In case it is flagged by users, am I allowed to know the ID of the users or their ID are fully protected ?
Do we have a list of prohibited words? It would be helpful to have the list of words beforehandā¦
Regarding the Hanlonās Razor, āNever attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity or incompetenceā. It suggests that before assuming someone is intentionally causing harm, consider if their actions are more likely due to ignorance, carelessness, or simply a lack of understanding.
According the rule, if I write sth as below, will it be flagged or deleted?
āOne can assume that GV investors are losing thousand of euros without having cards in hand due to the Aimaās ignorance, carelessness and lack of understanding. Other assumption also cannot be neglected i.e. : AIMA deliberately and intentionally rips off the investorsā.
So far everything is possible in life. I only outline here all the possible assumptions. Will my post get flagged? or it is not allowed to even make a negative assumption?
What I read was not rage or anger directed at third party. It was a purposeful effort to undermine the interests of fellow GV holders by advancing and promoting arguments directly contrary to their interests and well-being.
Itās one thing to discuss risks, but quite another to spend time and efforts doing the work of the opposing team.
Sorry, that information is only available to admins.
Mostly itās some regexes that match various phone number and email formats, as well as the mention of certain messaging apps (e.g. WhatsApp). This might seem a bit crude, but together with Akismet it catches something like 99% of spam.
You can typically tell that you either triggered a āwatched wordā or got flagged by Akismet when your post got queued for approval before getting published at all. We try to review these quickly, but sometimes it takes a couple of days.
Mentions of certain companies may also get your post queued (typically companies weāve had issues with trying to post fake reviews about themselves or similar).
I canāt tell you whether it would get flagged by other members or not. If flagged, whether it would get deleted would depend on whether the post is on-topic and generally constructive or not.
Itās quite likely that a post like that wouldnāt get deleted, but it does depend on the context. What I can definitely tell you is that it would not get deleted if posted in this thread.
Occasionally we also remove several posts in one go where the discussion has gotten derailed and uncivil. This may include removing some posts that were totally fine, but with the other posts deleted they no longer serve any purpose.
They have said nothing about wanting to limit the GV program (thatās just clickbait), they have made a statement about immigration in general.
Of course, if they do increase the time to citizenship across the board, that would make the ARI less attractive, but I doubt that would be their goal. PSD is generally a big fan of the program (and were the party that introduced it), hopefully they would manage to avoid accidentally damaging it in the process.
Doesnāt it smell fishy that AIMA stopped publishing the monthly ARI approval stats SEF used to publish? We havenāt had official stats since August 2023.
Sure, there were capacity constraints and priorities shift (e.g. preference for MOI and CPLP over ARI), but if PSD cared about the program at all, they would have published data even if the approval numbers in 2024 were only 1/4 of what it were in 2022 or went down to zero during certain months.
I do agree PSD is a big fan of getting the GV money. But why isnāt this textbook bait and switch?
not publishing data for so long; [so that the GV industry can tell lies]
the Jan 2025 oral statement from AIMA that 5 years clock starts from application for ARI, but not even a paragraph published on AIMAās website (to help the folks applying for CdT); [so that the GV industry can add new spin]
combined with
A possible rug pull (if PSD gets enough votes / other parties see the political expediency and jump on the bandwagon).
Again, Iām not saying PSD has enough votes to screw us over; I hope they canāt get enough votes. But we need the GV industry to lobby the politicians, instead of āfellow GV holdersā trying to indoctrinate me.
No one is gonna lobby for us. They are not very forward thinking, as evidenced by my first-hand experience. If anything, we have to drive the initiative for any sort of lobbying.
Populists from left and right both hate us. Never mind that many of us (especially after 2021) did not compete with the locals in the residential real estate market for housing.
I can think of the following large beneficiaries of the GV program carry more weight than each of us individually (as one investor):
Real estate developers who basically use GV money as interest-free construction loans (e.g. Mercan has hundreds of investors, possibly even >1000, if you add up all their hotel projects)
The PE/VC funds who make 2% of your asset and 20% incentive, and deploy capital directly into the economy; for open-ended funds, your capital still went into the economy albeit indirectly. The larger the fund, the stronger the voice.
The larger law firms with >20 or 50 GV clients
The construction industry, the service industry (e.g. Portuguese people who work in the Mercan hotels once in operation), the notaries and accountants, etc. to the extent they have unions who take positions on legislations and policies
From 1 and 2 and 3, itās definitely more effective if voice of concerns comes from the head of each of these companies, instead of from individual GV holders. The lobbying might not be public (again, politicians also hope to win votes from populists from left AND right), but if it doesnāt happen, we might all have to cut losses and run at some point.
The difficulty of organising GV holders directly is that most prefer to be discrete, for good reasons (or some GV holders TRULY believe they would have a ābulletproofā legal case at the constitutional court, and hence have nothing to worry about). Many donāt want to protest outside AIMA, and donāt want their names in the news, but instead will just cut losses and rely on Plan B from elsewhere.
The left might want to end the program but there is no evidence the right does. The PSD and CDS-PP coalition started the GV program, and they were very critical of Costaās retroactive reforms to it (reiterated in their latest election platform). IL likewise voted against Costaās changes, not surprisingly given their free market leanings. Chega attacked Costa in parliament for damaging foreign investor confidence and said there was no evidence that GV was impacting real estate prices. In fact, Ventura said PS were acting like āVenezuelan communistsā. Chega oppose any retroactive changes and support reintroducing real estate investment.
Itās good to know itās not a one-dimensional situation where everyone jumps on the āwe have too many immigrants; letās make it harder to naturaliseā bandwagon, coming from different places. The harder it is for them to jump on the bandwagon, the better.
Itās rather prejudiced of me to assume Chega would not want me to naturalise because Iām not a lily white Brazilian who speaks Portuguese as a native language.
Plus those people surely know politicians from all ranks, go for lunch/coffee/etc. Portugalās a small country, and lots of work happens in-person. GVs donāt have any such influence.
I notice one thing that no one requires lawsuit fees to be paid by the losing party, namely AIMA/SEF based on the previous cases on this forum. They only get deserved biometrics appointments for winning the lawsuits and the cost of violation is zero for the losing party.
I donāt know if some of them asked the losing party to pay the lawsuit fees after winning it but the court did not support it, or maybe no one ever asked for it. If so, thatās quite interesting.
Iād be happy to support some kind of lobbying effort, if nothing else so that the politicians donāt forget that the time to naturalization is one of the core benefits of the GV program and changing this would make the program less competitive internationally. If the change would also apply to those who already applied for residence permits that would further damage investor confidence in Portugal at the same level as the whole Mais HabitaĆ§Ć£o debacle.
The same would go for reverting the change to count time to citizenship from application submission, especially if itās done without first managing to get the processing time to consistently be below 6 months or so for several yearsā¦ And good luck with that!
However, first letās wait for the outcome of the election. Then letās figure out the best way to approach this. I think directly emailing and sending letters to the people on the relevant committees could be the most effective approach that we can each do individually.
At the risk of this comment getting flagged, bro you are just being an angry old man shouting at a cloud, at this point.
We all agree itās more effective if the proactiveness, activism comes from the many companies, employees, ancillary sectors benefiting from GV program. But itās not effective saying what it ought to be, the point here is how, we as a group here, can drive a change. Not in theory, but real, concrete, practical steps. And i agree with with tk to wait until the election
āBroā, if my merely pointing out the difficulty of something is too āangry old manā for you, then you need to seek your reading pleasure elsewhere. Iām not flagging you.
I choose to write to the chief Portuguese beneficiary of my investment (who has my GV money and is still deploying it in the Portuguese economy), asking him to bring this up when he has lunch/coffee or goes to a fundraiser/dinner with politicians. I happen to think the hundreds of people who co-invested should do the sameāwrite to the guy who has your money, ask that guy to send targeted emails, before you email blast random politicians.
I rather like the idea of a press campaign as well. Whatās in IM Daily is good. Bloomberg, Forbes, etc. would be on the list as usual. Any English-language media that target Brits/American pre-retirees (e.g. International Living) could also be very effective. Make Portugal realize their reputation and ability to obtain new money is in jeopardy.
Then if the feared amendment passes at the parliament and the PT Constitutional Court does not rule it unconstitutional, I cut losses and vote with my feet. On my way out, Iāll report any intermediaries in Hong Kong that sold PT GV after August 2023 to the Hong Kong consumer protection agency.
You are not a citizen. You are not a constituent. You donāt get to vote. YOU are the angry old man (apologies if you are a 30-year old woman instead) who email blasts politicians in a country that is not yours yet.
But obviously you do you. Me not standing outside AIMA with you doesnāt mean I donāt admire you for doing it.
Foreign investors do have leverage over politicians. We might not vote, but we move capital and shape how Portugal is viewed internationally. Politicians know that. Golden Visas werenāt handed out as a favor. They were a policy choice to attract long-term investment to a country that needs it.
Writing to your ābeneficiaryā might help. But I wouldnāt count on him to go to war for you. He is running a business, managing relationships, raising his next round of funding etc etc. He has his own risk calculations and plenty of reasons to keep quiet and avoid controversy.
And it is worth stressing, ARI holders are absolutely a constituency. Thanks to this forum we are an organised and informed one - and in politics, small but vocal groups often have outsized influence. The fact that we donāt vote just means we have to use other channels to make our concerns heard. Private diplomacy and public pressure both have value. Right now, we probably need both.
