Watching immigration patterns is a very good way to get a sense for where the more vibrant economies are. There's a lot of immigration, legal and otherwise, into the US from Mexico. Not so much from Canada.
People don't immigrate when they are content, which is why the immigration patterns within the eurozone are another signal of the problems in the southern eurozone countries.
The number of Greeks moving to Germany jumped 78% in the first half of 2012 from a year earlier, Germany's statistics office reports. Spanish, Portuguese moving into Germany was up 53%.
The absolute numbers are still fairly low, but the trend is clear.