[lixtra]

You probably read a lot about that 90% of the start-ups fail. So consider your options and propabilities of success.

a) Try to legally migrate to a first world country. Given your background the chances are very slim. Your best chance is probably to find a western partner willing to marry you.

b) Illegally migrate to another country. This is very difficult for the countries you mentioned because you have to cross an ocean. Illegal immigration into Europe is possible but 1,000 USD is not enough. From what I read you would need about 10,000 USD. It also comes with certain risks. About 0.1-3% of the migrants die during the journey depending on the route. Many get abused on the way. Do you want to play this kind of Russian roulette? Assuming that you have the money and you are willing to take the risk, your chances are not that bad, probably above 30% to make it within a year. If you make it, a lot of things will be better, but a lot of other things will be much worse than you expect. Your chances to be better off than the median are very slim. Most likely you will be sourended by 90% people being better off than you. If you work hard, chances for your children are much better though.

c) Migrate within your country to a better comunity. This should be feasable, even though you seem to have only about a few month of savings. Maybe you find a better comunity in your own country? This has many advantages over above options. You stay within your own language and culture, you can continue to use your existing network and you can easily reverse your move if the new community turns out worse than expected. I would assume, this option has the highest success rage. If you succeed here another option may open at a later point with higher success probabilities.

[richsaunders]

I am not thinking about starting a business or founding start-up. I just want to move to a better place. I honestly don't like my country.

> b) Illegally migrate to another country.

Well, I don't want to break the law. If I have a chance I want to move legally. But as you can say, given my background the chances are very slim.

> c) Migrate within your country to a better comunity. ... If you succeed here another option may open at a later point with higher success probabilities.

I think this is what I am going to do. I don't know how long does it take to make enough money to get out of here, but I'm going to try.

I actually run a small printing business where I make enough money. The bad news is, I don't have any machine or employee, so if I am moving to another city, it'll be hard for me to run my business. The good news is all my customers are coming from the internet, we never meet, and they do repeat order.

Thank you for your reply!

[seer]

I can simpathise with your desires and calculations - I’ve been there myself. While the country I’ve lived in (part of the USSR) was not that bad, back when the change was happening it really felt like the only rational decision was to flee west.

Due to some unfortunate buerocratic mishaps I was forced to stay. And 20 years later here I am - still in the same country, while companies are offering me to relocate and help me with legal expenses.

After travelling a bit abroad and seeing how life is in the countries I wanted to live in, I know have the feeling thet they all have their own problems, and you get to a pretty awesome standard of living if you stay at your unexpensive place, but get a decent european/american salary. And its totally possible with remote work nowadays.

And while I still think my life would have turned out better if I was able to emigrate back in the day, life here has gotten noticably better, a lot of expats are returning and bringing the culture I desired to be a part of here.

So yeah even if you don’t manage to get out, you can still sharpen your skills, and get to work for some first world companies with a great compensation. And with not that much money, even the lousiest places can be a great place to live.

[AJ007]

I would add, if you remain in your home country, and you aren’t that confident in that countries’ future, keep your extra earnings in foreign currency and assets. That way, you can hedge against getting screwed in the event of a currency crises or revolution. I have contract workers all over the world and I encourage them to do this.

[richsaunders]

> Keep your extra earnings in foreign currency and assets.

Can you give me an example? Like what kind of assets?

[sokoloff]

How does one run a printing business without any machines? Print brokering? Seems like you could do that from anywhere, and not having equipment to move might be an asset rather than a liability.

[richsaunders]

> How does one run a printing business without any machines?

I don't have any printing machine. I got all my customers from the internet, so basically we never met. When my customers place orders (from WhatsApp), I would print their orders from a company who actually have a printing machine, then I just sell it more expensive to make profits.

I already do this for about a year now. I went from $100 to $1,000 saving. Which is pretty good money in this country, I can live with that for 5 months.

> Seems like you could do that from anywhere.

Yes, the problem is I need to find another printing company that doesn't cost too much. I'm already thinking about this actually.

[rhn_mk1]

I don't mean to detract from the general value of this comment, but a nitpick...

> Your chances to be better off than the median are very slim.

Chances to be better off than the median are exactly 50%.

[bspammer]

If you were selecting randomly from the population, yes.

OP would have significant disadvantages that would make them likely to be below the median.

[rhn_mk1]

I pointed it out because the post doesn't make it clear what the sentence means. "The median" is undefined, and to get the implied meaning, there's only one reference: the group of people including the OP. Obviously, it doesn't make sense in this context, but it's never clarified.

Actually, your post also doesn't specify that: median of what group?

[lixtra]

https://www.ft.com/content/022de0a4-54f4-11e7-9fed-c19e27000...

> Up to three quarters of Germany’s refugees will still be unemployed in five years’ time

Conditional probabilities matter.

[everdev]

> Chances to be better off than the median are exactly 50%.

No, if a sample size of monthly salaries is: $1k, $3k, $4k, $10k, $12k

The median is $4k. Achieving better than that may indeed be a slim chance if it represents a level up in seniority. Your background and skills matter.

Also, in this sample size, only 40% are above median. If you measure everyone salary to the dollar, it will approach 50% but never get there. In fact above median will always be < 50% by definition.

[gilbetron]

$1k, $3k, $4k, $10k, median is $3.5k, with exactly 50% being above, and exactly 50% being below. The same happens with any sample with an even number.

[sokoloff]

$1K, $1K, $1K, $10K...

[everdev]

Which is what most national income distributions look like. With the vast majority making below or well below the median income. Hence the fuss about the 1% controlling so much wealth.

[sokoloff]

Well, my series above is a degenerate case.

> With the vast majority making below or well below the median income.

In any case, it's mathematically definitionally impossible for the vast majority of any population to be making less than the median of that population. (It is possible with respect to the average, of course.)

(Even in the above (degenerate) case, there is no member of the series with less than the median value of $1K.)

[tacotime]

As an illegal immigrant? That seems like it could be a considerable disadvantage.

[tomp]

a1) Legally migrate to a better not necessarily first-world country (near Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand come to mind; further away, South American countries might be interesting, like Panama, Argentina, Chile; not sure how feasible that is, but Singapore would be an amazing option). That will allow you to earn/save more money, learn more useful skills, and upgrade your CV to improve your chances of migrating again to an even better country.