Moving to Another Country

Most of the decisions you need to make about moving to another country I cant help you with because they are no doubt personal, and I dont know what your desires are. However, there are certain generalities that you need to be aware of.

Funnily enough, the state of the economy isn’t necessarily the most important element in your list of good points.

Think about this for a minute. The state of the economy in Norway is pretty good. However, you try moving there. Life is excruciatingly expensive.

Portugal is not economically well up in the tables. In a sense that is a problem. You try getting stuff delivered. You try buying special things. And why are imports so expensive? And why cant you get people to work for you? There are problems, but life is cheap, and probably relatively peaceful.

Think about it for a minute. Scandinavia is cold for three-quarters of the year. If you have to import energy to keep warm that is going to make life difficult.

Think about the UK for a minute. 80% of its agricultural requirements are imported. Energy has a similar profile. The UK has a population that it cant support. Is that such a good situation?

When I was at school I considered that the best countries to live in were those with a small, relatively well-off population. I have yet to change my mind.

Do note that for the past fifty+ years we have been living in a ludicrously high inflationary environment since western currencies have been cut lose from gold, and governments have been recklessly spending, and making the currency weaker and weaker.

We are at a turning point. Fiat currencies are about to implode in the face of a spectacular era of bankruptcies. Those who quickly and successfully move to a hard currency will be the winners. Those who stick with their tired, worn-out fiat currencies will go to the wall.

What will that do to certain economies?

Fiat currencies versus hard currencies: no contest, the former will get slaughtered. That means if you need lots of imports you will be seriously poor.

Fiat currencies will find they start losing competitive value rather quickly. That will not only impact on the price of imports, but will also find they no longer can support the weight of large, expensive social commitments. Expect welfare states to be at a disadvantage. Under such circumstances you dont want to be dependent upon government handouts.

It increasingly looks likely that Russia will attempt to go onto a gold standard sometime next year. If that turns out to be a success it will be a turning point for fiat currencies. You dont want to be on the wrong side of the financial divide when that happens.

I have been hammering on about this for some time, but the future will favour those who are self sufficient, get their income from a hard currency source, and probably live in a low cost country. The country needs to have a warm year round climate to be able to support the growth of food crops. It ideally needs to be energy self sufficient, and needs to have a small population.

What these simple requirements do is wipe out all of Northern Europe as the ideal place to be. It rules out the whole of Scandinavia, Britain, Germany and Austria, and most of Eastern Europe.

Southern Europe also has its risks, with the illegal invasions from North Africa and Asia Minor. Italy is seriously at risk from immigrants landing in Lampedusa. It’s almost swimming distance from the African coast.

Spain is so close to Africa that parts of it are in Africa, and even I could swim across from Morocco.

Malta is way over-populated. The two main islands are almost one huge city.

On security grounds I rule rule out Turkey, and the Middle East.

The only places left in Europe are the areas which used to be called Yugoslavia, and Portugal.

I rather like Serbia, and have fond memories of living in Belgrade, but it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and it is a long time since I’ve been there. It can also be a rather intimidating place because of the social rivalries which dont seem to want to die down.

Not a very helpful blog issue. It all seems to be negative. Sadly, that is the kind of world we are currently living in. I wish I could do something about it, but I cant. What it does mean is that we have to accept second best when making our decisions.