Don't Like It Here?

Then Move to Moldova!

Yes, Moldova, the tiny Eastern European nation sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine that is, as far as I am aware, the last Communist nation in Europe.

So why move to Moldova? Because it appears to have been better isolated from the economic crisis than just about anywhere else in the developed world. Obviously part of the reason has to do with that fact that the Commies are in charge - if you aren't actively participating in the free market, you won't get hurt by it. Of course, at the same time you won't benefit from it when times are good.

But communism isn't the only reason why they have escaped the problems of the global economic collapse. There is a major cultural taboo against buying anything on credit; they run almost the entire economy on a cash-first principle. Good luck running a Ponzi scheme or bundling bad mortgages in that kind of an economic culture.

The complete lack of buying on credit helps explain why Moldova was recently ranked fifth out of 184 nations in terms of economic stability by a prominent British economic journal, The Banker. Then again, it's also Europe's poorest country in terms of GDP, so I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

Here's the funny thing though. With the dollar and euro (relatively) weak when compared to the Moldovan Leu, people there are buying up as much foreign currency as they can right now. They are hoping to cash in when the economy turns around and they can trade their euros and dollars for a lot more Leu than they had paid for them.

Even in the last bastion of Communism in Europe, the market rules.