Nationality

Over the last few days, the BBC website has had some really interesting pieces on Nationality, and people giving up one Nationality for another.  What I’ve found really interesting has been the motivations for doing so – and how so many of them seem to be financial, of the country they’re no longer resident in making financial demands on ex-pats.  America is particularly hot on this, apparently (<sarcasm>I know, hard to imagine America being fiscally tight.</sarcasm>)

Anyway, it’s made for interesting reading…

• Goodbye, US Passport was the article that started the series
• Twenty ex-Americans explain why – pretty self-explanatory
• Twenty readers who switched nationalities – and then twenty other people, explaining their reasons for switching Nationality from other countries

I’ve often thought about going to another country – I still don’t know if I will in the end or not, there’s a lot of rebuilding to be done yet, regardless – but it’s been interesting to see these knock-on effects that you don’t really think about all that much, and particularly about the ongoing demands of the country you’ve left.