Yes, I own my house, but I have never bought property in the US and here the regulations surrounding it are quite different (at least I imagine) as loans and even things like the number of domiciles you can own in specific areas are highly regulated, and property value seems to be very public here and I’ve never seen wild discrepancies like with the Stewart property…

So, in a sense, it is baffling that something could ever be appraised with such a wide discrepancy - it seems like a very real kind of fraud is happening throughout the US that allows very wealthy people (Stewart, Trump, everybody with money in NYC!) to avoid taxes.

On top of this there is so much about it being a victimless crime, money isn’t infinite, not without hyper inflation. Banks can’t just give endless loans. If this is a widespread practice, it takes away from the working class that try to secure loans for literally anything.

I definitely agree that is an issue - there are actually a lot of crazy issues involving the subsidizing of home loans and other types of loans, and these burdens tend to fall on the middle class… And no, I am not being some capitalist middle class guy with zero class consciousness right now pretending I am a wealthy person who is in the same shoes as Bill Gates because I don’t get housing benefits and own a house…

I am saying:

• The middle class here take on a disproportionately large burden funding the home loans of the disadvantaged because the elites here don’t even get home loans
• The wealthy pay virtually no property taxes as is, and there’s always a race to attempt to displace them from hoarding & hiding their wealth that we magically can never win.

It’s absolutely a real problem and, fortunately, our last President did make real strides in breaking up real estate speculation and the landlord class but you know how it is… you halfway solve one problem and two more pop up.