It's not buy a home, it's spend half a mill. That gets about 4 homes 'round these parts.
Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
111–120 of 128 posts
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#112This is the type of unserious, policy-by-press release we've come to expect from the micromanagers in the U.S. Congress. First of all, housing is still overpriced, in terms of historic trends, in many markets. Second, this is yet another program for ICE, which cannot manage its current immigration visa portfolio. This idea seems particularly open to abuse, since the home could be bought with borrowed money. (Sure it…
Doesn't this Visa mandate that the person cannot work on this visa and it's just for stay?!
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#113buy a home....get stuck with "The Heart Taxation Act" if you haven't heard of it google it....this is whats going to drive a lot of expats away from the USA in 2014.
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#114The only beneficiaries I can think of for this program would be rich capitalists from China and the Middle East who are exporting their gains and sinking them into foreign property already, and who would now get a fast-track for immigration as well. I guess Congress would like to get campaign contributions from these people (once you have a green card, you can legally make political contributions to U.S. politicians)…
They're not the only beneficiaries. I can think of a few moderately-wealthy foreign-born H1Bs (and equivalent) living in Northern California who might have half a million spare and wouldn't mind buying a $500K house and getting a free greencard if it'd save them the trouble of going through the usual immigration process. Picking, just as a random example, say, me. I'm not even sure whether I want to remain in the US…
you might want to google Heart Taxation Act before you say yes to that proposal.
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#115The only beneficiaries I can think of for this program would be rich capitalists from China and the Middle East who are exporting their gains and sinking them into foreign property already, and who would now get a fast-track for immigration as well. I guess Congress would like to get campaign contributions from these people (once you have a green card, you can legally make political contributions to U.S. politicians)…
They're not the only beneficiaries. I can think of a few moderately-wealthy foreign-born H1Bs (and equivalent) living in Northern California who might have half a million spare and wouldn't mind buying a $500K house and getting a free greencard if it'd save them the trouble of going through the usual immigration process. Picking, just as a random example, say, me. I'm not even sure whether I want to remain in the US…
Dude, anyone with half a million dollars spare isn't moderately wealthy but filthy fucking RICH, with capital R, I, C, and H.
$500.000 is more than 99.9% of people in this world will make in their entire lifespan.
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many jobs require a degree. Those jobs that only require you to wear a suit don't care what the degree is in. Now if your future job only depends on your grade - not the subject which would you choose? Studying maths/physics/etc for 4years or doing psychology/media studies/american studies.
I don't know anybody that took nothing other than math classes for four years of undergrad... and I majored in math, and subsequently went to grad school in it.
I took only maths and physics classes for my final three years of undergrad. In first year, I also took chemistry and computer science.
No, I didn't go to uni in the US.
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#117I am not sure why many people are upset that this will attract the rich foreigners. Whats wrong with rich people moving in?. Think how much new tax revenue the country will gain if 10000 millionaires move every year
Very little - millionaires tend not to pay much tax. Especially foreign ones whose income is difficult to trace. What happened in Vancouver when Canada did the same thing is that people bought the houses as an insurance so they had an escape route if Honk Kong went bad. Most of the houses either sat empty, were rented out, or the kid was dumped there to go to college. It did a lot for the local housing market - not c…
That's true in partial. Vancouver has some interesting experiences with foreign capital investing in the housing market. It makes for a very expensive city. If the aim of this is to boost the price of the housing market, then I think this measure will do that. Whether or not that is a good thing is an entirely different issue.
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Seriously though, limiting it to STEM majors would goose academia in the right direction. What is this supposed to mean?! If you don't know, humanities programs are being badly squeezed already. Some programs are being cut entirely. I have a friend who is earning her Ph.D. in comp lit, and she (with all of her colleagues) are seriously scared that her field will no longer exist in 20 years. And all this, despite th…
Don't be so surprised - it seems that haughty dismissal of all things non-technical is a trademark of geeky communities. See: reddit, slashdot, etc.
I don't dismiss the humanities, but I do think that doing a PhD in 'em is very unlikely to be a good career move, and that government funding of humanities PhDs is very unlikely to be a good use of money, nor of human talent.
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't realize there was a slumlord shortage.
In most of the country, $250,000 is quite a nice house. Let your mind think outside the Bay Area every now and again.
I just did a search in the most distant Chicago suburb I could name off the top of my head, and this was the closest I could come to exactly $250:
http://www.trulia.com/property/31925157-723-Tiller-St-Elburn...
What do you suppose that would run you in, say, Los Gatos?
Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't be so surprised - it seems that haughty dismissal of all things non-technical is a trademark of geeky communities. See: reddit, slashdot, etc.
I don't dismiss the humanities, but I do think that doing a PhD in 'em is very unlikely to be a good career move, and that government funding of humanities PhDs is very unlikely to be a good use of money, nor of human talent.
I'll agree that a PhD in the humanities is unlikely to be a good career move - but that is unrelated to whether or not it is in the public interest to fund them.
A career in fundamental scientific research is also a poor career move - my brother is in it himself. It's grossly underpaid, funding is hard fought and won, and job security isn't great either.
But it would be hard to argue against funding it publicly.
By so easily dismissing the worthwhileness of its pursuit, and by claiming that it is unworthy of governmental funding, you are dismissing the humanities.
But again, unsurprising given the company we're in. To a large contingent of us tech nerds, the humanities would always be a "if we have some spare time and money" subject, never given any importance until all technical subjects (or in this case, funding need) have been exhausted.
The odd thing is, I know a lot of people in other technical fields - physics and chemistry, for example, and yet none of them exhibit the same tendencies. It seems that dismissiveness for the arts is somewhat unique to engineers and CS.