Taxing the Rich Is Failing to Ease the Global Housing Crunch
Why are the wealthy parking their funds in real estate? They don&#x27;t have a crystal ball so its not because they know its going to appreciate. It&#x27;s a terrible investment by almost all accounts. It&#x27;s historically expensive, undiversified, large transaction costs, high maintenance, taxed continuously, politically visible, etc. And they don&#x27;t even bother to use it.<p>My understanding is that there are limits to where they can store their wealth with relative safety. A Russian oligarch can&#x27;t just open up a Robinhood account and park hundreds of millions of dollars in a low cost ETF. Their wealth is in constant risk of confiscation by the state. That&#x27;s much less true in the US. I don&#x27;t think Mark Cuban would just sit on hundreds of millions worth of real estate in Vancouver. Vacation homes and private islands are different, but I think its mostly a developing market oligarch phenomenon.<p>I wonder if crypto could alleviate some of the strain caused by work-arounds to unequal banking systems.