
Plan B for China's Wealthy: Moving to the U.S., Europe (2012) - prostoalex
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203806504577181461401318988?mg=reno64-wsj
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api
We should welcome them. To a significant extent, the "American Century" was
the product of the U.S. benefiting from brain drain from dictatorships. We
gained a lot of really bright Jewish folks during the WWII era for example.

We're missing a pretty big boat by not offering open refuge to any qualifying
homosexuals from Russia and other nations where they're being persecuted.

~~~
jiggy2011
How does one prove that they are homosexual?

~~~
aioprisan
How does one prove that they are of Jewish descent?

~~~
jiggy2011
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew%3F#Judaism_test](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_is_a_Jew%3F#Judaism_test)

Edit: More specific link

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winslow
I commonly hear the Chinese, Japanese or X nationality are buying up the
housing in the United States with the emphasis of it being bad. Now, if we
assume this to be true, is this necessarily a bad thing? The United States has
been importing many things from China for a long time now. Wouldn't it be good
to welcome the wealthy Chinese or Japanese to spend some of that money back
into the US economy? I'm sure the scale of Chinese/Japanense buying american
homes barely makes a dent in the amount we spend abroad for cheap labor but
just a thought I had. Can anyone shed some light on my thoughts?

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berelig
Opposing sentiment for this is usually seen in cities where the proportion of
foreign real estate investment is significantly higher than the national
level. For example, Toronto (or Vancouver) as a market has a much higher
percentage of Asian owned real estate than Canada as a whole.

This laser focus on one specific area for investment raises the value of real
estate in that area to out of reach for most of its native residents. This is
where the "emphasis on it [foreign investment] being bad" comes from.

It's good for those who already own real estate, bad for those who want to.

~~~
tyoma
Whats missing is a sensible property tax scheme. Just tax the non-resident
owners, who don't vote, at a much higher rate than city residents. Then use
the extra money for great public infrastructure for people who do live in the
city.

~~~
cgh
In the case of Vancouver, generally speaking they aren't non-resident or even
non-citizens. Emigrating from China to get permanent residency and eventually
citizenship for family members, along with a Western education and health
care, goes along with buying one or more homes as part of what a friend who
works in immigration calls "the full package". The net effect is a dramatic
increase in inequality and skyrocketing house prices.

A partial solution has already happened: the cancellation of the immigrant
investor program.

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guard-of-terra
This year I'm thinking about leaving Russia rather heavily.

I was comfortable between peers, but now the political landscape is
increasingly toxic, it gets worse all the time, and there are no solutions to
any of our numerous problems. And everyone chooses to ignore reality and live
in an invented world inside their TV set.

I think I'll do this in a year, starting with a large hiatus to travel the
world, live in new places.

And then of course it will be Europe not the USA.

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rdl
I thought that was Plan A.

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wil421
And who says this is limited to China.

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aioprisan
Is there a paywall-free version that can be shared?

~~~
technotony
Just type the title into google and the link that comes back will bypass the
paywall.

~~~
vilda
You may need to delete cookies first or switch to incognito mode.

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general_failure
This is not limited to china. Same goes for countries like India where money
cannot buy the things people eventually want - clean air, good roads,
infrastructure.

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jbyers
(2012)

~~~
dang
Thanks—missed that one.

Anybody want to figure out how to do this programmatically?

~~~
prostoalex
Where does one start?
[https://github.com/HackerNews/HN](https://github.com/HackerNews/HN) seems to
be for issue tracking only.

~~~
dang
Not sure I understand—HN isn't open-source (though an older version is), but
you don't need HN source to work on this. Just figure out how to go from an
article's url to the year the content first appeared! [1] That's the hard
part. Inserting it into the HN title is of course trivial.

1\. Or rather, the year it was last significantly updated.

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616c
Apparently, this is from 2012. Even then, it was horeshit even then I bet.

I know little about China. But I did live there in the summer of 2005 teaching
in Nanning (the former industrial hub running south to Vietnam, not Nanning
the tourist trap).

Others have described the phenomenon. Rich Chinese families would hire white
kids as tokens; tutors who lived with their children to teach their offspring
"real English." I was not an exception; I found even a few in the same city.

The family I lived with was one of the richer families in my region. I thought
the father ran a mid-level pharam company. Then I visited the site/office. It
was a huge. Then people pointed out ads for this company on national Chinese
TV, and billboards in other region on a family trip in the next province over
and way south in Beihai (is that what it's called, maybe HNers can remind of
the most southern Chinese beach areas near Vietnam; I forget). I found out he
was a moghul for one of the biggest emerging pharma companies in the region.
Guy had a 7 series BWM with televisons built in, and a differenr Rolex for
every day and a duplex penthouse apartment in the super wealth part of town.

So why all the background info? This guy visited America, when he saw me at
lesst, twice after this in the following five years. They talked about moving
to the US repeatedly (the reason my language tutoring was relevant at the
time). But it never happened. Even by the time I was there, post-9/11 backlash
had fucked many Chinese over. Visa restrictions made things a nuissance, and
the wealthy grew sick of it. Some of the kids from other families even moved
to Australia, the new it place, because at least "they were not American with
their visa and residency regimes." The wife had been blacklisted for no reason
at all; attorney friends had contacts at the US Embassy, and was told she was
put on a list after the interview phase with a black mark like "do not approve
residency visa bc this woman is shady." Why the meek wife (who was a stay at
home mom her whole life) and no one else in the family is a mystery to me.

This dude could have opened up businesses to the tune of 500K bank deposits,
according to my attorney dad, and naturalize very quickly, and the other
lawyers who wanted to help and get an in to the business he would put out for
them. He did not, and others did not either. The US had already become toxic.
They invested in our economy, but they would even ask me to explain why we so
were worth it economically to them, but the USG would routinely fuck around
with rhetoric and policy clash with China. "We are your economic friends, why
treat us like enemies?" (Obviously both sides are complete disallusionment
with the other if they really believe this.)

So, none of those people moved. They invested all damn day in US and Western
business, but only enough to get paid and avoided "the dream" of moving to the
West as elites, being prestigious (as those to even have the opportunity).

Ironically, as a nation, we earned our devalution abroad. People will buy from
us, but no one wants to be US (that is a joke, enjoy).

~~~
cylinder
3,000 EB-5 petitions (invest $500k or $1M for green card) were approved in
2012, so you don't know what you're talking about.

[http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Outreach/Upco...](http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Outreach/Upcoming%20National%20Engagements/Upcoming%20National%20Engagement%20Pages/2012%20Events/July%202012/EB5_Statistics_Q3_2012.pdf)

~~~
616c
I never said I was an attorney. I was a stupid college kid and this is what I
was told.

I stand by what I said. I knew lots of rich Chinese families. Despite what was
said after (notice I said I talked to the one I lived with years later, so
until about 2012), no one of them moved to the US or Europe. They discussed it
often, and quite seriously. My point is that people want to believe the system
will indulge them, the system will not.

But I will be a better immigration attorney next time.

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larrys
Article should be flagged as "2012" in the title.

