Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/17/assets-not-homes.html
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Well, for those of us in the U.S., when the time comes to take action, we won’t have to march as far with our torches and pitchforks.
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Brexit scared off people who wanted to own “assets” rather than “homes”
To be clear, Brexit worries them because Britain leaving the EU will mean that they won’t be able to move their ill-gotten gains in and out of the country as easily as they used to. I’m sure the Tories are hard at work trying to find a way to reassure the oligarchs and dictators that access to and transfer of their dirty assets will continue to be as safe and convenient as before.
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At some point we are going to have to deal with the rampant inequality, the corruption, the environmental and social damage, the memetic dregs of whatever lurks in the sunken place of Facebook and other social realms.
Who am I kidding? It’ll get worse before it gets better. A huge swath of 'merica has been raised on a diet of bullshit and nativist bluster. Actually I see the authoritarians ‘winning’ all over the world. People want a strong ‘daddy’ to take care of them and pander to their prejudices while they are ripped off.
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This seems to be true, but it doesn’t make sense because the City of London has always been a legally separate entity and is quite unaffected by any of this. Brexit actually makes GB become more attractive as it removes a ton of EU oversight and laws. Some people believe Brexit wouldn’t have gotten off the ground if it weren’t for the men behind the curtain (it’s always men) secretly pushing it.
So yeah, uh, no, uh, I’m they’re confused! 
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Well my understanding is that London was the most oligarch-friendly major European capital. Pre-brexit, the UK was always pushing back against UK financial regulations. Whether that is because the City was a major financial center, or the reason it dominated finance is a real chicken or the egg question. So post-brexit, the UK seems likely to be even friendlier to the global criminaltariat, but more difficult to get the money in and out of.
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I agree. Although the oligarchs and dictators are worried about this in the short term in re: real estate, the intent of the Tories is to make post-Brexit Britain an offshore banking and money laundering haven to rival existing ones. The City has never shown any scruples about taking dirty money, the country already has plenty of experience via the Channel Islands and West Indies havens, so the only missing step is to extend those protections to the ownership and transfer of real assets. Once that happens London will regain second and perhaps first place on this luxury properties list.
This is one of many reasons why anyone who voted for Brexit as an expression of populism is a total sucker. Whether it was Farage and his ilk or “reluctant” Conservatives, the money men had their own plutocratic agenda.
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If you are an oligarch or criminal
I am neither, thank you very much.
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I await the episode(s) of “Million Dollar Listings” that take up real estate as money laundering.
I’ve been following the international kleptocratic real estate bubble for years after reading an article about the hollowing out of high-end London neighborhoods then reading about rich Chinese buying up houses in the Boston suburbs (and a Chinese billionaire who is collecting as much property in Cambridge’s Harvard Square to what purpose no one knows).
Good to see that this is beginning to break through into the general consciousness.
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While very few criminals are oligarchs, I’d be willing to bet that very close to 100% of oligarchs are criminals.
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And use them to what, poke at and burn empty luxury condos? You don’t live in asset property, you (maybe) rent it to some poor slob with an actual job or use it to put up you mistress / unwed children.
the problem of new builds is the lax planning regulations lets in carbuncles
and hence the grenfell item
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When you put it like that it sounds good, unfortunately it also scared off people who wanted to “work in the NHS” or “teach students”
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The City of London definitely came first.
For the history buffs: https://www.quora.com/How-much-older-is-the-City-of-London-than-the-United-Kingdom
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