More people are leaving our fair isle than ever before according to today's news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2154249,00.html
Do you think you'd ever just pack it all in and emigrate? I'm not sure I would. OK, the weather's a bit crap, but the economy's strong, there's plenty of jobs, the music scene is amazing, there's always somewhere great to visit that you haven't been before, and all my friends are here. Other than house prices I don't see much to complain about. Am I crazy?
The front of the Daily Mail (i think) is a cracker today...
584,000 immigrants join our country!!!!!!!!!111
200,000 Brits leave!!!1!!
WE ASK THE QUESTION: WHY?
is the answer
the brits are all searching for some non-racist newspapers?
I'm assuming it's not a dislike of foreigners
Apparently abroad is full of 'em.
:D
good!
In time, I think I will emigrate.
As much as there are things here that I love- friends/family, music (not The Music), football, tv, as someone who's never really going to earn shitloads by working in the city etc, I think I could have a better standard of life abroad.
I also find the UK a bit cramped, the trains and roads are always crowded, and the weather's a bit naff.
Having recently split with a long term gf and had a chance to re-evaluate, I don't feel restricted to living here for the rest of my life. My traineeship contract ends next year, very tempted to get a young persons work visa for Australia or something, and try living somewhere else.
Tax here
is ridiculous compared to alot of other countries.
Can't manage to get to the article, but perhaps alot of the 200,000 leaving aren't "ethnically" British and are repatriating?
and maybe
they are only going for a five year or so period. A lot of people want to live abroad at some point. It doesn't mean they won't ever come back.
A large number of Australians move here, I bet their media doesn't have articles saying 'Aussies moving abroad for better life'.
Exactly.
The answer to the Daily Mail's "why?" is primarily 'cos they can.
It's never been easier to travel or live abroad for a while so I imagine lots of people want to. Next week my brother and his girlfriend move to Spain for two years and certainly I'd like to live abroad for a while at some point too. My Dad spent 4 years living in Paris in his late teens/early 20s and I know he sees it as one of the most valuable experiences of his life.
re: tax
you get what you pay for.
I would emigrate if I had the right opportunity. I spent a year abroad - it is weird what you miss though.
I'm not so sure
its purely anecodatal evidence, but all my friends at uni from abroad pissed themselves laughing at the high tax rates and relatively poor welfare, education and health systems here.
A load of students pissed themselves laughing at us?
Well that's all the evidence I need. I'm off!
Bloody students.
SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE???!
We've lost a national treasure!
laters!
my experience of the NHS
is as good as, if not better than my experience of the Australian and US health service. We don't have to pay for ours either.
Not the best basis for an argument I know
Never needed an medical treatment abroad and haven't been anywhere outside Europe, so don't really know.
But if people feel they can get a better tax deal elsewhere, they might be inclined to leave
the thing is
people here are very good at putting ourselves down. Other countries don't do it way as much as us. We're more than happy to dwell on the bad thing, and there are some things that are bad but we'll never look at the good things.
meh
I rang an ambulance in Germany, and they wanted 100 Euros up front to take my friend with a broken leg to hospital. I was all liek OMG WTF?
Depends how you look at it though
If you'd made the same call in the UK, it wouldn't be that the ambulance was free, but rather that you'd being paying for it all your working life.
PS. I'm not anti-NHS.
anyone
who looks at it like that, is a momo.
Why?
If you pay National Insurance and any income assesed tax, then you effectively pay for medical attention.
well,
we pay NI to ensure that everyone (ie, those less able to pay it) have access to free health care. In the US there's huge numbers of people who don't have medical insurance so can't get health care. Our system avoids that and I'm happy about it.
anyway,
I think our points may be getting slightly crossed here.
Yeah
seems that way! : )
Maybe I'm being dense
but I don't see how that contradicts what I just said. We pay NI to fund medical treatment. No magic pixie pays for it. I don't think this is a bad thing either, it disgusts me to think of Mexicans who are basically slave labourers in the Southern states and Blacks in city ghettos being so readily refused treatment.
your initial point
seemed to indicate that it was preferable to pay for the ambulance up front because it may work out cheaper than paying for free health care for life that you may never use. ie, health care for the individual vs the welfare state. I think that's where the wires may be crossed as I realise we've ended up making the same point!
Ah I see
Nope, I'm all for taxation if its appropriate and well spent.
Just occassionally grinds on me that people think national health comes free when its something virtually everyone works hard to contribute towards.
yes
my 'we don't have to pay for ours either' point was badly made. Sorry.
but they pay more tax than us in germany
those on higher incomes definitely do anyway.
Probably
My point was that medical treatment in the UK isn't stictly speaking free.
I wouldn't have any other system though, strongly believe that everyone should be entitled to treatment.
i want to leave.
the english are a horrible race. ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
oh shut up.
haha
i'm not entirely serious, but i do want to fuck off elsewhere for a while. i'd say that's to be expected though.
yep, it is expected.
I'm pretty sure I'll live abroad at some point in the next ten years. Doesn't mean I won't come back though.
I've just been looking into house prices in Canada:
I could buy a nice 4 bedroom, double garage detached house just outside vancouver for a little over £150,000. Nice.
4 bedrooms?
Is malibu pregnant?
with twins?
thewarn
needs a spare room for his memory boxes.
He could have a whole memory room
the massive looney.
it'd have to be a big room
you know how much memory he's got. A lot. That's what.
he really should
just use his brain to remember stuff like the rest of us.
I think this 4 bed house
is a weekend thing called 'the memory house'.
he really should
just use his etc
I wouldn't
I tried living abroad for a year to see how I got on and I ended up missing so many things that I took for granted. Namely, the incredible arts scene, cultural life, range of quality national newspapers, social freedom and most importantly, the miserabilist sensibility and wry sense of humour.
and the confectionery
and quality tea.
I hope the ferry sinks
and they float to the top like the vacuous tarts they are.
Having said that, I'm going to emigrate to wherever thewarn goes
in his house if at all possible
it's got FOUR bedrooms!
One for me, one for you, one for him and one for malibu.
like some crazy
mega-family
*adams family
I wish to move to another country.
But perhaps not permanently.. Just a very long vacation.
I just crave the experience.
*holiday
Although..
I may be moving to Australia in the next few years. I'd probably return "someday", though.
A work colleague
once seriously opined that he was so pissed off with people coming to the UK to take our jobs and houses that he was seriously considering going to live and work in Spain. Nobody had the heart to question him.
unfortunately I've heard the
same a lot of times.
'They don't even bother to learn English'
'So you're off to Spain? Are you going to learn Spanish'
'No need, I've got a villa in an ex-pat community'