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I am realistically wondering now, what changes does this bring. If London won't be interesting anymore for oligarchs, what will happen with prices of accomodat

• mistermann 5y ago
  Canada is on it (and has been for a couple decades now). https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/03/18/news/canada-prime-spot-financial-criminals-set-shop-new-report https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/03/18/news/canada-prim...
• AeroNotix 5y ago
  The geographic or political consolidation of tyranny is not a bad thing. The sooner we get to a point where tyranny overtly seeks tyranny, for all to see, the better.
• nostromo 5y ago
  China.
  • ImprovedSilence 5y ago
    Dubai
  • csee 5y ago
    Nothing will substitute that well because these are prestige luxury goods. Xi wants to send his daughter to Harvard, not to a university in Moscow. Abramovich wants to sail in Europe, not China. It was the case in the Soviet Union too that even though the West was the enemy, the status symbols were still all Western. In a weird way the elites aspired and lusted over the produce of Western consumerism.
    • hattmall 5y ago
      So did the non elites, of what they were able to see, which is why such a large emphasis was put on concealing the wealth of the commoner westerner. Something that is still huge in China. If the average Chinese person learns that even the poorest of the western world doesn't live in 10sq meter "apartment" and work 9-9/6 the party would lose control.
      • verve_rat 5y ago
        I mean, to be fair, the poorest of the western world don't live in 10sq metre apartments...
      • richiebful1 5y ago
        Hundreds of thousands of Chinese international students have been coming to the US every year for the past decade. I'm sure they've seen homelessness as well as the middle class lifestyle in the US. So far so good
        • hattmall 5y ago
          Any Chinese person coming to the US is from the most privileged class. The Chinese commoner isn't even able to move freely around China.
    • phist_mcgee 5y ago
      Just look at this recent speech by Putin[1] on the matter. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FguV-zo2wpI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FguV-zo2wpI
  • hpkuarg 5y ago
    I doubt it. Anyone with any money or power in China already has a foot out the door, in almost all cases in a country with strong property rights and rule of law. Russian oligarchs won't find anything in China that they don't already have at home.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • reincarnate0x14 5y ago
    Highly doubtful. The last decade or so of CCP direction has been to control and punish the huge outflow of capital by rich Chinese into various western asset pools (like US and Canadian real estate) that are outside the party's reach. See also the recent controls on various cryptocurrencies. A lot of this got washed through Hong Kong and Taiwan and Singapore. Nobody outside is going to want to secure their wealth there. If kleptocratic Russians wanted that sort of arrangement, they could just keep it in Russia.
• Kenji 5y ago
• miohtama 5y ago
  Dubai is currently the go-to destination of shady money. It’s the next Monaco/Swizerland. The local rulers have de facto control over government, jurisdictional and businesses. Any money is welcome as long as the right parties get their share - the rule of the law does not apply as long as you hire the right lawyer and advisors. It’s still the US ally in Middle East and so far, Dubai/UAE has had a blind eye on their lax money-laundering practice. Here is a good article from The Economist on the situation. I apologise for the low quality of photo of the page. https://twitter.com/moo9000/status/1504425086073413639 https://twitter.com/moo9000/status/1504425086073413639
  • webkike 5y ago
    I really don’t understand the appeal of Dubai unless the only thing you care about is living in a resort
    • gonehome 5y ago
      There's no income tax. There's less appeal if you're an American since the USG taxes you anywhere in the world, but if you're Canadian there's a lot of appeal to live there for a few years as a resident. The people I've known in this category do something like this: - Canadian Citizen - Move to Dubai - Trade crypto, make eight digit returns, liquidate funds - Move back to Canada eventually without having had to pay tax on those funds You can't do this as a US citizen without renouncing citizenship, but you can do this for most countries in the world (at least that's what people doing this have told me, I haven't looked into it that deeply myself).
      • DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
        I don't think this is unique to Canadians. Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the US the only country that makes you file your taxes in the home country no matter if you live abroad.
        • davchana 5y ago
• danans 5y ago
  Their yachts are apparently escaping to the Maldives [1], so that's an option, as long as it's not underwater. But then again, they have yachts. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-02/russian-oligarchs-yachts-head-for-maldives-as-sanctions-levied https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-02/russian-o...
  • thelittleone 5y ago
    I love the Maldives but if they become a haven to escape sanctions, it could be taken in a few hours, confiscate the yachts, then return Maldives to their government.
    • nickff 5y ago
      You're suggesting invading a country to impose sanctions on individuals from a different country? This seems extreme and unjustified.
      • notacoward 5y ago
        You mean like forcing down a plane going between two other countries because you wanted to arrest a journalist who was on it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Protasevich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Protasevich (Russia's puppet BTW)
        • unmole 5y ago
          No, violating a countries sovereignty is objectively worse than redirecting a plane flying in your airspace. And speaking of forcing a plane going between two countries to land try to make a political arrest, who did it first? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
          • fmajid 5y ago
            And before that, there was the highly picaresque story of Abu Abbas, the mastermind of the Achille Lauro hijacking (and ensuing murder of American Jewish tourist Leon Klinghoffer). There are so many twists and turns in this story, involving diplomatic crises between the US, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and various Palestinian groups that it beggars belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Lauro_hijacking#Interception_of_EgyptAir_jet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Lauro_hijacking#Interc...
• monocasa 5y ago
  The US ironically enough. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/real-estate/russian-money-flows-us-real-estate-rcna17723 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/real-estate/russian-money-f...
  • HWR_14 5y ago
    When those assets get seized and auctioned off, it might reduce some pressure in the housing market.
• _dain_ 5y ago
  >If London won't be interesting anymore for oligarchs, what will happen with prices of accomodation in center i might be able to afford a house there
• chernevik 5y ago
  Most people would far rather live in London than Dubai.
  • crate_barre 5y ago
    What is life at those wealth numbers? Anywhere you go would be the same lifestyle. Granted you’d need to be a lot more underground in Dubai but I’m sure they can figure out how to get coke and high end escorts and hang out on boat off the gulf coast. Ditch all all the alcohol in the ocean and head back like a good Muslim, no questions asked.
    • chernevik 5y ago
      Not at all, I suspect the more money you have the more you care about what your city has to offer. Restaurants, clubs, sporting events, galleries, museums, theater, society -- London has far more amusements for the wealthy than Dubai.
      • ipaddr 5y ago
        For a Russian Oligarch London offered a community where other Oligarchs, western elites could mingle. The galleries, museums of London's are impressive but Dubai has some of the finest galleries/museums/restaurants in the world. They offer a wealth of everything and much more like Swim Amongst Sharks at the Dubai Aquarium and other things banned in the western world.
        • crate_barre 5y ago
          Plus any multi billionaire can have world class chefs on retainer.
          • bobthepanda 5y ago
            Part of the eating at exclusive restaurants thing is to see and be seen in public doing the things people know to be exclusive. Private chefs don't quite do that.
• intricatedetail 5y ago
  If money can't be explained it should be seized. The properties should be nationalised and then sold on auctions. Money should be used to rebuild Ukraine and legal assistance to get war criminals tried.
  • forum_ghost 5y ago
    Guilty, until proven innocent. Excellent starting point, I wonder what other rights should we dispense with.
  • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    The UK does have unexplained wealth orders. The haven't been used much though, at least so far.
• mrtksn 5y ago
  Do you know what I'm hoping for? I'm hoping for more natural, for more "organic" communities. Walking around the residential areas of Chelsea or Knightsbridge I found it to be some of the most boring places in London. Beautiful houses and no one on the streets, pedestrian hostile roads, generally boring perfection. I think optimising the city for the wealthy when these wealthy are not invested in the community kills the spirit of the city. London doesn't have particularly beautiful nature or weather, so if you make it about perfect streets and expensive buildings you can build something much better somewhere else. What London actually offers that is extremely valuable is a great culture and institutions and all these rich people who occupy a place in London without being in London are undermining it. London has much more to offer than hiding the elites money, just as the Switzerland. These are advanced communities that has a lot of more going on for them beside accommodating the rich people of the world. The accumulated wealth in these places is not like the wealth in Silicon Valley, it is stale. IMHO the dilution of the artificial wealth saturation will result in talented people having their impact amplified.
  • heavenlyblue 5y ago
    Yeah I agree absolutely. I find it quite amusing when people say “move out of London” and completely miss the whole of what West End has to offer at least.
• matthowe 5y ago
  I doubt much will change in London over the long term. Johnson and his government are doing with the Ukraine/Russia issue what they have done on virtually every other topic: talk loudly and carry a very small stick. They have made some grand statements about punishing these oligarchs, while moving at a glacial pace, so as to allow these oligarchs to liquidate as much as possible and flee. I think, once the war in Ukraine is over (please God that's soon), the next Tory government (it's always the Tories!) will simply revert to type, take money from the Russian oligarchs who still want access for their kids to schools such as Eton, Harrow, etc. and allow the laundering to continue. As long as the Murdoch press continues to misinform the British public on these issues, Johnson and his Tory ilk will have enough air cover to continue allowing these oligarchs to finance their party (political), their parties (social), and further corrupt the entire political system (see "Lord Lebedev").
  • nullifidian 5y ago
    >their kids to schools such as Eton, Harrow How is it bad? If the Russian elite would be at least partly be indoctrinated in the western values it could only do good.
    • eloisius 5y ago
      The assumption you’re making is that they soak up liberal values and not just lucrative training and connections. I’d be interested to see if anyone has compiled any evidence one way or the other, but at the very least we, in liberal democracies, should consider it an injustice to allow someone who has imprisoned and tortured their own citizens and pilfered their own country to use their ill-gotten gains to buy the most elite educations available. Spots not even within grasp of the vast majority of English or Americans in their own countries. I’m an American and I’d never even have a dream of attending an Ivy League, yet Xi Jinping’s daughter went to Harvard and Carrie Lam’s son is a postdoc at Stanford right now. Surely all these tyrants’ children aren’t the smartest, highest IQ students by coincidence, actually deserving of the spots. They’ve been able to buy their way in with blood money, and we should look at look at institutions that enable that with shame and disgust.
• Spooky23 5y ago
  The US attracts plenty of shady money. Places like Delaware, South Dakota, Nevada, Wyoming create all sorts of opportunities for hijinks.
• Gollapalli 5y ago
  I doubt property values would really change unless we started talking about getting Chinese money out of London, because it's just a way bigger thing from all that I've seen.
• tim333 5y ago
  In London there'd probably a bit of a drop in prices at the super lux end but life would go on as normal. The tax laundering stuff is a small percentage of the market except maybe in the £10m+ properties.