Can I invest in the USA or EU from an Asian 3rd-world country, over the Internet?
Absolutely.  It does highly depend on your country, as US brokerages are stricter with or even closed to residents of countries that produce drugs, launder money, finance terror, have traditional difficulty with the US, etc. It also depends on your country's laws.  Some countries have currency controls, restrictions on buying foreign/US securities, etc. That said, some brokerages have offices world-wide, so there might be one near you.  If your legal situation as described above is fortunate, some brokers will simply allow you to setup online using a procedure not too different from US residents: provide identification, sign tons of documents.  You'll have to have a method to deliver your documentation in the ways you'd expect: mail, fax, email. E*Trade is the best starter broker, right now, imo.  Just see how far you can go in the sign-up process.
In theory, anything can happen, and the world could end tomorrow.  However, with a reasonably sane financial plan you should be able to ride this out. If the government cannot or won't immediately pay its debt in full, the most immediate consequence is that people are going to be unwilling to lend any more money in future, except at very high rates to reflect the high risk of future default.   Presumably the government has got into this state by running a deficit (spending more than they collect in tax) and that is going to have to come to an abrupt end.  That means: higher taxes, public service retrenchments and restrictions of service, perhaps cuts to social benefits, etc. Countries that get into this state typically also have banks that have lent too much money to risky customers.  So you should also expect to see some banks get into trouble, which may mean customers who have money on deposit will have trouble getting it back.  In many cases governments will guarantee deposits, but perhaps only up to a particular ceiling like $100k. It would be very possible to lose everything if you have speculative investments geared by substantial loans.  If you have zero or moderate debt, your net wealth may decrease substantially (50%?) but there should be little prospect of it going to zero. It is possible governments will simply confiscate your property, but I think in a first-world EU country this is fairly unlikely to happen to bank accounts, houses, shares, etc. Typically, a default has led to a fall in the value of the country's currency.  In the eurozone that is more complex because the same currency is used by countries that are doing fairly well, and because there is also turbulence in other major currency regions (JPY, USD and GBP).  In some ways this makes the adjustment harder, because debts can't be inflated down. All of this obviously causes a lot of economic turbulence so you can expect house prices to fall, share prices to gyrate, unemployment to rise.  If you can afford it and come stomach the risk, it may turn out to be a good time to buy assets for the long term.   If you're reasonably young the largest impact on you won't be losing your current savings, but rather the impact on your future job prospects from this adjustment period. You never know, but I don't think the Weimar Republic wheelbarrows-of-banknotes situation is likely to recur; people are at least a bit smarter now and there is an inflation-targeting independent central bank. I think gold can have some room in a portfolio, but now is not the time to make a sudden drastic move into it.  Most middle class people cannot afford to have enough gold to support them for the rest of their life, though they may have enough for a rainy day or to act as a balancing component. So what I would do to cope with this is: be well diversified, be sufficiently conservatively positioned that I would sleep at night, and beyond that just ride it out and try not to worry too much. "I also don't know the specific details for Finland and/or Belgium, however many countries have tax treaties, which generally prevent double taxation (i.e., paying tax in both countries on the same base income). Being that both Finland and Belgium are EU member states, I'm quite certain there's a provision that covers this, and the same would apply: You pay taxes on what you earn while in Finland to Finland, and to Belgium what you earn while in Belgium. All of this is similar to what you presented, however there's also a section where you'd declare how much taxes were paid in other countries. One other thing to note, which will be the determining factor in the above, is whether EU law requires you to change residence to BE for the time you're there. If not  then you'll be paying taxes in Finland the entire time on the entire amount. This comes from an Irish governmental site: ""By working in another member state and by transferring your residence there, you are likely to become ""resident for tax purposes"" there. The definition of fiscal residence varies from one member state to another. You must comply with the laws of the country where you have established your residence. The laws on personal taxation vary considerably from one member state to another and you may be liable for taxation in more than one country. In general, you are subject to income tax in the country where you are living but this may not be the case if you are a “posted worker” – see below. In general, property is taxed in the country in which it is situated but, again, there are variations. Tax agreements have been concluded between most of the member states of the EU, which are intended to avoid double taxation, if you derive income from different countries. In general, national fiscal rules must respect the fundamental principle of non-discrimination against nationals of another EU country.""" You don't have an inherent right to spout hatred wherever you want, free of any consequences. You can, just like everyone else, apply for a permit and protest in a public square. But your rights aren't being infringed upon when private entities decide that your politics and rhetoric are distasteful and incompatible with them. Not all ideas are created equal, and white supremacy is incompatible with a civilized society. By all means, feel free to march down the street carrying racist signs and screaming about (((globalism))) and the deep state, but don't get pissy when polite society decides they want nothing to do with you.    Internet companies have been policing free speech since the Internet was invented btw. Google and Facebook work closely with oppressive regimes all around the world, most notably China. I find it interesting that most people on reddit didn't care about that until they started drawing lines on hate speech in the USA and Europe. "&gt; First, you give this gray topic of Medicare Part-D where Trump promised to act upon, but has yet do anything. Am I right?  If you think the topic is ""gray"" and the issue is Trump ""has yet do anything"" then you haven't put in the time to understand why I think this is an issue.  &gt; Global Warming? It's Trump fault?  It appears you didn't put in the time to understand my issue with President Trump and global warming either.  &gt; Because the Paris Accords, like the TPP, and like NAFTA, and the Iran Deal, etc, etc, etc, are scams to hurt the USA and make the USA pay more. Nothing else.  Oh wow, you have drunk deeply from the Republican cool-aid.  For what it is worth, you are being lied to and manipulated.  There is a lot more (or less in a few cases) to these deals than you have been told.  FYI, when you think the only reason people would be championing a policy you disagree with is that those people are evil, you might want to dig a little deeper.  &gt; Since you are an expert with Global Warming...  All right.  &gt; Who has bigger air pollution, coal power plants, cutting trees, environmental disasters, etc? The USA or China?  Currently?  China, China, USA, USA  Historically?  USA, USA, USA, USA  &gt; ...is it true that deserts are now becoming green?  No, [deserts are growing](http://www.dw.com/en/holding-back-the-growing-desert/a-18620447).  A few spots where plants are now growing in the desert does not change the global trend.  &gt; Most trees in the world, which are in Russia and not the Amazon, are green longer?  It is thought that the warmer temperatures will delay them losing their leaves in fall.  [The warmer temperatures will also kill many of them](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-fate-of-trees-how-climate-change-may-alter-forests-worldwide-20150312).  &gt; Global warming happened before, many times in earth history before the industrial revolution?  Yes, due to [Milankovitch cycles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles) and the Earth releasing methane and CO2.  &gt; Also ice ages?  Yes, again caused by [Milankovitch cycles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles).  We don't expect another ice age for about 40,000 years.  &gt; Oceans did not rise?  Oceans and continents have risen and fallen a lot in the history of the world.  Usually these kinds of changes come with huge extinction events.  &gt; I am not worried about Global Warming. It has negative things, and positive things.  That is too bad because it will will come with about a hundred negative things for every positive.  &gt; Do you have any idea what will happen in the world, 20-30 years from now, when we stop raising cows, pigs, goats and sheep?  That would be great but that won't be enough to stop global warming.  It is also may never come to pass so it is a bad idea to do nothing today expecting technology to fix our problem tomorrow.  &gt; You should be more worried about China and what this country and all its people do the earth.  Maybe so, but then President Trump should be implementing a plan and taking steps to minimize the damage in the future.  Instead he is ignoring the problem and rolling back what few preparations Obama made." "While you’re new or relatively new to this idea then the fitting idea is to perform a little research and primary get conversant in what’s possible with offshore investment opportunities.  I couldn't agree more. A good way to begin this research would be to do an online search for an investment opportunity called ""Royal Siam Trust.""" "In practice, most (maybe all) stock indices are constructed by taking a weighted average of stock prices denominated in a single currency, and so the index implicitly does have that currency - as you suggest, US dollars for the S&P 500. In principle you can buy one ""unit"" of the S&P 500 for $2,132.98 or whatever by buying an appropriate quantity of each of its constituent stocks. Also, in a more realistic scenario where you buy an index via a tracker fund, you would typically need to buy using the underlying currency of the index and your returns will be relative to that currency - if the index goes up by 10%, your original investment in dollars is up by 10%." The total value of the stock market more or less tracks the total value of the companies listed in the stock market, which is more or less the total value of the US economy (since very few industries are nationalized or dominated by privately held companies). The US economy has consistently grown over time, thanks to the wonders of industrialization, the discovery of new markets, new natural resources, etc.  Thus, the stock market has continued to grow as well. Will it forever?  No.  The United States will not exist for ever.  But there's no obvious reason it won't continue to grow, at least for a while, though of course if I could accurately predict that I would be far richer than I am. Why do other countries not have the same result?  China is its own ball of wax since it's a sort-of-market-sort-of-command economy.  Japan has major issues economically right now and doesn't really have the natural or people resources; it also had a huge market bubble a while back that it's never recovered from. And many European countries are doing fine.  German's DAX30 index was at around 2500 in 2004 and is now at nearly 13000.  That's pretty fast growth. If you go back further (there was a crash ending in around 2004), you can see around the fall of the Berlin wall it was still around 2000; even going that far back, that's about an 8% annual bump.  The FTSE was also around 2000 back then, around 8000 now, which is around 5% annual growth.   Many of these indexes were more seriously hurt than the US markets in the two major crashes of this millenium; while the US markets fell a lot in 2008, they didn't fall nearly as much as many smaller markets in 2002, so had less to recover from.  Both DAX and FTSE suffered similar falls in 2002 to 2008, and so even though during good periods they've grown quite quickly, they haven't overall done as well as they could have given the crashes. I used to trade on Nasdaq using a US broker from the UK, you need a way to convert your money into US $s and have the cost of international money transfers. I don’t know if there are any laws in Turkey that will stop you using a US broker.   You are also on your own if anything goes wrong, as the Turkish police will not be interested, and the US police will be very hard to deal with from Turkey. This all depends on Turkey not unplugging the internet on the day you wish to trade on!!! (I used tdameritrade, but it was a VERY long timer ago, as UK brokers are now as cheap, you should also consider UK based brokers as they  will also let you trade outside of the USA.)