all have personal problems. There's a, you know, things can happen in our lives for all different reasons, just the mundane everyday problems.

And then there are big, major societally wide problems, et cetera. I think that we are going to be living through in coming decades. I think we're living through a long excruciating collapse of an empire in the United States of America, but that can't be brought over. And as far as I can see, that can't be brought over to stock market advice.

And so when I say decades, maybe it starts, you know, maybe I think we're starting to be in it, but maybe it starts 30 years from now. Maybe it starts 50 years from now. Who knows? How do we even know? Anybody who's put times on these things has generally proven themselves to be wrong.

The game can continue far longer than any of us think. So I'm stuck right in the middle, trying to be a realist and recognize that on the whole I should be optimistic because history is on the side of the optimists, but there are plenty of good examples to show me that in local circumstances and in specific periods of times, collapse happens.

Societies collapse, cultures collapse, money, currencies collapse, markets collapse, et cetera. And so I look at it and say, how can I buy some insurance for this situation? I don't mind making some insurance payments. If there's a way that I can make sure that the collapse would not be devastating to me without paying all of my wealth and the whole price to just move to a bunker in the woods, which I don't want to do.

So that's why I wrote the course. It's basically a matter of how can you buy some insurance to protect yourself from economic crisis, be it personal or society-wide, and do that in a sensible way so that there's little downside to the whole plan if things just continue to be rosy, but there's a lot of upside if you wind up having a disaster scenario.

And I sleep better with that insurance. Just like with any insurance policy, you basically sleep better and then you can stay focused on your business, your family, the things that you're building, and feel a little bit more insulated from any potential for catastrophe. So I would commend it to you.

Any other questions, Chuck, before I move on? No, thank you. Thank you for calling in. We move on now to, looks like Lisa in Illinois. Lisa, welcome to the show. How can I serve you today? Hello, Joshua. I'm so pleased that I got through and I'm glad to be talking to you.

I've listened to you for quite a long time. So my question is, I have been married for 16 years. I recently started my own business buying real estate and my husband and I are separated. And so I took all of my money, which was about $10,000, and put it into this new real estate venture and we are separated, but I had to quit my job because I was sick for a long time.

I was working with disabled adults and the warehouse was making me sick, bottom line. So I don't have a position right now, a job. I was a certified retirement plan advisor and administrator. So I could go back to that, but I think my land business will do okay. I don't have much debt.

My question is, he has quite a bit of debt, probably over $60,000. He does, his gross income is over $14,000 and mine was about $2,000 when I went into the non-for-profit sector. So I'd like your thoughts on everything because I was very much into the investing, not necessarily a day trader.

I'm really risk adverse. So everything I do is pretty much, I don't like credit cards. I like to buy everything with cash, which is now a downside seeing that I have a business. I use things like, I'm into privacy, so I use my pseudo for mail and everything, which is also difficult.

I'm staying with my daughter. What would you recommend in my situation? When you say that your husband's income is $14,000, did you mean per month or per year? Per month. Okay. You mentioned your daughter, how old are your children? So I have three kids. I have a 35, 32 and a 30 year old.

They're all on their own. They're doing fine. However, my middle child did take her life a few years ago. Since then I've helped out quite a bit because she did come back. And so she's not the same. She's got a farm. So I help out whenever I can over there.

So that was difficult. And that's one of the reasons that I went into my own business so I could create passive income and take care of those grandchildren. What do you think will happen at this point in your marital relationship? And what do you want to happen? He's on the spectrum.

He's a genius, but he doesn't understand what a relationship is. I hope that when he goes through butox and he becomes a different person, we can get back together. I don't think he sees that. And so right now he's wanting to only stay separated and not do a legal separation or legal divorce because of financial.

His brain only works the numbers. He doesn't understand the personal side of it or the emotional side of it. He's, it's hard to explain, but if you watch the imitation game, he's likened to that. And so I could never explain to him about finances. He thinks what I'm doing is being taken advantage of this business and everything.

So I'm not, he hasn't filed anything and I haven't filed anything. We've lived apart now for a couple of months, but I would say the last three years we were emotionally apart. Sadly. How old are you and how old is your husband? Um, I'm 56. He's 57. And is your husband, the father of your children?

Um, he is not, and he has his own son who lived with us and lives with him. Who's also on the spectrum. So in terms of the answer to your question, what are you, what, what, what specific questions do you have for me? Specifically? I mean, he's got a good pension.

I don't really know about, I mean, he, right now he pays for my insurance, my health insurance, which obviously is important right now. And that was his, he said, you ran the numbers and it's better if he, we don't get legally separated or divorce because it'll benefit him later on because he's again, thinking of the numbers.

My question is, I did start a business. I'm very private, but I'm trying to keep it as private as I can. He said, by the way, when you do make a million, I will come after you. I don't know if I'll ever make a million, but, um, I do own now, um, some properties and I'm buying and selling, um, to create the passive income so I can be around my grandchildren.

I'm not sure how much longer my daughter will be able to sustain a life without some assistance, but do I push for the divorce and get part of the pension and put, get rid of the debt that I do have and then, um, take care of the family or do I, because any debt he incurs now I will incur is that that's correct.

Even if we're living separately, if it's not legally separated and I, since I don't have credit cards and I don't like to incur debt, um, that's one of my worries as well, because he doesn't understand that he's not a bad person. Right. Right. So let me give you some thoughts, a couple of ways to think about.

So I think first you have to separate the question of financial advice from the question of moral advice. When you're dealing with divorce, separation, marriage, et cetera, you are in a territory where you have to start not by thinking about what's in my financial best interest, but you have to start by thinking about what is morally right.

What is the right thing for me to do? Now, with this, we go into the most difficult and touchy area of advice that anybody can get. So here are some things that you need to watch out for. The first thing that you need to think about is your, I'll just go, I'll take them in order, not necessarily in order of importance.

The first thing you need to be aware of is what your life will look like if you continue to be married to him versus if you separate and divorce from him. Very likely, the data would indicate, in my understanding of the data, if you divorce this man, you will likely never marry again.

So you need to consider if that is something that you are okay with or something that you are not okay with. For women, as you grow older, if you divorce, it is very hard for an older woman to effectively and happily remarry. It is much easier for an older man to remarry when he is older because he can more easily attract and be attractive to a younger woman.

But it is much more difficult for a 56-year-old woman who divorces to be able to remarry. In my opinion, women in your situation are often sold a false hope, a false dream. The idea that, well, you are just going to be happier on your own. That may be. I have known a number of women who divorced in their 50s and they felt that they were happier.

But in general, there is this basic conceit that is sold to many divorced women that you will just be happier on your own when you can do it and you will find a better man. The data does not bear that out. That is not to say there cannot be exceptions to it, but the data in general does not bear that out.

So before you go and file for divorce, before you accept this separation and for this divorce, you should be very, very cautious to make sure that you are having a clear, unemotional understanding of the situation. You also need to have a clear and unemotional analysis of the numbers involved.

Have you spoken to a divorce attorney or gotten any legal advice as to what would happen potentially for you in a divorce settlement? I do not have that information. I did talk to somebody once. There is some verbal abuse because he is on the spectrum, but that is not really what I wanted.

They basically said he would be paying you quite a bit per month and then you would get part of his pension. But that is not necessarily what I am looking for. I am looking for more of, you know, he does not understand debt or investments. And so I could not get him to stop just understanding that you cannot just go out and spend money.

And so I was worried about that aspect of it. But I really have not done a lot of digging for that and I do not really, I do not think either him or I at this point are going to be doing that. So just to clarify, when you talk about his debt, you say that he owes $60,000 of debt.

Do you just mean like credit card debt, car debt or is that, tell me a little bit more about the financial situation. That is pretty much credit card debt. That is not including vehicles or phones. And like I said, because he does not understand debt, if he needs something, he goes and gets it.

It is hard to explain when you are, he is so smart but yet, but he does not understand the principles of, for instance, I asked him once what he was invested if it was self-directed or if he, because it is a school, where the money, the platform was. He said, I do not know.

And it took me about five minutes to look it up and I showed him and he goes, how did you find that? And I said, well, it is public knowledge. And so, but he, that is how much he does not understand. But so debt wise, if he, for instance, if you have eight mustards and you need one or if you need a new phone, you go get one, even if you could just fix the old one.

He does not understand it. So, there is probably a lot more than 60, 60 is just the credit cards. >> Okay. But you said that he makes $14,000 a month, right? >> Correct. >> Okay. So, for somebody who is making $14,000 a month, which is $170,000 a year, $60,000 of credit card debt is not an unmanageable number.

I have seen, I have worked with people who make $30,000 a year of $60,000 of credit card debt. So, I am not denying, hey, I would love it if nobody ever borrowed money. I would love it if every single person, if every single person thought about every money they spent and went for the most frugal.

So, I would love that, but that is not reality. Other than his having $60,000 of credit card debt, are there other serious financial problems? Are you or he behind on your bills? Are you in foreclosure, going into bankruptcy? Are there, is there a real serious tone to things or is it just the fact that he has $60,000 of credit card debt?

>> No, and actually the finances, because, I mean, he does not have any savings. I have more cash available than he does, but our problem was, are you asking about why we divorced or why we separated or are you asking about why he is very popular? >> Sure, tell me about it.

Tell me why you are separated from him. >> So, he, because if you think about the imitation game, you know, someone that is that smart, there was a lot of verbal abuse and, you know, I did, I lived on my own basically in the same house and because he had his son there and they ate separately, everything was separate.

So, I was really on my own for pretty much our whole marriage. And I mean, I am a Christian and I got him to go to church and he became a Christian and, but it was constantly, for instance, when my dad died, he went to work. When my daughter died, he wanted to go home to get a sweater.

He does not understand those simple things and he would, if he did not take his medicine, I would be thrown out. I mean, it was very difficult. I went through a lot. >> Why did you marry? Why did you marry him? >> I loved him and I was with him and I said, you know, I am, I said, I am not going to move in with you unless we get married.

I am a Christian. And at that time he said, we met on a blind date. I had been through a really bad divorce with a very abusive husband and he was very kind and I did not realize that he was somebody different initially. And like I said, I met him on a blind date.

He was really kind. I had my own garden business and I was a day trader and I just gone through a really, I was stocked for a year and finally I met him at a blind date and it was almost instantly. He was very, very kind. He was, he went and bought a bicycle cause he knew I went on bike rides.

I mean, he was just everything I needed him to be. And then it was pretty much right away after we got married, his son moved in who was like Rain Man. >> Has he committed adultery against you? >> I thought so. I don't have any proof of that, but he was talking to people online, but I don't think he has.

He said he hasn't, but I don't know. >> All right. So here are some things that I think you should consider. And I'm going to run through basically a list of things. And I just encourage you to consider these. You don't need to do anything with what I said other than consider it.

And probably the best thing would be for you to listen back after we finish the phone call. Just listen to these things and consider them separately on your knees before the Lord and ask for discernment in a number of different things. So first, let's talk about finances. In what you've told me, I don't see anything that would indicate a reason for you to separate or to be really all that concerned about financial goings on in what you have described.

Almost nobody in the US American culture, aside from, I don't know the percentage, I would say it's got to be less than 20, maybe 10%, maybe 5%. But almost nobody in the US American culture would be able to explain what a self-directed IRA is. Almost nobody understands what a 401(k) means or what the differences between a 401(k) and a Roth IRA means.

Now you are interested in investing and you're interested in money. And so for you, you're listening to a podcast like mine, which I commend you for and I love you for. But a podcast like mine appeals to a tiny, tiny percentage of the population. Most people don't care about money.

They're uninterested in the subject. They don't care about being rich. Most people want to simply enjoy today. And from your husband's perspective, he's clearly very good at something to be earning $168,000 per year. And he's very comfortable with the fact that he can earn all this money per month and he can have what he needs to have.

And by definition, if your husband wanted to pay off his credit card debt, he could pay it off in a year just out of his earned income. He's not in bankruptcy. He's not in severe financial problems. He probably doesn't know how much money he even owes and he doesn't pay much attention to it.

Many people just simply don't care. Now, if he's a little bit autistic or has some kind of mental just lack of connection or comfort with numbers, it's not at all surprising that he would just not be interested in it. And many people just say, "Ignore it. And as long as things can go okay, as long as I have enough money to pay the minimum payments, then things will go okay." I'm not denying that I would love it if he would be debt-free.

What I am denying is that what you've described to me is a financial emergency or catastrophe. Is it ideal? No. But is it a catastrophe or an emergency or is it in and of itself worth separating over or worth divorcing over? My answer is clearly no, it's not. From what you've described to me, it's normal behavior for a huge percentage of the population.

It's not ideal, it's not going to lead to wealth, but it's normal behavior for a huge percentage of the population. That's an important thing to recognize and to consider, is the financial questions. Let's continue on the financial theme before we go to the moral theme. So financially, you should think very carefully and probably solicit some good advice about the financial ramifications of divorce.

In your situation, I don't know that you have a very strong claim that would entitle you to a tremendous amount of money, tremendous alimony payments, etc. Your children are grown adults and he is not their biological father. So you and he married at a later age, which means that even with regard to his income, even with regard to his pension, it's not like you and he married when you were 16 years old and now you're 55 years old and the judge would just automatically say, "Oh, well, you get 50% of his pension." It's not like that.

Which, by the way, the fact that he has a pension, using the word pension, is even another argument in favor of the fact that he's figured out how to get himself in a place where he can pretty much just live comfortably, not worry too much about money, and he's got retirement taken care of with his pension, so he probably doesn't think too much about it.

But I don't know that you, if you and he divorced, that you would walk away with $7,000 a month of alimony payments and half of his pension. In fact, I would not think that that would be the case. I don't think that would be the case. I think that in your particular situation, divorce would very much mean that financially that you are building largely with what you have and what you can build in and of yourself.

Now, you're a competent investor, you could learn more skills, you can develop things, and you can make tons of money. But I wouldn't look, in your situation, of my understanding of the law, I would not look at divorce as some kind of golden check, that this would just solve all the financial problems.

And by the way, let me be clear and affirm, you have not said that or indicated that in any way. But it's certainly one of those things that has to be considered. But you haven't said that or indicated that in any way. So I'm not accusing you of trying to pursue a divorce because you just want money.

That's not at all my accusation. But I am trying to encourage you to take a good, hard, rational look at the facts and consider what they actually are. So financially, in many ways, the best solution would probably be for you and he to stay married and then for you and he to come up with an agreement about handling the finances.

If you are more well suited for these things like making investment decisions, if you're more well suited for managing the budget, for doing things like paying off debt, you could come up with some kind of arrangement that would leave you in a position of managing those details so that together, as a couple, together, you wind up together winning with money.

It's not that hard between your skills and his skills to pay off $60,000 of debt. It's just not. A couple years of work, sure, but it's not that hard. But what would be required is the ability to communicate about it, the ability to work on a plan, the ability to find some kind of common goal, common purpose to where you're committed to it and you're willing to work at the difficult things, the difficult changes that would need to happen.

I would say that there are possibilities there. From what you've said, it sounds to me like he's just more disinterested and he probably feels nagged and frustrated by your trying to help because it's not important to him. He hasn't said, "Here's a clear goal that I have." He was probably pretty happy with how things were beforehand.

So financially, I would be very slow to encourage you to divorce. Let me switch to what I think is more important than financially, and that is the moral decision. I believe that in life, we often have to ask questions and understand what is right regardless of whether it is financially the better solution.

I could become a multimillionaire by becoming a criminal, but that would be the wrong thing to do. We would all agree on that. So in your situation, when you're dealing with something like moving from one job to another job, as long as the job in and of itself is not immoral, there's few moral considerations.

But when you're dealing with something like divorce, filing for divorce, that is an incredibly important thing to discuss. You said that you are a Christian and that your husband is also some form of Christian, going to church, et cetera. The Bible very clearly says, "God hates divorce." It's from the book of Malachi.

So we're dealing with something that is more momentous than almost anything else and more morally weighty. And so you need to start your thinking and consideration, not with finances, not with budgeting, et cetera, but specifically what is morally right in your situation about divorce. So I would hear it refer you primarily to your Bible.

Your Bible contains enough instruction that if you look at it and wait on your knees before the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to show you clearly what the Bible says, you can see everything that you need to say there. Now, I'm going to give you two things to consider, three positions basically to consider.

So here are the three positions that you can consider. The first position is what you will hear in much of modern mainstream Christianity, which basically looks exactly like the world around that says, "If you're unhappy in your relationship with your husband, if you are unhappy, then you can divorce him." That is profoundly unbiblical and unchristian.

It's absolutely wrong. And the people who would preach that, the people who teach that, they will suffer the consequences both now and in eternity for preaching that doctrine. You see it already in many Christian churches, the erosive and corrosive effects of this. But as a 56-year-old woman, when you're talking with your girlfriends, you need to understand that most of them, whether they self-identify as Christians or whether they self-identify as secular or whatever, most of them are going to ask you the question, they're going to say, "Lisa, what makes you happy?

Do you think you'll be happier if you are together with your husband or do you think that you're happier if you're not together with him?" They'll say, "What makes you happy?" That thinking, if you are not very careful, that thinking will invade your thinking. And I want to caution you that first, it's a very unstable way to make any kind of life decisions thinking about what would make you happy.

And second, I want to caution you that if you study the literature, notwithstanding the people who would say that, you will find that you will be in a very difficult position being a newly divorced 56-year-old woman trying to figure out how to form a new life. So I completely disregard and I would encourage you to disregard that position, that kind of modern, general, liberal position that says, "Well, you should just decide what would make you happy." So let's go to what are biblical grounds for divorce.

Well, here there are basically two options. I'm in a minority of this, so I'm going to begin with the majority position and then I'll get to my position and you will have to read your Bible and come to your own conviction about what is actually correct. So the majority position among people who are serious Orthodox Christians is that there are either one or two reasons why a Christian can become divorced.

And those one or two reasons would be in the case of, number one, would be adultery, or number two would be abandonment. So the idea of abandonment is very, very hard, so I'm going to ignore it here, because it doesn't apply to your situation, and focus on just simply adultery.

If you take the mainstream Orthodox Christian perspective that is most common, the mainstream Orthodox Christian perspective would say that the only reason why you would be biblically permitted to divorce your husband would be if he has committed adultery against you. In what you said, you said, "I don't think so," or "I don't have any evidence that he has." And so on that basis, you have no biblical grounds to file for divorce.

I understand that I don't, and I don't think we should discuss such things publicly here, it's best in a private setting. I understand that something like what you term to be "verbal abuse" can be very painful. I understand that being in a house where your husband has a child by another woman, and you feel unloved and uncared for, I understand that those things are intensely difficult and emotionally draining and painful.

But they are not biblical qualifications for divorce. The biblical qualification that many people believe exists for divorce is only adultery. So in that case, you cannot, if you take that position, you cannot divorce your husband because he has not, you don't have any grounds for divorce. Now you could legally do it in the United States today, you can divorce for any reason whatsoever, you don't have to give any reason.

But morally, when you stand before God, you have no moral basis for divorce. And you need to take that seriously. I don't know anything about the makeup of your church or what advice you're getting from pastors or preachers, but it's extremely important for you to recognize because you can't stand before God on the basis of what anybody else tells you.

You can't stand on the basis and say, "Well, my preacher told me such and such." You have to stand before God based upon the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the clear teaching of scripture. Now, the reason I said that that's the majority position, let me go on now to my personal position.

I do not believe that there is any legal or moral justification for divorce, and I would say that based upon the clear teachings of Jesus. If you believe that Jesus taught a standard that superseded the Mosaic standard, which is what I believe, then I would say there is no basis for divorce, for any person to divorce.

And any concession for divorce that occurred in the Old Testament was a concession for the sin of the Jews, and that was the reason why there was a Mosaic concession for divorce. But if you go and you read the teaching of Jesus, you will find that he clearly says, when asked by the Pharisees if it was permissible for a man to divorce his wife for any reason, you will clearly find that he says, "Moses allowed it, but I say to you that from the beginning it was not so." So I believe that man has no influence over marriage.

Man can create laws about marriage. Man can say that you can marry this certain person or you can divorce under these circumstances, just like the US government can say. The US government can say that black people and white people can't marry each other, but that doesn't mean that God says black people and white people can't marry each other.

The US government can say that you can only divorce in case of adultery, or then the US government can change its law and say, "Well, you can divorce for any reason." The US government can say that a man and a man can marry each other. The US government can say a man and a woman and a woman can marry each other.

None of those things mean anything other than individual people trying to exert power and coercion over other people. That doesn't mean that it is morally right. So in the teachings of Jesus, what I would encourage you, this is my opinion, I'm trying to acknowledge that it's a minority opinion, but I believe it's the opinion that's true to Scripture.

I believe that men and women are married based upon what they do. God said, "Let a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife." And what man joins together, what God joins together, let not man separate. So I don't see any place for divorce whatsoever.

So you have to, you need to go back to the Bible, you need to think very, very carefully. Now, I want to point out for the sake of clarity that this is complicated because you are already married again when you were already married once. And so that's even more difficult, which brings me to the next thing.

Biblically, if you are going to be faithful, whether to the clear teachings of the Scripture, whether or not you take the majority opinion or whether you take my opinion, if you do divorce this man, you can't biblically remarry. The Scripture very clearly teaches that remarriage is adultery. So I would say that when you married your current husband, you committed adultery against your first husband.

And that was the major error. And what you've seen in the relationships with your children, the relationships with his children, you've seen the devastating impacts of that and are experiencing the pain of it. But pain is, you're not in a hopeless situation, but what you need is not financial advice, you need to find somebody locally who can sit with you, who can encourage you, and who can be straight with you and sit and study the Scripture and get a clear direction from the Lord based upon Scripture as to what is the right thing to do.

And I'm not in a position, of course, here in this situation to do that. But if I were you, obviously I'm encouraging you and I care for you greatly, I would simply say there isn't a financial answer to your question. Because even if it costs you everything to do what is morally right, you should still do it.

You cannot serve God and money. One of them will have to be higher over the other. So even if it costs you everything to do what is right, you should still do what is right. But you shouldn't think about money at this point in time. You should be on your knees and think about what is right, what is the right thing to do.

And when you come to a place of clear conviction where the Holy Spirit speaks to you and you see very clearly written in the Scripture the confirmation of that, when you see very clearly that, then I would say set your course to do what is morally right, no matter the cost, and then we can figure out the finances as they come along.

So, I can't give you any other answer than that. I understand that may or may not be what you were looking for, but that's my answer, Lisa, of some things for you to consider in this situation. Lisa: I would say that's the best advice I've heard yet. Pete: Good.

I'm gonna, I'll end the call with you here, but I would encourage you, feel free, obviously I'm not close there. These things I think are too sensitive and too important to be talked about publicly. So, I would first, I would encourage you to people in your community to, if you're part of a church, I would encourage you to speak to the pastors in your church, the elders in your church, open yourself up to them.

Look in your friends, try to find a community if you have friends, family members, things like that, people who are serious. I would warn you, I wish I didn't have to make this warning, but I would warn you, you will not find very many people who are willing to actually be straight with you and who are willing to actually be straight with what the scripture says.

The scripture in and of itself is crystal clear, but you very rarely will hear it preached. And so, if you're in a, you know, just a good question would be, if you are in a church community and there's a man or a woman who is in that church community who divorced their spouse for any reason except adultery and/or abandonment, and they weren't excommunicated by that church community, you should tread very carefully.

So, there are plenty of people available, but they are going to be challenging for you to find. It's going to be fine for, doing what I'm doing, speaking to you straight is very difficult for most of us in the modern world. So, feel free to write to me by email and I'd be happy to encourage you as I can, but I'm just going to send you to somebody in your local community who can pray with you, who can search the scriptures with you, and I encourage you, do the bare minimum to survive financially.

Just, you know, make enough money to survive. Go live with your daughter if you need to encourage her, but do the bare minimum that you need to do to survive and focus on understanding what's right and then just make the finances fit that. But I think that's as far as we should go with any kind of public conversation here.

- Thank you. - My pleasure. - Thank you. - That was the last of our live callers for today, but I have two more questions that were written in by patrons that are both interesting and international in scope. The first one is going to be the simpler one and then the second one will be interesting.

I think you'll enjoy it. The second one's on birth tourism. So, we begin, Muhammad writes in and asks this question. It says, "What are the logistics of having my investments in the United States if I am no longer a US resident, but still a US citizen? I want to live in Spain for the next few years and I would become a resident of Spain.

Would I still be allowed to have bank accounts and investments in the US? Gracias." Well, Muhammad, in this case, in some ways, you are in luck as a US citizen because the requirements for US citizens are much simpler than they are for the majority of residents. And I'm assuming that we're going to talk about taxes.

So, I guess I shouldn't make that assumption. So, let me clarify first. And I'll use Canada and the United States because they're geographically close and yet they give me the distinctions that I want to make. So, if you were a Canadian citizen living in Canada who desired to move to Spain, but if all of your investment life were in Canada, you would be in a situation where you could just simply move to Spain and keep all of your situation in Canada.

You wouldn't have to make any changes. And this is the same for any person from any nation. You can leave a nation and keep everything in place. Now, if you were a Canadian citizen and resident who was looking to move to Spain and become a resident of Spain, and if you were trying to disentangle yourself from the Canadian tax system, from owing the Canadian government money on your taxes, on your worldwide income, from paying for the various Canadian social programs, insurance programs, et cetera, in that situation, in order for you to successfully extricate yourself from Canada, you would have to do two basic things.

You would have to move to a new place, in your case, obviously, Spain, and you would have to sever all of your ties with Canada, which would mean you would have to move your investments, you would have to close your credit cards, close your bank accounts, you would probably need to sell any property that you own in Canada.

You would need to, in order to fully extricate yourself from Canada and to prove that so you could stop dealing with the Canadian government, you would need to sever all of your ties with Canada. Now, in some ways, this is an advantage and a disadvantage between US Americans and Canadians, because you could ultimately and fully sever your relationship with Canada by doing those things.

And frankly, as a US American, I get a little bit envious of that situation, because there are many times where I'd like to sever all of my relationships with the United States of America, I'd like to extricate myself from the tax net, from the other duties and obligations that are imposed upon US Americans no matter where they live, I'd like to sever myself from those things, but I'd still like to keep the option to be able to go back to the United States to keep my US passport, etc.

Well, you could do that if you were Canadian, but you would have to fully cut yourself off when moving to Spain if you were trying to get out of that. Now, as a US citizen, things are far simpler for what you're describing. And they are simpler because you cannot extricate yourself from the US government unless you formally renounce your citizenship, and you're not going to do that.

You didn't say you're going to do that, and in fact, we'll touch on even if you did choose to do that in just a moment. So as a US citizen, there is only basically one benefit that you can get by physically moving yourself outside of the United States, and that is the foreign earned income exclusion and its neighbor or friend, accompanying friend, the foreign housing deduction or exclusion.

So that's it, the foreign earned income exclusion. And the only thing that that can do is that can qualify you to avoid the federal income taxes on the first about $105,000 of your earned income. With everything else, your relationship with the US government is going to be about the same whether you're living in Kansas City, Kansas, or whether you're living in Madrid, Spain.

You're going to have to file a tax return every year. You're going to have to file a couple extra forms. In fact, your life will be a little bit more complicated if you do foreign banking, foreign investments, et cetera. But your relationship isn't going to change. The US government is going to see you as having the full obligations to them no matter where in the world you live.

So what this means, however, is it's purely based upon your physical location and whether or not you qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion. Now, there are two ways to qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion. You can qualify based upon the strict days test, which means that you spend at least 330 days outside of the borders of the United States and inside the borders of another place.

And if you do that, you qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion. Or if you're trying to qualify for it based upon the substantial presence test, then that's a little more complex and you might have to rent out your house in the United States, buy a house in Spain, et cetera.

So let me just keep things really simple. If you want to qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion by living in Spain, you just need to make sure that you spend 330 days in some country other than the United States. And if you do that, you'll be in a situation where you can avoid the income taxation on your first $105,000 of income.

But everything else in your life can stay exactly the same as a US American. All of your investment accounts stays the same. Nothing changes. All of your bank accounts stay the same. Nothing changes. All your credit card accounts, everything is the same. Nothing is different with the United States because you are abroad other than that foreign earned income exclusion.

You may or may not care about that depending on whether you're working in Spain. If you're not working in Spain, just come and go as much as you want. It doesn't really matter. Now, you will still have then the consideration of your obligations and your relationship with the Spanish government, which you will need to think about.

How much time you're going to be in Spain? Are you going to get a residency, which can expose you to taxation? Are you going to go that path or are you going to do some other plan? That's up to you. But with regard to the United States, nothing has to change.

And here's what's interesting. You could do this for decades. You can bank in the United States. You can invest in the United States. You can not nothing needs to change. Let's go to that ultimate thing. What if you ever renounced your citizenship? What's remarkable is even if you renounce your citizenship with the United States, you can actually continue most of those things.

Nothing actually has to change with your investments, your banking, etc. Even if you ultimately renounce your citizenship, you would keep your social security number. You're still eligible for Social Security benefits. The cost of renouncing your citizenship is, of course, possibly exit taxes, the cost of the actual renunciation and the fact that you can never get it back and you can't come to the United States as a citizen.

You would have to come on a visa or something elsewhere. But on this basis, it's actually quite interesting that Americans, US Americans have it easier than most other places. Australians, Germans, Brits, Canadians, Mexicans. You've got to sever your ties with your home country. And every country has a different process.

And then you can never actually quite know if you are fully gone. And that's what's so dangerous is it's possible that you could say, let's say you're from the UK and you lived in London for years, then you decided to move away from London. Well, you could go through all the steps recommended by the British government.

But if they came back five years later and did an audit of you and found out that in some way you were still you still had some ties to Britain, it's possible they could actually impose taxes for all those years. So it can be not quite as clear for someone else to separate themselves.

And so the safest thing that most of those people have to do is they have to fully sever all of their connections. As I said, move investments, close accounts, close credit cards, et cetera. For US Americans, it's far simpler. You can keep everything in the United States. And there are only two things that you need to consider.

Number one, physically, where is your physical body located for the majority of the year? And for simplicity's sake, are you physically outside of the United States for at least 330 days per year? Number two, the question then is citizenship renunciation. And you can't renounce accidentally. It's a formal process with a formal oath.

And so you have a paper that says you've renounced. If you've renounced, you file your final tax return and you're done with the US government in that regard. So it's much simpler for Americans. So I hope you enjoy your time in Spain. But thankfully, you don't have to change anything.

You can keep everything exactly as it is. Which now brings me to the last question of today submitted by a patron of the show who basically writes in and says, "Joshua, time zones are going to prevent my attendance on the Q&A show, but I'd love to hear your advice on how to research birth tourism that can lead to second passports, not only for our upcoming baby, but also for my wife and for me.

My wife is pregnant and our insurance encourages an expat birth because it's usually cheaper. So we have the financial angle covered, but we are unsure how to research the legal or immigration angle. Birthright citizenship countries are easy enough to find, but of those 30-ish options, I'm having a hard time tracking down whether I can get citizenship myself via the child who gets it via birthright.

I'd love any help or advice or pointers." And I responded, because this was in writing, I responded with a clarifying question and I asked the listener whether he was in a position where he was just looking to go abroad for the birth and then come back home quickly or whether he's willing to move to another country as well.

And he responded, he says, "Our thought is that we'd more like to take something like a month-long trip for the birth itself, but we could probably swing another month if it enabled a second passport. We could probably swing renting a place to establish residency and maybe one visit a year, but we aren't in a financial position where buying property would make sense.

We are US citizens currently living in Asia, but not in a country that offers birthright citizenship. Of course, if we were in the Asia region, then it would be simpler for us to visit more frequently, but even then we can't move to a new place, even semi-permanently." So I'm going to do my best to give a useful, abbreviated answer to this question.

I'm going to target 20 to 30 minutes and you can laugh if I go to an hour or not. I actually have quite an extensive outline to this question prepared in all of my outlines. I could do a whole show on it. I thought about actually creating a course on this, because it's something of interest to me.

It's something that I have done. It's something that I have put a lot of time and thought into. And so I have a lot to say on it, but I'm going to try to keep it abbreviated here for the benefit of this listener who is a patron of mine.

So quick background for all listeners and then background for listeners who are considering doing this. What this listener is talking about is the concept of birthright citizenship. The technical theory, the legal theory here is called jus soli, which is basically the right of the soil. And the idea is that if you are born in a certain geographic location, the sovereign government that claims sovereignty over that geographic location is willing to confer upon you citizenship of that nation because of the location of your birth.

This is contrasted against the doctrine of what's called, was it just sanguinis, or basically the right of the blood, which means that if you are born to a parent who is a citizen of a certain country, then you can be eligible for the citizenship of that country of your parents' citizenship because you come from that bloodline.

Now, there's a marked distinction in the world between these two different legal theories. Much of the old world, including Europe, much of Africa and Asia, much of the old world goes by the theory of the blood. So if you are British, born to British parents, the British government looks to see are your parents British, not exclusively were you born in Britain.

If you can, in this situation, or in Asia as well. So if this, let's pretend this listener is living in China, but yet they're American citizens. So two American citizens can be living in China and can have a baby in China, and they'll be able to have the baby, but the baby will not be a Chinese citizen just because it is born in China.

Whereas two Chinese parents could be living in the United States, not being citizens of the United States, but if the baby is born in the United States, the baby will automatically be considered a US citizen because it's born in the United States. So there are 30-ish countries in the world that without regard to the parent's citizenship, they will confer citizenship upon the child that's born in their national territory.

And most of those 30-ish countries are in the Americas and in the Caribbean, the so-called New World. So the idea here is where should you have your baby? What's an intelligent place to have your baby? And if you can give your child a second citizenship by birth, then why should you not do that?

If you can go and have your baby in Canada as an American, and your baby is automatically then a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, well, then you can move right back to the United States. And as I just said, your baby will actually really have very little relationship with the Canadian government.

They're not going to be subject to taxation, et cetera, just because they were born there. They can have a Canadian passport though and be a Canadian citizen, and they can always enjoy those benefits even if they never live in Canada. And there's a list that goes around on the internet of about 29 countries.

I think, I'm not sure who started this list. I think it was probably Andrew Henderson at Nomad Capitalist, but there's basically the same list. You see it repeated on every site. Where I would send you would be to start with a Wikipedia article at wikipedia.org/wiki/jus_solide. J-U-S underscore Soli, S-O-L-I-D, where it talks about the different kinds of just solely which are unrestricted just solely and gives a bunch of countries and restricted just solely.

Now, I don't know if every one of these countries exactly is correct. It's probably, the Wikipedia article is probably pretty good, but when you're dealing with what, almost 200 sovereign states or whatever, it's a little challenging to keep on track of all those laws. But let's talk about what you would do first, and then I'll give you some ideas on different countries.

What are the benefits of having a baby abroad? Well, I think the benefits come into basically two categories, possibly three if you have other children. So the first is, what are the benefits for the baby? If you go to a country that will confer citizenship on a child that's born within its geographic borders, that baby will have certain benefits.

That baby will have the benefits of citizenship of that country. So what are those benefits that are the most important? In my mind, the first obvious benefit is the ability to live in that country and to work there as a person who's in that country. If you think about the concept of citizenship, about the only ultimate right that citizenship confers is the legal right to live within certain geographic boundaries of a sovereign government.

That's about it. That's the basic right. Now, depending on the government, there may be other benefits, but that's the basic right, the ability to live and work in a certain place. And so if you're going to get that, you have to think about what's going to be in the best interest of this baby.

Give an example. One of the countries that has a citizenship of the soil, just Sali, is the country of Tuvalu. Now, I don't know how familiar you are with the country of Tuvalu, but it is a tiny little island nation down in the Pacific, and its total landmass is about 10 square miles.

It's just a long, thin strip, not that long, but about 10 square miles. And there are, I think, how many people live there? 11,000, about 11,000 people who live on the island of Tuvalu, and they have a GDP of just under $40 million, basically, of total GDP for the country, or about $3,500 of GDP per capita, per person.

So if you go to Tuvalu and have your baby in Tuvalu, your baby is going to be legitimately proven by the constitution of Tuvalu. Your baby is going to be, what do you call it, Tuvaluan, I think? Tuvaluan? But the question is, how big of a benefit is that going to be to your baby?

Well, if the benefit is a place to live, it's probably not a great benefit. I'm sure Tuvalu is very nice, but it's not exactly a big place. And if the benefit is economic opportunity, it's probably not that big of a place where there's a lot of economic opportunity. So that might not be really a huge benefit for your child.

Now, if you were to compare that with a country like Canada or the United States, of course, you're already American, so we can skip the United States largely, or Mexico, or maybe Panama, or Chile, or Colombia, or Brazil, all of these countries offer birthright citizenship. But compared to Tuvalu, they are huge countries, which provide massive geographic area in which your baby can live, and a massive economy in which your baby can participate.

If you have a baby in Mexico, there are many, many more economic opportunities available to your child than if you have your baby in Tuvalu. So you need to think about, what are the benefits that I'm trying to get for my baby? And think about, well, I'm trying to give my baby a place that they can legally live and a place that they can legally work.

Now, the obvious solution here, of course, is the United States. But since you're US Americans, you already have that you can already confer upon your child US citizenship, because you are US American parents, no matter where they're born. And so what else, what other place would be in the benefit or the interest of that child?

Now, when you're thinking about access to live and work in a place, you should consider if there are opportunities even beyond a certain country into a certain region. So some countries are big enough in and of themselves that they can provide benefits, but then some countries are also part of larger blocks.

So the most well-known block would be something like the European Union. Now, I'm not aware of any countries in the European Union who will provide birthright citizenship exclusively for a child who's born there, regardless of the citizenship of their parent. But what you should consider is if you have some claim on citizenship yourself, can you help your child to have that citizenship by being born in that country?

One of the short sight things that I see people look at is they look just to the 30-ish countries where the child can be automatically a citizen because it's born there. But you need to consider if you're having your child in a certain place can help them to receive a citizenship that you have, because there are actually a whole set of countries in addition to those 30-ish countries that you read on the internet that have some sort of more restricted right of birth.

So for example, one example would be a country like South Africa. If a child is born in South Africa, of course, a child born in South Africa to South African citizens would be a citizen. But if a child is born in South Africa to permanent residents of South Africa, that child can be granted South African citizenship.

Or the United Kingdom has a law that at least if one parent is either a British citizen or legally settled in the country at birth or upon the 10th birthday of the child, regardless of their citizenship status, that child can be a British citizen. So could you do want to be legally settled in Great Britain under those terms?

There are actually more options than just the 30 countries. But in terms of in that one, depending on what happens with Brexit, that one would be the kind of thing that could potentially give you access to the EU. There are other regions though. For example, in South America, there's a large region called Mercosur, which includes, let's see, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and as primary members and associate members would include Chile and a couple of the South American countries.

The point is residents or citizens of any of those Mercosur countries have fairly unrestricted ability to move and to work in those other countries. It's not quite as seamless as the EU is, but it is fairly easy. So if you are the parent of an Argentine citizen, you can move to Brazil.

If you're a Brazilian citizen, you can move to Paraguay and you can live and work there with an expedited system. In the Caribbean, there is an alliance called CARICOM, which can have certain benefits as well in the Caribbean islands. So think about those benefits to the baby and try to think about what will give the best benefit for the baby.

One, I guess another interesting thing for you to consider would be often there are aspects of this that George has talked about in the blog post that you read about, such as other benefits with relationships that certain countries might have with a place that the child can be born.

And one example would be it doesn't have to be just necessarily outside of the country. So let me give an example. If I were a Mexican, if I were a Canadian, a Canadian couple wanting to have a baby, and if I wanted my baby to be an American by birth, on the basis of birthright citizenship, I wouldn't necessarily just automatically go to New York and have the baby in New York.

Now, that would be good because that would automatically confer dual citizenship upon the baby with, of course, the obligations to the US government, which can be, you know, it's probably helpful. I mean, the US is such a massive financial powerhouse. It's a valuable thing to have a US citizenship financially.

But I would consider going and having the baby in a place like Puerto Rico because now I can get multiple benefits for my baby. Children who are born in Puerto Rico are automatically citizens of Puerto Rico by birth and also citizens of the United States. So by the basis of being born in Puerto Rico, my child will automatically be an American citizen, can get an American passport, et cetera.

But as a native-born Puerto Rican, that child has additional benefits with Spain. Because Puerto Rico was formerly a Spanish possession, then a Puerto Rican who was native-born in Puerto Rico has the opportunity to have the expedited path to citizenship that Spain offers, which is as little as two years of residence.

So now, if you're thinking about, let's pretend you're a Canadian, and you're saying, "Where can I have my baby so that it has multiple benefits?" Going and having the baby in Puerto Rico gives it automatically US citizenship by birth. Then you can move to Spain, spend two years in Spain, and now there's an expedited path to citizenship for that child to have now an EU passport.

So what have you done with something like that? Well, now you've opened up the European Union and Canada and the United States to that child, where they can legally live anywhere in those three regions. They can work anywhere in those three regions. They can travel. And if they follow that path through, they can have major benefits.

There are a lot of these little countries, whether it's a place like Barbados or possibly Jamaica. But Barbados, being a former British possession, people who are born in Barbados automatically are citizens of Barbados by birth. You say, "Well, what benefit is that?" Well, it's maybe not bad. There are certain benefits to it, although it may not be a huge region.

It does provide access to the Caribbean under the CARICOM agreements, etc. But then you have the opportunity to have possibly an expedited path to British citizenship and possibly a British passport. So you can look into things like that for yourself. There are opportunities there with the French government, with some of the European governments through being born in their island communities.

Now, other benefits for the baby. I'm not sure that necessarily being born in the biggest place is always necessarily the best thing. And this is where I think a little bit about the value of smaller countries. Now, being Americans and assuming you're going to pass on American citizenship to your baby, you're already now doing business with a very large country.

But what opportunities would there be for your child if they were a citizen of a smaller country? One of the dangerous trends is that most of the large countries, the United States, the Canada, many of the big Brazils, the Mexicans, as they have financial resources, these countries are pursuing the path of engaging in much more global spying.

They're imposing more and more obligations onto their citizens. So I think if you care about freedom, there's actually a really good argument in favor of your child being a citizen of a much smaller country. I mean, imagine if your child were born in Nicaragua and were a native-born Nicaraguan citizen.

On that, you can have a baby in Nicaragua, automatically citizen by birth. Now, Nicaragua is a pretty poor place. And even worse, in the last couple of years, it had a major turn towards heavy leftism and socialism, which is at this point kind of in the DNA of the Nicaraguans.

But there's no possibility that the Nicaraguan government, at least in our foreseeable lifetime, is ever going to have the money to be able to spy on the world. And so if you're a Nicaraguan citizen traveling on a Nicaraguan passport, you can be pretty free to float around the world and not have to deal with them kind of tracking you down.

So there's kind of a freedom argument in favor of for an individual that goes against big country. Now, I think it's more compelling to give the child access to live and work in other places, but you can consider that for yourself. Now, let's quickly talk about benefits for the siblings.

If you already have children, there may be certain benefits for the baby, but then also benefits for the siblings. For example, the siblings might be able to qualify for a residency visa and/or to qualify for an expedited path to citizenship, especially when they are minor children. For example, I'll talk in a moment about a country like Brazil.

Brazil has an interesting law where if a child is born in Brazil, then they are automatically Brazilian by birth, and then the siblings, the minor siblings of a child born in Brazil can have an extremely expedited path to citizenship once after really, in many ways, as little as six months or eight months of residency.

Then the siblings of a child born to a Brazilian baby by birth can have an expedited path to citizenship. So there are some things for siblings. Consider that. But then let's talk about parents. What about the benefits for parents? There may or may not be any benefits that you would like to have as the parent of a child, and they're much harder to come by than the benefits for the child.

So you might choose something that's in the best interest of the child, but actually won't benefit the parents in any way, or you might not. So let me give an example. It's my understanding of the Canadian immigration system that any child born in Canada is automatically a Canadian citizen.

But Canada doesn't have any possibility or any recognition for immigration for the parents simply based upon the fact that they're parents of a Canadian citizen. If you want to move to Canada, you have to qualify for a residency visa based upon the Canadian system of law, based upon their point system in their case.

Are you a valuable worker? Can you get enough points? And can your application be approved? So you don't get any benefits as the parent of a Canadian child. Now, that's different than a country like Mexico. So Mexico has the ability, if you have a baby in Mexico, the baby is automatically Mexican.

And then you can apply for a residency visa as the parent of a Mexican baby. And under their doctrine of family reunification, that residency visa will be issued to you so that you can now live in Mexico. A country like the United States is kind of interesting. It's not really one or the other.

There is no automatic rights to stay, no automatic residency for parents who go and have their baby in the United States. But there is the possibility once the child is older and working to sponsor their relatives. But it's a much harder process. I find that particular debate so ironic in the political space, where in reality, people who often rail against birthright citizenship, there was a big scuffle in the United States a couple of years ago about ending birthright citizenship, et cetera, and somehow changing it.

You need to have a constitutional amendment to change it. But in reality, based upon the way the US taxes its worldwide citizens, no matter where they live, people should be clamoring for everybody to come to the United States and then leave again and go somewhere else. Because a baby who's born in the United States is saddled with a lifetime tax obligation, even if they never again set foot in the United States.

So it's pretty amazing. The major benefits for the parents would primarily be a right to get a residency visa. And on this basis, it can be a big benefit. To your question, there is no country in the world that will automatically confer some form of citizenship on the parent because they're the parent of a child born in that country.

So there's no country in the world that you can go there, have a baby, the child's automatically a citizen, and then a week later, you're a citizen. Doesn't exist. The fastest in the world, when you start reading the articles around this, the fastest in the world that you'll read about again and again is Brazil.

And the idea is if you go to Brazil and have a baby in Brazil, Brazilian law allows you to apply for citizenship as the parent of a Brazilian child after one year of residency. So the way it works is you go to Brazil, you have your baby in Brazil, you apply, the baby is a citizen by birth, you apply now for your residency visa.

Once your residency visa is issued, then you wait one year and then you apply for citizenship. So the idea is it could be as fast as one year. Now, what the law says and what the practice is are night and day different things. So what it actually is in Brazil, it's not one year of residency to apply for the visa.

It needs to be more like two because you're dealing with the local officials and they want to see if they're going to take the application, they want to see that you're legit a resident of Brazil. And so that means that you can't just go there and show up every now and then.

You've got to go and you've got to build a life there. You've got to buy a house or rent a house. You've got to get a job or start a business in Brazil using your Brazilian residency visa. You have to go and you need to pay taxes to Brazil under their tax rates on your worldwide income.

You need to become a legit Brazilian person who's integrated in the local society. Then you go and you apply after usually about two years. They want to see at least two years. And then the process itself is of issuing the paperwork on the ground right now is about two more years.

And so in reality, if you're going to go and have a Brazilian baby, it's going to be for the path to citizenship for you is going to be closer to about four years at the very fastest. Maybe I mean, sorry, I shouldn't say the very fastest, but the normal thing to expect would be about four years.

So if you're going to get that Brazilian passport, you need to be there for about four years. And by the way, then you have, there's also the language test. You have to be able to pass a Portuguese fluency exam in order to become a Brazilian citizen. So you need to think about it.

The biggest benefit for the parent is going to be the ability to either now or in the future apply for a residency visa. So the reason I asked about the time, you don't necessarily have to do this all at once. Let's use Brazil as an example, because that's the one you always, always read touted in this series of articles that you can find online.

If you think about Brazil, you could go to Brazil. You could be there for a month is probably a little fast with Brazil, maybe a little longer, but a month, a month or two, you go there, you have the baby. The baby becomes a Brazilian citizen. You finish up the paperwork for the baby, get their citizenship, and then you can leave and you take the baby back to Asia.

Now, six years from now or 10 years from now, you can now go back to Brazil. Of course, you go on a tourist visa in that case, but you go back to Brazil. And then once you're in Brazil, you apply for your residency as the parent of a Brazilian child, unless something happens with the law in terms of a constitutional change, which is pretty unusual.

Unless something happens with the law, you could exercise that right of residency 10 years from now. And so this is the same thing that happens with Canadians and with or people who, you know, say you're Chinese, you come to the United States, have your baby in the United States, the baby is a US citizen, you go back to China, you live there.

But then when your baby is an adult, then they can move to the United States and then potentially sponsor the parents to come to the United States as well. So your biggest benefit to think about is going to be a residency visa. So I ask you the question, is there a place that you'd like to have residency where you can get benefits for the baby and benefits for you?

Now, as we move into this a little deeper, then you would want to consider, is it a place that's fairly easy for me to get residency, even if I'm not the parent of a Brazilian child? Give me an example. Let's say you want to Panama, right? Panama would be a really great place to live, to work.

Panama has, it's a bustling economy, booming economy in Central America. It's a financial hub for, in many ways, the world, but definitely of the Americas. It's a financial hub. It's in a wonderful, it's in the same time zone as the Eastern time zone. And so it's very connected and very easy to live there and work and do business in the East Coast of the United States.

What else about Panama? It is easy to get to. They have a wonderful tax system, a territorial tax system. So you can live there and have a very efficient tax life. But the thing is, do you need to go and have a baby there that's a natural born Panamanian?

It's not hard right now. If you're from one of the friendly nations, it's not hard to apply for a Panamanian friendly nations visa and for you to go and live in Panama under the friendly friendly nations visa to cost you some few thousands of dollars of lawyer fees, make a deposit in a bank.

But it's not that hard for you to get that visa. So if you're going to go to the hard work of going to Panama and doing that, do you really want to have the baby there or do you want to just get the friendly nations visa, which you can do with a few thousand dollars of legal fees?

Similarly, many countries have various visa options that you can get. It's not that difficult for an American to go and get residence in Mexico. You can get residence in Brazil. You become an investor and apply under their investor program, or you can go to Colombia, or you can apply for pension auto visas throughout Central and South America.

So there are a lot of these. So you're going to think, is this really where I want to have it? It's not easy. Then we go to other considerations. So you want to consider what obligations would I be signing my child up for by having them in this country?

And so let's use the United States as an example. It's a major obligation to have a child in the United States because you're signing your child up with the burden and the possibility of US citizenship by having your child in the United States. But that's a burden that will flow with them throughout their entire lifetime.

Now, in many cases, I think the economic argument would say it's still worth considering, but that's the kind of thing that you have to consider. One obligation for you to be very careful of would be something like military registration. Some countries mandate military service for their citizens. So let's see, having Israeli citizenship.

In Israel, all young men and all young women are obligated to serve in the Israeli Defense Force. So your child will have to serve. Now, some places may have a military obligation, but it's a little bit less likely. So for example, Brazil. If you have a baby in Brazil, that baby will be obligated to Brazilian military service in the Brazilian Army once they're a, I think it's just for men is my understanding there, but at 18 years old.

So they require to report that. And even if they're a Brazilian living abroad, they still have to go and request exemptions to that. Now, it's not that I don't think it's that big of a risk in that in their case, who is Brazil necessarily going to go and fight?

They're not that inclined to military conflict. There's fairly easy to get out of. So I don't think it's a huge risk, but you want to consider something like military registration. You also want to consider other obligations of the that you're potentially exposing your child to. For example, some places you would have to pay into the national health system.

And so are you obligating your child to some system of taxation, especially if that obligation would be on an ongoing basis, and especially if it's not funding things that you think should be funded. Some countries impose an obligation to vote where you're legally required to vote in that country's elections.

Do you want to impose that obligation on them? Residency in some places can bring other challenges that especially Americans are not used to thinking about. Things that are important to me, for example, would be things like the ability to homeschool, homeschooling versus government schooling. In the United States, homeschooling fought all the big battles back in the 1970s.

And so now it's fairly easy for you to homeschool. And in most states, it's pretty easy to do. It's not the same in the rest of the world. You may find yourself, if you're trying to live and work in another country, you find yourself and your child, especially as a citizen of that child, with significant challenges dealing with the government if you want to do something like homeschool.

And then I would say one of the big challenges is even the process itself of giving birth. The entire process of birth in and of itself can be very, very challenging. It's a very vulnerable time in a woman's life. It's a very challenging time in a couple's life as you learn new things, especially if this is your first baby.

I remember when my wife and I had our first baby. And just the challenge of birth itself was difficult to think about. What kind of birth do we want to have? Where do we want to give birth? And there are all these big questions that have to be solved with the whole birth process.

Are we going to give birth in a hospital? Are we going to give birth out of a hospital? What kind of care are we going to have? Who are the people that we're going to have involved? What classes, what birthing methodology are we going to follow? What convictions are we going to have?

Are we going to have a higher or a doula? Are we going to vaccinate? Are we going to circumcise? Are we going to like all these big questions that new parents that face. And it's really challenging to give birth even in a culture that you're totally comfortable with. And this in and of itself can be challenging.

Now to take it out of a culture that you're comfortable with and move it into another place where now you're navigating the birthing system in an unfamiliar place and you're navigating unfamiliar laws. For example, my wife and I have never had a baby in a hospital. Now thankfully we've had smooth low-risk pregnancies, but we've never had a baby in a hospital.

I've received all my babies when they were born. But that's easy and legal in the United States, but it's not necessarily easy nor is it necessarily legal in other countries. And so navigating the birthing system can be a challenge. Things like understanding what your rights are in that process.

I'm fairly comfortable throwing my weight around if I'm in an American hospital because I understand what my rights are, I understand what my wife's rights are, I understand who's in charge. I'm a little less comfortable in other places where the laws are not on the side of the individual, but the laws are much more in line with what the government says should be done.

And then navigating these things in a language you don't speak can be challenging. So now you've got to bring in an interpreter and figure out how to get your wishes done in an interpreter. And then in some cases you just simply don't have the legal rights that you do in other places.

For example, in the United States, one of the challenges that parents have to face is if they're going to vaccinate their children or not. And it's not as simple as just saying, "Yeah, I'm in favor of vaccination." You have to decide, "Am I going to vaccinate my baby? Am I going to do it right away?

Am I going to do it at some point? Am I going to do the standard CDC schedule? Am I going to not vaccinate at all? Am I going to vaccinate according to a modified schedule?" Really, really tough. And it's one of the most contentious, difficult issues that you see it on the news every day, measles outbreak and all this stuff.

But in the United States, if you don't wish to vaccinate, you can do it entirely fine. And the only time you face is a handful of states if the child goes to a government school or a private school. But it's not the same in many other places in the world.

So if you're going to... Well, let's leave it at that. It's not the same. It's not legal. You don't have the legal right to opt out. Now, whether you have the practical right or not, that depends on who's going to help you with the birth. What are you going to do?

And so it's a tough... There are a whole bunch of things that are often not thought of. And then the documents, the process of getting the documents can be really, really challenging. So what documents do you bring from home? What documents does the baby need? How do you, in many ways, get the baby out of the country?

You go to a place and have the baby, the baby is going to be trapped in that country until the baby gets a passport issued and the permission of the government to leave. Some countries, they don't care. They don't track anything. Other countries, you've got to have all kinds of permission slips and etc.

filled off. So this is the stuff that the articles don't tell you. This is the stuff that we learned by doing it. So that's why I like to write a course, because at this point, I can now write a course on all the stuff that I wish the articles had said, but that they didn't.

And it's not as easy as you think it will be. So I would give you kind of a couple of summary things for you to consider. This is not at all an exhaustive list, but just some things for you to think of. First, expand your thinking beyond just the 30 country list that you read online.

Think about your ancestry and your heritage and consider if there's anything unique to your situation. Do you have, do you already have another citizenship? Because you might actually want to give birth in a country where one of you has a connection or a tie because of the benefits there, even if it's not one of those 30 countries that automatically confers unrestricted birthright citizenship on the child.

Consider that. Consider how much time you actually have available and consider, I would be remiss, I didn't mean to make this, but you have to also then consider the medical, the quality of the medical system. Sounds silly, but I guess I shouldn't have kind of breezed over that. I'm sure Tuvalu is a lovely place.

I haven't been there. I've seen pictures and videos of it, but it looks like a beautiful place. But you cannot say that the, that Tuvalu is going to have the same medical resources that are available in Mexico City. Mexico City, and any city in Mexico, is going to have top tier, class A, excellent medical care.

And that's super important because you're dealing with the lives of your wife and the lives of your baby. And so you, especially as a father, you don't want to be careless or cavalier about that in any way. It's too important to be careless or cavalier. So you need to think about medical care as well, which is going to probably point you to a handful of countries.

You know, Chad offers, the country of Chad in Africa offers Chadian citizenship to a child who's born in Chad, according to the Wikipedia article. I'm not confident in the medical situation in Chad. Canada, on the other hand, I have no questions. Mexico, got no questions. The United States, no questions.

Brazil, no questions. Easy. You know, Chile, no questions. There's top tier medical care available. So consider that. And consider if you and your wife want a certain benefit for yourselves and/or if it's just for the child. It's not wrong for you to want benefits yourself. The ability to apply for a residency visa is an extremely valuable thing.

And if I were, in one case, it's so different for you being a US American and your wife being US American than it is for, say, somebody from Pakistan. I mean, if I were from Pakistan, there's no question that I would be working like crazy to make sure that we had a baby in some other place that conferred birthright citizenship.

And I'd be doing that for the baby and then also for us as a parent, because it's pretty hard for me to really make it really excellent for my family in Pakistan. And earlier, I kind of skipped over even the travel benefits of the passport of that country. One of the big things that Americans are not used to thinking about and most Westerners not used to thinking about is the quality of a passport from a certain country.

But a Pakistani passport makes it almost impossible for a person to move without constant visa applications all around the world. Or if you're from Afghanistan or from Iraq or from Iran or one of these countries, citizens of those countries, especially citizens who want to travel, who want to live and work abroad, do business, are often desperate to have a second passport.

So there's a very compelling case for them to go and have their baby abroad and get the benefit of a residency visa in a new place where they can, over time, naturalize as citizens in time. So think about, is it just for the baby or are you also going to consider benefits for you and your wife?

It's not a right or a wrong, necessarily. I think that you'll have to think about the overall benefits. So a few highlights, and I'm going to run, just run down the list of countries in alphabetical order from the Wikipedia article, and then I will wrap up here. So here are the countries that, according to Wikipedia, are available for unrestricted birthright citizenship.

Antigua and Barbuda. Possibilities, small Caribbean countries. I'm going to lump all the Caribbean countries together. Antigua, Barbuda, Barbados, etc. With the exceptions of the ones that possibly provide citizenship by investment programs, you should consider those because if you actually want to live there and naturalize, you may be able to get basically a pretty decent travel document that gives you benefits without necessarily having to pay the however many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So Antigua and Barbuda, don't have any comments. Argentina. Argentina is an interesting choice for you for a number of reasons. First, Argentina has one of the fastest paths to citizenship of really two years of residency. Now, I don't know what the actual time on the ground is with dealing with the bureaucracy, but the law is two years of residency and you're eligible to apply for Argentinian citizenship.

And Argentinian citizenship is actually a pretty decent citizenship to have, in addition to the fact that Argentina itself is a huge country. And so back to that place to legally live, huge country and part of Mercosur. Problem with Argentina is figuring out how to deal with the current economic system can make certain things very cheap.

I mean, if you go down to southern Argentina, I think you'd probably find a safe place to live. And yet it's incredibly low priced. And so it'd be a great place to go for to live worldwide taxation for residents. So Barbados consider the is guaranteed. Consider the path into the UK if that's important to you.

According to Wikipedia, there's some arguments that they're proposing ending birthright citizenship. Belize. I don't know what to say about Belize. It's kind of a wacky Central American country, largely English English speaking, primarily black Afro Caribbean place. Interesting place, interesting, but not exactly the nicest of places that you might want to live.

Not hard to get residency yourself in Belize. It's not. I don't think it's what I would pick. Bolivia comes next. Interesting socialist country, South America. I don't serve any significant benefits to choose Bolivia over some of the other options. Brazil is a really interesting choice. First class medical care, really diverse country, which is a real benefit.

If you're black, if you're white, if you're brown, if you're red, if you're yellow, doesn't matter. There are some people of your color in Brazil. Huge economy. 200 something million people there in South America, part of Mercosur. Not really any negative baggage associated with the passport. I mean, who hates the Brazilians?

I don't know of anybody that hates the Brazilians. So there are a lot of good solutions in Brazil. Brazil will be touted as being one of the fastest paths to citizenship for the parents. I warn you, it's not true. I researched it. I know what I'm talking about. It's not true.

It's four years of residency, basically plan on a four year pathway. Heavy taxation for residents and taxation on your worldwide income. Very kind of socialist police state, which can be hard to take if you're more freedom oriented. They're famous for having just elected President Bolsonaro, who's supposedly right wing, but you're kind of got this long history of socialist police state, which is a little bit hard to deal with.

But Brazil, I think, should be very high on your list for consideration. Just don't expect what you read about online to be true about the one year path to citizenship. Canada. Canada, I think, is a really excellent option, but it may be superfluous for an American, for a US American, especially if you don't think you or your children would ever renounce citizenship.

For people who might renounce citizenship, I think Canada is a really great option because you have a powerful, powerful passport, good economy, kind of first world, very easy English speaking in the majority of it. And one of the most important things, you have very easy access to the United States.

Canadians have a special relationship with the United States, more special than any other country in the world. Six months, fairly automatic entry into the United States. They don't even have to complete ESTA to pass US immigration. So I think Canada is a... Canada, that's what I always call it with a Canadian buddy of mine.

Canada, I think, is a really strong option, but in many ways it kind of ebbs and flows with the United States. So you don't... I think there's more benefit if you're thinking about your child, think about South America, think about some economies that might grow rather than Canada. Chad is an option.

I have never been to Chad, but you could consider it. Chile is, I think, a very powerful option for you to consider. Chile, the biggest... One of the biggest and most modern economies in South America, very much on the right path. Really compelling place to consider living, working, etc.

Very much growing, unique in many, many ways. Beautiful. The cities are not inexpensive, but they're just really neat option would be Chile. Downside of two reasons not to consider arguments against Chile would be number one, worldwide taxation on residents if you trigger the residency and you'll have to if you wind up moving there.

But Chile and passport, very good passport for your child and really, really compelling option. Another argument against Chile, however, would be that Chile right now, at least, is a fairly easy place for you to get a visa to live even without having a baby there. So it might make sense if you're interested in a residency visa for yourself, it might make more sense for you to consider a place where it's harder to get a residency visa.

But you're living in Asia, so you're probably not going to go there anyway. Costa Rica is next. Costa Rica is a really interesting option. One of the major benefits of Costa Rica would be it's... No military, so you don't have to worry about your child getting drafted in some dumb war or something like that.

Costa Rica has a very peaceful reputation, one of the strongest, kind of safest places in Central America. It's very convenient to the United States. Costa Rica is a very beautiful place. It makes most of its living on tourism, especially ecotourism. Economy is not that strong, not nearly as strong as a place like Panama, but it's not bad.

And one of the great things, Costa Rica would be good if you're looking for that kind of small country option for your child where, "Hey, I want to be a citizen of a smaller country." Very easy to get to, first-class medical care in San Jose. Costa Rica is the benefit of a territorial tax system, can save you money if you wind up living there and give you a residency visa.

So I think Costa Rica is an interesting option. It's not going to give your child access to a big market or to a big job market or a big place to live. It's a small country. Dominica, island down in the Caribbean, interesting. Dominica is interesting because it also provides an economic citizenship, citizenship by investment program, but I'm not too familiar on the details of that.

Ecuador, don't have anything to say. El Salvador, don't have much to say other than murder capital of Central America right now. Doesn't mean everywhere is dangerous, but be careful. Now you're in Asia, so the next option I think is interesting, Fiji. Fiji confers citizenship on children who are born there, and I think it's worth considering because it might be easier for you to get to Fiji than it would be for you to get to El Salvador.

The way that most of these countries work is if you apply for a residency visa after you have a child in that country is in order for you to maintain that residency visa, you need to show up semi-regularly. Some countries every year, with some countries every few years, depends on the country.

Some countries every year, every few years, and then doesn't really matter. But a place like Fiji might have certain values and benefits, and especially if you are in Asia, it could be worth considering. I don't know much about the Fijian passport, but could be worth considering. Granada, don't have much to say.

Guatemala, interesting place in Central America. I always think of Guatemala, it doesn't participate in CRS, which doesn't really matter for Americans, but for Europeans, it's kind of an interesting thing about Guatemala. But beautiful, mountainous country, really lovely, don't know much about the passport. Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Lesotho, don't have much to say.

Big one next would be Mexico. I think Mexico is a really interesting and compelling option for you to consider. It's easy to get to, well not in your case from Asia, but for other American listeners, it's easy to get to. You can basically automatically get the six-month visa when you pass in.

First-rate medical care, easy to get to in a car, really wonderful place, massive, great economy in many ways, depending on, of course, where you are and what you're doing. One of the most interesting things about Mexico, I think, is the university system. Mexico has government-run university systems, including even things like government-run medical schools.

I spoke one time to an optometrist who did all of her advanced education, went through medical school, went through advanced specialty, etc., in the Mexican government schools for medicine and only ever paid $50 per semester for her own fees. It was all government-paid. Interesting things like that for the access to medical school.

One of the challenges of financial planner I've always wrestled with is how do you help a somebody avoid the potential for $200,000 of student loan debt? One of the interesting solutions is go to a place, go through medical school where it's cheaper, and then test your way in. Most countries, if they have a doctor who comes from another country that doesn't have the accredited school system of that country or residents don't have a medical test that they can have.

I'd assume, rather, if I were doing that, I'd rather go to Mexico, go through the Mexican government school system, build the knowledge, then test my way into somewhere else versus having the risk of $200,000 of medical school debt, things like that. But Mexico is an interesting option. You could do that, of course, if you're an American in and of itself.

Nicaragua, I don't really have anything good to say about Nicaragua. Your mileage may vary. Pakistan, I don't see any benefit of having a baby in Pakistan. Panama, I see benefit of having a baby there, but I would say, why bother when there are better places? Paraguay, I think, is really interesting.

Paraguay is a place that you can have a baby and the baby is automatically Paraguayan. Paraguay is part of Mercosur, so that gives you relatively easy access to other countries in the Mercosur agreement, including Brazil, Argentina, etc. And Paraguay has kind of a reputation for having fairly lax residency requirements for people who get a Paraguayan residency visa.

And so having a baby in Paraguay could be interesting, and then getting a Paraguayan residency visa could also be interesting. The trick here is I don't know of a benefit of having the baby in Paraguay that couldn't be had by simply taking the one month old there and applying for the Paraguayan residency visa.

So why not have the baby in Brazil or Argentina or Uruguay and then go to Paraguay and get your residency stuff in order? Peru is, I think, really interesting. In my opinion, the most interesting thing about Peru is the visa-free access to Russia. Russia is an interesting and difficult place to get into, but if you're interested in doing business in Russia, you can, of course, apply for visas.

But Peru has some more unique relationships that you don't get with other places. So consider Peru. I don't love it, but it's worth your consideration if Russia is something interesting to you. St. Kitts and Nevis, another Caribbean program, research that. You can get citizenship by investment. St. Lucia, St.

Vincent and the Grenadines, Tanzania. Tanzania is worth considering. I don't know much about it. Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, already discussed. The United States, already discussed. Uruguay. Uruguay is a really fascinating little country there in South America with a very European kind of cosmopolitan flair, which is different than other places.

Uruguay is not a hard place to get visas to, though, in and of yourself. So I'm not sure it'd be number one. And Venezuela, don't go to Venezuela right now. It's not worth the risk. Do consider the list of restricted, just solely countries to see if any of those pique your interest.

But I'll give you just a few ones for you to consider. I think number one would be Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Those, I think, would be five that, if I were in your shoes, would be at the top of my list. Different benefits of each one, but I think those five would be at the top of my list.

Given what you've said about your situation, I think that since you're already living in Asia, most likely just choose a place where you'll go, you'll have the baby, and then you'll plan to leave again. And you probably won't bother with applying for residency yourself, unless I'm wrong. Consider, do some research on those options that are available closer to you, especially in places like Fiji.

And I would just say, do some research and see if you can find anything that, if you did get something like residency in a different place, having a baby there that would help you. I don't know about that with the Asian countries, but just do some thinking to see if there's a way of having the baby there as a resident.

I was just reviewing the list here of restricted countries, just solely countries, thinking about if I were living in Asia. A couple things stand out to me. Malaysia, according to Wikipedia, Malaysia indicates a person born in Malaysia with at least one parent being a Malaysian citizen or permanent resident is automatically a Malaysian citizen.

So that could be interesting. It might be possible for you to get your Malaysian permanent residency in some number of months. I don't know. You would have to dig into that. And possibly having the baby in Malaysia could result in the baby being a Malaysian citizen. Another option might be New Zealand.

A little, New Zealand's not close to anything. A person born in New Zealand acquires New Zealand citizenship by birth only if one parent was a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident. So, and that includes Australian citizens and permanent residents. So maybe there might be an opportunity that you could get New Zealand or Australian residency quick enough to do something in New Zealand.

Other than that, I'm just not sure any specific solution. Cambodia, in 1996, Cambodia changed the law to grant citizenship to children born to foreign parents living legally in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Might be a solution depending on where you are in Asia. Bahrain, I think is interesting. The Gulf States, a lot of possibilities.

Children born to a foreign father with valid residency permits who himself was born in Bahrain have right to citizenship. So that won't work with you unless you happen to have been born in Bahrain. So perhaps a strategy is in order. If this is your first baby and you don't have a residency, go to one of those countries and then make sure that you're a permanent resident of Australia or New Zealand or something like that before your next baby.

All right, that's it. I obviously didn't do it in 20 minutes. It took me more like 45, but I hope it was useful to you. I love this topic. I have, again, wanted to do a whole course on it. We've just scratched the tip of the iceberg of some of what my notes are.

I've kept a few things private and of course I've not shared with you what I've done. I'll just say this. I've done it. It's very doable. You know, our newest, my son has a passport from the country that we're living in now. So, you know, right here on my desk, it's possible.

He's got two passports. I could go. The process with the United States is fairly simple. You'll go and register. If you're going to give him US citizenship, which is an interesting question whether you should or not, you're going to give him US citizenship. You go and file a consular report of birth abroad, follow the systems with your local embassy.

You can get an American passport and an American. So your child will have a birth certificate from the country of their birth and also a consular report of birth abroad designating that child and American citizen. One interesting thing. Let me, I said, I love this stuff. So here's one more interesting thing to consider.

I think there is a real benefit for internationally minded Americans to have their baby outside of the United States. One of the benefits, which is minor, I admit it's minor, but it's not insignificant. One of the benefits is that the United States is not listed as a place of birth on their passports with almost any passport from almost any place in the world, at least that I'm aware of your place of birth is going to be listed on that passport.

So even if you're, you're Australian, but the Australian is born in the United States, it's going to say USA. And what happens is that can make your financial life very difficult due to the coercion that the United States foists upon the rest of the world financially with especially the FATCA legislation in the last decade.

If your child goes to a bank and presents a passport, even if the passport is Australian and Australian's back because they're big government too, but let's say your child is Cambodian and you go to Hong Kong and you want to open a bank account. If your child has a Cambodian passport, but it says place of birth, Florida, USA, they're automatically going to be understood to be a US citizen subject to FATCA.

Because, and that's considered to be an indicia, an indication of US citizenship. And so in order to, if the bank doesn't do business with US Americans in a situation like that, your child will have to produce a document industry indicating that they've renounced US citizenship to be able to bank with that, with that place.

So there's an actually an interesting debate among expats about whether they should even register their children as US citizens at the time of their birth or not. If you go and you have your baby in Chile, right? You go to Chile, you have your baby in Chile, your baby have a Chilean birth certificate and you get your baby, a Chilean passport right away.

And then you can travel the world with that baby as a Chilean, and you never actually have to register that baby as a US citizen. And then your child could decide later if they wanted to register as a US citizen or not. So you can keep the option open to your child to be a US citizen.

So they go to school in the United States or, or easily travel to the United States without a visa or work in the United States, take advantage of the economy, things like that. But you don't have to subject them to the burden of US citizenship right away. They could wait for many, many years.

Now, most Americans would just kind of automatically register their child, but you should know that there's actually a really interesting argument against that. And I've thought a lot about that, that there's a decent argument to be said for not even registering your child. It's an option if they want to move to the United States in the future, you have to keep all the documentation to prove citizenship because your, your, your, your child will automatically inherit American citizenship based upon having two American parents.

And there are some laws about one American parent and the amount of time in the United States, but it's fairly simple. You can look it up on the consulate website. So consider that. But I think that's all I have to say on that subject. Hope you enjoyed the Q&A show.

That is the kind of Q&A show that I like doing. It's the kind of diversity of questions that I find to be really fun. And so I hope that you have enjoyed it as well. I'm always careful with making forward-looking statements on the show, but ideally I should be able to be able to do these Q&A shows fairly regularly going forward.

So I would encourage you come on by patreon.com/radicalpersonalfinance, sign up as a patron so that you can join me on the next Q&A show. And I'll do my best to help you live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

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