Where To Get The Most Bang For Your Buck

A few seemingly informed commenters have reported that friends have shifted into reverse, emigrating across the Atlantic back to the Old Continent, the bar lowered from hopes of verdant pastures to wishes for a little soil fertile enough for merit and the preservation of Western culture. I'm nowhere near that stage, but I live in the heart of flyover country. Racial politics are mostly a national phenomenon and the surrounding population strongly resists governmental interference in the private sector. Nonetheless, remembering the words of Martin Niemoller, it seemed nice to have some idea of where I may jet off to in the future to live it up if the US continues down the path of economic feudalism and a political race-spoils system.

To get an idea of how far my money US dollars will take me, I compared the GDP of the globe's nations at the official exchange rate with the US to the CIA's best estimate of each nation's respective GDP in terms of purchasing power parity. Currency fluctuations, regional differences within nations, and the inherent problems in creating a (sometimes hypothetical) basket of items to be purchased comparatively (Burmanese medical care may be cheap but qualitative concerns obviously exist), do not lead to exact cost-of-living comparisons, but they do provide a nice way to compare generally how far your dollars will go in different parts of the world.

The greater the exchange rate (all data is in US dollars at the GDP level) compared to purchasing power parity, the more stuff you'll be able to buy with the dollars exchanged in the foreign country under examination. Conceptually, imagine you can get 1,000 Eagleland for 10 US. In Eagleland, a burger only costs 10 Eagleland. At home it costs 1 US. So where you could've bought ten burgers in the US, you can now buy 100 in Eagleland. Sweet! Except Eagleland probably trades what it offers in cheap goods (and services) with things like rampant poverty, political instability, and underdevelopment.

The ideal runaway spot is a place that is modern but also allows you to live like a king. What follows is a rank order listing of countries by exchange rate-PPP ratio as a percentile. The US is theoretically 100% since the comparisons are in US dollars--1 exchanged should buy you 1 worth of goods in the US (CIA data actually has it at 98.6%, probably due to the estimative nature of PPP). Over 100% means your dollars will go further than they will in the US, less than 100% means they won't go as far.

1. Burma -- 1073.3%

2. Zimbabwe -- 801.1%

3. Burundi -- 740.3%

4. Ethiopia -- 734.0%

5. Cambodia -- 720.7%

6. Gambia -- 707.2%

7. Rwanda -- 690.1%

8. Uganda -- 603.9%

9. Nepal -- 588.1%

10. Ghana -- 582.8%

11. Dem. Rep. of Congo -- 555.0%

12. Vietnam -- 537.6%

13. Guinea -- 521.5%

14. Mauritania -- 512.7%

15. Uzbekistan -- 510.2%

16. India -- 509.3%

17. Laos -- 487.1%

18. Bangladesh -- 481.3%

19. Kyrgyzstan -- 470.1%

20. Mozambique -- 457.1%

21. Tajikistan -- 456.7%

22. Philippines -- 451.5%

23. Pakistan -- 441.3%

24. Togo -- 440.3%

25. Guyana -- 439.8%

26. Ukraine -- 438.0%

27. Sierra Leone -- 437.9%

28. Guinea-Bissau -- 418.2%

29. Azerbaijan -- 413.4%

30. Paraguay -- 399.8%

31. China -- 399.2%

32. Sri Lanka -- 398.1%

33. Sudan -- 377.5%

34. Mongolia -- 376.6%

35. Dominican Republic -- 371.6%

36. Malawi -- 371.2%

37. Lesotho -- 367.7%

38. Papua New Guinea -- 366.2%

39. Eritrea -- 359.4%

40. Colombia -- 349.0%

41. Moldova -- 348.1%

42. Bhutan -- 345.0%

43. Madagascar -- 340.1%

44. Niger -- 337.7%

45. Equatorial Guinea -- 336.1%

46. Egypt -- 329.7%

47. Haiti -- 323.3%

48. Indonesia -- 322.1%

49. Nicaragua -- 320.1%

50. Iran -- 314.5%

51. Burkina Faso -- 308.2%

52. Afghanistan -- 303.0%

53. Macedonia -- 300.5%

54. Sao Tome -- 299.8%

55. Thailand -- 299.2%

56. Argentina -- 298.6%

57. Armenia -- 296.8%

58. Liberia -- 292.7%

59. Chad -- 291.3%

60. South Africa -- 288.7%

61. Nambia -- 284.6%

62. Turkmenistan -- 279.8%

63. Solomon Islands -- 279.7%

64. Bulgaria -- 277.9%

65. Syria -- 276.4%

66. Algeria -- 276.1%

67. Belarus -- 273.8%

68. Bosnia -- 271.8%

69. Swaziland -- 268.3%

70. Tunisia -- 267. 8%

71. Bolivia -- 267.4%

72. Cape Verde -- 265.1%

73. Kazakhstan -- 264.4%

74. Honduras -- 263.8%

75. Morocco -- 260.1%

76. Cameroon -- 259.0%

77. Senegal -- 258.0%

78. Uruguay -- 256.6%

79. Samoa -- 250.6%

80. Georgia -- 250.5%

81. Mali -- 250.5%

82. Romania -- 250.1%

83. Brazil -- 247.9%

84. Peru -- 239.7%

85. Costa Rica -- 235.7%

86. Mauritius -- 235.4%

87. Malaysia -- 235.2%

88. Kenya -- 235.2%

89. Jordan -- 233.3%

90. Nigeria -- 226.9%

91. Tanzania -- 223.7%

92. Suriname -- 222.5%

93. Latvia -- 218.0%

94. Albania -- 218.0%

95. Libya -- 215.9%

96. Serbia -- 214.4%

97. Montenegro -- 214.4%

98. Russia -- 213.9%

99. Guatemala -- 210.7%

100. Lithuania -- 210.3%

101. Slovakia -- 206.1%

102. Poland -- 205.2%

103. Iraq -- 202.4%

104. Zambia -- 198.7%

105. Belize -- 195.8%

106. Taiwan -- 194.8%

107. Benin -- 194.0%

108. Botswana -- 193.8%

109. Somalia -- 193.7%

110. Estonia -- 191.5%

111. El Salvador -- 189.5%

112. Kiribati -- 187.0%

113. Fiji -- 187.0%

114. Czech Republic -- 186.6%

115. Ecuador -- 186.4%

116. Angola -- 186.1%

117. Turkey -- 175.8%

118. Cote d'Ivoire -- 166.4%

119. Chile -- 164.3%

120. Barbados -- 162.4%

121. Oman -- 161.7%

122. Croatia -- 159.7%

123. Panama -- 156.7%

124. Mexico -- 153.5%

125. Hungary -- 153.3%

126. Maldives -- 153.0%

127. American Samoa -- 152.8%

128. Venezuela -- 152.8%

129. Malta -- 151.4%

130. Gabon -- 145.4%

131. Bahrain -- 144.4%

132. Northern Mariana Islands -- 142.1%

133. Trinidad/Tobago -- 139.1%

134. Dominica -- 137.6%

135. South Korea -- 137.4%

136. Israel -- 137.3%

137. Hong Kong -- 135.7%

138. Yemen -- 135.0%

139. Jamaica -- 133.5%

140. CAR -- 132.6%

141. Saudi Arabia -- 131.2%

142. Brunei -- 124.7%

143. Slovenia -- 122.9%

144. Micronesia -- 119.4%

145. UAE -- 118.0%

146. Portugal -- 117.8%

147. Singaore -- 114.4%

148. Greece -- 113.6%

149. Lebanon -- 110.0%

150. Comoros -- 109.7%

151. Cyprus -- 109.2%

152. New Zealand -- 107.8%

153. Canada -- 107.3%

154. San Marino -- 106.8%

155. East Timor -- 106.0%

156. Bahamas -- 105.6%

157. Saint Lucia -- 105.0%

158. Australia -- 103.7%

159. Virgin Islands -- 101.6%

160. Cuba -- 101.4%

161. Spain -- 101.4%

162. Macau -- 99.5%

163. Congo (Rep. of) -- 97.7%

164. Italy -- 97.5%

165. Luxembourg -- 97.3%

166. Grenada -- 96.9%

167. Isle of Man -- 93.5%

168. Belgium -- 92.0%

169. Austria -- 91.6%

170. Germany -- 90.8%

171. Guam -- 90.2%

172. Kuwait -- 89.8%

173. Djibouti -- 88.2%

174. Finland -- 87.9%

175. Ireland -- 87.6%

176. France -- 87.3%

177. Qatar -- 87.1%

178. Seychelles -- 86.7%

179. Japan -- 86.3%

180. Palau -- 85.9%

181. Netherlands -- 85.7%

182. UK -- 81.6%

183. Iceland -- 81.1%

184. Vanuatu -- 81.0%

185. Saint Vincent -- 79.9%

186. Marshall Islands -- 79.9%

187. Norway -- 79.5%

188. Denmark -- 77.8%

189. Sweden -- 77.1%

190. Niue -- 75.9%

191. Tonga -- 73.2%

192. Liechtenstein -- 71.8%

193. Switzerland -- 65.6%

The comedic role-playing game, Earthbound, has a character commenting a-la 100 Grand that if he discovered a sought-after diamond worth 1 million that he'd move to Japan and live it up. Given that this was in the mid-nineties, when Japan dominated the video game market even more so that it does today, it makes regional sense. But Western Europe is actually the least affordable destination. The Euro's appreciation against the dollar over the last few years has made this even more true. Of course, we're talking about current dollars, not earning potential. Like living conditions in general, the most affordable spots don't offer the greatest prospects (esepcially if you're of European descent--Zimbabwe is #2!).

China and India both offer prospective emigrants lots of bang for their buck (although Bangalore and northern India are, Shanghai and China's rough Western provinces, are both encompassed in the national estimates). Unfortunately, this is antithetical to the US' desire to retain the Asian brains it attracts. Instead, Indian and Chinese tech workers can apply for H1-B visas, live frugally stateside while working for a company like Microsoft, moving back home ten or fifteen years down the road to live like maharajas (the father of one of my brother's best friends did just that--I helped him load up the moving truck last summer).

What about cheap tropical islands? The Solomon Islands are chaotic, and hard to become naturalized in even if you wanted to. Cape Verde? It is a beautiful archipelago and a stable country by African standards. The fishing industry is said to be in an infantile stage of development.

Taiwan is attractive as well. Little crime or unemployment, an export-based economy with a huge trade surplus, and an intelligent population. The PRC looms, but continued trade across the Taiwan Strait means the nation's economic future is bright.

In the Occident? Maybe Hungary? Probably somewhere in the Anglosphere, although these countries seem the least concerned about retaining their cultures and economic competitiveness.

Notice Mexico. Many open-borders advocates try to take a humanitarian position, claiming that Mexico is a destitute place with a victimized population that is trying to flee from so their children (or the kids they'll have once they arrive) won't starve. But Mexico's isn't that poor. Mexicans enjoy a higher standard of living than most people on the planet.

Reference: pickup-for-girls.blogspot.com