New Yorkers Ponder Sale of Duane Reade to Walgreen
In the 50 years since it named itself for the side streets closest to its first store, Duane Reade has had a relationship with New York City. Complicated, unavoidable, convenient, annoying — whatever that relationship was, even Duane Reade seemed to understand how deeply it had worked its way into the municipal psyche.
Does it bother you that foreigners are buying our US homes?
Published: Sunday, January 13, 2008
Dollar’s decline, real estate slump help foreigners snap up U.S. homes
NEW YORK — Panden Rota, a Nepalese producer of fine rugs, is about to become a Manhattanite, the owner of a sumptuous apartment in the luxurious downtown neighborhood of Battery Park City.
His primary residence will remain Katmandu, but his new home will allow him to spend more time at U.S. showrooms that display his rugs and with a brother and sister in New York. “I looked at many places and I decided that a Manhattan apartment will always hold its value,” he said.
Rota is part of a growing wave of foreigners who buy second homes in the U.S. for work and play and as an investment.
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080113/BIZ/574904938
Especially since 2 million Americans have lost their homes or are about to?
The primary reason that this can occur is due to the State Dept.
Basically, the State Dept. makes policy on immigration based on the political winds of the time, and as we know the winds shift fast, however the policies tend to stay in place long after.
During the cold war, countries in the Soviet bloc got preferential treatment if they wanted to immigrate. I know personally of people from eastern Europe that moved to the U.S. as refugees and received housing, schooling and monthly stipends.
Most of the laws are still on the books, and now that eastern Europeans are becoming very well off financially they are taking advantage in the lapse in the laws.
Here are a few more facts that you may not know about the State Dept.
1. They set race by country, IE if you come to the U.S. from Egypt, you are considered Caucasian. (there was a landmark case due to a person not being able to receive minority scholarship monies)
2. They set immigration numbers for countries and standards, so if a German national wanted to move to the U.S. and had no job skills, they would be accepted, however if a person from Ethiopia wished to immigrate, they would have to have a job skill that is in high demand, IE Doctor or nuclear physics.
I suggest that you contact you representative and ask them to change the laws
Tony Oakley: a top-rated Manhattan-based New York real estate agent