Monday, November 26, 2007

Leaving The USA...........A Small Trend Getting Bigger?

Here’s an interesting trend: 1.5 million U.S. households are preparing to move out of the U.S. A poll by Zogby Intl. of 115,000 Americans estimated that:
1.6 million U.S. households have already made the decision to leave 1.8 million are seriously considering and likely to leave 7.7 million are somewhat serious about leaving and may do so 3.0 million are seriously considering purchase of non-U.S. property 10.0 million are somewhat serious about purchase of non-U.S. property.
“We are not talking about the next major deployment of National Guard units to the Middle East,” comments Mike Muehleck in Strategic Investment. “In fact, none of the emigrants are government workers or corporate employees leaving for temporary overseas assignments. This is a group of malcontents and adventurers. They consist entirely of private citizens and their families packing up and leaving the USA at their own initiative.
“Why do people leave home for strange foreign lands? While a handful might claim to leave for political or religious reasons, most seek greater economic opportunity. All of my grandparents emigrated from Germany or Lithuania in the early 1900s. My wife's Chinese grandparents emigrated from China to Siam in the same generation. None came because of a burning desire to be ‘free.’ They all came because they wanted to make more money and thus enjoy a better life.”
Which, evidently, is getting harder to do in the U.S. Mike himself emigrated to Thailand years ago.

1 comment:

Fred Fry said...

Gee, I don't know. Hard-core liberals have been 'threatening' to move to Canada since 2000, but only lately is emmigration to Canada growing. In 2005 levels actually dropped off, which is odd since Bush won reelection and Canada's more liberal drug policy. (That too was a reason stated to move up north.)

I also wonder how correct it is to say that it is harder to make a living here, considering that more people than ever now have disposable income.

Surely, there are people in trouble, especially those who played foolish games in the housing market. But, how is life going to get better for them by moving away? They are not going to be any smarter in these other countries?