Thursday 14 March 2013

A Tale Of Two Londons






This item is short but the link is large and the subject represents a big question. 

It is an article by Nicholas Shaxson in “Vanity Fair” on the subject of One Hyde Park, London, referred to before in this blog.  The interesting matters are who owns the apartments, how, that is financed and why, given the huge costs of purchase.

The article does not limit itself to the immediate situation but outlines the longer story behind it.  This is the kind of money coming into London that has driven the property bubble and the associated impact in the South East.

There has been a lot of fuss about the capping of housing benefits in London largely centered on the families being installed in expensive properties.  There has been much less interest or comment on who might own them and are raking in the profits.

What is more worrying is that the money and use of it are not secure.  It would not take too much for those who have it to suddenly change their minds and to try to cash in.  This could have the makings of a nasty financial crash.

For quite a while now our governments have been betting the economic house on keeping the London bubble going and continuing to attract a lot of the funny and criminal money sloshing around the world.

We could all finish up the losers.


Consider, are these the people you really want to trust with your life savings and perhaps your future pensions?




1 comment:

  1. It isn't what we planned, an offshore haven for dodgy money.

    ReplyDelete