Smart People Leaving Britain

(London, England) According to a study by the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), smart people are leaving Britain. It's being called the largest exodus in 50 years.

As an analogy, I'd call it a correction, in Wall Street terminology, where people are investors and Britain is a stock. People (investors) are moving away from the stock (Britain) because they see more returns in other stocks (nations). Britain needs to improve its prospectus.

In any event, the rate of departures is alarming. One highly-skilled university graduate left Britain for good every three minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout 2006. Of all the nations in the study, only Mexico had more people emigrate.

The most popular destinations are English-speaking countries such as Australia, America, Canada and New Zealand and holiday areas including France and Spain.

Almost 60 per cent of those leaving take jobs, although hundreds of thousands of retired people live abroad.

The report is a statistical analysis which does not study the motivation for leaving Britain. However, high house prices and taxes and poor climate are frequently cited.

The shadow Immigration Minister said people are leaving due to high taxes and government regulation imposed by a decade of Labor Party rule.

Even so, isn't it odd that so many people want to leave a nanny state and give up all the cradle-to-grave goodies?

Companion post at The Jawa Report.