Procrastination

جمعرات 2 جولائی 2009Thursday, July 02, 2009

Kindle

I had been thinking about getting a Kindle for a while. Then one day a package arrived at home somewhat unexpectedly. In it was a Kindle 2.

I have read a few books on my old Treo 650 as well as on the iPhone. So I didn’t mind reading on a screen, though of course the small screen was awkward. I have read a little bit on the Kindle now and mostly like it. I have also bought a couple of Kindle books for my upcoming vacation and might have more to say about using the Kindle after I return.

The Kindle screen is not very bright. It’s quite grey, more like a mass market paperback than a hardcover with more white paper. That also means it’s easy on the eyes (and has long battery life) but doesn’t look as neat as a hardcover edition.

The interface is somewhat intuitive, though we have been spoiled here by the iPhone which my 4 year old has mastered. I don’t particularly like the feel of the keyboard however. I don’t usually buy books or browse the web from the Kindle, so it’s not much of an issue for me.

One thing I would have liked is some sort of book organization. If it can hold 1,500 books, I should be able to organize them into folders or labels.

I love the fact that there is an iPhone application which syncs with the Kindle and I can read a book on both. However, any non-Amazon books or documents I put on the Kindle are not synced.

Michelle loved the text-to-speech system. She was very happy to listen to stories. Of course, the text-to-speech system is for listening for a short while since its monotone would bore you after a while. It’s not a real substitute for an audiobook and that’s how it’s going to be due to technological limitations.

The Kindle is lighter than a lot of books and I love the fact that I don’t have to expend effort trying to keep the book open with one hand when I am reading in bed. Bookmarks and annotations are important features I really needed as well. I need to look into the annotations feature which I have really used yet.

I bought a leather cover for the Kindle which makes it look like a book.

In addition to the three books I have bought in Kindle edition, I have also downloaded a number of books from ManyBooks.Net. I have also tried converting a couple of large PDF documents to Kindle format via Amazon’s free conversion service (it’s free only if you want to get it back via email and costs money if you want the book transferred directly to the Kindle) with varying results. In some documents, the formatting got all screwy but in others it stayed okay.

Lest I forget, thank you, Badtamiz.

By Zack at 3:52 PM in Books , Science and Technology | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

اتوار 28 جون 2009Sunday, June 28, 2009

Taken

We were skeptical about liking Taken. In fact, I was worried that Amber would get very sentimental about any harm coming to the kidnapped daughter. Sometimes being a parent makes us emotionally unstable, hahaha!

What we got was some nice action and a fun movie overall. I rate it 7/10.

By Zack at 1:21 AM in Movies | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

منگل 23 جون 2009Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Dark Side

I guess you could figure out that I was reading The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by my recent blogging on torture.

This is a must-read book by Jane Mayer. It follows the torture story meticulously and focuses on how the policy developed. It is clear from the book that there were some major villains in the Bush administration who pushed for torture and got their way most of the time. John Yoo, David Addington and others shut the actual officials who were supposed to make national security policy (at the subcabinet level) out. However, the cabinet principals don’t come out looking good. They were either indifferent or supportive of the euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques”, properly known as torture.

While there are several people mentioned in the book who tried to stop torture by the US government, there were also lots and lots of bad guys, lawyers who wrote or approved torture memos, military, civilian and CIA personnel who approved, condoned, supervised or actually tortured suspected or actual terrorists and intelligence, military and law enforcement who consumed the results of torture investigations. There are times when I feel like the Obama administration should release the names and deeds of all those people, anyone who was in any way involved with the torture policy. I know it’s not going to happen and isn’t really fair either.

What should be done is to release all the information about US actions and policy with regards to torture. For example, the thousands of pages of the CIA Inspector General’s May 2004 report.

By Zack at 11:32 AM in Books , Civil Liberties , International Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

جمعرات 18 جون 2009Thursday, June 18, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

It seems everyone loved Slumdog Millionaire except me.

The movie started out well and when the main characters are children, it was a good movie. Seeing Mumbai and the slums there was captivating in a way. However, this was no City of God.

Then everyone grows up and the plot becomes Bollywood-predictable. I lost interest in the movie then, though the friends we were watching it with were engrossed.

Also, Anil Kapoor didn’t do a good job playing the host of Who’ll become a millionaire. May be they should have tried Amitabh Bachan who hosted it on Indian TV.

I rate the movie 6/10.

By Zack at 3:28 PM in Movies | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

ہفتہ 13 جون 2009Saturday, June 13, 2009

Bahamas Cruise

In late March, we went on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas.

We drove to Port Canaveral, FL and boarded the ship from there.

As soon as we were on the ship, Michelle saw the pools on the top deck. There was one for kids, another for families and one for adults (almost empty). She spent a lot of time in the children and families pools.

In addition to good food and other activities, there was a show every evening. Here are some photographs of the Disney shows.

The evenings and nights were when the ship was on the move.

Our second day was spent in Nassau, Bahamas. We walked around a bit and took a van tour of the city.

The next day we stopped in Castaway Cay, a private Disney island in the Bahamas. It was beautiful. It was a bit windy that day with high waves (though not in the beach area) and so all boat excursions were canceled. But it was still a lot of fun to hang out on the beach and have a barbeque for lunch.

As soon as we were back, Michelle started saying that she wants to go on a cruise again.

By Zack at 1:54 PM in Photography , Travel | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

پیر 8 جون 2009Monday, June 08, 2009

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a movie about a man who ages backwards. It is based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It’s a good movie which I had fun watching. I rate it 8/10.

By Zack at 11:34 AM in Movies | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

بدھ 3 جون 2009Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The Audacity of Hope

I don’t usually read books by politicians, especially about current politics. However, being an Obama supporter and volunteer, I thought I should read his book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

I had already read Dreams From My Father and loved Obama’s writing style. The Audacity of Hope is also written well. Of course, I liked Dreams From My Father better, but that’s because of its subject of autobiography and identity.

The Audacity of Hope was written when Barack Obama was a US Senator and I started reading it a bit before the election. I finished it around inauguration time. As to why I didn’t read it earlier? I got it early in 2008 but then most of my spare time was consumed by the election campaign. I started the book only when I went to Pakistan for a couple of weeks in October.

In this book, Obama explains his views and his political program. Having followed his career since his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, I was familiar with a lot of his views. But two things still stood out. One is how Obama is actually fairly moderate. The other is Obama’s tendency to give an honest airing to conservative views and even agreeing partly before arguing for his liberal viewpoint on any issue. This quality, the so-called post-partisanship, was evident throughout the book.

By Zack at 10:59 PM in Books , Politics | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

بدھ 20 مئی 2009Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Chokher Bali

Chokher Bali is a Bollywood movie based on the novel with the same title by Rabindranath Tagore. So when Amber asked about the movie, I thought great idea.

However, I only watched the first 45 minutes and got bored. Amber, of course, watched the whole movie. I rate it 3/10.

By Zack at 11:25 AM in Movies | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

جمعرات 14 مئی 2009Thursday, May 14, 2009

Help the Displaced in Swat

Due to the recent fighting between the Taliban and Pakistan army, a lot of the local people in Swat and surrounding areas have been forced to flee their homes. According to the UN Refugee Agency,

The number of people who have fled the fighting in northwest Pakistan this month and been registered or recorded by authorities reached 670,906 on Wednesday, up from just over half a million the day before.

[…] Together with more than 550,000 registered displaced people in the North West Frontier Province and some 21,000 in the capital Islamabad and urban areas of the Punjab, the continuing exodus brings to 1,248,715 the total number of people displaced in Pakistan since August, 2008.

[…] UN High Commissioner António Guterres has called urgently on countries around the world to come to the aid of the growing number of displaced. “This is a huge and rapidly unfolding emergency, which is going to require considerable resources beyond those that currently exist in the region,” he said earlier this week.

I’ll try to collect links to different organizations collecting donations for helping these internally displaced persons (not refugees, since refugees are defined as moving across an international border). Please try to help.

I talked to the Edhi Foundation people in New York and they are also accepting checks and money orders for their Swat Fund. They don’t have an online donation page but here is their contact info:

UK:
316 Edgware Road
London W2 1DY
Phone :+44 (207) 723-2050
Fax: +44 (207) 224-9774
Email: edhiuk@yahoo.com

US:
4511 National St
Corona, NY 11368-2741
Phone :+1 (718) 639-0633
Fax: +1 (718) 505-8001

Canada:
Bilquis Edhi Charitable Shop
1801-1805 Danforth Ave
Toronto M4C-1J2 Canada
Phone/Fax: +1 (416) 699-1388

Thanks!

UPDATE: After thinking a lot, we have contributed to Oxfam’s Pakistan Crisis Fund.

By Zack at 11:53 AM in Pakistan | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

منگل 12 مئی 2009Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Christmas Photos

In keeping with the title of the blog, here are some photographs from last Christmas.

Let’s start with Atlanta: Midtown (Atlantic Station) and Buckhead (Pink Pig train at Lenox).

And some photos from the Lake Lanier Islands Magical Nights of Lights.

The day we went to Stone Mountain, the weather wasn’t very nice. Their laser light show could not be seen because of fog.

The Christmas lights at Callaway Gardens.

By Zack at 4:45 PM in Islam and Other Religions , Photography , Travel | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

جمعہ 8 مئی 2009Friday, May 08, 2009

Raging Bull

Raging Bull is a biopic, by Martin Scorsese, about boxer Jake LaMotta, played by Robert De Niro.

If you like boxing movies, you’ll like it. Otherwise you can skip it. I rate it 7/10.

By Zack at 10:56 AM in Movies | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

جمعہ 1 مئی 2009Friday, May 01, 2009

Torture, Prosecution, CIA and Public

I have been knee deep in torture recently. No, I haven’t been tortured nor have I tortured anyone. I have been reading about torture. I recently wrote about torture in my review of Taxi to the Dark Side where I collected links to my previous writings on the subject as well. I also discussed US public opinion about torture a few months ago.

With the recent release of the OLC torture memos, the torture debate has restarted again. There have been calls for prosecuting those who carried out the torture and/or those who made the policy decisions. Obama has called for looking forward instead of backward (imagine if every criminal had the same attitude). Senator McCain is against investigating torture or prosecuting anyone.

I am generally of the opinion that if the state must fall it must fall but we should get to the truth. However, after reading a lot about torture I have a distinct feeling that there is not going to be any prosecutions and even if there are, the chances of acquittal are very high. I find myself agreeing with most of the points Tyler Cowen makes against prosecution. The public opinion just isn’t there against torture (more on this in a bit). Hence, I believe it is more important to build a consensus against torture than to prosecute, as Matt Yglesias argues.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do anything. For starters, we should make sure that the architects of the torture policy, like George Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, etc. are kept far from the levers of power. Therefore, I support efforts to impeach Jay Bybee, former head of OLC and currently a judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Also, we need a commission or some other mechanism to make public all the details about torture as practiced during the Bush era.

There are some who think that it was the higher echelons of the Bush administration that was responsible for torture. I think it’s clear now that this is wrong. Democratic leaders might not have ordered the torture (or “enhanced interrogation”) but some of them knew about it and some even approved. Similarly, other Western governments or their intelligence agencies were complicit, directly or indirectly, in renditions, torture, black sites, or sharing intelligence.

While there were courageous people in the military, government and civil society who opposed torture and did try to stop such practices, there were also a lot of others, lawyers, military commanders, CIA personnel and others, who were fully complicit in requesting, approving and implementing torture. I am about to finish reading Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side and it makes the case in detail. See, for example, former CIA counterterrorism official Michael Scheuer’s response or Condi Rice’s defense of imperial powers for the President.

That’s why I found the case of abolishing the CIA to be worth considering. CIA has a history of illegal activities (see Family Jewels and Church Committee Report and Iran-Contra report). Spencer Ackerman argues against abolition of CIA, but I found Quincy Adams and Matt Yglesias more convincing.

As for arguments about torture and its efficacy, I think torture is wrong regardless of whether it can yield any useful information or not. It is possible for torture to extract true information, though typically there’ll be lots of false confessions as well. However, it’s inhuman and morally wrong and that’s why we shouldn’t do it. As Obama said recently:

waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. […] And that’s why I put an end to these practices. I am absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do – not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways – in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

I agree wholeheartedly with Kevin Drum’s reasons for opposing torture.

I don’t care about the Geneva Conventions or U.S. law. I don’t care about the difference between torture and “harsh treatment.” I don’t care about the difference between uniformed combatants and terrorists. I don’t care whether it “works.” I oppose torture regardless of the current state of the law; I oppose even moderate abuse of helpless detainees; I oppose abuse of criminal suspects and religious heretics as much as I oppose it during wartime; and I oppose it even if it produces useful information.

The whole point of civilization is as much moral advancement as it is physical and technological advancement. But that moral progress comes slowly and very, very tenuously. In the United States alone, it took centuries to decide that slavery was evil, that children shouldn’t be allowed to work 12-hour days on power looms, and that police shouldn’t be allowed to beat confessions out of suspects.

On other things there’s no consensus yet. Like it or not, we still make war, and so does the rest of the world. But at least until recently, there was a consensus that torture is wrong. Full stop. It was the practice of tyrants and barbarians. But like all moral progress, the consensus on torture is tenuous, and the only way to hold on to it — the only way to expand it — is by insisting absolutely and without exception that we not allow ourselves to backslide. Human nature being what it is — savage, vengeful, and tribal — the temptations are just too great. Small exceptions will inevitably grow into big ones, big ones into routine ones, and the progress of centuries is undone in an eye blink.

Let’s look at recent polls about torture and investigation.

In the NBC/WSJ poll, 50% disapprove of Obama ordering the closing of Guantanamo detainee prison and 53% disapprove of the release of the OLC torture memos. 53% think that the Bush administration used torture while 30% say that they didn’t. 46% say that the harsh interrogation helped the US extract information while 42% think it hurt the US by undermining its moral authority. And only 33% want a criminal investigation of the Bush torture policy.

In the Washington Post/ABC News poll, 53% support Obama’s release of the torture memos. 48% think there are cases when torture should be considered and 51% support an investigation of the treatment of detainees.

In a Gallup poll, 51% favor an investigation of harsh interrogation techniques used by the Bush administration, but 55% think such treatment of terrorism suspects was justified.

30%, seem to agree with Cheney’s position that the ends justified the means and that no investigation is necessary. Nearly as many (25%), though, would appear to side with many congressional Democrats who say the techniques should not have been used and an investigation is warranted. Twenty-three percent think the techniques were warranted yet still favor an investigation, while 10% think the methods should not have been used but nevertheless oppose an official inquiry.

66% of Democrats favor an investigation while only 48% of independents and 37% of Republicans do. 39% of Democrats think use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects were justified while 55% of independents and 80% of Republicans agree.

In the New York Times/CBS News poll, 37% say waterboarding and other aggressive techniques are sometimes justified to extract information from a suspected terrorist while 46% disagree. Interestingly, only 16% of African Americans think they are justified. Only 71% consider waterboarding to be torture. 34% want Congress to investigate torture and warrantless wiretapping. 47% want to keep the Gitmo prison while 44% want to close it.

As you can see, there is some variation in these surveys. Nate Silver and Andrew Gelman try to explain why that is. While support for torture investigation varies from 33% to 51% in the various polls, the other numbers are a bit more consistent. The country seems to be almost equally divided on whether the torture memos should have been released and whether the Gitmo prison should be closed. Those who think torture is sometimes or always justified seem to vary from 37% to 55% while opposition to torture never reaches majority status either.

Looking at my previous writing on public opinion about torture, there doesn’t seem to have been any big change in public opinion in the US.

Finally, Pew did a survey about torture breaking down the numbers by religion, attending church, political party, etc.

	Often justified	Sometimes justified	Rarely justified	Never justified
Total US	15%	34%	22%	25%
White evangelicals	18%	44%	17%	16%
White non-Hispanic Catholics	19%	32%	27%	20%
White mainline Protestants	15%	31%	22%	31%
Unaffiliated	15%	25%	29%	26%
Attend religious services at least weekly	16%	38%	19%	25%
Attend religious services monthly	18%	33%	23%	23%
Attend religious services seldom or never	12%	30%	27%	26%
Republican	15%	49%	21%	14%
Independent	19%	35%	23%	19%
Democrats	12%	24%	22%	38%

Only a quarter of Americans are against torture under all conditions. This is astounding, but even worse is that only one of six white evangelicals and one in seven Republicans thinks torture is never justified. Even if we are generous and add up the numbers for those who think torture is rarely justified to the “never justified” ones, only 47% of Americans are against the use of torture. But only one-third of white evangelicals and 35% of Republicans are opposed to torture. I guess we could call these people the American Taliban.

While the Pope has come out against torture, among his followers American White Catholics a bare majority believes torture is often or sometimes justified. I wonder if any priest will deny communion to these torture-supporters.

The only groups (among those listed) with a majority who think torture is never or rarely justified are White mainline Protestants (53%), the unaffiliated (55%), those who seldom or never attend religious services (53%) and Democrats (60%). It’s disappointing that even these numbers are so low.

It can be argued that this support of torture by the religious is not a result of their being religious but rather due to the fact that those who are more religious are more likely to be Republicans in the US. I would agree with that, however, if religion can’t even get the deeply religious to oppose such an inhuman practice as torture, what use is such religion?

By Zack at 12:28 PM in Civil Liberties , Islam and Other Religions , Politics | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

بدھ 22 اپریل 2009Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Tale of Despereaux

We took Michelle to see The Tale of Despereaux with a friend of hers.

Michelle loved the little mouse and so did we. However, her friend seemed a bit scared and left in the middle with her parents. It was great fun, with good graphics.

I rate it 8/10.

By Zack at 3:21 PM in Movies , Parenthood | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

جمعہ 17 اپریل 2009Friday, April 17, 2009

Taxi To the Dark Side

We saw Taxi to the Dark Side quite some time ago.

It’s a great documentary about the torture that the US government engaged in when George W Bush was President. The main focus of the documentary is a young Afghan taxi driver, Dilawar, who was stopped at a checkpoint in Afghanistan and then jailed at Bagram by the US military. There he was interrogated and tortured. And finally murdered by US military and intelligence personnel.

The movie also goes into the torture policies of the Bush administration and how they were applied in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and various other black sites around the world.

The torture stories are hair raising and it has been clear for some time that the the use of torture was a deliberate policy approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration. However, I felt it difficult to say much about the documentary other than ranting against the war crimes and inhumanity of the previous administration. Thus this review lingered in draft status for a while. After all, what more could I write since I have written multiple times about torture during the past six years.

However, there have been some recent developments since Barack Obama became President. He has released a number of Justice Department memos related to the torture policy which you can read at the ACLU site. All memos are worth reading but if you must read just one excerpt, as Glenn Greenwald says, it should be this one from the May 10, 2005 memo by Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA:

State Department Reports. Each year, in the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the United States condemns coercive interrogation techniques and other practices employed by other countries. Certain of the techniques the United States has condemned appear to bear some resemblance to some of the CIA interrogation techniques. In their discussion of Indonesia, for example, the reports lists as “[p]sychological torture” conduct that involves “food and sleep deprivation,” but give no specific information as to what these techniques involve. In their discussion of Egypt, the reports list as “methods of torture” “stripping and blindfolding victims; suspending victims from a ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beating victims [with various objects]; … and dousing vitims with cold water.” See also, e.g., Algeria (describing the “chiffon” method, which involves “placing a rag drenched in dirty water in someone’s mouth”); Iran (counting sleep deprivation as either torture or severe prisoner abuse); Syria (discussing sleep deprivation and “having cold water thrown on” detainees as either torture or “ill-treatment). The State Department’s inclusion of nudity, water dousing, sleep deprivation, and food deprivation among the conduct it condemns is significant and provides some indication of an executive foreign relations tradition condemning the use of these techniques.

[…]

A United States foreign relations tradition of condemning torture, the indiscriminate use of force, the use of force against the government’s political opponents, or the use of force to obtain confessions in ordinary criminal cases says little about the propriety of the CIA’s interrogation practices. The CIA’s careful screening procedures are designed to ensure that enhanced techniques are used in the relatively few interrogations of terrorists who are believed to possess vital, actionable intelligence that might avert an attack against the United States or its interests. The CIA uses enhanced techniques only to the extent reasonably believed necessary to obtain information and takes great care to avoid inflicting severe pain or suffering or any lasting or unnecesary harm. In short, the CA program is designed to subject detainees to no more duress than is justified by the Government’s interest in protecting the United States from further terrorist attacks. In these essential respects, it differs from the conduct condemned in the State Department reports.

In other words, it’s not torture when we do the same things that we condemn as torture when done by others.

There was also an International Committee of the Red Cross Report on torture that came out recently, some excerpts of which are given here and some analysis is here.

If you are interested in my blog posts on torture, here they are:

In addition, I have been collecting links to stories, memos and reports about torture (and other topics) in my Browsing list, recent entries of which are shown on the sidebar on the main page. Let’s collect those links (that are not dead) here as well.

Oh I forgot to rate the documentary. It’s a must-see, so 10/10.

By Zack at 4:59 PM in Civil Liberties , International Affairs , Movies | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)

اتوار 22 مارچ 2009Sunday, March 22, 2009

Buy a House, Get a Green Card?

Last month, Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that:

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

Alex Tabarrok called it the “buy a house, get a visa” strategy and claimed that:

the multiplier on the “buy a house, get a visa” strategy would be much larger than any possible domestic multiplier since the money would come from outside the economy (and efficiency would improve as well.)

An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal has now suggested the same.

The Obama administration should seriously consider granting resident status to foreigners who buy surplus houses in this country.

[…] A better idea is to offer permanent residence status to the many foreigners who are clamoring to get into the U.S. – if they buy houses of minimal values (not shacks). They wouldn’t need to live in those houses, but in order to remove the unit from the total housing market, they couldn’t rent them. Their temporary resident status granted upon purchase would become permanent after, perhaps, five years, if they still owned the houses and maintained clean records. The mere announcement of this program might well stop the ongoing collapse in house prices, especially in cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix and San Francisco, where prices are down 40% – but where many foreigners like to live.

Each year, 85,000 H-1B visas are granted for foreigners with advanced skills and education, and last year, 163,000 petitions were filed in the first five days after applications were accepted. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation estimates that as of Sept. 30, 2006, 500,040 residents of the U.S. and 59,915 individuals living abroad were waiting for employment-based visas. Many would buy homes if their immigration conditions were settled.

[…] The blueprint for a program to sell surplus housing to immigrants is already in place with the EB-5 visa program. Each year, 10,000 EB-5 visas for this country are available for foreigners who each invest $1 million in a new enterprise ($500,000 in economically depressed areas) that creates at least 10 full-time jobs. After two years, the entrepreneur and his family can become permanent residents.

Of course, Alex Tabarrok liked it while Matthew Yglesias says:

I don’t think this idea is nearly the panacea that Gary Shilling and Richard LeFrak seem to think it is, but nevertheless a program to offer permanent resident status to foreigners who buy American houses does seem to me like a good idea.

John Mauldin goes completely overboard:

Let’s assume one million new immigrants would buy homes. At an average price of almost $200,000, that would be $200 billion injected into the economy. And each of those homes has to be furnished, food has to be bought, clothing will be needed, local taxes will be paid. Airplane tickets to research potential areas, hotels needed during the interim period, and other related expenditures would add up. Over two years, this could easily be another $100 billion.

I am not an economist and I’ll leave it to economists to discuss the multiplier and stimulative effects of this program. However, I am an immigrant and have looked at the immigration details in the US fairly extensively.

Let’s first look at the average number of immigrants per year to the US in the period 1998-2007: 935,948. It reached a peak of 1,266,129 in 2006 but was down to 1,052,415 in 2007. When 2008 data comes out, it is expected to go down further because of the economic conditions.

Contrary to Mauldin, these one million immigrants won’t all buy houses since the number of households is less than a million. The average household size in the US is 2.61. I remember reading that immigrant household size is larger but I can’t find that data right now, so using the US number, we get only about 400,000 households.

Before you start liking the 400,000 households number, remember that a majority (621,047 in 2007) of the immigrants were adjusting status, i.e. they were already in the US. At least some of those already bought a house since they were planning to immigrate. I know lots of H-1B visa holders who bought houses and later adjusted to permanent resident status.

The Wall Street Journal op-ed mentions an already existing investor immigrant program EB-5. Let’s look at its conditions:

10,000 immigrant visas per year are available to qualified individuals seeking permanent resident status on the basis of their engagement in a new commercial enterprise.

Of the 10,000 investor visas (i.e., EB-5 visas) available annually, 5,000 are set aside for those who apply under a pilot program involving an USCIS-designated Regional Center.

In general, “eligible individuals” include those

Who establish a new commercial enterprise by:

Creating an original business;

Purchasing an existing business and simultaneously or subsequently restructuring or reorganizing the business such that a new commercial enterprise results; or

Expanding an existing business by 140 percent of the pre-investment number of jobs or net worth, or retaining all existing jobs in a troubled business that has lost 20 percent of its net worth over the past 12 to 24 months; and

Who have invested – or who are actively in the process of investing – in a new commercial enterprise:

At least $1,000,000, or

At least $500,000 where the investment is being made in a “targeted employment area,” which is an area that has experienced unemployment of at least 150 per cent of the national average rate or a rural area as designated by OMB; and

Whose engagement in a new commercial enterprise will benefit the United States economy and

Create full-time employment for not fewer than 10 qualified individuals; or

Maintain the number of existing employees at no less than the pre-investment level for a period of at least two years, where the capital investment is being made in a “troubled business,” which is a business that has been in existence for at least two years and that has lost 20 percent of its net worth over the past 12 to 24 months.

Now this EB-5 might have requirements that are too onerous and it’s always possible that the optimal investment is less than a million dollars and other conditions should be relaxed as well.

However, let us look at the number of immigrants admitted to the US under this program. The average number of EB-5 visas per year in the period 1998-2007 was 375. In 2007, the number of investor visas used was 806. This is not the number of investors, but of visas which includes family too. Let’s break down the numbers for 2007.

	Adjustment of Status	New Arrivals	Total
Total EB-5	315	491	806
Investors	116	163	279
Spouses & children	187	328	515

As you can see, 10,000 visas per year were reserved for this investor program, but in the maximum used was about 8% of that. And the actual number of investors (not including dependents) in 2007 was only 279. Assuming the buy a house, get a green card program does a level of magnitude better because median house price (for 2005-7) is only about 181,800. Still, it would attract only about 3000 investors and their families. That would not do anything to the housing market or the US economy.

PS. The immigration numbers are from the 2007 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, specifically Table 6 and Table 7.

By Zack at 3:24 PM in Economy , Immigration | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)