Is The Uk Becoming A Home To The Global Super-Rich?

[miko]

I used to curse the Yanks (my wife included) who think that the UK is just London. You lot on here are as bad. As a proud Manc London can kiss my ass as well. Let the Arabs/Russians take you over-most of the greed that has destroyed my country originated there. As far as I am concerned it's a foreign country. It's not the typical UK-that's for sure.

I love London each to their own, however like many I have been booted out as i have not got the money to live there any more , if i did have I would be straight back.

[Guest tbatst2000]

Foreign totty living in London. Young, fit, beautiful, smart, money grabbers.

A perfect match for old, fat, ugly, bright and really rich men.

That may be true but I get the impression it's the pay-per-play version that's the attraction for some of the super-rich types.

[(Blizzard)]

Let's hope so. These entrepreneurial types are bound to use their amazing superhuman megatalents to make us all richer, just like they did with their own countrymen.

If only we'd thought of this sooner. If Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini had lived in Knightsbridge, Kensington and Notting Hill, WWII could have been fought in Hyde Park.

If we're really lucky then its a return to feudalism. Can't wait, I love a good joust. Probably just a fad though.

Don't think they're here for the women though. I've seen better looking women bringing broomsticks into land on the helipads of leper colonies.

Edited August 12, 2010 by (Blizzard)

[Fromage Frais]

That may be true but I get the impression it's the pay-per-play version that's the attraction for some of the super-rich types.

If it flies, floats or Fxxks rent it!

So they say

[indirectapproach]

"As a proud Manc ..."

Oh you poor thing. I'm so sorry.

[Tiger Woods?]

I thought it was accepted that English women are fat, ugly, stupid and money grabbers.

Plenty of nice eastern europeans in London

[Tiger Woods?]

This is a tough one but I would say that, on balance, the prices of high end homes in London have dragged up prices across the rest of the UK.

The rocket fuel of lax and excessive credit that helped make many temporarily rich people also had a massive impact on prices across the rest of the UK so the impact was doubled.

Without a doubt. London is the cancerous tumour that has poisoned the rest of the UK's housing market. People sell up their basement flat in some centralish location and then go and buy a pile in Devon or Cornwall. The varuiance in wages, and hence eventual disposable income, between London and the rest of the country is the root of it all.

Edited August 13, 2010 by Tiger Woods?

[(Blizzard)]

Plenty of nice eastern europeans in London

There are even more in eastern Europe.

[indirectapproach]

"London is the cancerous tumour .... "

That seems a bit of a misplaced way to describe the third most important city in world fashion.

[Austin Allegro]

However good England maybe (which it isnt) it will always be grey, cold and dingey for 9 months of the year.

There are much better places.

Doesn't matter. London will just be one of their many homes, and if the weather gets too depressing, off they go in the private jet to a sunnier location. London does have very good nightlife, restaurants, theatres, museums, galleries etc and if you can afford to live in a good part, life can be very good. It's also very tolerant because there is little indigenous culture left - nobody ever feels 'foreign' because everybody else is as well!

[@contradevian]

Labour screwed up when the booted Shinawatra out. That'll have put a lot of future exiles off Blighty.

Probably the only good move New Labour made then. London is ideal. Its has a huge surf proletariat, that get to pick up the bill for everything from their taxes, and won't revolt as they are too busy building farms on Facebook.

[SarahBell]

There's an awful lot of SSTC at the upper end of the market... So someone is buying it.

[Snugglybear]

Doesn't matter. London will just be one of their many homes...

Quite so. The UK is becoming one of the homes of the global super-rich.

I mean, one home is for the little people.

Look how many UK residents have second homes either in the UK or abroad, and most of them are hardly even rich, never mind super-rich.

[Big Orange]

Why would London be a safe-haven for plutocrats once you eventually get a violent Anglo-Fascist or Islamo-Fascist resistance movement break in the next two decades as a side-effect of an imploding local economy surrounding the rich's London enclaves?

[scepticus]

London is a fantastic place to live if you're a billionaire though.

are you a (frickin) billionaire?

[tomwatkins]

"As a proud Manc ..."

Oh you poor thing. I'm so sorry.

Why? Every time I see the faces on the tube they all look like they (you?) are ready to jump on the line. London is a sh!tehole and an overpriced one at that. The thing I love about Manchester is the industrial museums which remind me that this is where we built the wealth that the parasites in the city creamed off. You know "England's wealth hangs by Lancashire's thread". Where coal came from-remember that stuff? Don't feel sorry for me pal-at least we created something real, albeit dead now. It was honest stuff, not sleight of hand that will kill us all.

[indirectapproach]

Ah, the Manc delusion.

Slum dwellers that love what they shouldn't because they have nothing else.

That pine for dark satanic mills and blind pit ponies because they are nuts and delight in nothing better than shoddy manky product and fantasising about ripping off some soft southern shyte.

[miko]

Why? Every time I see the faces on the tube they all look like they (you?) are ready to jump on the line. London is a sh!tehole and an overpriced one at that. The thing I love about Manchester is the industrial museums which remind me that this is where we built the wealth that the parasites in the city creamed off. You know "England's wealth hangs by Lancashire's thread". Where coal came from-remember that stuff? Don't feel sorry for me pal-at least we created something real, albeit dead now. It was honest stuff, not sleight of hand that will kill us all.

I think if you really want to take a look back in time we did have proper industry down here in London as well. Like up north it is also now dead.

Like I said on another post on this thread each to his own. You like it better up there we like it better down here , thats fine . The only thing i always find with northern people that think it is better up there is , they keep having to ram in down everyone's throat especially the throats of the southern people. Sometimes I think you shout to loud and don't really believe what you keep shouting. Maybe ignnorance on my part but I think it is better in London than up north , thing is I don't need to constantly keep telling every northerner at every oppotunity I get. Because I really believe what i feel.

[Guest Noodle]

I think if you really want to take a look back in time we did have proper industry down here in London as well. Like up north it is also now dead.

Like I said on another post on this thread each to his own. You like it better up there we like it better down here , thats fine . The only thing i always find with northern people that think it is better up there is , they keep having to ram in down everyone's throat especially the throats of the southern people. Sometimes I think you shout to loud and don't really believe what you keep shouting. Maybe ignnorance on my part but I think it is better in London than up north , thing is I don't need to constantly keep telling every northerner at every oppotunity I get. Because I really believe what i feel.

West is best old boy. West is best.

[Crashman Begins]

Well the Arabs seem to Favour it over the USA, we have got the russians and Indians now and expect the chinese. They don,t trust their own governments so stash of lot of their assets and family out in a nice safe haven. London is also very tolerant

Theres a reason for that

Something to do with Gordon Brown

[Guest tbatst2000]

Theres a reason for that

Something to do with Gordon Brown

Actually, the biggest reason is the non-dom thing. If you're a US green card holder or citizen you're obliged to pay US taxes on your worldwide income even if you're not still living there. In the UK there is still the get-out of paying a flat, quite small, rate to avoid that. For someone coming from a zero income-tax country (e.g. Saudi Arabia) that's a very serious financial difference.

[LuckyOne]

Actually, the biggest reason is the non-dom thing. If you're a US green card holder or citizen you're obliged to pay US taxes on your worldwide income even if you're not still living there. In the UK there is still the get-out of paying a flat, quite small, rate to avoid that. For someone coming from a zero income-tax country (e.g. Saudi Arabia) that's a very serious financial difference.

The non-dom regime is even better for people who come from high tax countries like France, Australia, Belgium, Canada etc which do not tax non-resident citizens. Non-doms from those countries only pay tax on UK generated income and offshore generated income which is repatriated to the UK. Capital can be brought in tax free.

The non-dom tax regime explains why so many expats like to work in the City, why people like Mark Webber are happy to live here and why so many wealthy people from unstable regimes are delighted with the tax regime which lets them live here very cheaply. The UK is one of the best tax havens in the world for non-doms.

Like most other tax havens, the tax regime helps force house prices higher.

[tomwatkins]

Ah, the Manc delusion.

Slum dwellers that love what they shouldn't because they have nothing else.

That pine for dark satanic mills and blind pit ponies because they are nuts and delight in nothing better than shoddy manky product and fantasising about ripping off some soft southern shyte.

I don't pine for anything my friend-just making a point about London. I have to go back to see family there once in a while unfortunately. I live in Newport Rhode Island. Not exactly slumming it but everyman to his own. I am just proud to be a son of Lancashire that's all. Guess it has something to do with our football heritage as well as the industrial stuff. Winning European cups and things like that.

[tomwatkins]

Actually, the biggest reason is the non-dom thing. If you're a US green card holder or citizen you're obliged to pay US taxes on your worldwide income even if you're not still living there. In the UK there is still the get-out of paying a flat, quite small, rate to avoid that. For someone coming from a zero income-tax country (e.g. Saudi Arabia) that's a very serious financial difference.

Not exactly accurate. I have dual citizenship and I can still elect to have the UK as my tax base. I then only need to pay taxes on what I earn here in the US. Can't divert that.

[The Masked Tulip]

Not exactly accurate. I have dual citizenship and I can still elect to have the UK as my tax base. I then only need to pay taxes on what I earn here in the US. Can't divert that.

Were you put under any pressure to renounce UK citizenship... or subjectation to be more precise?