<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Apr 18, 2006, at 10:16 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Marta wrote:</DIV> <BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">What is so wonderful about retaining a national identity? Really?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Doug</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">How would you like to retire on the Mexican retirement plan -- get ziltch?</DIV> <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">How do immigrants prepare for retirement?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I'd be very interested in</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">learning about that.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Some of the migrant workers -- say, those who</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">leave their countries as teenagers and never go back home -- pay into</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">only one country's retirement system.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Others have already paid into</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">their home countries' retirement systems for some years -- I did when</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I was in Japan<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>-- and then pay into their adopted countries'</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">retirement systems.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Can those of us who fall into the latter category</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">in the US draw on more than the US retirement system?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Does that</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">depend on whether you retain your home country's citizenship?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>If we</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">can draw on only the US retirement system and lose what we PAID into</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">our home countries' systems, we will be shortchanged!</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Yoshie</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">You would probably be eligible for your work retirement in Japan esp if it was within a corporation's retirement plan. But we are still talking about a nation, the nation of Japan. So if you cannot draw on what you contributed in one country laws should be changed so that one can. That only seems fair. People should not be punished because they work in other countries.</FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">Marta</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>