Buy a House become a Citizen!

It's not citizenship; it's a renewable temporary residency.

And, I'm not sure how it'd help. Foreigners can already buy US real estate without setting foot in the country. Perhaps now they'd have an extra incentive to buy if they wanted to get a visa to the US and were otherwise unable to. But, is it the case now that foreigners with enough money to spend a half million on American real estate can't get temporary visas? I didn't think it was hard for an affluent person to get permission to enter.

Even if they are right that such legislation would spur immigration of wealthy foreigners and prop up the real estate market, isn't it a permanent solution to a temporary problem?

 

^^^ agreed.

So, people who for some reason can't get in now would be able to because they have money. Seems a little... misguided.

 

I have heard of similar, but better proposals. This will not accomplish much, if anything.

The carrot provided should be citizenship and it should be offered to foreign students upon graduation from our universities. A lot of great minds come to the United States to study, we should do more to keep those people here after graduation. The person who accepts the offer should be required to purchase a foreclosed (or other distressed property) property and live in the house full time for 5 years to earn the permanent citizenship. It probably sounds too much like indentured servitude to make Democrats happy and any opening of the borders will irritate Republicans.

 

There are programs to let you in if you invest in businesses....but otherwise it's pretty tough. This is targeted at Chinese and South Americans for whom visas are hard to come by. And retirees who may not have any interest in investing in a business. The idea is rich people are good for the economy. And they'd be taxable on their incomes. And since they have to live in the US they'd spend their money locally.

Don't know what employment and/or school rights would be attached. But I could see a wealthy family from a developing nation or a nation with some political instability liking this a lot. Though they'd likely just send over the family, and keep the income earner away to avoid US income taxes.

 

The barriers to wealthy foreigners living in the US are very low relative to poor foreigners. Generally, immigration policy is about regulation of the poor. I guess with this idea, it's just trying to lower the wealth bar a little more.

 

I don't pike this idea. This would make it harder for people with lower incomes to buy homes, as this would artificially raise demand (and therein raise home prices). It would also spur increased borrowing, which, without real growth, will translate to higher prices. If they really wanted to increase home ownership, and put the economy on a solid foundation for growth based on increased savings and investment, they would quit trying to prop up lending institutions by keeping home prices artificially high.

 

^ like most Paulista/Libertarians, when some aspect of dirty foreigners gets brought up (immigration is where the libertarian movement starts to self-disembowel....), many free market libertarian preacher men discard theirt cloth and head for the xenophobia hills.

Allowing more buyers the ability to participate in a market by lowering unrelated regulatory barriers to entry (getting a 3 year us residency visa is a heavy transaction cost...it's a pain in the ass) isn't an "artificial" way to raise demand. If anything it's removing an "artificial" way to hold it down. Though that's kind of a stupid way to conceive of it as well. There is no such thing as the platonic form unregulated mega-free market, at least not outside of Bartertown - there are merely different sets of market background rules, some of which produce more efficient outcomes than others, and some of which, depending on the nature of the market, need to be necessarily more complicated.

Market background conditions that you like: "natural"
Market background conditions that you don't like = artificial constraint

Not much different how you claimed that loose monetary policy = price controls, whereas a tight one = not price controls

 

You are on notice.... your address and work location has been sent to the Ron Paul Revolutionaries...

 

This is beyond stupid.

 

You're a moron. Like every other response you've ever made to my posts, you label me as belonging to a particular political group and then attack the positions of that group. If you'd actually seen my prior posts regarding immigration issues, you'd know that I want the closest to open borders we can have while maintaining the jurisdiction of this government. I'm not in favor of arbitrary barriers to trade, which is what I view borders as (just as any scholar of economics would tell you). Of course, I'll call you out on your strawman every time, but your tune never changes.

On this you have a good point. I was looking at the issue from the perspective of the monetary system. I don't think we should put up barriers in the housing market that prevent people from buying property in the United States.

Actually, I don't like it when the state justifies coercion against particular industries for some foggy and misplaced notion of the common good. Markets should be regulated. But the type of regulation I favor should prevent individuals and collectives from using coercion against each other, regardless of whether it involves labor or the fruits of that labor.

And as for my argument about the Fed's manipulation of interest rates being a price control, I made my argument, and you were the one who resorted to personal attacks rather than actually addressing it. I stand by my argument. And I never claimed that a tight monetary policy wasn't a price control, while a loose monetary policy was a price control. My claim was that an interest rate that isn't decided by the interaction of the supply of loanable funds versus the demand for those loanable funds is a price control. The Fed's decisions regarding interest rates doesn't take into account people's savings (the supply of loanable funds) at all. Therefore, when they set the supply according their policy goals, they are engaging in a price control.

I'll be patiently awaiting you deflecting my arguments and attacking the strawman you've created for me.

 

So you're on the non-xenophobe side, have a cookie, or more appropriately, some pan dulce...

so it's not artificial demand, it's artificial "monetary" addition?

Oh god, the road to serfdom, somebody find the exit ramp.

Actually, what happened was this - you claimed Keynsianism was basically a system of price controls. Keynes of course detested price controls and railed against them.

So you backed it up and are purposefully taking the ridiculous position that interest rate policy = price controls, because "It does the same thing a price control does. The price is being controlled"

Sigh. That's not the definiton of price controls and you know it, which is why you invented the stupid argument in the first place.

 

Well, actually, if, as I understand it, they're just trying to provide an incentive for foreigners to invest in property here, I'm not opposed to it. You're right. Demand was being stifled by legal means. However, that doesn't mean that demand isn't being manipulated upward by keeping the cost of borrowing lower than it would be if it were priced the market for loanable funds.

You may be surprised to know I've never read the Road to Serfdom. I'm not big into reading political philosophy.

But, really, what is it that you disagree with there? The notion of government acting as a mediator seems a lot better than their current role.

Really? I claimed that all of Keynes theory amounted to price controls? Alright.

On a serious note, Keynes did make great contributions to the science of economics.

So ridiculous that you wont respond to it, even though the interest rate isn't decided by markets, and its set below equilibrium for policy purposes.

 

Still won't solve the real problem which is that housing prices are too high compared to wages that have been falling for years.

 

What if they agree to buy whole developments, tear them down and build parks and/or golf courses in their place?

 

You're beyond moronic. It's people like you who are sunking America.