The Founder Visa

Yes, in terms of people. But you fail to understand that it's an entire new process and system that would have to be invented and executed.

You just don't think like a con-man. Universities have quite a bit on the line, such as accreditation. A private company has next to nothing on the line. Anyway, here's how I'd do it:

1. First off, I'd need to know somebody in the US who has a viable business and would vouch for me. Because immigrant communities support business focused on their interests, this wouldn't be very difficult. Of course they'd agree, because of the benefits for the home country (sending money home, etc.).

2. Have them offer fake investments to me and a pool of founders. Get approved by INS/State.

3. Once in the US, work as I please. Funnel this money back into the "startup" as profits. Plenty of startups can't even turn a profit, so financials wouldn't have to be impressive.

4. Rinse, repeat. The same business would only get approved so many times, but there are tons of businesses here.

Now, for the unscrupulous way (since there's nothing particularly immoral about the previous scenario). Note that I'm for the legalization of drugs, but that's not the point: The US gov't is sure as hell against that.

1. Have associate(s) in the US prop up a shell of a business that appears to be legitimate. Have them offer a huge investment for what appears to be a startup's credible business plan.

2. Move in under an alias with fake documents.

3. Funnel drug money through the "startup," which would be an ideal money laundering node. Because the plan is intended to produce successful businesses, nobody would blink an eye at the eye-popping profits. Just bullshit as much as necessary...if YouTube cooked the books, they could convince people that they were turning $150M profit annually easily. Show your cards as you please, since you're holding the deck.

4. If things get even remotely hot, leave the country. So much money's been successfully processed at this point that it's undoubtedly a net win. Hell, say you're flying to Lima to make a commencement speech on business. Nobody would stop you. The associates could claim ignorance obviously, as you were just some entrepreneur they put their hopes and dollars in. Even if the startup were irrevocably linked to money laundering, you're back home and extradition isn't happening, since you used a false identity.

5. Rinse, repeat with other associates.

"Give one shred of evidence aside from senseless pontification and I might consider it."

Evidence on a virgin immigration plan? I'm sure there's plenty out there!

Let's flip this: Tell me how you prevent either of the two previous scenarious, short of having the gov't handle the entire recommendation/approval process, which would pretty much defeat the purpose.

Sigh ... people are so naive.

In politics, the organized faction always trumps the general interest. Say Faction A is 1% of the population. The faction wants to preserve a barrier to entry that costs every voter $100 and nets each faction member $10,000. The members of Faction A will be single issue voters over the barrier to entry. But to the rest of the public, the issue is lost in the noise. Average Joe does not even realize how much the barrier to entry costs him, because no interest group will fund ads to tell him. Thus the politician always supports the faction in order to prevent the 2% swing. ( I've spent time in both the state house and Congress, and this is exactly how the decision making process works).

The life cycle of any government policy ends up being the following: 1) Program is created to benefit the public good 2) The program inevitably directly benefits a small group - employees of the agency, contractors, etc. 3) The beneficiaries become dependent on the program. They organize in order to protect themselves politically. 4) In any policy battle where the interests of the beneficiaries collide with the public interest, the beneficiaries generally win. 5) As the beneficiaries win battles over time, the program ends up serving the beneficiaries at the expense of the public.

This is basically the life cycle of every program that has ever come out of Washington. The once mighty NASA now only exists to provide employment to NASA engineers. The school system exists mainly to provide employment to teachers. The AMA exists to erect barrier to entries to the medical profession. Etc, etc.

Your algorithm proposal is amusing because it is basically the same solution to the problem of corruption/factions that the progressives tried during the 20th century. The idea was that "scientific policy" based on algorithms and formulas, designed by academics and civil servants, could replace control by politicians. Needless to say, it was a miserable failure. A classic example of policy via algorithm is the creation of Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization's who used algorithms to dictate which loans regulated funds were allowed to invest in. It did not take too long for Wall St. to figure out a way to structure the riskiest loans imaginable in ways that would pass through the algorithm. The rating agencies are a high profile example, but there are hundreds of other similar failures. In practice "scientific public policy" ends up being the worst of both worlds. It combines the downsides of algorithms (lack of intervening personal judgment when the algorithm gets gamed) with the downsides of politics (corruption/factional power struggles).