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Passport Index 2016

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Re: Passport Index 2016

#61

Post by enlightenedfool »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #49
uniqueid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasoning about immigration laws is pointless because the foundation is based on magical thinking. There is no logic at all behind any of it. Citizenship by blood, by birthplace, by religion... then you look into getting a travel visa, or a work permit. There's nothing rational about any of it. Just endless lunacy. I probably shouldn't complain, as I'm eligible for four different citizenships... but when you look int…

It's quite depressing to see how the concepts of country, nationality, borders are still widely accepted without questioning.

Especially when human rights are only bestowed on citizens by a government and denied for others just for not being born in their country. Seems hypocritical to me.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#62

Post by DrJokepu »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #56
uniqueid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasoning about immigration laws is pointless because the foundation is based on magical thinking. There is no logic at all behind any of it. Citizenship by blood, by birthplace, by religion... then you look into getting a travel visa, or a work permit. There's nothing rational about any of it. Just endless lunacy. I probably shouldn't complain, as I'm eligible for four different citizenships... but when you look int…

There is nothing illogical about it. If all the worlds borders were open then economies would move to the average. Workers in poor countries would move to rich countries (because they have higher wages) until those countries wages had gone down, and the countries they left would have their wages go up due to the supply decrease in workers. It's complete logical self interest for country richer than the average to not…

Is there a real world, factually verifiable example of this ever happening in the past, or is this an untested theory?

Re: Passport Index 2016

#63

Post by cloudjacker »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #58
cloudjacker wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, they are called 'second passport' guides. assuming marriage is unfavorable and you don't want to pretend to be jewish, there are a couple of treaties you can take advantage of, typically old imperialist countries have guilt trips with their former south american or african colonies and have an easy citizenship path for citizens in those former colonies. But then those former colonies have really malleable gover…

> it isn't that expensive though. ~500,000 euros. Any homeowner in the bay area could do it. I'm not sure whether to roll my eyes at over half a million dollars being "not that expensive" or the assertion that any Bay Area homeowner has that much liquidity to just toss at a Maltese passport. Unless you're suggesting selling the house to do it.

home equity line of credit

the primary distinction I was hoping to make was that you didn't need to be an international spy or an oil baron to achieve the levels of wealth necessary to get these things.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#64

Post by adventured »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #56
uniqueid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasoning about immigration laws is pointless because the foundation is based on magical thinking. There is no logic at all behind any of it. Citizenship by blood, by birthplace, by religion... then you look into getting a travel visa, or a work permit. There's nothing rational about any of it. Just endless lunacy. I probably shouldn't complain, as I'm eligible for four different citizenships... but when you look int…

There is nothing illogical about it. If all the worlds borders were open then economies would move to the average. Workers in poor countries would move to rich countries (because they have higher wages) until those countries wages had gone down, and the countries they left would have their wages go up due to the supply decrease in workers. It's complete logical self interest for country richer than the average to not…

> If all the worlds borders were open then economies would move to the average.

That's not the case. That premise would only hold true in a bad simulation - ie one that ignored or removed thousands of factors. Back in actuality, those thousands of factors would still ensure drastic differences between countries. Equilibrium in regards to this premise is inherently impossible. Any amount of friction alone guarantees it, and there would be vast amounts of friction.

One other simple reference proves this point dramatically as well: governance.

The equilibrium theory of borders is equivalent to the perfect market pricing theory in equity markets. Both assume and require omniscience along with perfect action at all times by all actors. All possible knowledge must be perfectly distributed to all actors involved at all times, and then digested and acted on identically at exactly the same time. It collapses into comedy extremely quickly if you try to actually pursue the thought concept.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#65

Post by rwmj »

tuna-piano wrote: post #34
hal9000xp wrote: post #28

I had citizenship of one most repressive and poor countries in the world - Uzbekistan. Later I obtained Russian citizenship. Now, I'm living in the Netherlands and plan to obtain citizenship of some first world country (NL, SG etc). So I have first hand experience to live with Uzbek passport and being practically completely isolated from the first world (nobody give you EU tourist visa if you have Uzbek passport and…

I've often thought of the dollar value of my US passport (/citizenship). It would definitely be my most valuable asset (then again, taxes are by far my biggest expense). Besides almost unrestricted travel - my income is far higher in the US than it would be in any other country I've looked at. It's easy to forget how lucky those of us in the developed world are and how so many try so hard to gain status here. Good lu…

This is why I think the European Union should be more like an actual union. You should be able to subscribe to it, and your membership would grant you a passport, rights and duties. It would solve the whole Brexit issue, because everyone who wanted to remain a member could do so. It wouldn't even be that expensive - we pay about £185/year each at the moment to be in the EU (£13bn/70m people).

Edit: Obviously this is not a fully worked out idea. What I find disappointing is that no one in the news ever even talks about alternatives, even narrow alternatives.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#67

Post by jsmthrowaway »

cloudjacker wrote: post #63
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it isn't that expensive though. ~500,000 euros. Any homeowner in the bay area could do it. I'm not sure whether to roll my eyes at over half a million dollars being "not that expensive" or the assertion that any Bay Area homeowner has that much liquidity to just toss at a Maltese passport. Unless you're suggesting selling the house to do it.

home equity line of credit the primary distinction I was hoping to make was that you didn't need to be an international spy or an oil baron to achieve the levels of wealth necessary to get these things.

Er, you should revisit what having that much spending power, even via a HELOC, would place one in terms of percentile. Your oil baron suddenly isn't far off since that graph is somewhat exponential.

Most area homeowners I know are driving Civics or Jettas and worrying about property tax assessments, so. The comment was just silly in terms of perspective and was silly to come across in a thread that already discussed privilege (for lack of a better word, I know it's loaded).

A HELOC is a monumentally terrible idea for the situation, by the way.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#68

Post by colinbartlett »

cloudjacker wrote: post #54
sevenless wrote: post #42

Is there a guide to multiple citizenship power leveling anywhere? Edit: A bit of munging from the web page later... For Americans and British/Western Europe, the passports you want are Burkina Faso, Benin and Senegal. They will bring your passport power level up by 13 points to 168 (American) and 170 (UK) and give you visa free access to Cote Divoire (Ivory Coast), Mali, Iran, Congo, Niger, Benin, Nigeria, Liberia, C…

yeah, they are called 'second passport' guides. assuming marriage is unfavorable and you don't want to pretend to be jewish, there are a couple of treaties you can take advantage of, typically old imperialist countries have guilt trips with their former south american or african colonies and have an easy citizenship path for citizens in those former colonies. But then those former colonies have really malleable gover…

It's worth noting that this Passport Index is maintained by Arton Capital which is in the business of facilitating these citizenship purchase arrangements and has a whole guide about it comparing all the countries that allow it: http://www.artoncapital.com/

Re: Passport Index 2016

#69

Post by charlesism »

charlesism wrote: post #43
uniqueid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasoning about immigration laws is pointless because the foundation is based on magical thinking. There is no logic at all behind any of it. Citizenship by blood, by birthplace, by religion... then you look into getting a travel visa, or a work permit. There's nothing rational about any of it. Just endless lunacy. I probably shouldn't complain, as I'm eligible for four different citizenships... but when you look int…

...while I'm ranting: citizenship in return for military service, honorary citizenship, citizenship from owning property, and outright purchase of citizenship. Can anyone think of more? I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And I missed a few common ones ...by marriage ...by continuous residence ...political asylum! Duh!

Re: Passport Index 2016

#70

Post by kakarot »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #56
uniqueid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reasoning about immigration laws is pointless because the foundation is based on magical thinking. There is no logic at all behind any of it. Citizenship by blood, by birthplace, by religion... then you look into getting a travel visa, or a work permit. There's nothing rational about any of it. Just endless lunacy. I probably shouldn't complain, as I'm eligible for four different citizenships... but when you look int…

There is nothing illogical about it. If all the worlds borders were open then economies would move to the average. Workers in poor countries would move to rich countries (because they have higher wages) until those countries wages had gone down, and the countries they left would have their wages go up due to the supply decrease in workers. It's complete logical self interest for country richer than the average to not…

Maybe the word is unethical, then?
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