I really dislike the attribution of this stench to one nationality. It's a mix of dirtbags, foreign and domestic, from all over the world. The only thing the pa

I really dislike the attribution of this stench to one nationality. It's a mix of dirtbags, foreign and domestic, from all over the world. The only thing the pattern has in common is that dirty money is flowing into real estate in the world's top cities: London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, and many more. In New York and London, it's "the Russians" who are blamed, as if they were the only one; in San Francisco, it's "the Chinese"; in parts of Southern Europe, it's "the Arabs". In reality, it's nonresident dirtbags from all over the world, including the U.S. Attributing it to one nationality is racist, unfair, and misleading. Really, the problem is dirtbag global elite speculators (and, likewise, the average Russian or Chinese isn't a dirtbag, and the average American ultra-HNWI is one) but that's too many words so people just shorten it to "foreign speculators". (By the way, speaking as an American, I am totally fine with Londoners and Parisians calling American nonresidents "dirtbag foreign speculators". It's not racist to hate the global elite of all stripes; it's patriotic no matter where you are.) Is it "the Chinese"? No. It's corrupt ultra-HNWIs from all over the world. People just blame "the Chinese" because a fifth of the world's population is Chinese, but it's really unfair because most Chinese people (like 99.9 percent) aren't the dirtbags buying up Palo Alto, and many are the victims of the dirtbags buying up Palo Alto.