[tidenly]

I left the UK after graduating at 21, fully intending to come back within a couple of years. Its weird watching it from the outside for 10 years waiting for a "good time" to move back and realizing that time isn't coming more and more each year.

The salaries in Japan arent great honestly, but mine, the quality of life and how far my money goes is so much better than if I lived back at the UK. Every time I go back it seems more and more people are struggling to pay for basic expenses - and even if I moved back it seems get a great salary I'd have to live in London, which I dislike.

I imagine lots of people far more talented than me must also be feeling the pull to not stay in the country too. Its festering politically and economically. Besides family there really is no benefit to remaining.

[bboygravity]

IMO the UK should look at what Singapore did and maybe learn from that.

There's really no excuse for a country like the UK other than ordinary plain and simple mis-management from the top.

Singapore did not depend on neighboring countries to climb out of 3rd world poverty. To name an example.

[coopierez]

The UK cannot just "be Singapore". What happened in Singapore was a specific, unrepeatable combination of its geography, the needs of the region, the size of the country, and the culture.

To maintain its wealth today, Singapore relies on a large underclass of underpaid non-citizens. Around 40% of the country are non-citizens.

In addition, London sort of has its own Singapore(s) in the form of the City and Canary Wharf. That's great for those who work there, but it's not feasible for a country of nearly 70 million for everyone to just work in finance.

Final comment:

> Singapore did not depend on neighboring countries to climb out of 3rd world poverty

Singapore's wealth is built on trade and foreign investment. To assume that without other countries it would be equally successful is absurd.

[Earw0rm]

It's a political issue. There are things the UK is good at - finance, culture/media, software and yes hardware innovation, legal services, tourism. But since the GFC especially, none of these things are considered "right" by the electorate.

Instead we romanticise unproductive legacy stuff, and an NHS which, while its staff are in many cases heroic, spends most of its vast budget cleaning up the mess of a population who thinks eating a sensible diet and enacting basic public health policy is "woke".

It's a good thing we banned indoor smoking in public buildings in the early aughts, there's no way you'd get that through in today's political climate.

[tjpnz]

>The salaries in Japan arent great honestly, but mine, the quality of life and how far my money goes is so much better than if I lived back at the UK.

In a similar situation to you apparently. Every couple of years I'll take a look at UK as well as NZ and Aus (all places I can legally work) and Japan is still the better option. Even with the yen situation and despite all the doom and gloom others write online, life is still pretty nice here.

[robocat]

As an NZer, jobs in Australia pay wayyyy better and everyone here seems to agree that the lifestyle is better there. Lots of NZers move to Oz to improve their life and opportunities.

The NZ economy isn't doing great.

I'm personally worried that demographics and an incoming Labour government will mean that if you have saved for your retirement our next government will simply tax your savings until you have nothing (they keep talking of a 2% wealth tax: if we go back to a 4% annual return environment that's 50% tax of your savings over time). Plus they are slowly introducing means testing or equivalents.

[lobochrome]

We should form a club - even though I came here from Germany...

[maeil]

Exact same story for Korea. Dollar-term salaries similar to the EU, but when you compare to CoL it's a much better deal.

[timeon]

How about suicide rates?