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Don't we wish those rather dated and archaic spam emails
purporting to have identified one of us USAians as the "big
winner" in the quarter-billion escudo Mediterranean lottery
were in fact real!! It would make sense, if the numbers were
right, to move to Catalonia or wherever if just to collect
the
cash.
Why not give our government a chance to repay that excitement
to people of the world? Establish a U.S. lottery where, for a
small fee (a pittance, really), players can win U.S. citizenship.
Of course, there will be stipulations as to character or lack
thereof, true or deep fake identity of the winners, and lack of
evidence of fraud or miscounting.
Hey, fast - fast tracking of a key to the kingdom. Proceeds to
reduce the U.S. national debt.
Q. //What is a nation, anyway?//
https://www.versobo...magined-communities
A. An imagined community. This book is excellent. [calum, Oct 04 2021]
EB-5 Visa
https://www.uscis.g...visa-classification
Buy your way to permanent resident status. [MechE, Oct 04 2021]
[link]
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Or you could just charge an entry fee, just a thought. |
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Sure. Anyone got change for 40 million Afganis and
6 million gourdes? |
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Yeah, hang on, there's 3 cents in my pocket. Keep
the change... |
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Who would want US citizenship though? You’re
then liable for tax on your worldwide earnings,
wherever you live and whether or not you’re
resident in the US or eligible to vote in the US. The
USA is one of two countries (the other being
Eritrea) that tax based on citizenship rather than
residency. Taxation without representation, as they
used to say… |
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Residents of the U.S. not eligible |
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//You’re then liable for tax on your worldwide earnings// |
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Personally I think they may have the right idea there
[hippo]
assuming any form of benefits are available a country
should
expect a premium to be paid for this 'income insurance'
plus
arguably any success you experience is built on the
education
you had from
any public education system so they should expect a return
for that 'investment' in you, so the way the US do that isn't
entirely without reason or merit perhaps.. besides, a
military that size doesn't pay for itself you know. |
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A case can be made without either of those ^ for everything
about you &
how you got rich to be traced back to your country if they
want. |
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So why wouldn't they want a slice :) |
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[Skewed] Well, if you're born overseas to US parents
or born in the US while your parent are temporarily
working there, but never live in the US yourself, you
are a US national and are still liable to file US tax
returns to cover your worldwide income, despite
receiving no benefits from US citizenship and being
unable to vote in US elections. |
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Yep, mostly true, but it really is so much simpler & so much
less
expensive in
admin
costs to just draw a line & say that's it though, so can't
really
say I blame them for any of that much. |
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//you are a US national and are still liable / despite
receiving no benefits// |
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That could be characterised as personal choice, you
do have access to consular assistance if you decide you
want it & you can move to the US any time you want to
take full advantage of any benefits of being a citizen of
the US & living there, //unable to vote//is also personal
choice, you can move to
a US state & register to vote at any time. |
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Also worth noting you can choose to give up your US
nationality any time you want if your taxes are up to date
so if you didn't do that
before you started earning that can be said to be entirely
on you. If you want to keep the options being a US national
gives why shouldn't you pay for that? if you think the price
for retaining the option is too high then just renounce it. |
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Dang! it's not often I find myself agreeing with the US on
something these days :) but I think they may have this
one right. |
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What is a nation, anyway? Reminds me of Heinlein's
'Starship Troopers'. He said a few things about life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What was that
quote? Let's see..."Happiness consists in getting
enough sleep. Just that, nothing more." Well then. Time
for a nap. |
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//Also worth noting you can choose to give up your
US nationality any time you want// - if you pay an
‘administration fee’ of $2,350… - they always find
a way to get you |
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//if you pay an ‘administration fee’ of $2,350// |
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OK that's a touch steep if you didn't make the choice to be
signed up in the first place, a minor niggle perhaps though,
could & probably should be lower, but I think the idea is
better than what we do in the UK all in all, much too easy
to
use foreign residency as a plank in your tax avoidance
strategy
here. |
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Set it up right & you can pay zero UK tax on profits &
earnings derived from within the UK, legally,
that's not right at all. |
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//You’re then liable for tax on your worldwide
earnings, wherever you live// unless you're Trump
or Bezos or any number of other blood sucking
waste of space leaches. |
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The difference between "winning" citizenship versus
establishing through a means test ones position in the
naturalization queue is that a winner can by stipulation skip
the queue altogether. |
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I'm sure the Chinese lottery makes sense in China but its
Greek to me. |
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I'm going to shock myself and suggest that even a blood-sucking leach like Bezos does in fact create more jobs and provide more services than your average blood-sucking leach. |
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You can already buy your way in with an EB-5 visa for the
pittance of a million dollar investment. |
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Also, 39 states + DC allow US citizens who have never lived in
the US to vote if at least one of their parents was last
domiciled in that state. Eight of them only for federal office,
admittedly. |
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And finally, yes, you are required to file income taxes if you
are a US Citizen or green-card holder who lives in another
country. But there is a significant deduction simply for
residence (107k), and another for housing (a little confusing
and don't feel like figuring out IRS 2555). Plus foreign income
taxes are deductible. |
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You're only likely to actually end up paying taxes if you're
earning a fairly absurd amount. |
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Cost in UK? A gallon of petrol, a tin of Portuguese
sardines and spending a day digging up vegetables
on a farm in Essex. |
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[a1] Tier 1 investment visa. £2 million. And technically it's
only residency (unlike the US which is permanent residency,
then apply for citizenship). You have to apply for extension
once or twice (not clear) before you can apply for citizenship
at 6 years. |
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Just bring the petrol. We can negotiate on the rest, oh and you better have good teeth...... it's nigh impossible to get an NHS dentist. |
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No ice because all the children we used to employ
biting the cubes out of a giant iceberg we keep in
a cave in Wales, went back to Poland after Brexit. |
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//went back to Poland after Brexit// I'm more concerned about the shortage of Pole dancers. And firemens' Poles. And what will I use to waterproof my shoes now there's a shortage of wax Polish? |
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//I'm going to shock myself and suggest that even a
blood-sucking leach like Bezos does in fact create
more jobs and provide more services than your
average blood-sucking leach.// |
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At the expense of how many other jobs? I'll bet
trading Amazon for myriads of retail stores is a jobs-
negative. |
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Bezos creates jobs, yep. Nonetheless, his creations set the bar
pretty high for one to say "Have a job you love and you'll
never work a day in your life.". |
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Bezos certainly creates a lot of jobs in China where
most of what Amazon sells is made. He then routes
all his profits through tax avoidance countries,
meanwhile the small independent shops that can't
do this can't compete with this blood sucking
greedy parasite. "People who care avoid Amazon" |
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Amazon created a lot of temp jobs. A day in the life
of a fulfillment center employee involved being
hounded by the very scanner you use to check
barcodes for the time between clicks, and the
number of times you were away from task to go to
the restroom. |
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Amazon made their turnover target over 100%,
because new hires were cheap and not likely to
unionize. |
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Retail has its faults but it wasn’t nearly as sick as
Amazon's practices. |
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I worked in retail in the 90's and it was a tough gig.
Targets, pressure and constant micro-monitoring of
everything you did was very much the order of the day
- in some of the stores of the company I worked for,
they developed a culture where in the pre-opening
daily meeting, the least-well performing sales-staff
had to stand on a step-ladder with a noose* tied around
their neck to remind them that they needed to do
better, fun times. I can easily imagine how a
monolithic behemoth like Amazon would over time
develop more than a few nasty habits. |
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*sorry, earlier typo said "loose". |
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Nothing like facing our future in the wide-open world of
continual process improvement, micromanaged and data
driven flexibility, and pencil whipping. |
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Far from selling points to run a lottery |
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