a) I would love an ~18 month retrospective on how you feel about your move (financial/logical/geographical) and how it is sitting with you...and I've enjoyed reading your financial analysis on the Berkshire board for decades now, of course

b) I find your reasoning to be arithmetically sound, and aware of the risk environment created by lofty US equities and...let's just call it policy *gestures towards DC*

c) I'm not this bold, when I look at the composite picture. I also ask the question, when I hear folks say that [bitcoin, euros, BRICS alternative to SWIFT, somethingsomething] is going to be the new center of gravity and the dollar is on the out: are markets really going to abandon the common denominator of the dollar for these new or relatively new and generally less regulated and less stable alternatives? (remember, bitcoin is denominated in dollars, which I find very humorous) I apply that to US markets also. Am I going to try and buy the KOSPI instead of the S&P? I casually tried to buy some Hyundai; I find it to be a great company and its PE is dizzyingly low. But just try to buy into a Korean security. I ran this up the flagpole at Schwab a few different ways and they couldn't find a way to do so. And I am sure there is a roundabout way but I still like my protections (even though they seem less solvent and sacrosanct in the last year or two) in federal and state domains. If one of my MYGAs goes insolvent, my state has a guarantee association similar to how the FDIC protects account balances. All states do.

To cut that to a few words...what are the alternatives and do they appeal when risk and difficulty is looked at holistically?

Today I'm about 65/35 US equities/fixed instruments. That is the lowest ratio of my life in securities. I might crank it down lower but it seems fine now. I'm an early retiree and my spend rate on my port was under 2.5% in year one, and probably lower in year two (got a couple months to go).

Now, have I looked at moving to Ireland, Canada, Portugal, a couple others? I have. Hell, there's a non-trivial (but numerically pretty small) secessionist movement in Hawaii. It is not particularly delightful thinking those thoughts especially as my working career was a 35 year arc in the DoD and it is not in my nature to step away from a noble fight.