. What exactly do you think landowners should do in order to somehow 'earn' their right to capitalise on their assets?
My issue is not with people cashing in on an asset they own. I also fully accept that people should be compensated for risk. My issue is the extent to which they are being compensated and the extent to which this compensation has increased over the past number of years. Where property values have, say, doubled in a period of 5 years can you honestly say that the additional value being demanded by the holder of the asset is explained (even in part) by any increase in the risk associated with holding that asset?
. If you for example had inherited land which someone then decided was very suitable for development what would you do about it?
Of course you would cash it in. My issue here is the number of poor sods being conned into thinking it's good value to pay an enormous amount of money to you for it. In a decent society, I believe your piece of land should not be capable of being, say, quadrupled in value overnight by 'someone' at the stroke of a pen. How can we justify this massive transfer of wealth to one person.
. Sooner or later that money finds its way back into the economy to the betterment of all.
Sure it will trickle back over time into the economy, but perhaps you could try to explain this economic theory to most of the younger generation now who are now locked into a life of slavery to mortgages to fund a massive transfer of wealth to the lucky sods who happened to buy property before they did.
. Who BTW has perpetrated this 'con' or 'swindle' you are going on about? In what smoke-filled room did the meeting take place and who was present?
Nearly everyone is to blame. Society has done it to itself. No-one has recognised a problem or dared called a halt. People paying crazy prices for houses have done it to themselves by refusing to even consider the price might be crazy. Banks feeding it. The ECB haven't helped. Mortgage brokers, estate agents, property developers all pinching themselves that this amazing bonanza could actually be happening to them. And sure why wouldn't they. Everyone is clamouring on the same bandwagon of greed. Everyone refusing to believe it's anything other than good value to pay increasingly crazy prices. Government doing nothing to even recognise there is a problem. Of course landowners will take the money if they're being given it. Society however should have recognised some time ago that and done something. Government intervention is one way of achieving this.
. There is absolutely no comparison between pyramid schemes (a scam designed to take money off the greedy and in particular the gullible) and legitimate asset-trading as I have just explained.
To my mind here is a very thin line between the value proposition in 'schemes designed to take money off the greedy...and gullible' and the value proposition in the property market today. The whole property market has been shored up by vested interests to the extent that it is doing exactly what you are describing. Asset-price bubbles normally attract a good deal of greedy and gullible people.
. How do you otherwise propose that people buy their houses? Save up for 30 years while 'wasting' money paying rent?.
My issue is not with people taking out a loan to purchase an asset. My issue is with the value propostion being presented to them. It stinks. It goes like this: "Work day-in-day-out for the next 30/40 years and give me and the banks most of your income. In return I give you a miserly piece of land and a few bricks." Do you actually think this makes even a jot of sense? Work most of your fruitful life for a small piece of land and some bricks? What kind of society can accept this? Blind? Greedy? Gullible? I believe so. I think it's a terrible shame society has let this happen. It's difficult to blame anyone in particular, but when we look back at the mess that is going to take place, I think few will find it hard to find themselves anything but guilty of feeding this sorry picture. Society (probably through the government) should have recognised the problem and done something about it a long time ago.