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Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

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Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#121

Post by trevelyan »

hugh3 wrote: post #84
jellicle wrote: post #14

The 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…

The direct beneficiaries are American homeowners, who get higher prices for overvalued assets and financial institutions holding housing as collateral. The losers are lower-income Americans (often also recent immigrants) for whom the cost of housing remains out of reach.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#122

Post by nobody314159 »

erikj54 wrote: post #117
nobody314159 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends if you are a bank sitting on a lot of unsellable fancy property!

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#123

Post by gruseom »

potatolicious wrote: post #120
hugh3 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

It's a symptom of mental narrowness, and working with computers a lot does, in my experience, narrow the mind. It has a kind of digitizing effect on one's brain, causing it to see everything in discrete terms, which is to say binary terms, which may explain why tech nerds tend to be so rigid in their judgments. Anything that "does not compute" gets rejected. The mind becomes increasingly oriented to things that work the way computers work. Arts and humanities are far removed from that. Moreover, our technocratic age no longer assigns them any elevated status by default, so you have to seek them out, and few care to do so.

Perhaps physicists and chemists are less vulnerable to this effect because their work is concerned with nature. There has long been an alliance between nature and art in the human sphere.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#124

Post by abbasmehdi »

trevelyan wrote: post #121
hugh3 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The direct beneficiaries are American homeowners, who get higher prices for overvalued assets and financial institutions holding housing as collateral. The losers are lower-income Americans (often also recent immigrants) for whom the cost of housing remains out of reach.

Excellent conclusion, David. I have seen this play out in vancouver, british columbia. Look it up.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#125

Post by abbasmehdi »

hugh3 wrote: post #85
rhizome wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it this way: Schumer is (partially) owned by the finance industry.

This doesn't do that much for the finance industry since it has to be a cash purchase. Still, I guess it'd drive prices up somewhat. The effect couldn't be huge , though... there's not that many foreigners with half a million bucks cash who want to leave their home countries and reside in the US. On the other hand, given a choice of all possible immigrants, I don't think there's any problem with the US moving "those…

You'd be surprised how many people would take them up on this, Canada, China, the middle east and Asia in general have a lot of rich folks who's kids come to the US for university.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#126

Post by dalke »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #36
dalke wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naah. Giving sweet-heart deals to people with a lot of money isn't out-of-the-box thinking - it's older than the hills. Out-of-box thinking would include enforcing consumer protection laws, strong oversight of large businesses, and progressive taxes. That sort of thinking hasn't been so common over the last few decades.

I think you've been caught up by the current mass hysteria, and forgotten to look for the reality: enforcing consumer protection laws See FTC's web site for news [1] like yesterday's "FTC Stops Nationwide Federal Jobs Scam". strong oversight of large businesses How about the DOJ suing to stop AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile? How about the absurd suit against Boeing for wanting to build a factory in a state where they do…

Oh, so some having _some_ consumer protection means there's strong consumer protection?

Please explain why the financial industry is so strongly against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; given that it will enforce laws that already exist. Why do credit card companies operate from the states with the weakest usury laws? Yes, the Supreme Court says it's legal, but why is there no federal cap on usury?

The only private recourse consumers have against bad business practices is a civil lawsuit, with the threat of high punitive damages. "Tort reform" wants to cap those damages, but promoters never suggest any alternative compensatory consumer protection. Why should I not interpret this as a reducing consumer protection?

Speaking of unions: Unions are a way for employees to protect themselves against bad business practices in the work place. (Whistle-blowing protection laws are another.) Many politicians want to break the unions, but offer no alternatives for employees facing those bad practices. Why should I not see this as politicians being aligned with business against employees?

How is it that the recent GAO Audit on "Major Conflicts of Interest at the Federal Reserve" found so many apparent conflicts of interest, and why weren't there policies in place to prevent that from happening?

Banking oversight over the last few decades (perhaps since the S&L crisis of the 1980s, but definitely in the last 10 years) has clearly not been enough to catch the numerous incidents of wide-scale fraud. These were already illegal, but where was the oversight, where are the investigations, and who is going to jail because of it?

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#127

Post by impendia »

hugh3 wrote: post #118
potatolicious wrote: post #109

Earlier 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 do think that doing a PhD in 'em is very unlikely to be a good career move

Outstanding hackers have the luxury that what they love overlaps with what makes good money.

If you love literature, and know that you are taking on a career where, if you are very lucky, you will make $55k in an isolated town, I see nothing foolish about starting a Ph.D. in the subject.

Re: Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose

#128

Post by brudgers »

littlegiantcap wrote: post #89
brudgers wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize there was a slumlord shortage.

Try coming to the midwest. That buys a pretty good size house.

It's not the half to buy the primary residence which sparked the comment.

It's the half which is expected to be invested in income producing property.

I once worked as a city planner.

If you are ever around people who enforce housing standards, you will learn that absentee landlords correlate with problematic rental property.

There is also tends to be a correlation between what people view as acceptable rental housing management and the culture in which they were raised.

There is no Valley bias in my post...I've always lived in the South East.

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