[paganel]

A great number of my Romanian programmer friends have already started to realize this and have stopped emigrating to other European countries.

Yeah, moving to a place like London would most probably get you 2 or maximum 3 times the salary you are now getting, but you'd also have to pay rent which is 8 to 10 times higher in London, going out is outrageously expensive (7 pounds for buying a beer in a pub after a day's work is pure robbery), the general geographic area is quite nice around these parts (we have mountains, seaside, nice rivers for fishing), all in all they're doing quite ok. They won't ever be able to buy a $100,000+ car, a small boat or a small air-plane, like I see many of the SV engineers doing, but that's not that huge of a sacrifice to make. What's letting me down, personally, and what would convince me to finally take the plunge and emigrate to a Western European country is the health and the education system, which right now is in shambles in Romania (and I guess in Bulgaria, too).

[vminkov]

Private health care is very neat and relative to your paycheck it's as affordable as in the Western world

[expertentipp]

The cult of and preference for private and premium health care services in Central/Eastern Europe are going to backslash terribly in couple of decades. Everything works well as long as the only contributors and users of it are young, healthy, employed people. Then those private health providers and insurers will simply disappear or bankrupt, and people will end up with disintegrated public healthcare if only they will be eligible for it at all.

[restalis]

The current state of things is not perfect, and the private healthcare probably has indeed the inherent problem you're describing, but it is also maybe the only thing that keeps the bulk of our medical doctors from emigrating to richer parts of Europe.

[vram22]

>(7 pounds for buying a beer in a pub

An Indian friend who lives in London (this was some years ago) told me that a single naan in London cost about 3 pounds then. Anecdote, of course; how well you manage there will also depend on how much pay you get.

[jazzyk]

>They won't ever be able to buy a $100,000+ car, a small boat or a small air-plane

Except for the few lucky ones in SV who cash(ed) out in time, these toys are mostly bought on credit. Salaries are high, but so are the costs.

[baybal2]

>7 pounds for buying a beer in a pub after a day's work is pure robbery

7 pounds beer is shi£ there, normal beers start at double that price

[lewilewilewi]

Even in central london you wouldn't be paying more than, say, £5.50 for a pint.