[cma]

One thing that will let you in is if you are invested in from

> investors with established records of successful investments

The rich get richer. Established investors get cheap labor, while upstart competitive investors get buried behind an artificial government wall. I wonder if any established investment firms lobbied for that?

[_delirium]

This kind of rule (Canada was floating a similar one) is usually added in an attempt to keep visa-sellers out of the market, i.e. outfits who will agree to fake "invest" money in your fake "startup" in return for an under-the-table fee. By limiting the people who can count as investors to those who have a track record of actually investing in startups, the hope is that this kind of fraud will be at least less frequent, and easier to police.

[whack]

The EB5 program already exists which allows people to buy permanent residency. Anyone who wants to "buy a visa" can just do that with the full blessing of the government.

[_delirium]

That requires quite a bit more money, at least $500,000. Yeah, people who have that kind of money can already buy a visa. But a visa-reselling scheme here could be much cheaper, targeting people who want to buy a visa for, say, $30,000. The fraudulent investor would structure their investment so they don't actually part with the purported investment money (depending on what checks are done, there are various ways to either hang on to the money or round-trip it), and just charges a fee for agreeing to pretend to invest and temporarily fronting the required investment money.

[Finbarr]

All you get for your money is parole though -- not a visa. You couldn't work for other companies or stay indefinitely without getting another type of visa.

[lend000]

Same with hedge funds. Government 'protects' the average investor by only letting qualified rich people invest in hedge funds (and get richer). I love how the government asserts that it knows what's best for me and protects me from myself. Such a free nation we live in.

[bsder]

> Government 'protects' the average investor by only letting qualified rich people invest in hedge funds

Having dealt with this situation recently, I'm a little more sympathetic to the government's position.

Most investors are dumb. Really dumb. No, dumber than that.

It's really easy for a con man to set up shop. It takes forever to get him shut down, and the scammed will fight you.

Scammed investors will defend the scammer even when you present them with incontrovertible proof. You can stand in court and have a judge hand down rulings of the level of "worst case I have seen" and they will STILL defend him.

Preventing these kinds of "investors" from even getting into the game is really the only way to keep it under control.

Trump being elected was hardly a surprise to me given my recent experiences with dumb investors.

[adharmad]

Won't such people find other ways of getting in trouble or losing their money? How many such avenues can the government block?

[lend000]

Sounds like a problem with a different part of the system (too many legal protections to effectively shut down ponzi schemes/cons/etc.). In general, I've never heard a compelling argument that the government should pass laws that limit people's freedoms, solely for the purpose of potentially defending people from their own willful decisions that affect only themselves.

[bsder]

> too many legal protections to effectively shut down ponzi schemes/cons/etc.

The problem is that the the person carrying out the scam is playing with "house money" while the ones trying to stop him are paying cash. He is paying lawyers with the money from the investors and burning up the assets. So, by the time you are done, it may be a Pyrrhic victory.

[lend000]

How many hedge funds fall into this category of scammers? And with our protective legal framework, how come you still had to deal with a situation like this?

Not only do I dislike the freedom limitations in principle, but I've been giving everyone the benefit of the doubt that limiting freedoms will actually prevent the targeted type of scams. In reality, scammers will always find a way, criminals are not bound by laws, and we're still stuck with the inherent flaws of only giving the rich access to wealth-generating funds.

[JabavuAdams]

> from their own willful decisions that affect only themselves

Handing your savings to a con man affects more than just yourself. It destroys your family, which increases crime, etc.

No one person wants to be constrained, but en masse these kinds of things can destroy a society. Especially when they are well-known cognitive exploits that work on people despite their own stated preferences.

[lend000]

> Handing your savings to a con man affects more than just yourself. It destroys your family, which increases crime, etc.

So by your logic, it should be illegal to get conned. Let's punish victims. Seems pretty backwards to me, even though your goal is to be proactive. Might as well outlaw suicide while we're at it.

> but en masse these kinds of things can destroy a society

An example might be good here to back up a pretty questionable claim.

[literallycancer]

>An example might be good here to back up a pretty questionable claim.

A civil war should be enough, no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_civil_war_of_1997

[sanderjd]

> So by your logic, it should be illegal to get conned.

That really isn't what they said...

[JabavuAdams]

I'm surprised that this was your take-away from my response.

[Chris2048]

> Trump being elected was hardly a surprise to me given my recent experiences with dumb investors.

This is needlessly flame-baitey

[daodedickinson]

Imagine if we were forced to live in a system where we had to choose between two people like that!

[8ytecoder]

What bothers me more is the restriction on investing in IPOs.

[vostok]

Isn't the restriction on investing in IPOs imposed by banks and not the government? You're just not going to get an allocation if you're not a "good customer".

[throwaway5752]

Yeah, that is 100% the result of the private financial system (investment banks). Remember when Google did the open dutch auction format and what a big deal that was for cutting them out?

[chulk90]

Don't you think you're making too much assumption here? If a large firm lobbied to create an "artificial ... wall," they would write a pre-defined amount, such as "firms who have $100MM AUM," rather than making it vague.

"Successful investments" can be validated with a reasonable argument, so it actually opens door for younger VCs.

[cma]

Or maybe by making it vague they will get even more protection, especially if they have ins with the regulators who will interpret it. Seems more likely for established players than for upstarts.

But maybe not. Just throwing it out there.

[oh_sigh]

Without it, you would have people just buying their way into 6+ years in the country.

[cma]

How about instead we use something similar to the existing framework for minimizing charity fraud?

[orasis]

So your investment thesis is "cheaper is better."?