UP Links 9 September 2012

+ Brandon Fuller

Using EB-5 Visas to Finance Hotel Projects

A government program, which grants so-called EB-5 visas to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in an American business, is now a popular source of financing for new Marriott hotels. Since the Seattle deal in 2008, the company has endorsed 14 projects that use EB-5 financing, including the downtown Milwaukee Marriott, a Courtyard Marriott in Midtown Manhattan and a $168 million hotel near the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

In China, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong Says U.S. Not in Decline

“It is currently facing some very difficult problems, but it is not a nation in decline,” Mr. Lee said of the United States. “The U.S. is an enormously resilient and creative society, which attracts and absorbs talent from all over the world, including many from China and the rest of Asia.”

Joseph Henrich on How Culture Drives Human Evolution

One of the ideas I’ve been pursuing is that after the origins of agriculture, there was an intense period that continues today of intergroup competition, which favors groups who have social norms and institutions that can more effectively expand the group while maintaining internal harmony, leading to the benefits of exchange, of the ability to maintain markets, of division of labor and of higher levels of cooperation. Then you get intense competition amongst the early farming groups, and this is going to favor those groups who have the abilities to expand.

Matt Yglesias on the Regulatory Obstacles to Driverless Cars

I read a lot of excitement today about California moving legislation that would create a legal regulatory framework for computer-driven cars, but I still wonder if this technology will ever be allowed to live up to its potential…The fact that Uber, a much more modest effort to disrupt the taxi industry keeps running into local regulatory problems keeps me good and skeptical about the more transformative case studies.

Charles Kenny on China’s Growth Miracle

There are still strong reasons to believe fast growth remains possible for China during the next two decades. And even if its growth were to collapse by 2 or 3 percentage points a year, the country will still get rich awfully fast.

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