How much worse could you get from a society where 80% of people are living in extreme poverty and where in a good year inflation is 250%? Maduro was not some great guarantor of stability who kept a divided society together. For instance about half the prisons are run under the so called pranato system which means they are literally run by the inmates. I think it's reasonable to say that almost anyone would be better than him.
Pretty much everyone who wasn't in on the CADIVI scam or the subsidized gasoline racket or selling $0.05 screws to PDVSA for $75 stands to benefit from a new government. Many corrupt dictators understand that stealing a small percentage of a bigger pie is a more stable arrangement that can ultimately be more profitable in the long run but the clan that ran Venezuela was so greedy they wanted to take everything as fast as possible.
Venezuela was not a society held together by a strongman unlike Iraq/Libya/Syria. It also does not have the religious or tribal divides those places did. The country was already on the brink of collapse from a combination of sanctions and truly astronomical levels of corruption. There has been a roughly 70% economic decline over the past decade and while there is no longer hyperinflation, inflation in 2025 was at least 200%. Panama would be a more appropriate reference point.
> Penchukov’s political connections helped him evade prosecution by Ukrainian cybercrime investigators for many years. The late son of former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych (Victor Yanukovych Jr.) would serve as godfather to Tank’s daughter Miloslava... Sources briefed on the investigation into Penchukov said that in 2010 — at a time when the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was preparing to serve search warrants on Tank and his crew — Tank received a tip that the SBU was coming to raid his home.
It took 10 years for Madoff victims to get most of their money back and he was literally just depositing the money into his checking account. He also almost certainly had much fewer victims than this guy did. Based on the complaint I think there may be a large number of international victims as well. This case will really test whatever claims process the DOJ has but hopefully some measure of compensation can be reached quickly. I suspect there are tens of thousands of scam domains and different addresses used so even identifying who to notify will probably be extremely difficult.
Citizenship by investment revenue was 20% of St Kitts’ GDP in 2023. Look at the Henley & Partners website - pretty much every developed country (much of EU, Singapore, Switzerland, many Asian countries) offer at least offer residency by investment. And they still offer it despite pressure from the EU to shut these programs down, so there must be some benefit to it.
These are usually designed for wealthy people. The benefits might only accrue to the wealthy in the target country. For example my government in New Zealand keeps talking about being able to sell land to foreigners if it's more than 2 million. That benefits people that own land worth 2 million. The theory is that it trickles down to benefit the majority, but I wouldn't bet that actually occurred.
The bar should not be investment, instead it should be how much is spent. That could also cover nomadic workers. So long as their expenses are bringing overseas income then everybody in the target country is likely to be advantaged.
Investment can benefit both parties (it doesn't have to be zero sum) but savvy investors don't give a shit whether there is any benefit to the country. Applicants naturally don't like to spend money without gain, yet the purpose of the golden visas should be to encourage applicants to spend money!!!
Or investors often just invest in static assets that just hold their wealth. That doesn't help the target country.
Just my opinion from looking at the schemes and wondering how I would get around the rules so that I had no dead weight expenses.
You can buy Austrian citizenship for ~5M EUR. Cyprus and Malta offered similar schemes at much lower prices until recently. Italy incentivizes people to move their tax residence there by letting them pay a 200k EUR lump sum tax annually instead of the standard progressive rate. I don't really see why we shouldn't have programs like this if there is vetting, but I'm also curious under which US laws this can be justified. Who would have standing to contest this even if it wasn't legal?
PS:
Under 50 USC §3508, the CIA director or the Attorney General can bring in up to 100 aliens and their family per year for permanent residence without regard to any admissibility requirements. Perhaps to maximize revenue these spots can be auctioned off at a premium.
There already was such a system with more concrete requirements. It is called the EB5 visa and has a path to green card. What does this new method bring to the table?
The payments are not going to Trump, personally. They're probably not going to the government, either; I bet this becomes like the EB-5 investor visa, where you make certain kinds of investments within the US. I admit that the text on the website doesn't make this clear, though.
Yeah, if you peel off Trump's name, the insane branding, and the fact that this seems to have been implemented completely extra-legally, I don't hate it.
The "extra-legally" part is not at all clear. When this goes to court (and I'm sure it will), the administration's argument will probably go something like this: Congress has authorized the administration to issue visas to people of "exceptional ability in business" -- see 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(2), for example. However, Congress did not specify how, exactly, the executive will ascertain that ability. The Trump administration believes that making a one million dollar investment in the U.S. demonstrates evidence of business ability, and is using this as a factor for issuing and prioritizing visas.
It would seem that accumulating stuff is a waste of time at a point much lower than one billion. On the other hand, giving every Debian maintainer $500 a month is ~$5M a year. Add in Gentoo, Alpine, and other things I like and you're looking at probably double that total. Ivy admission for kids is a few million a year for 5-10 years... Retaking Artsakh would be north of $3 billion
Do policy people see any light at the end of the tunnel for Myanmar? I feel like we just need to give intelligence + a couple billion in weapons to a Burmese version of Dostum. Make it a condition of receiving aid that scammers are ruthlessly cracked down on/sent back to China. Form a coalition with other EAOs that matter, sort of like the Northern Alliance, and take over Tatmadaw controlled cities one by one. Then get some highly decentralized federalism in place (draw the rest of the owl).
> Do policy people see any light at the end of the tunnel for Myanmar
Depends on where those policy people are from.
I'm American but my extended family is in the Dogra Regiment (IYKYK - and also why I haven't been nominated as an [or is it "a", me fail Eng.i.mean.phonetics after a couple Blantons] SES for US-India relations over the past 15ish years), so I have absolutely no hope. Myanmar has become yet another battlefield for China and India to flex, and it's millions of innocent civilians who face the brunt of this little d** syndrome.
My friends who haven't been purged by DOGE or are doing the purging on behalf of DOGE don't know these intricacies.
And this pisses me off. There are millions of innocent civilians facing rape, human trafficking, murder, and ethnic cleansing because a couple limp d**s in Naypawday, Kunming, Imphal, and Bangkok couldn't care enough to negotiate a true path to peace.
> I feel like we just need to give intelligence + a couple billion in weapons to a Burmese version of Dostum
There are like 50 Dostums in Myanmar. If you ever followed a "true" history of the Afghan Civil War, you'd see the same situation arise in the 1990s. Both Pakistan and India would fund their favorite warlords with weapons and rupees (my mom went to college with Hamid Karzai), and give their families asylum (if you want Ahmad Shah Massoud's [0] family's address in Delhi-3 I gotchu).
China, Thailand, and India are doing the same thing in Myanmar (and did the same thing 30 years ago).
> Then get some highly decentralized federalism in place (draw the rest of the owl).
And then Cls like my Phuphar in the Dogras would bribe (or put a bullet in) them to make sure they don't flip to the Chinese, and it becomes Libya or Congo 2.0 because the equivalent in China or Thailand is 100% doing the same.
> Form a coalition with other EAOs that matter, sort of like the Northern Alliance, and take over Tatmadaw controlled cities one by one.
Some EAOs are funded by China. Others by India. And others by Thailand. For all intents and purposes, none of these countries view Myanmar as a "real" country, and are working on splitting it up amongst the EAOs they are funding (or honeytrapped).
I see what you mean. I feel like it's a collective action problem. If Myanmar had its security situation together, the incentive to meddle would be much lower. No one funds rebel groups just for the sake of it, except maybe Gaddafi. But there are way too many parties to way too many tables, so chaos just continues because reaching a deal never seems possible.
I read a book about Dostum and I vaguely remember they actually had multiple candidates in mind originally. There was Rabbani, Dostum and I think some others, but they chose Dostum cause he had the least baggage and ties to Iran. Problem is in Myanmar might not be anyone with real power who is even defensible. You don't hear too many bad things about say the TNLA, but that might just be a function of them not being important enough to make headlines in English news. I get the impression the KNLA is the most legitimate EAO in the eyes of Western governments yet their leaders are on tape negotiating heroin deals and brokering uranium [1], so maybe my hope for a unifier to come out of these armed groups is a bit unrealistic.
We need to get ready d of Junta and we are in the process so far. Many of Myanmar PDF, joined with The Arakan army and they are in progress to capture key supply lines . Currently junta at heavy losses and both southern and eastern areas are in control of PDF and Arakan army .
We are in progress to restore democracy but a lot of us are suffering. No western power help us. We are mostly on our own.
And narrative of EOA being funded by China, Thailand, India is false. EOA had nad alliance and bargain with those nation to, they have to buy the weapons and do the trades but none of them funded and controlled by those bigger powers (
MNDAA tho, had unfortunately had to bow down to china after threat of elimination if they don't broker peace deal with Myanmar military after their leader got captured by CCP during call for a meeting for peace talk)
It you want to know more details please ask a local. Many western media rarely have an ideal of what's going on.
> And narrative of EOA being funded by China, Thailand, India is false. EOA had nad alliance and bargain with those nation to, they have to buy the weapons and do the trades but none of them funded and controlled by those bigger powers
I agree to a certain extent. The EOAs were created by individual Myanmarese who faced the brunt of the regime (a major reason as you mentioned behind the PDF movement), but at least in Chin, Saigang, and Kachin the EOAs do have to collaborate closely with India or China (Intel, weapons, medical care) because they have significant investments which changes the calculus, and worst case justify limited cross-border interventions (but both Chinese and Indian have done so a number of times)
> We are in progress to restore democracy but a lot of us are suffering. No western power help us. We are mostly on our own
Absolutely. I think what the PDFs are doing is extremely difficult and admirable, but a lot of the EOAs are not necessarily aligned with the PDF movement and in a lot of cases collaborated with the Junta.
Well in all fairness to China/India, they might prefer to work with a legitimate government, but the legitimate government of Myanmar (when it existed) has always been completely dysfunctional. It also has never really exercised any control of the borderlands, which are where rebel groups like those in Manipur often congregate. Even prior to the development of the scam industry, out of work Chinese in provinces like Yunnan would often seek opportunity in the more well run EAO quasi-states. There are well-maintained paved roads in Pangkham, which can't be said for much of the country.
> the legitimate government of Myanmar (when it existed) has always been completely dysfunctiona
No argument there. Those guys are horrible. They make Mao, Phibunsongkhram, and Indira Gandhi look like saints.
> It also has never really exercised any control of the borderlands, which are where rebel groups like those in Manipur often congregate
No argument there, despite half my family being veterans of the Dogra Regiment (IYKYK)
> Even prior to the development of the scam industry, out of work Chinese in provinces like Yunnan would often seek opportunity in the more well run EAO quasi-states
Because there was an "anti-corruption crackdown" that in Yunnan lead to criminal gangs (especially in the prostitution and drug space) being kicked out in 2012-15 to Myanmar. In reality, a lot of those guys didn't pay the right people off, so they left for ASEAN.
> There are well-maintained paved roads in Pangkham, which can't be said for much of the country.
100% True. And I don't blame local councils for supporting Chinese investment there.
But it's something even a local village councils could organize if the central government existed.
This is why China, Thailand, and India exert power in the hinterlands of Myanmar.
Myanmar has the right mix of human capital and low cost, but a horrible government meant it's outside countries using their worse people to access that capital (gangs)
Pretty much everyone who wasn't in on the CADIVI scam or the subsidized gasoline racket or selling $0.05 screws to PDVSA for $75 stands to benefit from a new government. Many corrupt dictators understand that stealing a small percentage of a bigger pie is a more stable arrangement that can ultimately be more profitable in the long run but the clan that ran Venezuela was so greedy they wanted to take everything as fast as possible.
reply