How would an American go about getting a long-term Schengen visa? I sure wouldn't want to have to renew the Visa every 2 weeks.
Is it difficult for an american to just hang around the eu for indefinite periods ? It sure used to be easy for visa free travellers to stay in Europe for extended periods with a tourist status, it was not easy to check wether they had stayed over 3 months with several immigration checkpoints not stamping their passport on arrival or departure. Not so sure how it is since Switzerland joind Shenghen, I used to know quite a few non europeans just staying between Switzerland and EU countries without formal residency in Europe. Countercountertrend, if you are single with no fixed abode it should be easy to trade tax free (if you are not american that is ), although if you are on a very high income and showing off it might get more difficult. As of trading through offshore corporations, it seems tolerated -or too much hassle to fight - in countries that only tax their residents on locally sourced income, much of Asia is like this.
During the depths of the recent recession, I think Spain was offering immigration Visa's to people who could by a $300,000 condo. Additionally, people from some ex-Spanish colonies have easier entry. Perhaps, the Dutch has loopholes for certain Indonesian nationals.
I was in Spain over Christmas, i think it's 500k euro at the moment but better double check. it was definetely a popular topic of discussion and TV news were showing immigrants who'd moved there under this program. One gets a Shenghen residency and probably work permit for his dependant. Sweet deal although if Spain gets out of the euro the investment might end up at a steep loss. And it's been difficult to resell property in Spain for a few years. Portugal might offer an even cheaper option btw. Spain taxes on worldwide income though, and taxes mightily, plus with the crisis seems to combat tax evasion more strictly than before, it's very far from a tax haven - but it used to be a tax evasion haven, not quite sure how it really is for well off expats at the moment, but very curious.
Thanks for the confirmation. I am really more American-centric. Brits are so lucky. I heard the British health providers are setting up shop in Portugal. Portugal could end up being the Florida of Europe. I wish a Latin American country would develop a tie-in with American health care. Panama has the most potential. Additionally, Puerto Rico is providing tax incentives for Futures Trading firms.
Can't comment on US/South America, but Portugal is indeed targetting european retirees, again one needs to check for exact deails, but it seems to offer 0 tax on european pensions. Poor by european standards but cheap, relatively safe and it has the lowest percentage of muslim population in Europe after Iceland, a good selling point to many europeans. I can see it becoming ever more popular to EU retirees. Ease of travel in Europe is awesome if you ask me, but you already have this in the US, plus a common language (but federal taxes)
If you want to gain residency in the EU the most common and cheapest, if done right, route is marrying an EU-resident. 10k should suffice, if you keep it purely business.
You don't have to trade from a single screen. You can now trade with a full multi-monitor setup using just your Intel i7 15.6" laptop or even a (soon-to-be-released) 14" Intel i7 Surface Pro 4 tablet if you don't mind risking carrying around a $2000 tablet in Europe. I just discovered this yesterday. A USB 3.0 connection is preferable. What you do is buy a small $30 Plugable 7-Port USB3 Hub and 2 or 3 $127 AOC e1659Fwu 16" USB Portable LED Monitors and you're set. The AOC USB monitors weigh very little. If 16" is too heavy or too large, you can buy the $218 Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 14" USB LED Monitor. Using the USB 3.0 hub, you can run up to 14 monitors if you wish, as long as you don't game with it. The problem with carrying around any laptop computer is they are a little too heavy for airline travel. You need a full and separate backpack just to carry it and all the extra accessories. A 14" Surface Pro 4 is preferable. Unfortunately, an i7 8GB/512GB 14" Surface Pro 4, with keyboard, will cost over $2000 and would be a coveted target for thieves. I don't recommend using any Surface Pro for airline travel. It's just too expensive to travel with. My recommended setup would be an inexpensive i7 15.6" 16GB/SanDisk Extreme Pro 480GB G50 Lenovo laptop with 2 or 3 AOC e1659FWU's. The Lenovo G50's go on sale all the time. You would have to upgrade the RAM to 16GB and the HDD to the SanDisk SSD. This Lenovo uses DDR3L RAM. However, I was unable to find the speed rating of the RAM it uses. You would have to call Lenovo first. I highly recommend you upgrade the HDD to the SSD. 5400 RPM HDD's are extremely slow. Furthermore, when you are traveling around, your laptop will get bumped. SSD's are impervious to shocks and bumps. Hopefully there is a backpack which has compartments for a 16" laptop and also 2 thin 16" USB monitors. I think the Targus 16” CityGear TCG650 Backpack might fit. Here is the Amazon link. If there isn't one available, there probably soon will be. Perhaps we should ask Targus to create one.