Many Wealthy Chinese Exit China

More accounts of wealthy Chinese reportedly seeking safehaven by emigration.

From CNBC.com 

A new report in China shows that 150,000 Chinese – most of them wealthy – emigrated to other countries in 2011. While that number may not seem high for a country of more than a billion people, the flight of China's richest – and the offshoring of their fortunes – could cost the country jobs and economic growth, according to the study from the Center for China and Globalization and the Beijing Institute of Technology.

"The private economy contributes more than 60 percent of China's GDP and it absorbs a majority of employees. So if private business owners emigrate with their capital, it would mean less investment in the domestic market, so fewer jobs would be created," Wang Huiyao, director of the Center for China and Globalization, told the state-run China Daily today.

The fleeing millionaires mainly made their money in real estate, foreign currency and deposits and stocks, among other fields, according to the report. They are mainly leaving Beijing, Shanghai and coastal provinces such as Zhejiang, Guangdong and Jiangsu.

I guess there could be various personal reasons for these. Some may even be cronies or relatives of Chinese officials who may be trying to protect their wealth

But many of the exiting wealthy class appear to be jumping from the proverbial frying pan to fire.

More from the same article.

China's wealth flight, however, has been America's gain. The United States was the top destination for wealthy Chinese in 2011, according to the report. Canada and Australia came second and third.

The report said that the United States had granted 87,000 permanent resident permits to Chinese nationals in 2011. Of those, 3,340 were approved through special investment visas, which allows wealthy foreigners to apply for American citizenship if they agree to invest more than $500,000 on job-creation projects. The program has become largely Chinese, with more than more than two thirds of all of the visas granted going wealthy citizens of mainland.

Chinese migrants to the US will likely be faced with higher taxes, and the prospects of instability from America’s degenerating fiscal and political conditions

Yet recent developments suggest that there has been a ballooning tension between China’s centralized ‘communist’ government and the fast expanding decentralized forces from the entrepreneurship class. The new leaders seem to represent the status quo fundamentally employing the same Keynesian policies.

Eventually either the Chinese government will adapt political reforms to conform to the changes of the economy or that Chinese government will have to reverse the recent economic reforms. Such transition increases the risks of political instability where perhaps fleeing wealthy Chinese could be a symptom

Exodus in Spain: More Foreign and Local Residents Emigrate

Early this year, I posted about the coming European diaspora. Current events seem to confirm on such trends as Spain continues to suffer from an exodus of foreign and local residents.

From ABC.es 

In the first nine months of the year have left Spain 420 150 people, of which 365,238 were foreigners and 54,912 Spanish, 37,539 more than in the same period in 2011, primarily for the Spanish emigration. 

Nationals who have left Spain increased by 21.6 per cent from the 45,161 who were between January and September 2011 to 54,912 this year, according to current population estimates published on Monday that the INE. The net migration-the difference between people coming and going, which was less than 137,628 people, of which 25 539 112 089 Spanish and foreign-and for the first time has been negative for the Spanish in all the Autonomous Communities.

As previously pointed out such dynamics are cumulative symptoms of the manifold policy failures in providing economic opportunities from the rampant interventionism by European governments such as Spain.

A Global Migration U-Turn?

In the past, people from developing countries flocked to developed nations mostly to find greener pastures. Such flow of migration caused controversial social issues as the mythical “brain drain”, “immigration restrictions” and etc..

As pointed out before, this trend seems to be in reversal.

From Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, (bold highlights added) [hat tip Sovereign Man]

It is a telling little indication of how the world is being subtly turned on its head, amid the rolling crises. During the past five decades, if anybody has been packing their bags to travel overseas to send remittances home, it has typically been the Brazilians, or other “emerging markets” peoples, not the developed Europeans. In recent years, Spain and Portugal have been pulling in vast quantities of migrant workers, both skilled and unskilled, as Poles and other eastern European workers have flooded to places such as the UK and Ireland. America has sucked even larger numbers of migrants, not just from Brazil but from other parts of South America. A couple of months ago, for example, the Pew Hispanic Center (PHC) in America released a fascinating report which calculated that 12 million immigrants have moved from Mexico to the US in the past four decades alone, to seek jobs and cash. “The US today has more immigrants from Mexico alone – 12.0 million – than any other country in the world has from all countries of the world,” the PHC report observed, noting that in absolute terms “no country has ever seen as many of its people immigrate to this country as Mexico has in the past four decades.”

Yet these days the most fascinating detail of the PHC report, which echoes that Boston lunch, is that a change is afoot. Last year “the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped and may have reversed,” it says, for the first time since records began.

Part of the explanation is “the weakened US job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations,” along with “the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings and the long-term decline in Mexico’s birth rates”. But another issue is the improved “broader economic conditions in Mexico”. Life south of the border, in other words, is no longer quite as grim as it was before, or not relative to the risks of moving to the US.

Sadly, there is surprisingly little comparable data for other immigration flows. As Ian Goldin, an Oxford academic, has long lamented, the world lacks any centralised system to track migration flows in a timely way, let alone devise policies. Thus we do not really know how many young Portuguese or Spanish are seeking jobs in Latin America now (although Reuters reports that around 328,000 Portuguese hold work permits for Brazil, 50,000 more than last year, it is unclear whether these have been exercised). Nor is it clear how many Poles are returning to their homeland from the UK or Ireland, as austerity bites there; or how many young Irish may now be seeking their fortunes overseas (yet again). While I have recently heard plenty of anecdotes at American dinner parties and conferences about how young American graduates are becoming so disillusioned with their jobs markets that they are moving “temporarily” to Brazil or India, tracking data on that American flux – if it exists – is hard.

The other unmentioned factors are the repressive measures undertaken by governments of developed economies to forcibly wring out resources from the private sector, only to transfer them to crony or pet industries of the political class, that has led to sharp deterioration in investments and thus reduced employment opportunities.

Such is aside from the explicit policies of currency devaluation (or inflationism) by developed nations, that has caused boom bust cycles and thus reduced their respective standards of living. Example, the net worth of US families fell by almost 40% between 2007-2010

A reversal of the poor to rich global migration trend are manifestations of the wealth convergence dynamic.

Quote of the Day: Importance of Human Capital

How important is this human capital? According to recent estimates, the stock of human capital is over $750 trillion. According to a research report from JP Morgan called “U.S. Recession and Repression Are Only in Our Minds,” this is much greater than the roughly $70 trillion of physical and financial assets owned by American households.

As important as human capital is to economic success, it is not evenly distributed around the world. There is ample human capital already in the United States, but there are also enormous stocks of human capital—and potential capital—found overseas.

That’s from Nick Schulz who argues for the opening of skilled immigration in the US. [hat tip Professor Arnold Kling]

The way to enhance human capital is through economic freedom.

Economic freedom is not just about trade freedom, but also of freedom of movements (or social mobility)—where people can choose places on where to live and work or do business.

A liberal migration environment provides greater chances for people to discover on their abilities and to work on these for them to realize their fullest potentials as productive citizens.

And increasing human capital translates to a deepening society’s division of labor which should mean better chances to attain economic prosperity, as well as, social stability.

Also a liberal migration environment that would allow people to vote with their feet, would compel governments to become competitive and increasingly foster receptiveness to civil liberties which likewise reduces repressive political actions.

Japan to Ease Requirements for Foreign Workers

I’ve been saying that the current unsustainable demographical trends in Japan will require the liberalization of migration policies which would allow inflows of foreign workers to offset the nation’s swiftly declining fertility rate (negative population growth).

Chart from Wikipedia.org

So far, rigid bureaucratic requirements has posed as a stumbling block, but this seems likely to change.

From Japan Times,

Non-Japanese applicants hoping to become certified nurses could see the government's notoriously rigorous exams get easier with the inclusion of English-language tests and a new set of communication exams based on basic Japanese.

Non-Japanese hoping to become care workers took the certification test for the first time Sunday, while those aspiring to become certified nurses have been applying for the exam since fiscal 2008.

But the low pass rate is prompting the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to consider changing the system.

As I wrote last year

I’d bet cultural inhibitions extrapolated through politics will eventually pave way to embracing reality.

And reality check translates to policy changes.

Migration Trends: The Coming European Diaspora?

Past performance does not guarantee future results. This is not just about Wall Street, as long term trends do change in many aspects of social activities.

Take migration trends, what used to be popular—where citizens of emerging markets migrate to western nations—could now be in a process of reversal: Western people are leaving for Emerging Markets. 

After all, what usually drives social mobility is the search for greener pasture or about following the money.

We get this clue from this Wall Street Journal article (hat tip Bob Wenzel)

Economic distress is driving tens of thousands of skilled professionals from Europe, and many are being lured to thriving former European colonies in Latin America and Africa, reversing well-worn migration patterns. Asia and Australia, as well as the U.S. and Canada, are absorbing others leaving the troubled euro zone.

At the same time, an influx of Third World immigrants whose labor helped fuel Europe's growth over the past decade is subsiding. Hundreds of thousands of them, including some white-collar professionals, have been returning home.

The exodus is raising concern about a potential long-term cost of the economic crisis—a talent drain that could hinder the euro zone's weakest economies as they struggle to climb out of recession.

Talk about talent drain or brain drain is utter nonsense.

As the WSJ reports, the principal reason for the reversal of migration trends has been because of the lack or absence of economic opportunities. And this has been because of excessive welfare state, interventionism, bailouts of pet industries of politicians and boom bust policies which has been consuming capital and diverting resources to non-productive activities.

In short, brain or talent drain are symptomatic of failed government policies. 

More account of people in Europe voting with their feet, again from the same article.

During a prosperous decade that ended in 2008, Spain welcomed one of the world's biggest waves of immigrants. Foreign workers poured in at a rate of 500,000 per year to boost its construction and service industries, making the country Europe's prime destination for new arrivals.

Last year, with unemployment topping 20%, Spain became a net exporter of people for the first time since 1990, according to Spain's National Statistics Institute. Some 55,626 more people left the country in the first nine months of last year than arrived, the institute said.

Spaniards are scattering to better-off European countries and beyond, particularly to Latin America. Of the estimated 37,000 Spanish citizens who left the country in 2010, nearly 60% emigrated to countries outside the European Union.

At least 100,000 of Portugal's 11 million citizens moved abroad in 2011, after a decade of anemic growth and rising debt in Western Europe's poorest nation. In Africa, Angola's burgeoning economy has absorbed 70,000 Portuguese since 2003, according to the government-backed Emigration Observatory in Lisbon.

The number of Portuguese in Brazil on work-related visas shot up by 52,000 in the 18 months through June 2011.

Brazil is profiting from Europe's decline. It is wooing foreign engineers and other construction-related specialists to help carry out housing, energy and infrastructure projects for which the government has budgeted $500 billion through 2014, more than double Portugal's annual gross domestic product.

As one can observe what seems as a talent drain for Europe is now a talent gain for emerging markets.

People respond to changes in the environment and the political economy without directions from the government. Instead they are reacting to failed policies.

And allowing for social mobility will only force governments to compete for the most productive members of any society, as well as, force governments to become more competitive by embracing economic freedom. But of course this would be bad news for politicians, their cronies and their media cohorts..

Finally, the north south migration trends could just be the beginning

More from the same article…

With Europe's crisis and Brazil's boom, migration patterns are shifting again.

Brazilians are coming home in epic numbers. The government estimates that nearly half the country's émigrés have returned—from more than 3 million Brazilians living abroad in 2007 to fewer than 2 million today.

Again more evidence of the deepening wealth convergence dynamic borne out of globalization and the ballooning forces of decentralization relative to the baneful effects from the decadent welfare state.

Interesting times indeed.

Migration Twist: Many Britons Desire Relocation While Filipinos Want To Stay Home

It would seem as no news for us to hear people from developing nations yearn to emigrate to developed nations mostly to seek greener pastures.

For instance, the Philippines has been a major exporter of labor or manpower (OFWs), thus the popular desire by locals to work or move permanently abroad has been embedded into my expectations.

Yet recent surveys appear to contradict this—only about 1 in 10 Filipinos, according to ABS-CBN, say that they would like to migrate to another country. This has been significantly down from about 3 in 10 in 2006. The apparent optimism has been reportedly associated with high expectations on the political economy from the new political administration.

But what surprised me most was this poll from Gallup which reported that in UK, 1 in 3 Britons wanted to migrate to another country. (see below chart from Gallup)

Gallup says that this hasn’t been related to the recent crisis, where “high level of desire to migrate permanently cannot be attributed to the recent global economic crisis or the country's own recession”

And it’s not just the UK, although she ranks the highest, but also among major European contemporaries, as Germany (21%), France (23%), Sweden (19%), Netherlands (18%) and others, all of which registered high levels of desire to migrate.

For Britons, the target places for relocation are Australia, Spain, US and Canada.

While the local survey may not square with Gallup’s survey, enough for me to make a strong conclusion, I suspect that such developments appear to be indicative of a twist: people from developed nations could likely help deepen the globalization of labor or population mobility worldwide.

Importantly, this shows how people’s reaction could be fickle and can’t be aggregated and that meaningful changes could be happening at the fringes.

Nonetheless, it’s a development worth monitoring.

The Brain Drain Nonsense

In reading media, it’s just amazing how incurably specious their treatment of social issues are.

Take for example the recent issue on supposed “brain drain”. It’s been emphasized that the Philippines appears to be helpless in the exodus of manpower as a result of demand from abroad.

This from the Inquirer.net,

Scientists, engineers, doctors, IT specialists, accountants and even teachers are among the English-speaking talent heading to foreign lands, leaving the government and private companies scrambling to find replacements.

"There is a skills haemorrhage. We are losing workers in the highly professional and skilled categories," Vicente Leogardo, director-general of the Employers' Confederation of the Philippines, told Agence France-Presse.

While they (government and business groups) don’t exactly say it (as this would construed as politically incorrect since OFWs are now an important political force!), the undertone suggests that these should be stopped. How? By Fiat!

I may be wrong but the following seems to be a clue.

More from the same article, (emphasis mine)

The government has been seeking ways to upgrade salaries and benefits, according to Myrna Asuncion, assistant director of the government's economic planning department.

"But local salaries can only go up by so much before they start hurting the competitiveness of local industries," Asuncion told AFP.

"We want to provide employment opportunities in the Philippines but there are some sectors that say salaries are already too high," she said.

You see the problem?

On the supply side, these anecdotes only reveal that the government and Filipino companies are “afraid” or "reluctant" to engage in market competition by paying market rates for these skills. With foreign companies willing to pay local skilled workers enough to tilt the latter’s (cost benefit tradeoffs) choice, thus, they decry the “brain drain”.

In short, this is simply demand and supply or Economics 101 at work.

Of course, media, politicians and their coterie (business interest groups, politically blind academicians and experts) loathe demand and supply. They believe in Santa Claus or free lunch economics.

And here are very important factors which they don’t say:

From TradingEconomics.com

First of all, they don’t tell you that the lowered standards of living have been the result of past collective policies that has resulted to inflation or the loss of purchasing power of the Peso.

Over the years, this has significantly contributed to the reduction of competitiveness. Think capital flight.

Chart from the BSP

Next, they don’t tell you that a lower Peso (falling from an exchange rate against the US dollar at 2 in the 1960s to 55 in 2005) doesn’t necessarily fuel an export-industry boom.

So policy manipulations (such as welfarism) to diminish the Peso’s worth only sustains distortions in the economic system, via protectionism -which favors select political groups (think cronyism). And these exacerbate the outflows of labor force.

In other words, protectionism is mostly a zero sum game and hardly contributes to goods-services value formation.

Chart from the OECD

Another, from the demand side, the demographic imbalances or falling fertility rates in developed economies will sustain the need for labor manpower from emerging markets. And the Philippines given the current political economic setting is likely to be a major participant for a long time.

Importantly, with increasing technology based globalization, skilled jobs will be a major contribution to the “labor” aspect of globalization.

Chart from the TradingEconomics.com

Essentially the so-called “brain drain” is a symptom of an underlying disorder.

And one of the primary variable is lack of desire to compete.

So even at relatively low wages (compared to OECD), the market’s response to price signals set by the downtrodden Peso have been undercut by the regulatory, bureaucratic, legal, (property rights) and tax environment.

According to Trading Economics, ``The Ease of doing business index (1=most business-friendly regulations) in Philippines was reported at 141.00 in 2008, according to the World Bank. In 2009, the Philippines Ease of doing business index (1=most business-friendly regulations) was 144.00. Ease of doing business index ranks economies from 1 to 181, with first place being the best. A high ranking means that the regulatory environment is conducive to business operation.”

The Philippines is shown as one of the world’s least business friendly environments in the world, thus, resonating the signs of refusal to adjust to the global market climate. Instead, these interest groups seek political cover—which doesn’t change the nature of economics.

Finally, it’s equally nonsense to imply that brain drain will suck out the heck out of our skilled workers. This will only be true if you think the Philippines is immune to the basic laws of economics.

Why?

Because price signals say supply will adjust to demand!

Chart from TradingEconomics.com

Exploding remittances and net migration trend reveals how these dynamic would unfold.

The fertile population of the Philippines should “naturally” respond to these dynamic by having more Filipino youth take on more specialized courses that would meet global demand. Hence restrictions on these adjustments should be avoided.

Unless Filipinos are daft, which I don’t think we are, except in the eyes of politicians and media, I trust that the law of economics would prompt “brain drain” to result to a net positive benefit for the Philippine society, because it is a purposeful choice made by millions of individuals (our countrymen) in response to the current environment.

If we truly want to reverse “brain drain”, then we need to build capital.

And how do we that?

By sloughing off protectionism, cronyism, paternalism and embracing competition, free trade and economic freedom.

As Ludwig von Mises once wrote,

Under a system of completely free trade, capital and labor would be employed wherever conditions are most favorable for production. Other locations would be used as long as it was still possible to produce anywhere under more favorable conditions. To the extent to which, as a result of the development of the means of transportation, improvements in technology, and more thorough exploration of countries newly opened to commerce, it is discovered that there are sites more favorable for production than those currently being used, production shifts to these localities. Capital and labor tend to move from areas where conditions are less favorable for production to those in which they are more favorable.

That’s what media and the mainstream won’t likely tell you.

Update:

Outside business administration the major growth area in Philippine education is practically where the skilled exports has been taking place (red arrows)--namely, Medical Sciences (strongest), Math and computers sciences and engineering (growing but variable), that's from NSCB data (see below)

Bottom line: The law of economics works!

Demographic Nightmares 2

George Magnus writes,

``capitalism rewards scarcity, and as labour supply fades relative to the availability of capital, returns will shift towards the former...

Huh?

If capitalism rewards scarcity then why at all risk precious capital to invest in order to produce?

What could Mr. Magnus be smoking?

Capitalism is an economic or resource distribution system which operates on the platform of property rights, voluntary exchange, and the profit and loss system in a world of scarcity. And the reason capitalism exist is to satisfy the unease or the pain of consumers from scarcity, hence the incentive to invest to produce.

I am reminded that once we argue using false premises then the conclusion would obviously wrong.

Mr. Magnus is apparently anxious about the world’s demographic trends echoing Pimco’s Bill Gross [see William Gross’ Demographic Nightmare]

His concern is that a smaller labor force would result to reduced corporate earnings and a lower economic growth. Hence, he recommends numerous “policy levers” or interventions to solve these predicaments.

Yet how valid is this?

True, the global rate of population growth has been falling as shown above, but it is still mostly positive (ex- Japan).

However, what is not seen is that the crucial reason why the rate growth has been falling is due to the relatively high nominal levels of world population which has already reached 6.697 billion (!), in 2008, according to the World Bank.

Another important variable in the present global demographic trends is that while population growth rate has slowed in developed economies, the bulk of the growth now comes from emerging markets.

Chart from Oppenheimer Funds

The implication is that this puts to risk the cumbersome welfare system of developed economies, aside from crimping “aggregate demand” (we dealt with this earlier).

Although I would be agreeable to one of Mr. Magnus’ suggestion that changes be made in the welfare system, I’d take a more radical approach.

Since it is to my opinion that welfare systems signify as unsustainable political PONZI programs that had been designed to buy votes of the population and to keep people dependent on politicians, welfare systems should be phased out or trimmed to the essentials.

The reduction or elimination of which would entail diminished financial burdens for the future generations, which should allow our children more room to deploy resources to their interest or pleasure, thereby reduce the barriers to investments.

This should also instill the culture of savings and personal responsibility and importantly advance the cause of personal liberty—where lesser redistribution translates to more efficiency of resource allocation and freedom of choice.

And there is another possible solution which could compliment this: ease immigration barriers to allow for free movement of people or enhance social mobility.

So globalization shouldn’t be limited to trade and finance, but also to migration flows, which at present constitutes only an estimated 3.1% of the global population, according to the International Organization For Migration (IOM).

These two structural reforms will greatly ease the concerns over reduced economic and corporate earnings growth, thus, needing less government activist (boom-bust) policies which would only worsen whatever demographic nightmare envisaged by interventionists.

Global Migration Trends: Youth And Least Educated Prefers US, US Expats Think Otherwise

Gallup's article on global migration trends, which involves some 700 million people (nearly 10% of global population) and growing, reveals that the US still remains as the most desired destination among 15 nations that attracted most (500 million or 70%) of the migration flows.

What piqued my interest is that Gallup imputes the 'youth and the least educated' as having to prefer the US as the ideal place for relocation, in contrast to the second ranked Canada.

From Gallup:

Together, the number of potential migrants who would like to move to the United States, which represents 24% of adults who would like to move overall, and Canada, which represents 7%, make Northern America the most desired region to move to in the world. But individually, both countries appeal to people from different parts of the world. Gallup finds the U.S. appeals more to the youngest and least educated adults, while those who choose Canada are on average slightly older and more educated. (bold highlights mine)

And interestingly, people from Asia and Africa appear to be the sectors most in favor of the US.

In a choice between the US and Canada, I'd also be in the minority camp. But if I would be granted the opportunity to relocate I would choose as my priority one of Asia's key financial centers Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, or perhaps even Australia or New Zealand as alternatives. That should make me stand opposite to the conventional wisdom as posited by the polls.

Well, various forms of perceived opportunities constitute that the incentives to relocate. Here is Gallup again,

``The United States and Canada attract potential migrants for various reasons -- personal, political, or economic -- but opportunity is the common, overarching theme. People may see moving to these countries as a chance to reunite with family members who have already moved, to find jobs, or to provide better lives for their children. Immigration policy and migrant policy, too, could play a role in the talent each nation attracts. Health and social services available to them as newcomers, and their future benefits as citizens, may be yet another factor."(bold underscore mine)

Again I would be in the opposite camp, as political and economic opportunities, for me, appear tilted to the East more than the West, especially if America's "gradualist" political trend to emulate Europe's social democracy is likely to get entrenched which obviously would have unfavorable ramifications on both her financial balance sheets aside from diminishing civil liberty or personal freedom.

The Greece crisis seems merely a prologue of the gamut of ailments that will plague these welfare states. Yet America's leadership seems steadfastly navigating her political economy into the same trap.

And a growing number of Americans appear to be renouncing their citizenship seemingly shares this view.

From the New York Times (bold emphasis mine),

``The Federal Register, the government publication that records such decisions, shows that 502 expatriates gave up their U.S. citizenship or permanent residency status in the last quarter of 2009. That is a tiny portion of the 5.2 million Americans estimated by the State Department to be living abroad.

``Still, 502 was the largest quarterly figure in years, more than twice the total for all of 2008, and it looms larger, given how agonizing the decision can be. There were 235 renunciations in 2008 and 743 last year. Waiting periods to meet with consular officers to formalize renunciations have grown.

``Anecdotally, frustrations over tax and banking questions, not political considerations, appear to be the main drivers of the surge. Expat advocates say that as it becomes more difficult for Americans to live and work abroad, it will become harder for American companies to compete.

``American expats have long complained that the United States is the only industrialized country to tax citizens on income earned abroad, even when they are taxed in their country of residence, though they are allowed to exclude their first $91,400 in foreign-earned income."

More...

``Stringent new banking regulations — aimed both at curbing tax evasion and, under the Patriot Act, preventing money from flowing to terrorist groups — have inadvertently made it harder for some expats to keep bank accounts in the United States and in some cases abroad.

``Some U.S.-based banks have closed expats’ accounts because of difficulty in certifying that the holders still maintain U.S. addresses, as required by a Patriot Act provision."

I find the articles' incoherence in suggesting that taxation isn't a political problem, when it notes that the primary incentive in relinquishing citizenship has been out of onus of regulatory and taxation compliance.

Taxation and regulation is a product of politics, so how can these not be related? For instance, $1.42 trillion in fiscal deficits in 2009 to "save favored sectors", which would obviously leads to higher taxes in the future isn't about politics?

Going back to the original topic, while the US of A would seem like an ideal place to relocate, this would seem more of a delusion, unless we see a dramatic around in the current political trends.