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Comment by spindritf | Hacker News Reader

I'm broadly against immigration to the EU, and 650k is a bit low, but in general, this is the best way to go about it. We're getting people who really want to get in, who demonstrably can contribute and won't be a burden on the system. Also, not too many.

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You'll get a lot of Russian mobsters that way, buying their way in and buying property to get a foot in the EU door.

Russian mobsters have already bought their way in, and for a lot more money than 650K.

If you have enough money you can buy your way into any country.

Yeah, I would guess there is relatively little overlap between the kinds of people willing and able to pay €650k for a passport, and those who have productive skills the EU is currently in need of. The EU needs more middle-class skilled labor, basically, ranging from skilled blue-collar workers to educated professionals. It doesn't really need Dubai sheikhs or Russian mobsters looking for a passport of convenience.

Would it really be a problem if all of Russia just joined the EU?

If anything, having 650k available to invest like this suggests ability to exploit, not contribute.

In theory, its up to the government to ensure that you can only make money through positive means. Thus if you have money, its assumed it was earned by contributing to the economy in someway.

>Also, not too many.

I think it's already too late for that.

Sure, you could come at it from the other side too: people who are poor and a drain on the system can be stripped of citizenship and deported.

Can you explain why you're against immigration to the EU? I've just arrived in Berlin, so it's relevant to me.

Obviously, the riots, car burning, head chopping... the kind of stuff you'd see on the news. But more importantly in the long run, it simply doesn't work, much like many of the immigrants who come here. See Malmö for example[1] where "the majority of foreign born working age adults do not work." That, and every other indicator makes for a bleak picture of immigration.

[1] http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2013/05/malmo-case-study-i...

"the riots, car burning, head chopping" you're kidding right?

He's trying to say he doesn't like brown people.

If you're going to read the "facts" stated in the linked article, be sure to read the comments which refutes the whole article.

See Malmö for example[1] where "the majority of foreign born working age adults do not work."

That's not what the data really says. Think, how does the SCB know if people are working? Do they follow them around? No, they only know what people tell them. So what that data shows is that less than the majority of foreign born adults declare that they're working. Now I'm sure you can think of a few reasons why a poor immigrant would have to not declare that s/he's working.

That's not the long run, that's just 20-60 years. Look at the US where 99% of the population is immigrants. We're not doing too badly, are we?

Off the top of my head, Rodney King and Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman come up as recent counter-examples. The US isn't really a peaceful utopia of human diversity, anymore than any other country.

I've done the same, it was just over a year ago. I've seen separatists (from the EU), people who want to abolish the Euro, and more. If someone wants each country to have different currencies why stop there? Berlin area is much poorer than the rest of Germany, why not give Berlin a separate currency too? Because these people are racist. It's true!

I try and tell people, I'm a skilled software developer, what Germany needs right now. And when was the last time a Canadian showed up in Europe and started causing a problem? Immigration is tiered based firstly on country of origin and wealth, not on skills.

I find it a little bit offensive that EU residency is just one more thing the wealthy can now buy. But on the other hand it was inevitable and was already largely the case. For less than $650k if you have a good immigration lawyer.

>I find it a little bit offensive that EU residency is just one more thing the wealthy can now buy.

Well, you could also be living in Pakistan or Somalia and apply for asylum which most likely will be granted to you with no money involved.

Berlin area is much poorer than the rest of Germany, why not give Berlin a separate currency too?

If you'll read up on currency theory, you'll find some people have proposed pretty much exactly this (Jane Jacobs comes to mind, probably in Cities and the Wealth of Nations, it's been a few decades since I've last read it).

More generally: with a sovereign currency, a country controls both its monetary and fiscal policy, and can make its own allocation decisions with both. Which means it can set monetary policy to benefit its industrial / manufacturing or other economic centers, and use fiscal policy to create wealth transfers to underdeveloped regions. This is effectively what happens in the United States, for example, through SSI, welfare, medicare, SNAP, and similar programs.

In the EU, you have a bifurcation of monetary policy (ECB) and fiscal policy (independent European states). This was pointed out by numerous early critics of the EMU, including rather notably Margaret Thatcher, in the late 1970s / early 1980s. Her comments then proved exceptionally prophetic.

"The Other" is scary.

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