<there shouldn't be any barriers to those who want to move and can afford to pay for it. >
I disagree with that idea David. Citizenship represents ownership of public assets, which have been built up over centuries and include enjoyable natural features such as lakes, beaches, mountains and countryside, not to mention resources such as oil, gold [hahah!!], fish and nice, clean air.
I don't see why I should hand Kiwiland public assets over to somebody fob China, where they have spent half a century playing Karl Marx and creating mayhem while super-populating the place so that per capita natural resources are near-zero, with no payment.
Citizenship should be a tradeable commodity, like shares in QUALCOMM. Citizenship represents savings and value created by those who have gone before and the current owners are the shareholders. There could be a stock market listing with futures, puts, calls, options and all the other stuff so people could move to the country say in 5 years time when they take delivery of citizenship.
Voters could see the value of their citizenship the day after an election. It might help get voters to behave in a more responsible fashion when they realize they've voted to cut the value of their citizenship. Instant feedback is great for inducing sensible behaviour.
People could see just how valuable their country is compared with others. Politicians and citizens might get a few surprises.
I imagine that when the shipload of Tampa refugees were accepted to NZ, the share price of NZ would have gone down, not up. When politicians release criminals into the community to create more mayhem, that'll send citizenship prices down, not up. When King George II attacks Saddam, the USA citizenship price would go up, not down [or maybe down, not up - the markets seem undecided about the merits of that one].
Citizenship is the most valuable thing most people own and other than some fervid patriotism feelgood at footy games or when USS Enterprise delivers some Tomahawks to Tora Bora, the valuing of citizenship if opaque at best. That's in civilized countries anyway. In plenty of countries, citizenship has negative value and people would pay to be able to escape. Plenty do pay to escape, if some other country will have them.
Mqurice |
