Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

No one could have predicted…

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Let there be snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: ‘Golden Visas’ – Always Be Grifting!

Open Thread: ‘Golden Visas’ – Always Be Grifting!

by | 55 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

For all the work Jared Kushner is (supposed to be) doing for the President-Asterisk, surely his blood clan deserves a little sumpin-sumpin on the side. (/snark) Per the Washington Post:

BEIJING — The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big — and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you.

That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s sister to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors, renewing questions about the Kushner family’s business ties to China.

Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey real estate project to secure what’s known as an investor visa.

The EB-5 immigrant investor visa program, which allows foreign investors to invest in U.S. projects that create jobs and then apply to immigrate, has been used by both the Trump and Kushner family businesses.

But President Trump’s vow to crack down on immigration, as well as criticism from members of Congress, has led to questions about the future of a program known here as the “golden visa.”…

Saturday’s event in Beijing was hosted by the Chinese company Qiaowai, which connects U.S. companies with Chinese investors. The tagline on a brochure for the event: “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”

Qiaowai is working with Kushner to secure funding for Kushner 1, a real estate project in New Jersey. Promotional materials tout the buildings’ proximity to Manhattan and note that the project will create more than 6,000 jobs…

Journalists were initially seated at the back of the ballroom, but as the presentations got underway, a public relations representative asked The Post to leave, saying the presence of foreign reporters threatened the “stability” of the event.

At one point, organizers grabbed a reporter’s phone and backpack to try to force that person to leave. Later, as investors started leaving the ballroom, organizers physically surrounded attendees to stop them from giving interviews.

Asked why reporters were asked to leave, a public relations representative, who declined to identify herself, said simply, “This is not the story we want.”

As the NYTimes article points out, apart from the indignity of selling safe havens to rich ferriners, this ‘investment program’ doesn’t do much for the rural areas that gave Trump their votes & allegiance. Nobody hoping to escape China’s polluted skies and local politics is going to drop a half-mil or more in East Armpit, MS — they want a blue-state haven where their kids can get a decent education and they can find the sort of restaurants and shops that the Kushners and the Trumps frequent.

Reader Interactions

55Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.”

    The only problem is that, in the United States, the president is Donald Trump.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    they can find the sort of restaurants and shops that the Kushners and the Trumps frequent.

    The ones that serve well-done steaks with ketchup?

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    This pic, annotated by Josh Marshall, is worth a thousand words:

  6. 6.

    Roger Moore

    they want a blue-state haven where their kids can get a decent education and they can find the sort of restaurants and shops that the Kushners and the Trumps frequent.

    I’m actually suspicious about them wanting the same kinds of restaurants that Trump frequents. I’ll admit that I’m probably seeing a biased selection, but I’m pretty sure that they want access to good, authentic Chinese food, which doesn’t seem likely to be on the Trump menu.

    On a slightly more serious note, the $500K figure can be very misleading. From what I recall, that’s an absolute minimum amount to qualify for the visa. There’s also supposed to be a specific minimum number of jobs in the business you’re investing in, i.e. not counting secondary effects like jobs provided by buying materials. Given the way investing in construction works, they’re going to have to put in a lot of money per direct job created, so the total is likely to be a lot more than $500K.

  8. 8.

    Sébastien

    Results in France: it’s Macron, 65 to 35. WAAAAAY to high for Le Pen, but at least we don’t have Trump-with-a-better-wig president….

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    I was so very much hoping some one was going to FP this. And I’m also glad Adam put the pic up with Trump’s ugly fucking face named as “key decision maker”.
    That is so, so good.

  13. 13.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Roger Moore:

    but I’m pretty sure that they want access to good, authentic Chinese food, which doesn’t seem likely to be on the Trump menu.

    Sure, but the point is you can find this in NYC and not in East Asshole, Red State.

  14. 14.

    ? ?? Goku ? ?

    @Sébastien: It did start out that way for Clinton last November. France doesn’t have to deal with an Electoral College, tho. Hopefully another domino doesn’t fall. Be like Austria and the Netherlands, France. Don’t be like us dumb Yankees and Limeys

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @? ?? Goku ? ?: But 65-35 is probably what the U.S. result should have been if we had a minimally sane and mature electorate.

    ETA: I see you got the emoji approved.

  16. 16.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    G was telling me that San Marino had to pass a local regulation that there had to be at least one adult age 18 or older living in a household because billionaires from China were buying homes there and then sending their teenagers to go to American high schools, and it turns out that Chinese teenagers left alone at a house with no adult supervision will party just as much as American teenagers in the same situation.

  17. 17.

    Sébastien

    @Baud: Well, now, it’s as in the US: full steam ahead for the législatives (our equivalent to US’ 2018), because if Macron is to do anything, he’ll need people voting for it in the Assemblée Législative / Congress. And we’d better pound on the FN’s attempts to capitalize on their score and get députés/congresscritters, just to remember them that Vichy is history !

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @? ?? Goku ?: You get 2 changes gratis. You want any more and there is a lengthy application process, featuring extreme vetting!

  21. 21.

    ? ?? Goku ? ?

    @Baud: You go to war with electorate you have, not the one you wish you had. But you’re totally right.

    The real problem with the EC is that it’s stacked with extreme partisans who will vote the party line no matter how bad the pop vote winner. It was meant as a check on the electorate. In 2016 America, its just another institution that’s failed.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Here is what Macron is on record as stating he’ll do when elected:

  24. 24.

    ? ?? Goku ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks, I settled with this one. The “unevenness” of the nym was bothering me.

    Because I Iike to hear myself talk: Globe represents all of humanity and the imporance of being globally-minded.
    Flag: self-explanatory. (Mature) Love of country
    Ballot box: citizenship and it’s responsibilities/democracy
    Rose: social democracy

  27. 27.

    Sébastien

    @Baud: Yes. And with the Socialists(which for years have been only nominally left anyway) in rubble, the Républicains (yes, our Right party has taken THAT name… None around read Balloon Juice, apparently) barely better, and extremists at both sides (Mélenchon at the extreme left showed himself as a complete hysterical clown), Macron may have an opportunity to make something new work. Of course, the FN may also have an opening…

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    @? ?? Goku ? ?: It was not meant as a check on the electorate. That was the hopeful spin that Hamilton put on it to sell it to the Federalists who recognized what it was designed to do: enshrine and enhance the slave power and the power of those states that had slavery and would continue to do so.

  32. 32.

    LurkerNoLonger

    I asked Kushner’s sister whether $150 mil in Chinese investment posed a conflict of interest. “Leave us alone!” her entourage yelled.

    “Just let us be scumbags in peace!”

  34. 34.

    Starfish

    Nobody hoping to escape China’s polluted skies and local politics is going to drop a half-mil or more in East Armpit, MS

    Ok. Story time.

    I grew up in a town in MS where a local funeral home is being sued for denying a man the agreed upon funeral for his gay husband. After getting a lot flack, that funeral home has changed its Facebook icon to the pride flag.

  36. 36.

    Sébastien

    @Baud: Thanks. I have but one vote, but I’ll damn make use of it. And everyone in my family as well.

    Interesting: Marine Le Pen announced that she plans to change the FN in deep. Neither she nor her father ever thought it necessary before. May purges be ahead to make sure she’s still at the top come 2022 ?

  37. 37.

    ? ?? Goku ? ?

    @Adam L Silverman: Now, that I think back to Early Amer. history, that is true. Why we had so many presidents from the South early on. Phrase “slave power” jogged the memory

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    @? ?? Goku ? ?:

    The real problem with the EC is that it’s stacked with extreme partisans who will vote the party line no matter how bad the pop vote winner.

    IIRC, most of the EC voters who voted for someone other than their pledged person were on the Democratic side, and they were still pissed that Wilmer didn’t win the primary.

    That still pisses me off. A genuine goddamned fascist had just cheated his way to an Electoral College majority and so-called Democrats still couldn’t stop the fucking infighting over the fucking primary for one goddamned minute and focus on the actual threat in front of them.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @Starfish:

    I’m guessing they also ended up with a lot of cancelled contracts, which made them stop and think about whether they really wanted to be the known Straights Only funeral home in town.

  43. 43.

    japa21

    I have occasionally quoted a Chicago Sun Times columnist, Neil Steinberg. The following, however, is from his blog, which I just discovered http://www.everygoddamnday.com.

    Today is the deciding run-off vote in the French presidential election, pitting nationalist bigot Marine Le Pen against centrist newcomer Emmanuel Macron.
    All indications point to Macron winning against the opponent he dubbed “the high priestess of fear.” And while shocks such as the one delivered in this country Nov. 8 are in the realm of possibility, smart money says the French, though also dissatisfied with politicians, are not willing to leap suicidally out of the European Union, like the Brits, nor hand their country over to foaming demagogues, as the United States has done.
    They can learn from us. The hope of Americans learning from the French is a dicier proposition. We don’t look abroad for answers much, and when we do, we tend to limit our thinking and cherry pick our points, as this column from nearly a decade ago reminds us. Notice the foreshadowing of this week’s health care debacle.

    The rest of his column is that column from a decade ago and it is outstanding.

  45. 45.

    ? ?? Goku ? ?

    @Mnemosyne: Well, there is that old Rogers joke. I never payed that close attention to how they voted. I know some got death threats; Trump electors. Humans are stupid. Hopefully some were fined a lot

  46. 46.

    Michael Bersin

    Senator Claire McCaskill (D) attended a few constituent contact events yesterday in Kansas City.

    “…It is very simple.

    They are cutting eight hundred and forty billion dollars from the Medicaid program, okay, in order to give a tax break of over a trillion to wealthy people and corporations. [hand slaps] [voice: “That’s horrible.”]That’s it.

    It is the contraction of health care services in order to give a tax break. This is a tax break bill. It’s not a health care bill…”

    Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): on Zombie Trumpcare – May 6, 2017

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I think you’re making the mistake of applying too much of a backward-looking view of the Electoral College. Yes, slavery had a big influence over the Constitution, but it was far from the only thing involved. At least as important was that voting, including standards for who was allowed to vote, was still handled state-by-state. In 1787 the franchise was very unequal. Every state still had property requirements, but they varied drastically from state to state. Other rules also varied considerably; New Jersey even allowed some women to vote. You simply can’t have a reasonable national popular vote when there are those kinds of differences in the franchise, and nobody was willing to try to impose uniform standards. In the absence of any kind of uniform national vote, something like the Electoral College was the only reasonable way of putting together a national-level election.

  49. 49.

    Ruckus

    @Roger Moore:
    And of course we don’t have national registration for national elections, that is also still handled by the states. Or reasonable standards for election materials, such as voting machines with no physical records.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    Yikes! No, I had mostly heard about the partying stories. But, again, that’s the kind of thing that teenagers will get up to if they don’t have adult supervision.

  53. 53.

    efgoldman

    I asked Kushner’s sister whether $150 mil in Chinese investment posed a conflict of interest. “Leave us alone!” her entourage yelled.

    Didn’t this used to be called “influence peddling” and result in prosecution and jail time?
    Asking for a friend

  54. 54.

    boatboy_srq

    Nobody hoping to escape China’s polluted skies and local politics is going to drop a half-mil or more in East Armpit, MS — they want a blue-state haven where their kids can get a decent education and… the sort of restaurants and shops

    Not to mention that the Red-State-Residin’ Hetero Xtian Caucasian Patriotic Real Ahmurrrrcans already in East Armpit would most likely run their furrin’ a##es out of town if that were the sort of place they were to invest in.

Comments are closed.