There's a reason most countries offer no such thing as a retirement visa, except certain low income countries where overcharging clueless foreigners is the best way to get ahead in life. It's because old people are a burden on the medical system and a class of people who'll pay 5x the average for housing prices locals out. Whoever is renting out housing is probably living comfortably thousands of kilometers away.
Remittances and tourism are not the topic at hand here. It's the local economic effects of a swath of retirees permanently relocating to a poorer location.
> Why does this topic cause the dunning kruger effect to go into full stream among an ostensibly "intelligent" group of people?
If you're smarter than the policy makers of countries who look at the economic drain of taking in disabled old people and say "nope", then maybe you should be calling up their presidents and demanding to be in charge of their economic policy? You're clearly the smartest one in the world. :)
>certain low income countries where overcharging clueless foreigners is the best way to get ahead in life.
This is basically a snide way of saying that "yes, retiring to a country with low cost of living is often a mutually beneficial transaction, for both the retiree and the country in question"
* As demand for medical services grows, the price goes up, incentivizing more people to get medical training
* As demand for housing grows, build more housing
* Gradually expand issuance of retirement visas, so supply can grow in response to demand
It's not a snide way of saying it. I'm saying it only benefits a small portion of truly poor countries where people have absolutely nothing.
There's a reason countries push retirees out, barring the ones who are incredibly rich, once they develop into a middle economy. It's because a typical retiree making a low six figures or less becomes literal dead weight. Locals can make more money than them while actually doing a job.
Thailand is pushing foreign non-workers out because they're developed to the point that they don't need or want those people. Decades ago, Thailand was incredibly poor. One retiree could splurge a bit of cash and pay the wages of dozens of people. That era is gone. Now it's just people acting like they own the place and driving up prices of property that locals are now competing for.
And yes, they could incentivize more people to become doctors for foreigners. But not everyone wants to grow up to be a servant and literally wiping the bums of an elite class of elderly colonists. Some prefer to work in other fields.
And yes, they could build new houses. Your home country could build new houses too. Retire at home and just build a new house there instead of going to a "cheaper" country. If it's too expensive at home, just get more money and build more.
And no, the won't expand issuance of visas because they need to take care of their own elderly.
>Thailand is pushing foreign non-workers out because they're developed to the point that they don't need or want those people. Decades ago, Thailand was incredibly poor. One retiree could splurge a bit of cash and pay the wages of dozens of people. That era is gone. Now it's just people acting like they own the place and driving up prices of property that locals are now competing for.
Hm, I wonder if letting retirees in was helpful for Thailand in escaping poverty? The retirees didn't seem to ruin the Thai economy, as your 'burden' theory appears to predict.
>And yes, they could incentivize more people to become doctors for foreigners. But not everyone wants to grow up to be a servant and literally wiping the bums of an elite class of elderly colonists. Some prefer to work in other fields.
There's a lot of immigration from the developing world to the developed work for medical careers, e.g. NHS workers in the UK. If your people are immigrating to work in medicine anyway, maybe it's better for them to stay home so you can tax them and collect the revenue?
You're going rather heavy on narrative vibes such as "wiping the bums of an elite class of elderly colonists", and rather light on the agency of people in the developing world to make economic decisions for themselves.
If demand for medical services rises, salaries will also rise. If no one steps in to fill those roles, salaries will rise further, to the point where medical services become expensive. And retirees will go to a different country, where people want to work in medicine. Capitalism works!
SE Asia as a whole has been improving, including countries that never participated in the retiree scheme. Thailand has been relatively stable and hasn't been invaded by foreign powers and is a big hub of manufacturing. It'd be more surprising if they didn't grow these past 20 years.
The snide "hmmmm" doesn't contradict anything I've said. Only incredibly poor countries do it. Whenever they have a functional economy, they drop it. And plenty of countries went directly from poor to rich without taking in retirees. See: Singapore, Korea, China, Taiwan. If anything, countries that take in retirees seem to lag compared to those who don't.
And decisions of government officials taking a cut of money from visa approvals for retirees really doesn't have anything to do with the agency of the people. There's a reason countries get rid of these policies: locals don't like it. No need to continue to assert that forcing yourself on unwilling people is good because their rents go up.
>Whenever they have a functional economy, they drop it.
Based on my research, there are a few countries which tightened their retirement visa requirements, but getting rid of it outright is actually quite uncommon. You talk as though this is a common thing. Can you name 5 countries that outright eliminated their retirement visa program? (Not just "considering it", actually eliminated it)
Why would they tighten it up? It's supposed to be great for the economy. It wouldn't make sense to do that if it's good, would it?
And there's virtually no country that doesn't let people with absolutely massive amounts of money buy their way in. 50 people a year buying top floor apartments in the middle of town in cash affects things far less than 150000 people a year happily paying quadruple what locals would pay to rent a normal apartment.
