[paganel]

> Another more cynic explanation would be that you are trying to spread some poor-me-I'm-from-an-ex-communist-country-I'm-so-poor propaganda, hopefully that isn't so.

I hope I'm not :) Anyway, maybe I was wrong in my multiplication by a certain factor, but you have to keep in mind that my brother (and his co-workers) only make these kind of trips every 2 weeks or so, so assuming he makes an average of 2 and half such trips per month it's around ~800 euro per month. Which is actually a pretty good salary around these parts, only that most likely most of this money is paid in some manner as to avoid taxes (there was a post from some Hungarian guy a couple of weeks ago explaining why that's the only viable solution for a small to medium company around these parts of Europe).

And regarding the "disappearance" of job opportunities for Western workers... well, something has got to give, you cannot have a free market for goods without a free market for labor. Meaning you cannot have Ikea stores in those "poor" East-European countries with no import charges attached to its merchandise without giving said East-European workers the chance to improve their lives in Ikea's host country' or Nokia's, or BMW's. Otherwise it's just old, plain economic colonialism, and that's bad.

[franklindholm]

I think €800 for 8 days of work is ok good money for truck driving work and not so far from what truck drivers make for instance in Sweden. And I agree with all of your other points.