191–200 of 203 posts
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And you are not supposed to spy on the emails of all the other countries including their prime ministers and senators... but who are we to judge?
Spying on communications of foreigners, especially highly placed officials, is actually the intelligence agencies' only reason for being.
I'm surprised no-one mentioned the E-2 (Treaty Investor) visa. It allows someone from a Treaty country (which includes a lot of developed countries) to start a business in the USA. It's not an intent visa, though (more on that later). I'm from the UK, and did the E-2 application myself (having found that it took as much time to explain to a lawyer as to write the application). My initial investment was $100k (enough…
How the E-2 renewal process work? I have a friend considering E-2 with $50k to $100k, and his concern is how bad the renewal process is.
One crazy thing is : They force you to renew at the Embassy in your home country, in person. So, once your application is in, they give you a date to turn up. But they won't give you any time-line about when they'll send your passport back (with the visa). So you can't really book a cheap return flight. i.e. in order to be the person in charge of a new business in the States, they require you to periodically leave the States for an indeterminate time, and sit in your home country (which is potentially just dead time business-wise).
OTOH, I have found that (i) having prepared the paperwork myself, (ii) actually being an entrepreneur, and (iii) having actual real-life experience of running the business to relate : The embassy person is actually interested in hearing about how things are going, and willing to 'relax a little'. I'm guessing that many people turn up with lawyerly papers, which don't really match the lines they are taught to say, and have marginal-to-misleading reasons for wanting the visa. So an actual real deal entrepreneur is a breath of fresh air.
My initial visa was 2yrs, followed by a 2yr renewal, the 2x 5yrs. So it gets easier. But was always really tiresome.
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I agree those things are less than optimal in the US, but at a personal level: 1) The visa stuff is a PITA, but if you are in a situation where you can tell some company to deal with it, it shouldn't be too bad. 2) You get pretty good health care working for most companies in the US as a programmer. If you lose your job, you can presumably relocate to where you were before that has a different health care system.
Speaking as a Canadian on #2, I have a couple problems there that prevent me even considering moving to the States: 1) My wife has a chronic health problem. What guarantee do I have that if she needed treatment, for that or something else, that insurance wouldn't find a way to weasel out of covering it? Also, eventually I would lose coverage under OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, after an extended absence (1-…
To be fair, this can make it difficult to move anywhere. Countries like Canada and Australia can refuse you an immigrant visa if you have pre-existing health conditions (much like insurance companies will refuse to take you on):
https://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/health-requirements/overvie... http://www.canadavisa.com/immigration-medical-inadmissibilit...
Can someone further explain the dual-intent portion of this? I'm a US citizen and my girlfriend, who is from Iran, is working toward her PhD in CS here in the States. Currently, she's on a F-1 visa(the site says it's not dual-intent), and would like to remain in the states after she completes her studies to work at a US company(most likely in the valley). This caught my eye as a point of concern, so if anyone can ela…
Once she has "demonstrated immigrant intent" (i.e. applied for a green card) she can remain in the US with no problem, but if she leaves and tries to re-enter on her F1 visa she can be denied entry. Because it is a strictly non-immigrant visa, if they think you intend to immigrate you can be turned back at the border.
However if she gets Advance Parole (which is part of the green card process) before leaving the US she can use that to re-enter if necessary.
She should talk to her school's international office and if necessary a lawyer if she has any questions.
There are two things that give me serious pause about living and working in the USA, and that have made me not pursue or accept opportunities that I've been offered in Seattle and San Francisco. 1) Visas & immigration 2) Health
Should also add that if you are married, your wife / husband cannot work if you are on H1B. I found this deeply disturbing, as my wife is a skilled professional in another field and if I were to accept an H1B offer, she would had to become a house wife more or less.
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Speaking as a Canadian on #2, I have a couple problems there that prevent me even considering moving to the States: 1) My wife has a chronic health problem. What guarantee do I have that if she needed treatment, for that or something else, that insurance wouldn't find a way to weasel out of covering it? Also, eventually I would lose coverage under OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, after an extended absence (1-…
> My wife has a chronic health problem. To be fair, this can make it difficult to move anywhere. Countries like Canada and Australia can refuse you an immigrant visa if you have pre-existing health conditions (much like insurance companies will refuse to take you on): https://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/health-requirements/overvie... http://www.canadavisa.com/immigration-medical-inadmissibilit...
Anyway, I agree that it sucks to live in a country where you have to think about this shit. Even with the best network (blue cross or blue shield) it's still not as good as France with a decent mutuelle for example.
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I am an American working and living abroad. I am very interested in your comment about being self-employed in Australia. Can write up about how to start a business there and the pros/cons? I would love to read something like that.
Keep in mind that thanks to my Aussie wife I have permanent residency. In terms of "starting a business" I just had to register for an ABN ("Australian Business Number"). That may not even be a legal requirement but IIRC it had tax advantages. It's a couple years since I did it but as I recall I did it all online in a couple of hours and it didn't cost much. I then just include that number on my invoice. Very civiliz…
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layar and Booking.com are intersting companies in Amsterdam.
Thanks for that! I was curious because Booking.com is the only company that I know of. Layar looks really awesome! I actually interviewed at Booking.com and got a job offer as Data Scientist. After a lot of deliberation I accepted a postdoc position instead but I'm going to keep my eye out for opportunities in Amsterdam for when my postdoc is done. Hope Layar is still doing awesome things when I check again!
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How the E-2 renewal process work? I have a friend considering E-2 with $50k to $100k, and his concern is how bad the renewal process is.
It's not worse than the initial application. One crazy thing is : They force you to renew at the Embassy in your home country, in person. So, once your application is in, they give you a date to turn up. But they won't give you any time-line about when they'll send your passport back (with the visa). So you can't really book a cheap return flight. i.e. in order to be the person in charge of a new business in the Stat…
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Even with healthcare coverage however, it's just a lot more complicated. I'm from the UK, and if something is wrong, your biggest challenge is making appointments with the right people. Some of my colleagues from the UK who have had to go and see someone in the US report that it's a minefield of: a) Checking which doctors take your kind of coverage b) Co-pays c) Ensuring you know what you are/aren't covered for d) Ra…
Here's how paying for a hospital visit works in the USA if you have insurance: You go in, and before they treat you, the deal from the hospital is: 1. You'll get a number of bills. We don't know how many you'll get. 2. Each bill will be for some amount of money. We don't know how much, not even an order of magnitude. 3. Your insurance may pay anywhere from 0 to 100% of your bill. We don't know what they will do. 4. W…