> Well, the obvious answer is -- you have to create decent conditions in the 
> home country so people would want to stay.

Under normal circumstances there are always people who want to stay and others
who want to leave. These balance each other with surprisingly small
fluctuations. Some countries have statistical data available, and I can quote
Germany, which has a registered mobility (across the borders) of some 1% of the
population per year (about 1% in and 1% out, of cca. 80 Millions, from
Migrationsbericht for 2004), and incomers and outgoers balance each other 
pretty exactly, with a permanent change of less than 0.1% of the population.

Conditions have very little to do with it because in a working democracy with a
working economy 'conditions' reflect the will of the people at the latest after
a few years (electoral mandates).

> Hm... was there free education under the National Socialists? Maybe that was 
> the brain drain that the East Germans were trying to stop? ;)

Please re-read the paragraph above. Barring natural disasters, the will of the
people to go in mass and live elsewhere is a democratic 'vote', usually cast
after everything else fails to work for some time (years or worse). One used to
say that people 'vote with their feet'. Always, when a normal country with no
serious disasters has its population dwindle, there is something wrong with the
way they are governed (possibly by themselves, due to strange beliefs which need
not be religious but always seem to conflict with what it takes to have a
healthy economy with sufficient hope for the future to raise children there -
yes I know that the population of most of Europe is dwindling due to low birth
rates - sorry about that).

It follows that restoring a functional government suitable to the local people
is the most important step in quenching the 'brain drain' (or 'brawn drain').

The communists tried very hard to manipulate the media and access to 'other'
media, including traditional religion, because they wanted to coax people into
higher productivity (or some productivity, from none at least as far as the
communists were concerned - i.e. all private firms and occupations). The act of
working oneself to an early death for a hypothetical future utopical society,
while having fewer possessions and deliberately (and proudly) few material
rewards of any kind, was an 'increase in efficiency' as far as the ruling
classes were concerned. To obtain this, they tried to delete access to any 
media or education (including recreational, such as movies and music as well 
as books) which would promote any other view, in addition to any media that
criticized the regime proper or offered an alternative system of beliefs.

Peter P.


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