Toto deVeer

No, what I'm saying is to remove the adverse influence and power of extreme wealth on the political process, and preserve the wealth of the middle class, in relative terms. We live in a world today where a handful of people possess or control more wealth than most nations. This cannot be a good situation for the people of those nations. Can you give me one valid argument as to why any individual needs a wealth of more than one billion dollars?

On the contrary, do they not have a duty of care and can they not be found negligent? Cameron had better make this entire mess very public or he will end up being tarred with it... In future, the best way to avoid these things is to provide a public register on the internet...

I actually think that the ConLibs are coming close to the post WW2 West German Social Market Economy that is credited with the German economic miracle... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy

I think that there will be some exceptions, particularly to start-up investment, and SME's. But this is aimed squarely at hedge funds and 2nd homes...

Does the government, any government, control house prices?

You're not kicking the richest guy out of the bar, he's still rich. It doesn't eliminate poverty, and it doesn't make people more wealthy in absolute terms, but it does in relative terms. But I don't agree with taxing the income of the wealthiest, in fact I don't agree with an income tax at all. I prefer CG tax, tariffs and tax on total wealth above some threshold.

Eh? CGNAO?

Yeah. Today after I read through the comments on this article I thought to do the same, but decided it would be a waste of time. Lot of nonsense there.

The third one was: 3. We will corrupt your children with cheap booze, sleazy nightclubs and celebrity culture...

I think she's hot. I'm still trying to find one of those MerkelMarks....

Gold-backed DM? hmmm.... Oh, I was terribly disappointed last Friday too...

That way lay chaos, I'm afraid...

Or for those of us who aren't black belts, a sawed off shotgun could be useful too...

As they say, can't have capitalism without capital. Heard any knocks on the door yet?

Then again the Hedge Fund/Wall Street lobby may be behind this, cloaked in popularism. A win-win situation for Congress. Who stands to benefit most, if the IMF doesn't fund Europe?

Saudi Arabia did the same thing in the late 70's to mid 80's. Loads of projects, housing just sat empty. But it never crashed because it was internally funded, as compared to Dubai, for example. China's development has been internally funded, as far as I am aware. There may be some private sector pain, but I wouldn't want to bet on a 'collapse'. Heck the average income of the country is still about 100th in the world. Not a lot of room for a crash in that kind of environment. Biggest problem for China is a lack of international demand for their products. But, for them, that just means more farming, until the world economy picks up again.

Meaning?

I think we all agree that a smaller, fairer state is the ideal, but not the reality. Exactly. Their words must be taken in context. These policies are targeted to structural change. Mish didn't get this, I don't think. Running a real business that creates value, as compared to just speculation, is hard, grinding work. And to top this off, the current tax regime subsidises the income of financial speculators, to the detriment of real enterprise. That's the truly irreconcilable aspect of Mish's view.

The direction of this thread points to the new investment paradigm; put your wealth where it suffers the least, relative to all other assets. That's the strategy for now, and it doesn't look like it will change any time soon. 1970's : inflation. 1980's : value. 1990's : growth. 2000's : bubblicious real assets. 2010+ : safety. On that note, gold has been on the decline for the last couple of days...

That's why I think that all citizens should be allowed a maximum wealth level, and everything above that should be returned to the people. Nobody can argue that they need more than a billion dollars, no matter how successful they are. Yet we have situations like Mukesh Ambani, building a 2 billion dollar house in Mumbai, which has the largest slums in Asia. Disgusting.

Well, I find it strange becuse I can't really understand what it is saying; ie is this total value of the property, homeowner equity, etc. Significantly changed because house price inflation, since 2003, would have distorted it further. My guess is that it is more concentrated now. I don't like property taxes on main residences. It's OK for second homes. For BTL, there must be some happy medium that encourages productive use but discourages punishing the tenants. Inheritance may be part of it but then you get the Fergus Wilson's of this world. Especially during bubbles.

Yeah, you're right. Currencies outside the dollar world are devaluing in unison. Short term the UK needs to make more of what it consumes, if possible, and consume less from others. Long term the UK needs to produce high value. Going to take some time to do this...

Yup. That's the immediate situation. Gotta push those rates up to stop it. Question is when?

Unfortunately the most important factor is US Fed policy. The UK property market benefits more from low Fed rates than the US does. If the UK rates rise, then Sterling will become uncompetitive against the Dollar, Euro and the Yuan. However, I think that this is an important signal that rates could start rising in the near future...

Clear thinking...Amen brother