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Rich and American? Australia Wants You
An anonymous reader writes: Following the success of a millionaire visa program to attract wealthy Chinese, Australia has launched an invite-only visa program that promises citizenship to rich American entrepreneurs. To meet the requirements of the Premium Investment Visa plan Americans must first invest around 15 million Australian dollars. Reuters reports: "Investment advisors who have been briefed on the plan by government officials expressed doubts about the wisdom of targeting Americans, with several telling Reuters the more obvious place to start was Australia's Asian neighbors. After all, why would a successful U.S. entrepreneur want to invest a large chunk of cash in Australia — a country very similar to the United States, just further away from everything — in exchange for a passport that carries few additional benefits to their own? 'The U.S. has some problems that Australia doesn't have. It's got a lot more racial crimes, it's got a lot more gun-related crimes, but I don't think that is going to drive a whole bunch of ultra-rich Americans out of their country,' said Bill Fuggle, a partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie who advises wealthy Chinese migrating to Australia."
That's great! As soon as alllllll the richie richers leave, the entiiiiiire USA can be like Detroit! It's gonna be fucking awesome!!
Full disclaimer: I'm Australian.
Spoiler: It's a trap!
More?: We're like America (well, our government tries to be, at every opportunity), only without your wonderful constitutional freedoms!
Perhaps Rupert Murdoch was feeling nostalgic and wanted to be an Australian citizen again? (He had to give it up for American citizenship)
This government owes him big time for the massively favourable press coverage they get, so I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they implemented this whole program just for him.
Which is owned by an ex-Aussie, and is convinced that Obama's such a disaster that the rich are clamoring to leave.
And I won't be surprised if that gets them some takers. Particularly if the GOP can't get it together and start getting a consistent lead on Hillary.
There'll probably be a few more who do it because they want a rich democracy's passport,and don't like the fact the US taxes on global income (ie: if you make $1 Million in China and you;re Swedish you pay no Swedish taxes on it, just Chines; if you're American you pay both).
Great.. More "innovative" entrepreneurs like the ones fleeing china before the SHTF as a result of looting their home country. Model citizens.
If genuine business opportunities were created this would be completely different - however the minimum investment is just something to be got around in the most creative way possible.
Great stuff, should increase the average IQ of both countries.
... Don't take it the wrong way... but I like the bill of rights. Put something in place that forbids the government from overstepping its bounds to any extent and Australia will be very interesting.
Short of that... you're an interesting vacation destination. A nice place to visit but I need something like the Bill of Rights to call a country home.
Too many people died to institute and then preserve that... and far more will die in futures to come.
Australia does things all the time that just casually violate what I consider to be sacred rights. They just ban things... for the children. I can't have that. The gun thing is also important. I'm not a gun nut... but I believe I have a right to be dangerous in my own country and in my home. Not for hunting... not even for self defense... to be DANGEROUS. I feel that is an important check on anyone that would try to intimidate the people. If they understand that the people can and will turn on them with an instant militia of millions. That forces the elites to be careful.
I know my views are incomprehensible to many. And that's fine. Its what I need to immigrate. Without that... I refuse. You're not offering me real citizenship in my opinion if you don't offer me a reasonable set of iron clad rights in the package.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm American and I could probably get about 15 million lira together if you give me a few days and will take a check.
On second thought, I'm not very well traveled so I'd appreciate it if someone could help me with the monetary conversion. Australians accept lira, or do I have to convert to Foster's beer for payment? If so, I'll let them keep the change and just give them the entire six pack.
That's the kind of rich I am, ladies, and there's more where that came from.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
It's got a lot more racial crimes, it's got a lot more gun-related crimes,
On average, yes, but crime is a local thing. Areas of Sydney have drive-by shooting from middle-eastern crime gangs, and plenty of cities in the US are very safe.
I don't know why rich Americans would want to leave - it is the poor people who are much better off in Australia. (unless they dream of buying a home)
I heard the elite are moving to New Zealand to flee the coming destruction of the US.
That sounds like a more enticing reward.
Your wingnut conservatives, gun-nuts or religious fruitcakes. They can stay behind.
I mean, basically any western democracy where you don't need to have an army to protect your wealth is pretty awesome if you are rich. Other than tinfoil hat syndrome (e.g. James Cameron - moved to NZ) why would you limit yourself to a smaller place that you can visit, buy a mansions in, and even smuggle your dogs in on your private jet whenever you want to anyway?
Really the debate needs to change to asking why an Aussie, who enjoys arguable a better standard of living than the median American, can't reasonably freely immigrate to the USA if they feel like it and vice versa? They could just start with a one-in one-out system so that there is no uncontrolled effect on population size, and limiting access to social services is a no brainer. That is the problem with this immigration debate, it gets so fixated on countries full of impoverished unskilled people trying to get to the richer country, yet the only thing they seem to actually change (as in the UK for example) is to make immigration harder for the educated middle-class from countries you might actually want to exchange people with.
Perfect for Republicans Rednecks who threaten to move elsewhere to avoid gay marriages and the commie bastards taking over the government!
Fast tracking immigration for the rich doesn't work. When Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister of Canada he tried it. Who has millions of dollars in disposable cash laying around? The answer came as the Asian drug cartels moved into the country. Homicide and murder rates spiked as they fought for territory. Now, many years later, they are integrated into the social fabric of the country and there is no going back. So, to sum it up -- it won't work. Don't do it.
wooo oooo..oooo.oooot
Though, I suppose if you're a millionaire, you can afforde the tax advisors that sort things out for you.
You do know that no Australians actually drink Foster's, right? That's the stuff we flog to foreigners.
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The most attractive feature could be the Australian Government helping to shield Americans from the U.S.A. exit tax.
Or a HQ Monaro if you're a purist.
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" a country very similar to the United States... The U.S. has some problems that Australia doesn't have. It's got a lot more racial crimes, it's got a lot more gun-related crimes"
Australia has twice the burglary rate and a higher rape rate. Australia has a ban happy nanny-state government. Australia has a lot of race crimes against Aborigines that just aren't reported in their pop media. Australia's cost of living is almost twice what it is in the U.S. Australia still has a fucking queen.
Australia is like the U.S. except with the fun and awesome parts removed, and instead replaced with the U.K.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
What do you drink, then?
Because the US is the only country in the world that taxes it's citizens regardless of where they reside
Don't take the piss out of Fosters, it needs all the flavour it can get!
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Pfffft.......why would Australia want a bunch of lunatic Americans ?
You're delusional.
They can keep their squalid shithole with their crack and guns and crime and slavery and jebus.
If the USA ever gets its act together and shows it's matured enough to start treating its people decently then MAYBE they'll have shown they're fit to emigrate en masse to a civilised nation.
Until then though, not a chance.
Yep, just what we need... more cashed-up bogans.
Seriously, most Australians and Brits probably have no idea how pointless it is to bring up stuff like this:
What most foreigners consistently get wrong when looking at our crime stats is failing to note that the overwhelming majority of our gun deaths either have a criminal or a suicidal person on the receiving end of the bullet. Since it's illegal in all 50 states and DC to shoot someone over a non-violent offense or even a violent misdemeanor, that almost invariably means that when a criminal is shot it's either by someone who by definition doesn't respect the law (fellow criminal) or someone about to be on the receiving end of a violent felony.
I can't blame them for this misunderstanding. Our gun control lobby is notorious for manipulating stats by doing stuff like putting gangbangers near the age of majority, who are both eligible to be prosecuted as adults and involved in serious crime when killed, as "children" under the death stats. That's about as bad as most countries refusing to count the death of premature babies on their mortality rates and mocking us for our higher mortality rate because we record those as infant deaths.
But hey, if you want to outsource your basic daily safety to the state, more power to you. You have a rich tradition of subjection to royal and aristocratic authority. Who are we to judge your culture, even if it makes no sense to most of us how you can call yourselves "free citizens" when your electorate is basically at the mercy of your elites' willingness to use force?
You do know that no Australians actually drink Foster's, right? That's the stuff we flog to foreigners.
You drive a hard bargain. I'll send you a six pack of beer we don't drink and beer we flog to foreigners. One six pack of Foster's and one six pack of Bud Light.
Drink the Bud first and then use the Foster's simultaneously wash away the taste of the Bud, drink something that resembles a beer, and be both humbled and amazed by the fact we can make a beer so crappy it makes you enjoy the crappy beer you guys produce. Then be thankful that I didn't send over Bud Light Lime. Yes, that's a thing and it probably tastes as bad as it sounds.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
https://www.danmurphys.com.au/...
Personally its a bit like VB but a little less B.
Still not as good as Coopers home brew or coopers retail.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This is something I have always wanted to witness: the gentrification of an entire continent. Another great victory for the One Percenters. I wonder how the middle and lower class of Australia will fade away. Meekly, I suspect. They know it's inevitable.
I tried applying for Australian citizenship once but they turned me down as I didn't have a criminal record.
The US has a similar plan, the EB-5 visa program, but you only need to invest $1 million to get your green card.
I say, if we're going to let people bribe their way to the front of the immigration line, we should get top dollar for it. $15 million sounds about right, plus $2 million paid directly to the government, and used to hire more immigration workers to clear the ludicrous immigration backlog for everyone else.
*Especially* since a good chunk of those buying green cards are Chinese businessmen and government officials fleeing corruption charges in China: if we're going to be complicit in fraud, I want a bigger piece of the action.
Oh, and by the way, ever notice that Americans who're furious about people "skipping the line" in the immigration process never complain about this program? Seriously the only mention I can find over on Fox News is concern that Mexicans are doing it, despite the fact that for every Mexican EB-5 visa applicant, there are 200 Chinese.
I don't understand why guns always come up when non-Americans talk about America. I have lived here my entire 30 years, IN THE SOUTH, and have not seen a single gun in public except in the hands of a police officer. I own guns and most of my family do as well. But I've never seen them in public.
right after the UK. Australia has gone down the facist daddy state road at high speed. It is quite amazing how UK/AUS/NZ continue to out do even the US.
Well, there's that, but I always had a thing for the yellow Falcon interceptors.
Pretty much anything but Fosters :-D
That basically means NOBODY drinks Fosters. Which brings up the question: "where does all that Fosters go?" Is there some country where they really like it? Does someone use it for some other puprose than as a tasteless beer? Maybe it's good for cleaning?
"It's got a lot more racial crimes, it's got a lot more gun-related crimes, but I don't think that is going to drive a whole bunch of ultra-rich Americans out of their country,' " said Bill Fuggle.
I don't have quite enough money to meet their income requirement, but I have considered emigration to Australia for those exact reasons. If my fortunes improve or their number comes down, it's an option I'd like to have open. Especially if we elect a Donald Trump-esque Repblitard as President.
I'll get an immediate $15K per year raise by not having to shell out for health insurance if I do move.
Seriously, we do not want Americans living in Australia because you'll bring with you not just money but your stupid political system too. And all of the corporate bulls**t that comes with your money. And you can keep your stupid court actions (suing for unspecified damages, etc) that clog up the court system for no benefit than lawyers.
Americans are loud, don't know how to drink, obnoxious, think the sun shines out of their ass and often are religious nut jobs the equivalent of radical Islamists declaring jihad.
Sure, you may have a lot of money but we don't want it here because it comes with you, Americans. Take the Americans out of the USA and it would be a much nicer place.
Stay at home America, we don't want you coming to live in Australia and polluting our society with your idiocy.
oh, btw, your accent is like nails on a blackboard.
Then be thankful that I didn't send over Bud Light Lime. Yes, that's a thing and it probably tastes as bad as it sounds.
Probably suggests you may not have tried it yet. A really cold Bud Light Lime outdoors on a hot day is surprisingly enjoyable, and I say that as someone who usually goes for proper beers. Just ignore the fact that they pass this stuff off as "beer" and give it shot. You only live once.
They already have an annoying rich person that has excessive influence. Now Australia wants rich foreigners also? How about looking for anyone that's decent to help in any way possible. Looking just for the rich is reverse lobbying and quite lazy.
Different place are different because of the people that live in them. It's not some special property of the water that makes China different than Australia, it's the people. If you move the cause from location A to location B, then you'll move the problem from A to B. For some reason this most basic fact escapes almost everyone.
What they don't tell you: Australia's new DTCA laws jail technologists and entrepreneurs
http://defencereport.com/australias-defence-trade-control-act-clamps-down-on-researchers/
http://www.cla.asn.au/News/defence-pilloried-by-senate-test-pilot/
http://delimiter.com.au/2015/07/13/cryptographers-issue-belated-complaint-about-defence-trade-controls-fix/
No Bill of Rights in Australia, no free speech in Australia, and corruption that would make Boss Tweed blush.
Applicants must not giggle if someone asks them where to find a "toilet".
One, from personal accounts, and from what I see in the mass media, on a whole, Australia seems to have more than a few raciest tendencies (sorry non-raciest Australians)... So that might be one reason they are targeting America, VS Asia. They didn't say it, but I'm willing to bet that a significant percentage (90-99%) of people in America that actually have 15 million bucks in the bank are all white anyway.
Two, I was watching Family Feud the other day, and the American contestant was asked the question "if you had to live in any foreign country, which would it be?" The #1 answer was "Australia" so it could be that Americans already perceive it as a good destination as another reason to target the US. That said, the real funny part of that story, is that the contestant's answer was actually "'Murica!", I shit you not. As a Canadian I was a little insulted we got no mention at all... :(
I know from looking at emigration sites software developers are a demand skill there, but unless one is rich, it's hard to make that kind of move. Anyone know of any Australian companies that are hiring Americans and paying for relocation?
No? Then fuck you Australia.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Canada has something like this for a $120k investment, for the record.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
'strayans are the 'mercans of the south Pacific anyway. Culturally, intellectually, politically, they're indistinguishable.
They even sound the same. And it's all Hebrew.
Fuck America.
These so-called rich visas used be in the $500K to $1000K range until recently. Basically you'd prove that you had the funds to live on and would not be a welfare case. However in recently years the Chinese snapped all such visas in the US and Canada and probably the rest of developed world too. The US and Canda ones are suspeended for further study.
Why in the world would I want to invest in a country where basic human rights (speech, press, ability to own guns) aren't guaranteed by law, where drip coffee is almost non-existent, government bureaucracy at every level makes France look like an anarchist state, and everything has a self-induced tax due to an outrageously unsustainable high minimum wage?
Seriously, Australia's at the bottom of my list when I look at places where I would want to invest in. I'll happily visit, but I'd never happily live.
True Americans are not willing to give up our right to keep and bear arms, or any other rights, so not interested.
But you'll find Australia still beats out America when it comes to "Thought-Crime."
Do they want the rich billionaire Mexican cartel Lords. Do they want the rich Paraguayan Americans. Or how about rich Canadians who generally live better than the USAians down south. How about the African Americans, who have never seen Africa first hand. That would be awesome if We could Export Jay-Z. Then you would no longer be able to use the term African American when referring to disadvantaged billionaire black media moguls. . You would have to use the more appropriate term 'Africans American Australian'. That would be just awesome. Just how many continents can we lump together in an effort to avoid being perceived as racist.
This really has nothing to with safety or kangaroos and more to do with our stagnant economy, lack of ingenuity and our governments desperate attempt to bring in more money.
Hell we're letting the Chinese tear up perfectly good agricultural land for some stinkin' ore mine (until it poisons the water). The Indonesians don't want our beef and no one wants to swallow the bitter pill.
Pah! Must be all those weapons we Aussies have in our houses that we have locked in a safe "for our own protection". What a ridiculous idea.... I'm in emergency services and have never been to a gun related incident in all my employment.
Thats because they're wrong.
You've got no idea how Australia is or works.
A "bill of rights" was described by your previous president, George W Bush as "just a piece of paper" and has been ignored without consequence many times before him.
Australia works on the premise that freedoms are not protected by paper, but people. We have our 5 fundamental freedoms (Speech, Association, Religion, Assembly and Movement) codified in the constitution but its still up to the High Court of Australia to rule on them and they do an overwhelmingly good job of it. If people stop defending freedom and rely on a piece of paper to do it for them, that piece of paper becomes as useful as those defending it.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
No? Then fuck you Australia.
Dearest gun nut.
Stay the fuck out of Australia.
Signed,
People who are happy not having mass shootings every second week.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Personally, I have two very nice microbreweries within easy driving distance. But since you asked, here's the top ten by market share.
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...they have fuck you tax rates if you make any kind of decent money.
bottomline it's a cash grab to keep the socialist nanny state afloat.
For when Bernie becomes president, the Dems-who-are-Dems, not DINOs, take control of Congress, and we tax interest and dividend income at the same rate *I* get taxed at, instead of Romney's 14%.
Wonder whether the big companies will let their CEOs telecommute....
mark
The US doesn't.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Pro: Still have muscle cars available. Shutting down local car industry, though
Con: have to drive on the wrong side of the road. Crime against nature and Jesus.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
trying to get time to reply to you karmashock
My ism, it's full of beliefs.