Cuthbertson on Pensioners, Europe, Hell-holes
Cuthbertson on British pensioners living abroad:"it's because people sense that Europe is not going to be a thriving centre of work and industry that many retire there to appreciate the peace and quiet. Britons retire to Europe because of its economic slumber, not because they fail to recognise that setting up a business or attempting to earn a living in France is a bad idea."
Now presumably British pensioners who retire to Europe for the peace and quiet and economic slumber are no different from pensioners who retire elsewhere. Figures are not easy to come by, but using a variety of sources (one of which was this) I have come up with these tentative figures (though obviously annual emigration would be better), which chart GDP growth over the last 5 years with the number of UK pensioners living in the country (or as a % of the population):
As you can see there is no relationship.
Furthermore, as the Economist pointed out last week, from an article by Goldman Sachs (see a few posts down), the Eurozone economies have grown as fast as the United States or UK over the last 10 years if you exclude Germany. This will come as no surprise to most people (but probably to Peter "Well I have to confess I know little about Norway - but Sweden and Holland?! Both of them are degenerate hell-holes" Cuthbertson) but there aren't many British pensioners living in Germany. Thus pensioners don't seem to be living abroad for the reasons that he says.
I also doubt that pensioners live in European countries because they think they are good places to setup a business, or to earn a living. But who is saying that they do? If they were to do this, they wouldn't really be pensioners, but economic migrants, and we know what Cuthbertson thinks about them.
posted by Matthew @ 6/23/2004 08:46:00 AM
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