Thanks, Said, Jim. NZ is certainly worth considering, but that is a decent chunk of change that they ask you tie up in NZ assets of some type. But the fly fishing apparently is incredible, which outweighs many things!
Regarding Australia, here's what perplexity.ai says (with references)
perplexity.ai - What investment is needed to g XV
Also seems like a big chunk of change.
Monaco still seems cheapest in terms of 'downpayment' for residency. Don't know yet about housing/living costs, but there are definite advantages to living in that part of Europe.

A lot of this thread is like a bunch of kids in the woods around a campfire, telling each other ghost stories to scare themselves.
Not at all. I listened to the Tett inverview, read Stephen Miran's paper (Chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisors), and it set my hair on fire, no campfire needed. I posted about it here tedthedog writes on OT: GillianTett Interview on tariffs etc
Jim's subsequent thread, i.e. this one, and the comments in this thread are not the cause of me no longer being hirsute.

Discussion of politics, including the war in Ukraine, are probably too much of a 'hot button' to discuss here and hope to retain the collegiality of this board. There are other boards on which one can debate deeply held beliefs, perhaps posters here could say something like "I've responded to your comment on the 'U.S. policy board' which is here Shrewd'm: US Policy board at Shrewd'm