Holders of F and J visas do pay taxes in the US, though they may also be liable for taxes in their home countries. (Depending on treaties with their home countries, they may or may not be better off than a regular US taxpayer.)
You may be thinking of the rule requiring American citizens to pay taxes over their worldwide income, not only their US income. That rule applies to American citizens as well as permanent residents ("green-card holders"), but generally not to anyone in the US on a temporary visa. That means that someone in the US on a temporary visa will generally be paying US taxes over any income from a job or business they have in the US, but if they have, e.g., income from renting out real estate in another country, that income may be taxed in that other country, but not in the US. Only US citizens and permanent residents are required to report any such foreign income in the US and pay taxes over it, even when they move abroad (with some exemptions).
FATCA is not as onerous as you describe for most regular people. As a US taxpayer (whether a citizen or permanent or temporary resident), you have to report foreign bank accounts that at any point during the year contain more than the equivalent of something like $10,000. That's it. There is no requirement (as far as I'm aware) to report "every single foreign transaction."
You're right that retirement planning can be complicated for immigrants and temporary visitors. Many countries have rules like the US, where you have to pay into the system for a certain number of years before you become eligible for social-security payments in old age. So for many immigrants retirement becomes a patchwork of sources (a bit of social security, a bit of foreign social security, and otherwise savings in whatever accounts are available in the US and abroad.)
For me it's a tool of last resort. For 95% of my day-to-day work, I neither use nor need pomodoro's kick in the butt. But a few times per year these dreaded tasks come up that I just cannot get myself to do in a reasonable timeframe, and in those situations pomodoro sometimes helps, just to get going.
I think 25 minutes (or 20, in some versions) may be the ideal time period to get you started; not to get you to stop. It's easy to convince yourself to shut down your email, not look at any distracting websites, etc., if you can tell yourself that you have to keep it up for only 25 minutes. Once you get going, you may be able to work effectively and without distraction for a full hour, but if the pomodoro period were set to an hour to begin with, you might never have started.
You may be thinking of the rule requiring American citizens to pay taxes over their worldwide income, not only their US income. That rule applies to American citizens as well as permanent residents ("green-card holders"), but generally not to anyone in the US on a temporary visa. That means that someone in the US on a temporary visa will generally be paying US taxes over any income from a job or business they have in the US, but if they have, e.g., income from renting out real estate in another country, that income may be taxed in that other country, but not in the US. Only US citizens and permanent residents are required to report any such foreign income in the US and pay taxes over it, even when they move abroad (with some exemptions).
FATCA is not as onerous as you describe for most regular people. As a US taxpayer (whether a citizen or permanent or temporary resident), you have to report foreign bank accounts that at any point during the year contain more than the equivalent of something like $10,000. That's it. There is no requirement (as far as I'm aware) to report "every single foreign transaction."
You're right that retirement planning can be complicated for immigrants and temporary visitors. Many countries have rules like the US, where you have to pay into the system for a certain number of years before you become eligible for social-security payments in old age. So for many immigrants retirement becomes a patchwork of sources (a bit of social security, a bit of foreign social security, and otherwise savings in whatever accounts are available in the US and abroad.)