Seriously thinking about leaving the UK - AIBU?

For a long stay visa in France you need just under €22k pa minimum income. For a work visa it’s around €31k.

So you’d need investment of min 750k if not working.

Link to the 22k per annum French programme? Seems crazy if true.

Per annum.

For France you need access to around €22k, that's all

@scorpiogirlyeven your own private island would have issues 😂

Sorry folks but I’m bored now. Can we get back to telling the OP that she is BU?

The OP is talking about emigrating with "a certain level of investment". For most EU countries that means about £0.5m I think. With that level to invest, I think you'll be fine whether in UK or elsewhere. Ultimately you can make that money grow wherever you are and have no reason to leave the UK.

On that we agree - globalisation has been very damaging for workers. I forgot to add in net zero which has left the UK with energy prices 5 x higher than the USA. This is a disaster for everyone but particularly the less well off.

I don’t disagree with the problems you raise, but the rot goes deeper even than that. Fundamentally the globalised market economy run for the benefit of making the rich who own the earth itself ever richer cannot support the large number of people here.

@WaryCrowwhy are other EU countries seeing similar issues in your view?, eg Germany

Why is the benefits system out of control? Where are the jobs for people?

Out of control benefits system, grotesque over spending on Covid, out of control legal and illegal immigration which has depressed wages, hugely increased pressure on housing, health care and other public services.

Fundamentally it’s a shrinking pool of net tax payers and spiralling government spending.

What is the “primary” reason then in your eyes?

@WaryCrow nobody is claiming the economy is performing marvellously and the problems you highlight are of course real. But blaming Brexit and Tory Austerity means that the actual root causes of why for so many, living standards have gone to shit will never be addressed. The problems that the UK are facing are common to a number of other countries.

Brexit and austerity may have contributed but they are not the primary reason for the current situation.

I don’t think the messages from above about ‘the economy is performing marvellously’ matter jackshit when we’ve got children who haven’t got enough food and decent clothing. European countries may be performing better in this regard.

What is ‘the economy’ exactly?

It seems to me that increasingly large numbers of people would be better off as medieval peasants. Much better off under the open field systems with rights to gather fuel held in communal ownership.

I can see some logic in the benefits cuts but I think it should have been approached from the other end. Many, many people are better off on benefits than working, this is so wrong.
I think austerity cutting investment is a massive mistake. Cutting Sure Start for example just loads more costs and problems further down the line. We need investment in public services and massively more council housing with no RTB. This would solve so many problems and long term put more money into both the public and the states pockets.

I do wonder how much the housing crisis, across many 'rich' countries is compounded by democracy itself. In that, most people are nicely housed and don't want more housing. They vigorously oppose development plans and vote for politicians promising no more housing. We desperately need more housing, especially council housing imo and the lack and cost of housing is causing so much human misery and poverty and stopping our young people getting their lives started. But people well housed vote down any mass building at the level we actually need. What to do? The politicians promising no/low development are going to be the ones elected. And its not to do with lack of space, Australia and Canada have their own housing crisis.

Also agree about society prioritising boomers (and I say this as an older person who's been a massive winner) they are a big voting demographic though. I can also afford to buy/give my kids a house each, further entrenching inequality.
I'm not suggesting we bin democracy btw, I'm just pointing out some of the problems.

If it’s Brexit and Tory austerity that is to blame it seems odd that the UK’s economy is performing better than the larger European countries.

I dread to think what state the UK would be in now if it hadn’t been for austerity given record government debt levels and a tax take which is the highest since the end of WWII.

Other countries don’t have our massive overpopulation issue and inequality levels.

Not 'Monopoly Money'. Money that has the same value as what we have now. Not just one country using it. Deleting money at the other end so we don't have rampant inflation.

The problem is we are very low on options right now. ‘A stitch in time saves nine’… most of the issues stem back to the cost of land and housing. If that had been nipped in the bud back when it started, or at any time up to 2016… if immigration and the import of a million every year had been nipped in the bud… if the needs of future training has been looked at: all long before we got to the point of people with nothing having to take on 50- 70k lifelong debt to do jobs offering 28k while houses cost 300k.

I really don’t see any good news where this is going now. As RTB said earlier, the boomer generation have been prioritised and have taken everything. The only thing I disagree with is that the rot started in the early 2000’s, and that marks the beginning of intergenerational inequality historically. 2008 is very late along.

We NEED international cooperation on international financial movement and we need it now. We need those wealth taxes now and an end to the gaslighting about why it’s not possible. There was movement before the Ukraine war - yet another event used as an excuse for status quo to continue.

If I had any method of talking to people with influence, it would be to remind them that no one really benefits out of a complete crash of the sort that marked the end of Rome. A few survivors will get lucky. That’s all.

Just print or make-up more money. That way, no money will have value to anyone.
Say "pretty please" to other countries, and they'll love the Monopoly Money and give everyone their heart's desire.😆

And then we will wake up from our dreamy nightmare. 😉

What do you think of Labour’s cuts?

How would we persuade the other countries from which we source every type of raw material we need but don’t already have and every type of resource we can’t or don’t make ourselves, to trade with us? What would our invented money mean to them? How would we give it credibility?