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Comment by dsfyu404ed | Hacker News Reader

And assuming the EU's freedom of movement holds eventually people and business will realize this and move there. Then they'll do what everyone else does shoot themselves in the foot by making everything expensive. Eventually the new growth will happen elsewhere and the cycle will repeat.

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> And assuming the EU's freedom of movement holds eventually people and business will realize this and move there.

Most people don't move to a country like Bulgaria just for a job. It's fine when you're 2X years old, can work remotely and have time to get into the culture, language, &c. As soon as you have a serious gf/bf or a family you can forget it. One of my colleague is Bulgarian, he moved to Germany because of corruption, lack of quality school, lack of good paying jobs, and that was in Sofia, not some random small town.

There is a reason why it's cheap and everyone is leaving. Also, people underestimate the personal cost of moving to completely culturally different country, you'll never feel at home there unless you live in some kind of gated community or expat district.

Not feeling at home doesn't really ever go away, you just understand the culture around you better and can fit in better.

> Not feeling at home doesn't really ever go away, you just understand the culture around you better and can fit in better.

True. Would you concede that dependent on one's background/circumstances some cultures might be easier to adjust to?

I would say so, yes! If a Ukrainian national moved to say Russia or Belarus I doubt they'd feel foreign to the land at all.

I wouldn't call this a cycle as much as consolidation. People are moving away from certain areas because their culture requires things which do not exist there anymore and other people with different culture then go there for other reasons. These new people cause some local things to start adapting to the new culture growing in that area.

I guess we are talking about farming families moving to Germany and cities looking for jobs because big industry doesn't exist in the villages anymore and they aren't the business type which can adapt to modern farming and way of doing business. Then there's highly educated people who wish to move away from the city and start doing remote work from some nice countryside or business people from the city who want to start a modern farming or tourism industry somewhere. I wouldn't say this is a cycle because this is one cultural transformation which has been going on in transitioning countries for the past 2-3 decades and not something which is happening every 10 years causing people to move back.

You don't know much about Europeans. You don't know much about businesses either.

What sense would it make for a plumber business or restaurant to move there? None.

What sense would it make for a high tech business to move there? None. No VC, no subsidiaries, and most important, no other business that you need. A hardware start up need tons of expertise from highly skilled suppliers.

Yes, for digital nomads it might work. But so does Panama or wherever.

Being in an EU country is a definite advantage over Panama.

Does that actually work that way? AFAIK the US freedom of movement is mostly resulting in greater and greater concentration... the only non-urban areas that are getting more and more popular are general "nice" (i.e. geographically advantageous) areas, like Florida and ski resorts.

Aren't Californians moving to Idaho and Oregon

The last few years there has been a significant increase in people moving from California to Texas. Texas now has the fastest state population growth rate.

Makes sense - I was in Wimberly about 4 years ago and it was so peaceful and quaint - it was a retirement town. Went over there again about 5 months ago and the downtown was bursting at the seams with cars. Same time of year - you can no longer walk across the street without looking - it's a danger zone now. Filled with hipsters and their wives and 2.2 kids.

No, that’s a common misconception. In reality, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho all suck. Don’t move here, you’ll hate it.

Especially stay away from Boise. Place is a hellhole.

There was an article on HN a few weeks ago about people moving to Boise to get away from the high cost of living in Silicon Valley. Is it a hellhole as in crime ridden or more because there's nothing there?

It's mostly more complicated than that.

I'm not sure I would call Florida geographically advantaged although a lot of people actually like it. (My understanding is taxes also make it attractive to retirees and second home owners.) Lot of growth in the desert Southwest (Arizona, Nevada) and Texas. It's mostly the Midwest that is conspicuously lacking.

[1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/estimate...

Florida (especially south Florida) is very advantageous if you're doing business in the Caribbean area or Central America, maybe even South America.

It's also very nice if you like beaches and the ocean, and don't mind playing dodgeball with hurricanes every few years.

That would be absolutely fine for Bulgaria. They're rightly more worried about not being able to take part in the boom part of a cycle at all.

Interesting that you say that, lets look at Poland. They saw a decrease in skilled workers and young who moved around the EU for better opertunities. This saw many parts of Poland become ghost towns. This got to a head and the goverment in Poland got to the point that they introduced a new TAX system. One comparable to USA TAX for nationals in that it didn't matter what part of the World you lived in or earned your money, you as a national would now pay tax. This saw many return home and Poland is now in many parts a growing area of opertunity, many who left initialy returned to a country much more robust, things had improved and with that, they happily returned and for them - life is now much better than the opportunities that saw them be tempted to leave in the first place. This with other initiatives like scrapping income tax for young, to give them a kickstart and remove the easy temptation to get skilled up and then leave, have made a big difference. Though the aspect of having to pay tax twice upon income, really did drive things home in many ways overall from those I know.

This is based upon many fine Polish nationals I've had the pleasure to know over my years and keeping up with current events.

> One comparable to USA TAX for nationals in that it didn't matter what part of the World you lived in or earned your money, you as a national would now pay tax.

This is not the case.

Can confirm, I'm Polish and it's the first time I've heard of this.

https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2011/12/poland-income-...

"An individual is defined as resident of Poland, if at least one below-mentioned condition is fulfilled:

the individual has closer personal or economic relations with Poland (center of vital interests) or The individual stays on the territory of Poland longer than 183 days in a given fiscal year."

So if you have somebody working abroad, paying tax abroad and sends home money to family, then they are open to being double taxed.

I'm sure there is some better article about all this, but this is what I've been told from Polish nationals a few times and one who was giving up a job in another EU country to move back to Poland, due to this and that opportunities for work had improved greatly from a decade ago when they initially left.

Not anymore. For about 10 years.

Yes, which is odd as only a few months ago was talking to a Polish electrician who was complaining about it, and had a friends over the years go on about it. So there are many conversations I wish I could time travel and go, really?

Sorry for my confusions, though all did have families back home, so may of been a factor or some tax aspect perhaps as I didn't delve. Though did recall reading an article upon the bbc (though had no luck finding it), but that may of been over 10 years ago knowing me at times.

Generally, it works like this (IANAL): when the country one is working with has the necessary legislation regarding double taxation, the tax paid in the country one is working in, is deducted from the Polish tax. Most often, when people leave Poland to live and work in an EU country, they will pay full tax in the EU country they live in and have zero taxable income in Poland. This means one does not even have to file a tax return in Poland. When I left Poland in 2006, the legislation was not in place yet.

I think, can't remember exactly, the legislation was introduced in 2007, I never had to pay any taxes in Poland while working in other EU countries, I filed a zero tax return in Poland only once, as the taxes have been paid in the other EU country.

There are edge cases where one still falls under double taxation but they are regulated by respective country's tax treaties. Details in Polish: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/taxes/double-taxa..., list of treaties per country: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/individuals/personal-t....

The keyword is "center" (though something may have been lost in translation): the same treaty conditions against double taxation exist between other EU countries and what matters is always what is the country you have the tightest relationship with.

Sending home money is definetly secondary compared to pay for bills, rent, groceries, etc in the country you are actually living in.

Croatian tax authority has been trying something similar for people working in countries that don't have a double-taxation-prevention treaties in place. So people working in UAE, USA and other non-EU countries find themselves double-taxed e.g. if they have any property and/or family (spouse and children) back in Croatia, as many do.

This would infuriate me to no end. It's not enough that I'm forced to leave my home because of corruption and other problems? You dare come after me and ask for money? I would give up my citizenship the fastest I could.

You are not really "forced" to leave, you choose to leave, presumably for financial reasons.

This is disinformation. There is no law like this and pretty sure cannot be due to EU regulations. Thankfully.

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