The Message From Music Blogs

Do you know a single well known rich guy that still rents (and owns zero real estate)? If you are so sure that you have the math right, go ahead and name some names!

Rich guys first make their money and then buy houses. Reverse is not necessarily true. They are not rich because they bought houses. If money was no object for me I too will go ahead and buy house even it did not make strict financial sense. I'm not there yet.

As for naming names, Warren Buffet who is plenty rich does not favor real estate as an investment vehicle. Real estate has has 1-2% average rate of return over the last 60 years barely keeping up with inflation barring crazy speculative booms like we recently had which quickly go bust. This is to be expected since house is an unproductive asset and unlike businesses (stocks/bonds) does not "produce" anything so in the long run it's price will roughly track the inflation.

This forum is for immigration related discussion. Discuss other matters in yahoo answers or any other similiar forum.:mad::mad:

Rupees conversion rate:
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showpost.php?p=298845&postcount=16
By the time you complete required formalities and get an accout created, doller rate would have come down to 40:D:D..!!!!

For me citi nri took looooooooong time to get the acocunt created.

Someone started this very immigration related thread:
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?p=297679#post297679
Considering the lowered cost of stock I am planning to gets my hands dirty in stock. But I don't have much knwoeldge about it. Also, by the time I find resouces to learn more about stock, the prices might ahve gone up.

So can anyone provide good online tools to know more about investing on stocks and buying stocks online...

Thanks

Someone is talking about Hotels....
http://immigrationvoice.org/forum/showthread.php?p=255794#post255794
I stayed in woodlands...but had advance booking. Even with advance booking they had created a scene ..had to wait for 30 mins to get it confirmed. Palm grove is difficult get. Try palm grove or woodlands. Auto rikshaw will take around Rs.100 from woodlands. With the things running in your mind on that day, you won't think of saving money.

Good luck..!!!

furrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..................

Here is a real example that is going on right now.

Person came here on F-1. OPT expired May 2002. His h-1b was approved with a starting validity date of December 2002.

He gets an rfe to give I-20 and prove status.

Now: he had an I-94 card from F-1 with duration of stay. Therefore; he is not accruing unlawful presence. However; he was out of status from May 2002 to December 2002. About 7 months. At first glance; he is not eligible to get 485 approved.

However; in response it will say that there is a grace period of 60 days from end of OPT which will allow him valid status until middle of July. Therefore; from middle of july until h-1b approval he was out of status. By our calculations he was out of status for about 165 days from the end of the 60 day grace period until h-1b approval.

Now; since he only has a buffer of 15 days remaining; uscis could go from 2002- until 2005 when he filed 485 to see if they can get 15 days of out of status and deny his 485.

Big problem for him is that he used ac21 and is self employed and not on H-1b anymore. If USCIS should deny his 485; he can't re-file because he is not in non immigrant status and even if he was; the visa dates are unavailable and he would not be able to get cooperation from old employer to re-file 485 anyways because they wouldn't cooperate. He wouldn't be able to get labor substitution because that is gone now.

If they should deny his 485 then he has to get an h-1b approval for the remainder of his six years; he won't get an I-94 card because he isn't in non immigrant status; he would have to go for visa stamping and then start all over again.

Not a good situation all around for him.

But I think you are wrong about Kayani. I haven't seen any reports about any intelligence agencies pointing fingers at Kayani. So, I am curious if you could provide any links. It sounds like a conspiracy theory otherwise.

Here is the link:
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22432&Itemid=1&issueid=84&sectionid=30&page=archieve&limit=1&limitstart=0

I am a big supporter of Obama and a big fan and am eagerly looking forward to see him as our next President of United States. As a legal highly skilled immigrant what can I expect? Well, not sure if I would see myself living here anymore. I have been in the green card queue for more than 8 years now and still waiting. Will Obama's administration do anything for people like me to help reduce backlog? I doubt such a thing will ever happen. I would see myself and people like me discouraged and start packing our bags and move on with life.

Why do I feel discouraged? If anything is going to happen for the immigrant community when Sen. Obama becomes the President, it is going to be in the lines of CIR 2007. There would be provisions to make illegal immigrants as legal and remove backlogs to family based quota whereas posing harsh restrictions on H1b visas and reducing Green Card quotas and scrap AC21 portability and try to experiment with some new kind of skilled immigration system.

The above is very evident based on the fact that Senator Durbin has been very hostile to EB immigrants. It is evident that Senator Durbin will make the calls when Senator Obama becomes the president.

Please post your opinions. This is a very important discussion. It is very important that the community see what is in store for us when the new Administration takes charge.

A lot of folks in the EB community are looking forward to 2009 thinking something will definitely happen. Yes, something will definitely happen - and that may not help us

What ever you might say Lawyers acted in DOL advise..


Very good point by alterego.
This letter has a very striking problem in it.. one that can cause a huge problem for the people signing it.
How can one say that they wanted to apply in EB2, but their lawyer said they should apply in EB3?
As pointed out by pappu, Category is determined by job requirements and not the summary qualifications of the beneficiary.
If you sign and say that the lawyer said you should apply in EB3/EB2/whatever, you are essentially stating that lawyers were involved in fabricating the job requirements. This is the same problem that is causing Fragomen clients to be investigated/audited.
This is just an advice. I am prepared to support IV and the members in whatever we decide to follow.

I participated in the "mumbai attacked" thread, but always tried not to give any analysis of the history because I sure don't have the background not belonging to the region..
yet I'm reading the darnest things here from people who apparently read 2 lines from wikipedia, copy and paste here then start talking like they know everything about the arab-israeli conflict and think they can analyze it..

The phrase foxnews and similar media have everyone parroting here is "Israel is surrounded by hostile arab countries that waged wars against it several times. Israel is always in self defense" Let's see..

1948: Israeli Irgun and Shtern gangs, the prototype of the israeli army were going village to village massacring palestinians to drive them out of their villages to annex them to newly created israel which they did.. arab nations who were mostly still under colonial influence sent their police-like forces to try to protect the palestinians, but of course they were no match for the mostly european WWII-veterans Israeli forces

1956: In a dispute between Egypt, Britain and France over the control of Suez canal that in no way involves Israel, Israel attacked Egypt and took control of Sinai peninsula until Soviets and US urged it to leave.

1967: Without a single bullet shot at Israel, it attacked Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the west bank, occupying Egypt's Sinai, Syria's Golan heights, and annexing gaza, East Jerusalem and the west bank.

1973: Only time Arabs started the offensive, Egypt and Syria attacked to get back their occupied lands. Egypt managed to get part of Sinai, and got the rest through peace treaty. Syria failed and the golan is still occupied till this day.

1982: Israel invading Lebanon and occupying southern Lebanon till 2000.. Reason was meddling in a conflict between Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Lebanese factions in which none of these parties attacked Israel.

60 years have passed with the civilized world issuing UN resolutions for israel to end its occupation and to let the millions of displaced Palestinians return to their homes inside israel and Israel rejecting them. Then we have the courage to blame the Palestinians for not taking it easy, accepting the miserable conditions israel imposed on them and firing their 7000 fire crackers that killed 4 people.. the ungrateful bastards!!

I got a negative comment on this one saying "watch ur language"!!!
someone didn't get the sarcasm in me calling the palestinians bastards, the whole message was defending them buddy

Persons staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High
Intensity Training) as possible. Management has
always prided itself on the amount of SHIT it gives
employees. Should you feel that you do not receive
enough SHIT, please bring to the attention of your
Supervisor. They have been trained to give you all
the SHIT you can handle.

Good one :D For many unskilled, it is the reality.

I totally agree with gc03 and learning01 expressing their views. It is when someone starts using terms like "refrain" etc. I get all worked up. gc03 and learning01 are entitled to their thoughts. What they are not entitled to is to tell each other or anyone else to "do this" OR "do not do that". Are we on agreement on this? I can see some name calling going on in these forums which is rather disappointing.

Someone very funnily called me an individual from the US Army who has infiltrated IV.

As for learning01, I know that getting the GC process fixed is of paramount importance here. My only suggestion to learning01 and IV is this.......... If Lou Dobbs can help you you should use his help. You do not know what his thoughts are on legal immigration. If he says that he does not support your cause, you can move on and atleast know where he stands.

If IV is talking to lawmakers from both parties, why cant we speak to all sides of the media?

Dude..if the rules for EB2 eligibility were followed to the T, most of the EB2 jobs would fall back to EB3. Stop the holier-than-thou postings, it is your first post. you were able to apply in EB2 good for you, you might dissaprove the post bit that is ok with me. you want to file a lawsuit sure go ahead, i also want a file a lawsuit with the FBI for messing up my name check, easier said than done.

I have been in this mess since 2001, i have seen cases where jobs are modified to suit the resume and resumes are modified to suit the job and most of those guys have GCs by now.

Here we go again. EB2 is fraud, they are all really EB3, but guess what? All the bright EB3s are really EB2, they are all suffering needlesly. Right?

Here's my take (I don't even believe it but I think you deserve to hear it)- I think EB3s like you are the real frauds. If immigration law were followed to the T, plenty of EB3s would never get a GC. So many Americans with basic skills that can do silly coding - hell a monkey can do it. So enjoy what you have.

How did you like the sound of that pal? If it felt wrong and offensive, then first shut your own gob and stop posting crap about "most EB2s".

Just fyi I have been here loger than you- by quite a lot. So if that's the qualification, I have "seen" a lot too.

Nobody's gonna come to wipe your ass. You gotta do it yourself.

Yeah man, you put it correclty. India was always hoping that would happen.

Just as an example, this may be an anomaly, but I know this Australian Indian citizen, who has recently bought 2 houses in the LA Valley and is having no issues filling them with contractors so far (1 my friend), even in this economy. He works on SAP projects traveling on H1 , but is in Aussie land most of the time, with his family. The rent more than pays off his mortgage.

to buy another house (if it is not distress property / from auction) just to put it on rent is stupidity ..risk is good if it is calculated ..to take foolish risk is foolishness ..anyway that is me. In this Country land is virtually unlimited !!! demand is low (see immigration ..they give majority GC's to people when they are 50 - 60 years old) and those who are young have smaller families because of high cost of living, way of living.
to buy a house to put it on rent is big loss as there are millions of houses already competing for renters
ONE more reason for those who are on H1/ EAD is that 90% of then job postings on DICE and other places ask for only citizens or GC holders.

My Dear Friend:

Why do you want to defend crooks? Instead of ackowledging the fact that desi consulting companies are exploiting loopholes, you rather want to know why other companies are not feeling the heat. This is typical of us desis. There is absolutely no introspection.

For once, accept that we are at fault.

Its like this - You are in school and your teacher catches you copying off the next person. Now instead of correcting yourself, if you complain to the teacher that another classmate was also copying so you should not be penalized, will your treacher let you go?

I am sorry, I am not a very knowledgeable person in immigration matters like many of you, but when it comes to finger pointing, we have to show all consulting companies and why only DESI companies are getting into this discussion. I know friends who worked for IBM & KPMG on H1b travels to all states for short term contracts. What about those biggies? They are also desi firms?

How did you come to US in the first place? if not thru a consulting company ( I know F1 is another option) either thru big companies like TCS, Wipro or Infy or through desi consulting firms. Pls do not forget the fact that USCIS changed their stand now and saying that it is not legal to work else where other than employer location. If they implement that rule from start then this mess wouldn't happen.

Now, we are in trouble and so stop finger pointing and give any good advise if you can.

FYI..I am an FTE and I came to us thru a multinational firm and never worked for a desi consulting cmpny.

Rolling floods,
What is your PD ? EB2-India is Jun2006. It is just 2 years back. So I am guessing your PD is even less than 2 years and you are getting so restless that your are seeking to get more rulings done in place where 2000 thousand unnecessary laws & rulings exist for a 'could be an easy' process. I think instead of talking to lawyers you need to see a doctor...

But doctor asked him to see a lawyer. :D

http://www.bluelatinos.org/firelou?from=0

I encourage IV members to go to the above website and add themselves to the list of petitioners asking CNN to fire Lou.
Lou Dobbs has a right to speak his mind. A lot of what he says is rhetoric but it is within his rights. I wouldn't want to associate IV with any Latino related immigration movement. Their objectives, issues and means are altogether different from ours.

We [should] care only about legal immigrants and not have even a whiff of supporting illegal immigration in any form and from any country. For a long time now, the word immigration has been expanded to mean Latino immigrants and only Wall Street Journal takes care to single out that immigration from countries like India is of a different hue (more knowledge based), than immigration from Mexico (more labor intensive).

Bottom line, aligning ourselves with the Latino agenda is bad policy and politics and a losing proposition.

It is not going down everywhere...I am in a location where people are buying houses like mad and the prices are actually better than last year.

And yet, some people in my location are thinking about nothing but resale. They are not able to see a home as anything other than an investment and I am referring to such people in my earlier post.

Where do you live? Give it time...

The biggest mistake one can make is to consider your house as an investment option. Your example is good when you have enough equity and the cost of your house increases from 270k. factor in annual HOA, pmi, maintenance ect and the fact that when you sell you will have to pay ~6% for broker comission. People who were prudent or had the ability to buy during 1999-2003 are doing good so far.
As for buying in the current market...as they say location...location...location

here is a slightly technical article about the current interest rate, FC and impact on housing in San Diego.

http://www.fieldcheckgroup.com/2009/06/04/6-5-beware-real-estate-false-bottoms/

rent Vs own calculator after factoring in annual home expenses..

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/calculator/


Your leverage is $270,000 in this investment, and you pay 5% interest on it which is tax deductible. You don't suppose one can borrow 270Gs to invest in, per my example, S&P 500 to get 10% annually? Of course the you are able to borrow that much on a home is because it is considered relatively a safe debt for the lender. That can't be said for stocks.

How/where else will you earn $15,000 (equity) per year by spending $13,500 (interest).

EDIT:
Remember, every payment I make, I also include the principal payment, so I am closer to owning more of my home as time passes.

1. 245(k) is applicable automatically for all eb I-485. There is no penalty fee for 245(k).

2. Each I-485 application is independent for out of status issues. Does not matter Primary or Dependent.

3. Needs more information. A person can be out of status even with pay-checks. Example: H-1B LCA location is different from actual job location, putting him/her out of status.

_____________________
Not a legal advice.
You are right about the dependent/derivative thing - it was my misunderstanding.

The USCIS field manual on this: http://www.immigrationlinks.com/news/USCIS%20Training%20Materials%20on%20Sec%20245(k).p df


Best explanation I found: http://www.greencardapply.com/news/news05/news05_0825.htm

245(k) reads:

"(k) 7/ An alien who is eligible to receive an immigrant visa under paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of section 203(b) (or, in the case of an alien who is an immigrant described in section 101(a)(27)(C), under section 203(b)(4)) may adjust status pursuant to subsection (a) and notwithstanding subsection (c)(2), (c)(7), and (c)(8), if--

(1) the alien, on the date of filing an application for adjustment of status, is present in the United States pursuant to a lawful admission;

(2) the alien, subsequent to such lawful admission has not, for an aggregate period exceeding 180 days--

(A) failed to maintain, continuously, a lawful status;

(B) engaged in unauthorized employment; or

(C) otherwise violated the terms and conditions of the alien's admission."

Unauthorized Employment
Subject to INA �245(i) and 245(k), applicants for adjustment of status who have engaged in unauthorized employment on or after January 1, 1977 are barred from adjustment of status pursuant to INA �245(c)(2). Unauthorized employment is a bar to adjustment of status to persons who engaged in unauthorized employment even after their adjustment application was filed. This bar does not apply to employment-based petitions where person worked no more than 180 days without permission since his last entry into the U.S. [INA �245(k)]. Immediate relatives and special immigrants described in INA ��101(a)(27)(H), (I), (J), or (K) are also exempt from this bar.

To United Nation

I never went out of usa in 7 yrs.My first company did not pay me for the first 3 months because I did not get my ssn no for 3 months so I was not employed.After 3 yrs I joined the cliant company,so he got angry and did not pay me for 15 days but I have proof of time sheets.He threatned me like suing etc... but he did not do .Now I applied for AOS but I did not sent the W2 paper for that problem period .I have sent my last three years of W2 papers as per Lawyer's request .Will there be a problem for the un paid days.?

UN can correct me, but I believe upto 180 days of out of status is automatically pardoned in EB-AOS cases. Since yours is within that limit, you should be ok.

Good discussion. I am not a fox fan, but i read NYT and Drudgereport, listen to Rachel Maddaw as well as Handel. In fact i read any political and economics related blog i can lay my hands on. I understand your points.

My point is that people say he will do so many things, the problem is that the congress is not changing. The congress has to approve something so that he can sign it. Secondly no matter what you say companies will do whatever is right for the bottomline and share price. if he starts taxing companies they relocate, he has proposed increasing the social security taxes across all categories. Says he will not increase taxes for middle class americans but gives little indication of how he will finance the trillion dollar spending program. If his universal health program passes then you will see more deducted out of your paycheck. How will he create tons of jobs, how will he subsidize education. The fact of the matter is that he will be under exterme pressure if he is elected to office with such high expectations. He will be screwed if he increases taxes and screwed if he doesnt fund the programs he is promising all over the place.

As for long term, the country has to increase interest rates to support the current account deficit. IF you increase interest rates the economy will further go in the tank. The country has to increase taxes to fund SS or Medicare. If not they need to overhaul the SS and MC system and any pandering politican will never be able to make that change.

The fact of the matter is that both are career politicians and will do anyting to win. i just want to present an opposing view when one is painted as the saviour and the other a @$#@ in a total crapfest where no one is pure.


Just Kidding - reading your post i was feeling like I'm reading a comment from Fox News. However i do respect your opinion and thanks for expressing it.

My Point is more long term - in the shorter term no major change can happen to economy even if Barack wins but eventually Economy would be stronger under Barack's leadership. He also stressed that he would stop "JOBS BEING SHIPPED OVERSEAS" which means companies like TATA or INFY or some Chinese company taking my Job ( or any American's Job ) away from US to INDIA or CHINA. If you are planning a future in US - you would not want your US job taken away by your brother at INDIA or CHINA and Barack will make sure that doesn't happen.

The Bottonline is he will create tons of Jobs at US , so unemployment will be very low , average peoples will be happy and however loud ANTI-IMMIGRANTS scream and shout no AMERICAN will pay attention. Our EB reforms will Pass much easily and we will be able to able to lead a much happier and content life with GREEN CARD.

Once again my Point is definitely Long Term - in the shorter duration Barack has to first fix the Mortgage Mess and do something with Iran by taking help from EUROPE.

Yes, you are right, the recent 485 denials for people using AC-21 have nothing to do with Obama/Durbin immigtaion policy. But I kind of remember there were some harsh provisions for people using AC 21 in CIR 2007 version. I am trying to find out the details about it.
Correct me if I am wrong.

I dont think there were any provisions in 2007 CIR that curtail job movement using AC21 for greencard holders. I think we are over-analyzing this - that Sen.Durbin is against lot of H1B provisions is evident. Also he may not be in favor of visa-recapture for EB immigrants - but I dont think he will single handedly drive immigration rules and make the life of all EB immigrants tough. He may have some support in changing the rules in H1B - but I dont think even he is not that negative regarding GC aspects - even if he is, may not get widespread support for it in congress.

Also Obama has shown his governing style (from the campaign, debate etc) - which is very level headed based on a bunch of things and discussions rather than following "one" ideological path blindly. If at all I think his administration will be more favorable to EB GC reform and somewhat unfavorable H1B reform (and completely pro-undocumented reform just like McCain). This is based on my interpretation of his immigration policies on his site and based on his general campaign.