Quite frankly if people are happy in the US, I cannot understand why on earth they would go to the trouble of moving home, when it could all change in 31/2 years. 😵‍💫

I’ve been doing my best to ignore the government and just get on with my life, but the garbage the president has been spouting about Ukraine and Zelensky the last couple of days is absolutely terrifying and disgusting. It does make one wonder what this country is going to become—especially for those with young children.

political posts should be deleted (like mine previously were)

Posts about the current political situation in America which are in the US forum are fine, as it’s relevant.

You’re free to express your political opinions as much as you like, as long as it’s within site rules, in an appropriate place, and not hijacking somebody else's unrelated thread.

HTH.

got it. expressing a different opinion to prior posts equals "hijacking'. lol.

That’s not what I said. You can post your opinion in this thread no problem at all, as it’s in the US forum so is relevant to the country and the topic in hand. Your other post was deleted as it was in a different country forum, and the OP had specifically asked that the thread be got back on track so posts about politics were deleted.

Hope that clarifies it. Feel free to post your political views in this thread now and as long as you don’t break any rules when doing so, they’ll remain on the thread. And if you want a really good political discussion, then head to TIO where you’ll find tons to get stuck in to.

Any other queries, please PM a mod, ta.

I deleted your post because you were posting about moderator actions, which is against Site Rule 15. The deletion had nothing at all to do with politics. If you wish to comment on my action please PM me and not discuss it on the forum. Thank you.

I own a house, I have kids still finishing school, so moving back to the UK involves pulling up roots. If it gets really bad then at least I know I could do it, although I have let my UK passport lapse since I got my US one. My wife would need a new visa, no idea how I would go about that after entering the country again. No idea if I could even get money for my current house if everything goes to hell, or if my money is going to be worth much, so buying somewhere new might be tough. So not moving right now, but I've thought about it.

It's all so crazily unpredictable, with Trump literally declaring himself king (he's always joking except when he isn't) and writing executive orders that overrule the constitution and the courts with not enough pushback. Apart from the economy about to head south, we have no idea what wild idea he will come up with next and how he will punish those he thinks have wronged him in some unpredictable way. I don't think anyone foresaw his verbal attacks on Greenland, Panama, and Canada.

As an aside, are you aware that as of 2025, thanks to the UKs version of an ESTA, British citizens are required to enter the UK using a British passport?

They authorized an ETA on my US passport even though I informed them I am a British Citizen and have a current UK passport, so I don’t think it will be a problem for UK citizens to enter the UK on a US passport. I usually use my UK one, but have used my US passport at times.

Thread drift. If you wish to continue discussing Trump/Moscow etc please do so in TIO. Posts moved to relevant thread. Thanks.

President Trump Mark II

Tax law can change any time. Currently of course ROTH withdrawals are tax free, both in the US and UK (per tax treaty). However, converting is usually best done slowly over many years to keep your marginal tax rate low. If I converted all mine in one year, I would be in the the 37% federal bracket plus 12% to CA. So I'm not going to put myself in a 49% tax bracket unless under extreme duress! And then of course, whether its in an IRA or ROTH, it is still physically located in the USA. For best hedging, you might decide you need to keep a chunk of change overseas in different currencies, though it is very hard to imagine a world where the dollar is devalued and/or is not the de-facto reserve currency. But then again, today I read about a brain-storming session at Mar-a-Largo where it was suggested that overseas holders of US debt might be coerced into converting their existing Treasury bonds to zero-coupon 100 year bonds, in order to get better control of the national debt. Now that's outside-the-box thinking, and those kinds of actions might indeed blow up the reserve currency status of the dollar. And all to avoid the obvious problem that taxes and spending need to be brought into line, but tax increases are strictly off the table in a GOP congress. So yeah, weird times.
I've been here 30 years. For those who might not have been here then, in the late 90's Clinton era, the famous 'debt clock' (wherever it was, Times square maybe?) was actually turned off because the debt stopped increasing. So with a bit of analysis, what factors were at play to balance taxes and spending back then, and why can't we do that now?

It will take me a few years to convert all my IRAs without incurring excess tax, and I'd still be left with other retirement investments that are tax advantaged, but once in a Roth you can take any amount out to cash, and since tax was already paid on it I don't see that changing any time soon (hmm, I know). I'm moving some money to UK accounts, too, and thinking of other ways to protect it. I'm not sure social security or tax advantages will survive at all, especially for non-citizens, green card or not.
As for the dollar, who knows. The push by the far right and the tech oligarchy (which is genuinely what they are now) to normalize crypto seems destined to devalue the dollar and take the power of currency out of the hands of the government. That might sound like a surprising aim, but these are very radical people. Read the (long) Wikipedia entry on Project 2025 to see how far they're prepared to go, and have already gone.

Quite simply - an aging population increasing the demands on medicare/social security - same as every other country in the world. The US does relatively well because of it's high immigration levels, we'll see if that continues.

That in combination with large spending initiatives for net zero and infrastructure renewal (Inflation Reduction Act) and tax cuts.

We were there during those years. Got our citizenship in 1998 just before Clinton was impeached. President Bush inherited that budget surplus but then came a series of financial shocks. The internet stock bubble collapsed, the attack on the World Trade Center, two unfunded wars (Afghanistan and Iraq), a huge unfunded expansion of Medicare (added coverage for prescription drugs) and a big tax cut reducing revenues. The debt graph below shows how it has grown, and doesn’t matter which administration was in charge.