The Gold Card
whitehouse.gov
whitehouse.gov
Calling it a “gift” somehow manages to add an extra level of ick in my mind.
Yeah, it's a gross lie. The "gift" is clearly a fee.
So transactions are the opposite of a zero-sum game, they are a win-win game, where both parties end up winning. Because value is subjective.
1 million dollars seems exceptionally cheap for a US resident visa with no strings attached.
In Canada some provinces have a similar process where you can run a business for a year and apply for permanent residency. In my city there were a bunch of weird little, clearly unprofitable franchises - bubble tea was one for a long time - where the owner was basically running it at a loss to buy citizenship.
It seemed to require a little more commitment to the community and effort than just handing over a big bag of cash. They've discontinued it in Ontario now, which has probably contributed to the glut of unoccupied commercial real estate.
Just this week we found a homeless and black guy swinging from trees.
The related “Platinum Card” on the other hand makes me absolutely livid. It means that for $5 million, there’s a status available that is arguably better than US citizenship, granting 270 days of presence in the U.S., and exemption from US taxation. I am a U.S. citizen who spends <30 days per year in the U.S., and I can’t even open an ISA in the UK where I live due to the US’s global tax rules, let alone anything more complex. To have citizenship based taxation and then grant a special status to foreign wealthy individuals is a slap in the face of decency.
270 days in the U.S. is also long enough to become tax non-resident in whatever country you’re spending the other 90 days in, making it likely that you’d be tax resident nowhere.
Genuinely ignorant here, but historically speaking, is it normal for the president to bad-mouth the previous administration so openly and often? Especially in writing like this.
As I recall, other Presidents might decry Congress etc. but would almost never out-and-out criticize the direct previous official actions taken by the office of the Presidency.
Huh? Can you offer a single example of this pre-Trump?
“We inherited a financial crisis unlike any that we’ve seen in our time,”
That's a fact of reality. Trying to compare what Trump is doing to simply stating that we were in a financial crisis when Obama took over is while every single argument with someone from the right should be done knowing they don't stand on principles and will literally redefine words and reality to try and make a point.
There is no advantage to doing this unless you are a vindictive, angry, petty PoS.
The important thing to keep in mind is that it is all fiction and it is ONLY Trump saying these things. It is important to let authoritarian ideas die on the vine rather than endlessly debate the strawmen and keep them alive, IMO.
The characters in the whack pack seem the use Andrew Jackson as a model. He was similarly tasteful and also a disaster.
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/orders/
Also unprecedented is the use of Executive Orders to govern, as opposed to legislating through Congress, but that is not an entirely Trumpist thing, as Congress has been (take your pick) failing to govern/applying checks and balances for 20+ years now and across multiple administrations.
On the front a picture of Trump.
On the back pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln weeping in despair at the sight of Neu Amerika.
A million bucks? Should have made it a billion.
Also, anecdotally, a friend just immigrated from Scandinavia to the US 3 months ago. He's loving it and has no plans to go back despite the political situation.
Most people are fairly isolated from the day-to-day political show. Life keeps going more or less the same across different presidents.
I think that if the candidates can’t get a majority of the population to vote for them (not just a majority of the voters), the office should remain vacant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
A lot more people around the world can then afford to send their kids or pay off their gold cards across a 10-15 year timeframe.
*Obviously this depends on the income potential that is unlocked by having access to the U.S. workforce.
Well, nobody sane, anyway.
Which are only insane in the USA lol
> Something like 0.5-1% of households in Europe have >$1M in investable/liquid assets.
You say this like it's a bad thing. I welcome immigration from rich Europeans.
You're not going to get European immigration via this scheme, that's for sure.
The only people who are likely to pay are people who are exceptionally wealthy and exceptionally highly motivated to get out of wherever they currently reside. Fraudsters who won't be extradited, mostly.
Let's assume a high-net-worth individual with $1M of annual pre-tax cash flow split evenly among qualified dividends, long-term gains, and business income, and a $3M primary home. Let's also assume that this man lives in Texas, or he lives in Germany.
In Texas he'd owe about $304k in US federal income taxes (23.8% on dividends and gains; ~37% top rate on business income) plus roughly $54k of property tax at ~1.8%, for a total near $358k.
In Germany he'd pay ~26.375% on dividends and gains ($131.9k), a roughly 45% + 5.5% solidarity surcharge on the $500k business income (~$237.4k), and low property tax (~0.3% ≈ $9k), totaling ~$378k.
The difference comes out to just $20k. That said, all services are cheaper in Europe -- medical, telecoms, legal, etc. -- so life in Europe tends to be far less expensive in general.
And you'll note that I was extremely generous and picked a state without income tax. Many US states, perhaps most, are worse than Germany.
I also picked a middle-of-the-road European state. There are some that don't seem that interested in collecting taxes, e.g. certain Swiss cantons, some Baltic states, and Monaco. (No personal income tax on salaries, dividends, interest, or capital gains + no wealth tax!)
Dude, seriously. Think about these things before you post. The tax situation in the USA is way worse than you think it is, and it's way better in Europe than you imagine.
Anyone who can drop a million on permanent residence is most likely going to be significantly net positive for the economy.