That’s the headline in a British newspaper today. Germans are fleeing to Poland and several other countries to escape high taxes and bonehead immigration policies. The result is net loss of population that threatens the country’s survival:
The figures showed 165,180 German citizens migrated elsewhere last year, an increase of nearly 10,000 from 2006, with Switzerland, the United States, Poland and Austria the top destinations.
A total of 111,291 Germans returned from abroad, resulting in a net loss of 53,889 citizens in 2007, the third straight year in which more Germans have left the country than returned.
Maybe that’s why you can buy a castle for 178,000 Euros ($274,000). It’s a fixer-upper, though, renovation costs being another 100,000 Euros ($156,000). But that’s still less than half a mil. Not a bad buy, considering that some homes in Trinity Park have gone for that much.
And if things keep going like they are in Germany, the price of that castle will drop. As they say, one person’s misfortune is another’s good fortune.
UPDATE: High taxes, you say? I just noticed that the property taxes on that castle are 143 Euros per year. That’s $224, about 10 percent of the property tax on a home of the same value in Durham. I guess it’s that 42-45 percent income tax over 50,000 Euros that’s sending people scurrying over the borders.
