Southern Europeans Flee to Germany

The crisis affected European nations or the PIGS (Portugal Italy Greece and Spain) have not just been enduring capital flight from fears of prospective devaluation by a forced exit, but likewise have seen a mass exodus from residents.

As I earlier pointed out, many European emigrants seem to have opted for emerging markets, meanwhile fresh reports tells us that many others have been flocking into Germany at a steepening rate.

From the Wall Street Journal

The influx of Southern Europeans into Germany has gathered pace in recent months, as a growing number of Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese ventured north to escape deepening recession and growing social tensions.

The biggest increase came from Greece. The number of Greeks moving to Germany jumped 78% in the first half of 2012 from a year earlier, Germany's statistics office said.

In all, more than 16,000 people moved to Germany from Greece between January and June, an acceleration of a trend that began in 2010 after the Greek crisis began. The number of immigrants to Germany from Spain and Portugal was up by 53% for each country.

The trend bodes ill for countries on Europe's southern periphery at a time of worsening economic malaise. Many of those leaving are young professionals with valuable skills. Their departures could have long-term consequences for countries such as Greece and Portugal as they struggle to recover.

"There are absolutely no jobs here—that's the main reason why people move away," said Charalampos Koutalakis, a politics professor at the University of Athens.

Jobs are symptoms of a deeper systemic malaise.

On the one hand, the productive class have been finding diminished economic opportunities from which to go about or to work on, given the political trends of deepening financial and economic repression that has led to the asphyxiation of the business and entrepreneur class

Such includes the risks of the erosion individual savings which has prompted for capital flight—again from the perceived risk of more inflationist policies, the risks of an implosion of the banking system and a wider confiscatory tax dragnet for these insolvent and desperate nations.

On the other hand, the parasitical class have been fighting to retain their entitlements which have been bringing about greater political risks.

Picture from Spiegel Online

Strikes and demonstrations in protest of so-called “austerity” have only been intensifying social frictions that have sparked political violence. This has only worsened the investment climate that has brought Europe down to its knees through a double dip recession.

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money [to spend]" remarked former UK’s PM Margaret Thatcher. This has been the zeitgeist of the social feud in Europe as welfare and bureaucrats bitterly contest with the ruling political class and the privileged and protected (crony) bankers on how to divvy up the residual spoils from an unsustainable system of mandated plunder.

And for the citizens who refuses to partake of political of the struggles, and who may have chosen to stay or who may have been trapped by the inability to migrate, the desire to normalize life have led to a booming informal economy which now averages 17.3% of the euro GDP or EUR 1.5 trillion.

As I have been pointing out, the informal economy seems like guerrilla capitalism operating under business or investment hostile or adverse political landscape

Bottom line: People respond to developing political trends or political risks. A political trend towards economic repression leads to violence, to capital flight, to the informal economy and to emigration.