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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (462095)	12/25/2011 11:45:33 PM
From: Hank Scorpio	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794330

The only way I would ever pay $1M for a Greek (or other countries') citizenship is if it came with true ownership. Which would also mean a lifetime exemption from taxes, land or some other such thing. If that's where you're going, it might be interesting. If not, I don't think it will go anywhere. I wouldn't pay a dime for anything so esoteric as infrastructure or culture. I don't own it, and I don't control it.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (462095)	12/26/2011 7:21:54 AM
From: skinowski	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794330

Tradable Citizenship... Can't think of too many precedents. I remember reading somewhere that the Swiss had a mechanism of offering foreigners legal residence, for a price. The individual would have to fulfill certain requirements in order to qualify. The price was substantial, but far from the levels which you expect. Traveling to Bermuda, last time about 15 years ago, I was told that they were relatively open to the idea of accepting new immigrants, but the candidates had to be wealthy. Among other things, they would have to be able to afford a house which back then would have to be worth at least $750k. America's founders developed their own formula of how to avoid being owned by the government, which involved placing limits on its powers - of limited government. This worked for some time, but eventually too many of us, like you in your youth, accepted the idea that welfare is best run by the government. This change in attitude triggered a huge bull market in the business of government, and eventually brought us to this current crisis. The Tea Party movement is trying to bring back the idea of limited government, but we have huge segments of the society fighting against that happening. The more innovative ideas we have the better, because the current system of robbing Peter to pay Paul has deteriorated to the point when there are more Pauls than Peters.