Optionality & Survival

Those with mobility survive. Those without absorb everything.

This is the invariant. Every repricing examined, housing, employment, currency, resources, healthcare, pensions, social fabric, geopolitics, divides identically. Mobile participants reposition advantageously. Immobile participants absorb maximum cost.

Mobility is, multiple passports, offshore assets, portable income, remote work capability, liquid capital, minimal jurisdictional dependency, linguistic flexibility, professional credentials transferable internationally, family obligations distributable geographically.

Immobility is, single passport, single jurisdiction, single employer, single currency, illiquid assets, geographically-fixed family, non-transferable credentials, language barrier, insufficient capital for relocation, psychological inertia.

Most people are immobile. You probably are. One passport. One country. One job. One language fluently. Family rooted locally. Property owned domestically. Savings in domestic currency. Career credentials valid only locally. Moving requires liquidating everything, abandoning network, restarting from diminished position. Cost exceeds benefit until crisis makes staying cost exceed leaving.

By then too late. Crisis closes borders. Implements capital controls. Freezes accounts. Conscripts bodies. You're trapped with whatever your jurisdiction does to you.

The mobile positioned differently. Two passports minimum, one by birth, one by investment or ancestry. Three better. Assets distributed across jurisdictions, real estate in two countries, brokerage accounts in three, cash in four currencies, cryptocurrency outside any. Income portable, freelance, remote employment, business with international clients, royalties, dividends from foreign holdings.

When jurisdiction A implements capital controls, they move to jurisdiction B. When jurisdiction B raises taxes excessively, they relocate to jurisdiction C. When jurisdiction C conscripts, they're already gone to jurisdiction D. Always maintaining optionality. Never fully committed to single location. Never trapped.

You think this is wealthy privilege. Partially true. Wealth enables mobility, citizenship by investment costs $100,000 to $1,000,000 depending on country. But mobility possible at lower levels. Digital nomad visa costs $1,000-$5,000 annually. Remote employment enables geographic flexibility without wealth. Portable skills, programming, design, writing, consulting, enable income from anywhere. Mobility more accessible than you think. Just requires prioritizing it over stability.

Most don't. Most optimize for local stability. Buy house, immobilizes geographically. Marry locally, immobilizes through family. Take employer-dependent job, immobilizes through visa sponsorship. Have children in single school system, immobilizes for eighteen years. Accumulate local network, makes leaving costly psychologically.

Each decision reduces optionality. Each commitment increases immobility. You're optimizing for local maximum, comfortable life in one location. Then location becomes uncomfortable. Housing unaffordable. Employment precarious. Currency debasing. Taxes rising. Services declining. Crime increasing. Conflict approaching. You want to leave. Can't. Too many anchors. Too much sunk cost. Too little liquid capital. Too late.

Mobile participants optimized differently. Rent instead of buy, maintains geographic flexibility. Marry someone portable, spouse with remote work or independent income. Maintain remote employment, not dependent on local job market. Minimize local commitments, can relocate in thirty days if necessary. Keep 50% assets outside home jurisdiction, accessible regardless of local controls.

This costs opportunity locally. Renting means no housing appreciation. Maintaining portability means declining some high-paying local jobs. Keeping assets offshore means lower returns sometimes. But preserves optionality. When repricing accelerates, optionality becomes invaluable.

Current moment, repricing accelerating across all domains simultaneously. Housing, employment, currency, resources, healthcare, pensions, social, geopolitical, all repricing faster than populations can adapt. Those who positioned for mobility reposition now. Those who positioned for stability discover stability gone and can't reposition.

You're watching people leave. Colleagues relocating to Dubai, Portugal, Singapore, Panama. Not fleeing crisis. Optimizing position before crisis fully manifests. They see trajectory. They're repositioning while repositioning still possible. Borders still open. Capital still movable. Skills still transferable.

You should consider this. Not advocating abandoning family or country. Advocating building optionality. Get second passport if possible, ancestry, investment, naturalization. Establish remote income source, freelance, consulting, portable business. Open foreign bank account, legal, just requires paperwork. Learn second language, English if not native, Spanish or Mandarin as third. Reduce geographic commitments, rent instead of buy, or buy in portable location.

Each step increases optionality. Each option increases survival probability during reorganization.

Alternatively, stay immobile. Many reasons to, family obligations, cultural attachment, psychological comfort, insufficient resources. Valid reasons. But understand cost. When repricing completes, immobile participants absorb maximum extraction. Higher taxes. Lower services. Reduced purchasing power. Increased surveillance. Potential conscription. No escape when crisis peaks.

This isn't moral judgment. This is positional analysis. Mobility is defensive posture. Immobility is exposure. Some people must be immobile, caring for elderly parents, raising children in stable environment, operating location-dependent business. They're exposed necessarily. Others are immobile by choice, inertia, comfort, underestimating risk. They're exposed unnecessarily.

Nouveau Monde doesn't care about reasons. Only about position. Mobile participants preserve. Immobile participants absorb. Trajectory determined by optionality maintained before crisis, not during.

You're reading this now. Crisis hasn't peaked yet. Borders still open mostly. Capital still movable mostly. Skills still transferable mostly. Assets still liquid mostly. If you're going to build optionality, build it now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.

Or don't. Stay planted. Hope your jurisdiction performs better than others. Hope repricing stops before consuming everything. Hope political faction you support reverses trajectory. Hope mobility wasn't actually necessary.

Hope is not strategy. Hope is what immobile populations have left when optionality gone.

Those with mobility survive. Those without absorb everything. You're choosing which category you're in. Choose wisely. Choose quickly. Window closes.