Planning to retire abroad? Ecuador is the top spot for North American retirees, according to InternationalLiving.com’s newly-released Annual Global Retirement Index 2013.

This is Ecuador’s fifth consecutive year at the top of the heap.

This annual Index—now in its 22^nd year–ranks the best international retirement destinations. To compile the ranking,InternationalLiving.com editors collated data from its team of experts on the ground in the most popular countries among U.S. and Canadian expat retirees. Editors assessed factors ranging from the price of groceries and average temperature, to utility costs and the friendliness of locals.

The information was then used to score each of the top countries out of 100 in categories such as “Real Estate,” “Climate,” “Special Benefits for Retirees” and “Health Care.

“It’s designed to help readers compare and contrast what we believe are the best options for retirement abroad in 2013,” says Jennifer Stevens, Executive Editor of International Living magazine.

“Ecuador is such an overwhelmingly attractive choice for retirees overseas today in part because your dollars really stretch there,” Stevens says. “You could live comfortably for $1,600 a month, rent included. The values extend to real estate, as well. A condo right on the coast that might cost you $1 million or more in California, you could have for less than $150,000 along Ecuador’s northern Pacific. We have readers who bought a little mountain place as well as an apartment overlooking the water and split their time between the two. They could never have afforded to do something like that in the States.”

The South American country offers great variety in lifestyle options, she adds. You have sunny beaches, temperate mountain villages, college towns where there are plenty of cultural offerings, and historic colonial cities. “This country rolls out the red carpet for its seniors, as well—offering benefits like 50% off international airfares and cultural events. Plus Ecuadorians are welcoming, friendly, and easy-going. It’s a friendly place to launch an adventure in retirement.”

…..for Country #2 Panama go HERE

Are you sick of being told what to eat, drink, and do? Then this is your lucky day! Here are ten things that people tell you are bad but actually have healthy aspects to them. In future when someone whines at you – you can point them in the direction of this list and have the last laugh! So onwards, the ten things that are healthier thank you think.

#10 Ice Cream

Ice-cream is a low GI (glycemic-index) food. This means that it is a slow sugar release food that keeps you satisfied for a longer period of time than a high GI food. For that reason, you are less likely to binge after eating ice-cream. 75 grams of Ben and Jerry’s Cookies and Cream ice-cream contains only 114 calories compared to a slice of cheesecake with 511 calories. Furthermore, ice-cream is made of milk which contains many essential nutrients and vitamins. 1 cup of milk contains up to 30% of a man’s daily recommended intake. Other nutrients in ice-cream are biotin, iodine, potassium, selenium, vitamins a, b12, D, and K. Studies show a possible link between milk consumption and a lowered risk of arterial hypertension, coronary heart disease, colorectal cancer.

Interesting Fact: In the 5th century BC, the ancient Greeks sold snow cones made with fruit and honey in the markets of Athens.

……for 1-9 go HERE

Rushing to beat Obamacare and gun bans. Americans can’t trust the government not to infringe on their traditional freedoms.

There is a New Year stampede developing that we have not seen for a long time.

Gun stores are swamped with panicking customers. They are looking for handguns, semiautomatic rifles, and as much ammunition as they can afford. But buyers are not just camouflaged hunters, conspiracy theorists, and gun hoarders. Instead, many of those purchasing firearms and ammo are so-called ordinary people, convinced that this administration will soon begin to centrally register — and then ban — far more than assault rifles.

There were probably lots of reasons why Adam Lanza shot 26 innocent children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. But so far the government and media are not focusing much on his prior obsessions with violent video games, on society’s seeming inability to hospitalize the unstable, or on the crude violence peddled in Hollywood and through popular music that portrays shooting people as a sort of cheap fantasy without consequences.

Instead, the administration is zeroing in on the ability of Lanza’s mother to legally buy semiautomatic weapons that her son then stole to murder her and the schoolchildren and employees. The result is a pandemic of fear that the Second Amendment will be reinterpreted and redefined as never before.

There will not be much deficit reduction and certainly no balanced budgets, adding insult to injury for those who must pay the government far more.

The new, higher rates come on top of state-income-tax hikes in much of the country — all in addition to further increases in capital-gains taxes, new Obamacare taxes, and much steeper inheritance taxes. The result is not just a 3 percent to 5 percent increase on the well-off, but for some payers aggregate hikes of 7 percent to 8 percent or even more.

No wonder many companies are rushing to pay dividends now to beat rising capital-gains-tax rates. Likewise, many individuals are considering expensive new life-insurance policies to protect their heirs from losing small farms and businesses to steep new federal estate taxes. Red states will attract even more refugees fleeing high-tax and near-insolvent blue states.

Most Americans are already seeing their health-insurance premiums shoot up in anticipation of the 2014 federal takeover of health care. To pay for the vast Obamacare programs — whose details still remain a mystery for most — money will be raised in all sorts of bizarre ways, from reducing Medicare coverage to taxing new medical devices and some drug makers.

A sense of foreboding hangs over the currently insured. Almost everyone is unsure whether the new federal statutes will still cover currently covered procedures — or whether they will be rationed or curtailed altogether. Expect many people to schedule check-ups and major medical procedures in 2013 before Obamacare kicks in.

There is a common denominator that underlies all this multifaceted uncertainty. Fairly or not, there is a sense that those who played by the rules and did well have instead done something wrong, or at least are under suspicion — and it is now time for their government to seek atonement from them. Worse still is the dread that the government’s new policies and taxes will not solve problems but may make them worse and prompt even more government engineering.

For the law-abiding gun owner, the federal government may make it more difficult to buy legal arms — even though there is little evidence that gun restrictions per se have stopped shootings, and some evidence that states with lots of armed citizens have lower crime rates. If the semiautomatic-rifle ban does not work, what gun will be banned next to stop violence?

Most well-off taxpayers add up their local, state, federal, payroll, and capital-gains taxes and feel they really have paid their “fair share.” They all know that handing over more won’t solve the fiscal crisis, but instead will only empower more government deficit spending. If new taxes won’t stop deficits, what’s next?

Finally, those who budgeted and provided their own health insurance feel that the new restrictions and higher taxes on their coverage are the costs of subsidizing many who could have bought, but chose not to buy, their own health insurance.

The ability of citizens to protect their households, to keep at least half their earnings safe from various government taxes, and to use their own judgment in making health-care decisions is central to a free people. No wonder the fear that a radically growing government will infringe on such traditional freedoms is stampeding millions of panicky Americans in all directions.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2013 Tribune Media Services