USA for sale

[Gob]

or at least your homes are....

Two US senators have proposed a plan to offer visas for foreigners buying homes worth $500,000 (£314,000) or more.

Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Mike Lee, sponsoring a bill, say it is a move to increase housing demand.

The proposal is similar to an existing Green Card program for foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in an American business that creates at least 10 jobs.

The US Chamber of Commerce has announced its support for the new legislation proposal.

"Our housing market will never begin a true recovery as long as our housing stock so greatly exceeds demand. This is not a cure-all, but it could be part of the solution," said Mr Schumer, a Democrat from New York.

Mr Lee, a Republican from Utah, described the bill as a "free market method for increasing demand for housing".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15406776

[Sue U]

Prospective buyers would need to spend at least $250,000 on one property that would serve as their primary residence, and could make up the $500,000 requirement with additional rental properties.

To qualify for the visa, however, the purchases must be in cash,

So all you Latin American drug lords, Russian mafiosi and Third World despots come on and buy your American dream home! Too bad for a certain North African colonel that the offer's a little late.

[Scooter]

I suspect they mean purchase paid in full, as opposed to being mortgaged. I can't imagine they would be expecting people to be coming forward with suitcases full of currency.

[Sue U]

My way is funnier. Even so, currency laundered through wire transfers is still good money!

[rubato]

?? Don't nearly all countries allow foreign business people who invest to some significant degree in their country legal residency in some form ?? Westminster London is filled with Russian oilygarchs * and rich Kuwaitis. Is $500,000 too low? Should the limit be $750,000?

yrs,
rubato

* just give me credit when you use it!

[rubato]

My way is funnier. Even so, currency laundered through wire transfers is still good money!

There is No-Such-Thing as "dirty money".

It's all impregnated with antibiotics to preserve the paper.

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

And cocaine, don't forget cocaine.

[rubato]

When I worked as a forensic chemist in S. Calif. back in the early 1990s two different TV stations paid us to test samples of currency for cocaine residues. When the first one called I had to develop a reasonably economic method so I pulled a bill out of my wallet and extracted it with Methanol and a -huge- cocaine peak showed up on GC-NPD. (we also had blanks &c.)

The first test showed about 54% of 20$ bills had cocaine and the second one had a lower rate.

yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

?? Don't nearly all countries allow foreign business people who invest to some significant degree in their country legal residency in some form ?? Westminster London is filled with Russian oilygarchs * and rich Kuwaitis. Is $500,000 too low? Should the limit be $750,000?

yrs,
rubato

* just give me credit when you use it!

Tell that to Mohammed Al Fayed...

A captain of the retail industry in London, his son was shagging Princess Di and they STILL wouldn't allow him to become a British citizen...

[Gob]

Obviously our resident Timmy doesn't realise that people can visit a country, without buying a residence there and taking up the "green card" equivalent.

But there again, the things he does not know would fill many books.

Now can you please stop quoting the shitbag, Sean? I was happy ignoring the little pustule until you started doing that.

Oh, BTW

« Energy Blast – June 18, 2008The Petrostate Chess Game »

The “Oilygarchs”
By James Kimer | Published: June 18, 2008

Original, isn't he?