6 ms·

I've often thought of the dollar value of my US passport (/citizenship). It would definitely be my most valuable asset (then again, taxes are by far my biggest

I've often thought of the dollar value of my US passport (/citizenship). It would definitely be my most valuable asset (then again, taxes are by far my biggest expense). Besides almost unrestricted travel - my income is far higher in the US than it would be in any other country I've looked at. It's easy to forget how lucky those of us in the developed world are and how so many try so hard to gain status here. Good luck on your journey, and I hope someday you're able to get the US tourist visa to experience the joys of the US: Yosemite, NYC, Disney World and Taco Bell.

cloudjacker 10y ago
> It's easy to forget how lucky those of us in the developed world are and how so many try so hard to gain status here. I like complaining about insignificant things for that specific reason.
- villedespommes 10y ago
  Your passport is another first world problem. "There are so many visa-free countries I can visit! How do I pick one to go to for my next vacation?"
rwmj 10y ago
This is why I think the European Union should be more like an actual union. You should be able to subscribe to it, and your membership would grant you a passport, rights and duties. It would solve the whole Brexit issue, because everyone who wanted to remain a member could do so. It wouldn't even be that expensive - we pay about £185/year each at the moment to be in the EU (£13bn/70m people). Edit: Obviously this is not a fully worked out idea. What I find disappointing is that no one in the news ever even talks about alternatives, even narrow alternatives.
- akie 10y ago
  I'm sorry, but that doesn't work. Membership of the EU (or at least the common market) needs common laws to work, and these only work at the national level, not at the personal level...
- microcolonel 10y ago
  I've seen you post this at least five times now. Next time you're on your comments page to copy it again, read what people said about it all of the other times you posted it.
  - rwmj 10y ago
    I have never posted this comment before. You can look through my comments history to verify this easily.
    - microcolonel 10y ago
      Oh god, I'm going senile, or perhaps it's deja vu. I'm sorry. :-\
- mdasen 10y ago
  There are a few issues with this idea. First, you say that it wouldn't be that expensive at £185/year, but that's the price when you're also offering rights to others in the Union to live and work in your country and giving access to your market to the rest of the Union's goods. The £185/year would barely scratch the surface. Second, who would the cash come from and go to? Presumably, it would be from individual Britons. Would it go to the rest of Europe? £185/year would be very cheap to gain access to the right to live and work in Europe. In fact, countries do sell citizenships, but for a lot more than that. I believe Malta is the easiest way to buy yourself EU citizenship and requires a gift of €650,000 to the government, €150,000 parked in government bonds for 5 years (probably earning next to nothing), and buying at least €350,000 in property (and holding it for at least 5 years). Third, if you could cheaply buy the right to live and work in the EU, why would any country stay? Let me explain the scenario. If I'm a member country of the EU, I must open my borders to other EU countries, but in exchange those countries are open to me. Why wouldn't I want to simply leave and then let the minority of those in my country that want access to the rest to pay a tiny fee? In fact, if that fee is the same that I'm paying for all my citizens currently, the government could even pay it for those that want it and save loads of money. In this scenario, everyone leaves the Union because it's cheaper to just buy the right for the small few that want it. If only 1% of your population actually wants to exercise that right in a given year, you could cut your cost from £13B to £130M. The issue is that a foreign country isn't going to give you access when your country won't give their citizens access on equal terms. It's not an issue of a small fee. Why should a British person willing to pay £185/year get access to the EU while a French person willing to pay £185/year wouldn't get access to the UK? That's the heart of the Brexit issue and why a small fee has nothing to do with the problem. Europe isn't going to give British people freedom of movement into Europe when the UK won't give Europeans freedom of movement into the UK. Why should they give UK citizens more rights than those of other European nations? The issue is that there aren't a lot of alternatives that are in any way realistic. A realistic solution would mean that UK citizens don't get to live/work in more places than other EU citizens without some form of consideration proportional to the right. £185/year isn't proportional, especially since other EU nations must pay into EU coffers. I'm always interested in alternatives, but most alternatives sound more like, "this would be useful and cheap for me and next I'd like a free, unlimited mobile plan with no strings attached." Of course it would be useful if the EU let you pay a tiny fee for the right to live and work in the rest of the EU. Would the UK also let Europeans pay that fee to live and work in the UK? No? Ah, there's the problem. A realistic solution could be one where a country in the EU allows UK citizens to become citizens of their country provided they renounce all ties to the UK and give up all rights in the UK. That would allow UK citizens to determine which set of rights they wanted to live under - but they'd lose UK rights if they chose the European side. But that's not "I get the best of both worlds." If you want rights in both the UK and Europe, then you need to be willing to offer those rights to EU citizens, not just UK citizens. To be fair, you might be more than willing to offer that if you were part of the remain camp, but that doesn't square with Brexit. Ultimately, the issue is just that Brexit is a rejection of the type of thing you think could be nice. Brexit is a rejection of freedom of movement. Brexit is a rejection of making national citizenship less meaningful. Brexit is a rejection of the idea that you should be able to easily live and work where you want to. Your idea might be cool, but it's the opposite of Brexit. Maybe we should move to a world where we can freely join "nations" or "unions" that square with what we want in life rather than being citizens of where we were born or whom we were born to. But that's the opposite of the sentiment expressed by Brexit which seeks to limit that type of freedom.
- cel1ne 10y ago
  It's not just work and travel, what about all the taxes, consumer protection laws etc. How would selling goods be like? An "EU-supermarket" next to the regular one where you have to show your membership to be able to buy?
  - jjawssd 10y ago
    Very interesting idea... Maybe some set of alternative services for EU subscribers.
nstj 10y ago
Warren Buffett describes being born in the USA as having won "the ovarian lottery" which sounds about right, as you've described it. [0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-on-the-ovarian-lottery-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-on-the-ovarian...
- djsumdog 10y ago
  I know quite a few Australians/Kiwis who are able to obtain their British passports. Honestly I think that's worth way more than a US citizenship. They can work and live in any country in the EU, Australia and New Zealand, without a work visa (well for two more years anyway :-P).
  - girvo 10y ago
    I have dual Australia/New Zealand citizenship, and even that alone is well worth it. Brazil, for example, allows New Zealand passport holders to enter visa-free, but not Australians! https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyPassport.php?p1=nz&p2=au& https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyPassport.php?p1=nz&p2...
    - vacri 10y ago
      There's not really that much difference between AU and NZ, though it is weird to see that PNG requires a visa for AU, given that AU gives PNG a chunk of aid money.
      - girvo 10y ago
        You're right, there isn't, at least not in this nicely quantified way. Anecdotally, I've been treated much nicer on my NZ passport than my Australian one, even to the same countries (especially France, which I found curious).
        2skep 10y ago
        Other Kiwis I know have reported receiving great treatment in France. Some have pointed out that they still feel a bit guilty about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
dingo_bat 10y ago
> I hope someday you're able to get the US tourist visa to experience the joys of the US: Yosemite, NYC, Disney World and Taco Bell. Just nitpicking but Taco bell has outlets all around the world. You don't need to visit the US for that.

cloudjacker 10y ago

> It's easy to forget how lucky those of us in the developed world are and how so many try so hard to gain status here. I like complaining about insignificant things for that specific reason.

villedespommes 10y ago
Your passport is another first world problem. "There are so many visa-free countries I can visit! How do I pick one to go to for my next vacation?"

rwmj 10y ago

This is why I think the European Union should be more like an actual union. You should be able to subscribe to it, and your membership would grant you a passport, rights and duties. It would solve the whole Brexit issue, because everyone who wanted to remain a member could do so. It wouldn't even be that expensive - we pay about £185/year each at the moment to be in the EU (£13bn/70m people). Edit: Obviously this is not a fully worked out idea. What I find disappointing is that no one in the news ever even talks about alternatives, even narrow alternatives.

akie 10y ago
I'm sorry, but that doesn't work. Membership of the EU (or at least the common market) needs common laws to work, and these only work at the national level, not at the personal level...
microcolonel 10y ago
I've seen you post this at least five times now. Next time you're on your comments page to copy it again, read what people said about it all of the other times you posted it.
- rwmj 10y ago
  I have never posted this comment before. You can look through my comments history to verify this easily.
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    Oh god, I'm going senile, or perhaps it's deja vu. I'm sorry. :-\
mdasen 10y ago
There are a few issues with this idea. First, you say that it wouldn't be that expensive at £185/year, but that's the price when you're also offering rights to others in the Union to live and work in your country and giving access to your market to the rest of the Union's goods. The £185/year would barely scratch the surface. Second, who would the cash come from and go to? Presumably, it would be from individual Britons. Would it go to the rest of Europe? £185/year would be very cheap to gain access to the right to live and work in Europe. In fact, countries do sell citizenships, but for a lot more than that. I believe Malta is the easiest way to buy yourself EU citizenship and requires a gift of €650,000 to the government, €150,000 parked in government bonds for 5 years (probably earning next to nothing), and buying at least €350,000 in property (and holding it for at least 5 years). Third, if you could cheaply buy the right to live and work in the EU, why would any country stay? Let me explain the scenario. If I'm a member country of the EU, I must open my borders to other EU countries, but in exchange those countries are open to me. Why wouldn't I want to simply leave and then let the minority of those in my country that want access to the rest to pay a tiny fee? In fact, if that fee is the same that I'm paying for all my citizens currently, the government could even pay it for those that want it and save loads of money. In this scenario, everyone leaves the Union because it's cheaper to just buy the right for the small few that want it. If only 1% of your population actually wants to exercise that right in a given year, you could cut your cost from £13B to £130M. The issue is that a foreign country isn't going to give you access when your country won't give their citizens access on equal terms. It's not an issue of a small fee. Why should a British person willing to pay £185/year get access to the EU while a French person willing to pay £185/year wouldn't get access to the UK? That's the heart of the Brexit issue and why a small fee has nothing to do with the problem. Europe isn't going to give British people freedom of movement into Europe when the UK won't give Europeans freedom of movement into the UK. Why should they give UK citizens more rights than those of other European nations? The issue is that there aren't a lot of alternatives that are in any way realistic. A realistic solution would mean that UK citizens don't get to live/work in more places than other EU citizens without some form of consideration proportional to the right. £185/year isn't proportional, especially since other EU nations must pay into EU coffers. I'm always interested in alternatives, but most alternatives sound more like, "this would be useful and cheap for me and next I'd like a free, unlimited mobile plan with no strings attached." Of course it would be useful if the EU let you pay a tiny fee for the right to live and work in the rest of the EU. Would the UK also let Europeans pay that fee to live and work in the UK? No? Ah, there's the problem. A realistic solution could be one where a country in the EU allows UK citizens to become citizens of their country provided they renounce all ties to the UK and give up all rights in the UK. That would allow UK citizens to determine which set of rights they wanted to live under - but they'd lose UK rights if they chose the European side. But that's not "I get the best of both worlds." If you want rights in both the UK and Europe, then you need to be willing to offer those rights to EU citizens, not just UK citizens. To be fair, you might be more than willing to offer that if you were part of the remain camp, but that doesn't square with Brexit. Ultimately, the issue is just that Brexit is a rejection of the type of thing you think could be nice. Brexit is a rejection of freedom of movement. Brexit is a rejection of making national citizenship less meaningful. Brexit is a rejection of the idea that you should be able to easily live and work where you want to. Your idea might be cool, but it's the opposite of Brexit. Maybe we should move to a world where we can freely join "nations" or "unions" that square with what we want in life rather than being citizens of where we were born or whom we were born to. But that's the opposite of the sentiment expressed by Brexit which seeks to limit that type of freedom.
cel1ne 10y ago
It's not just work and travel, what about all the taxes, consumer protection laws etc. How would selling goods be like? An "EU-supermarket" next to the regular one where you have to show your membership to be able to buy?
- jjawssd 10y ago
  Very interesting idea... Maybe some set of alternative services for EU subscribers.

nstj 10y ago

Warren Buffett describes being born in the USA as having won "the ovarian lottery" which sounds about right, as you've described it. [0]: http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-on-the-ovarian-lottery-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-on-the-ovarian...

djsumdog 10y ago
I know quite a few Australians/Kiwis who are able to obtain their British passports. Honestly I think that's worth way more than a US citizenship. They can work and live in any country in the EU, Australia and New Zealand, without a work visa (well for two more years anyway :-P).
- girvo 10y ago
  I have dual Australia/New Zealand citizenship, and even that alone is well worth it. Brazil, for example, allows New Zealand passport holders to enter visa-free, but not Australians! https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyPassport.php?p1=nz&p2=au& https://www.passportindex.org/comparebyPassport.php?p1=nz&p2...
  - vacri 10y ago
    There's not really that much difference between AU and NZ, though it is weird to see that PNG requires a visa for AU, given that AU gives PNG a chunk of aid money.
    - girvo 10y ago
      You're right, there isn't, at least not in this nicely quantified way. Anecdotally, I've been treated much nicer on my NZ passport than my Australian one, even to the same countries (especially France, which I found curious).
      - 2skep 10y ago
        Other Kiwis I know have reported receiving great treatment in France. Some have pointed out that they still feel a bit guilty about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

dingo_bat 10y ago

> I hope someday you're able to get the US tourist visa to experience the joys of the US: Yosemite, NYC, Disney World and Taco Bell. Just nitpicking but Taco bell has outlets all around the world. You don't need to visit the US for that.