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>Yes, I am biased as I'm ethnically Portuguese, travel there often enough Ah so you love the old "enjoy visiting the old country on the new country salary" bit

>Yes, I am biased as I'm ethnically Portuguese, travel there often enough Ah so you love the old "enjoy visiting the old country on the new country salary" bit. But what's good for you the occasional visiting ex-Portuguese may not be good for people who actually live there. Portugal is furiously marketing itself to expats (retirees, entrepreneurs, professionals) because their government understands the demographic situation it's in. Stagnant population for ~30 years, but now the natural change is becoming so bad that without immigrants and expats, the depopulation will make any kind of economic growth impossible. A country needs a tax base, and your occasional visits won't do much for that.

adriancr 4y ago
they could reduce level of corruption to find the money and reduce tax burden to keep people from leaving.
- dangus 4y ago
  If tax burden was the driving reason for people leaving, wouldn’t NYC, LA, and San Francisco be empty by now? Yes, corruption is likely a cause of brain drain, I agree with you there, but I have to think that brain drain is a multifaceted issue. Some of these facets are out of the control of the locality entirely. Some examples: West Virginia can’t change the fact that there’s little demand for coal mining. The Midwest can’t change the fact that the manufacturing industry spread out beyond its borders. Vacation towns in Michigan can’t change the fact that cheap air travel now exists to take people to more desirable beach climates. New Orleans can’t change its physical location to be less prone to flooding. I don’t have enough familiarity with Portugal to say what’s going on, but any time I hear high taxes being blamed for widespread issues I get a faint whiff of oversimplified libertarian ideology.
  - zeruch 4y ago
    "I don’t have enough familiarity with Portugal to say what’s going on, but any time I hear high taxes being blamed for widespread issues I get a faint whiff of oversimplified libertarian ideology." Bingo
zeruch 4y ago
"Ah so you love the old "enjoy visiting the old country on the new country salary" bit" No, I enjoy visiting my family and a culture I have always been attached and a part of. But thanks for the patronizing bellendry, it was expected. I'm fine with as much immigration as .pt sees fit. I am not however, fine with what happened to southern Spain, where whole portions of coast turned into "Little Britain" including lambasting the locals for speaking their own language and preferring their own food. A local population (stagnant or otherwise) isn't there to just be a servile convenience for people just because they have means to self-exile there. As to the rest of your moribund commentary...'porra'.

adriancr 4y ago

they could reduce level of corruption to find the money and reduce tax burden to keep people from leaving.

dangus 4y ago
If tax burden was the driving reason for people leaving, wouldn’t NYC, LA, and San Francisco be empty by now? Yes, corruption is likely a cause of brain drain, I agree with you there, but I have to think that brain drain is a multifaceted issue. Some of these facets are out of the control of the locality entirely. Some examples: West Virginia can’t change the fact that there’s little demand for coal mining. The Midwest can’t change the fact that the manufacturing industry spread out beyond its borders. Vacation towns in Michigan can’t change the fact that cheap air travel now exists to take people to more desirable beach climates. New Orleans can’t change its physical location to be less prone to flooding. I don’t have enough familiarity with Portugal to say what’s going on, but any time I hear high taxes being blamed for widespread issues I get a faint whiff of oversimplified libertarian ideology.
- zeruch 4y ago
  "I don’t have enough familiarity with Portugal to say what’s going on, but any time I hear high taxes being blamed for widespread issues I get a faint whiff of oversimplified libertarian ideology." Bingo

zeruch 4y ago

"Ah so you love the old "enjoy visiting the old country on the new country salary" bit" No, I enjoy visiting my family and a culture I have always been attached and a part of. But thanks for the patronizing bellendry, it was expected. I'm fine with as much immigration as .pt sees fit. I am not however, fine with what happened to southern Spain, where whole portions of coast turned into "Little Britain" including lambasting the locals for speaking their own language and preferring their own food. A local population (stagnant or otherwise) isn't there to just be a servile convenience for people just because they have means to self-exile there. As to the rest of your moribund commentary...'porra'.