[emn13]

That's a whole 'nother discussion; the point is simply that an ad hominem vs. the economist on this matter seem incongruous - and, more importantly, a distraction in poor form.

But I won't dispute that the idea seems applicable more broadly, especially since it's so much simpler and less fraud-sensitive than capital gains taxes. And while it's politically tricky, if implemented with a slow ramp up (i.e., don't do what Thatcher did) it probably won't hurt critical constituencies too bad. You could think of something like an X% tax of value above threshhold Y, and start with X low and Y high, and creep from there; e.g. X 1% and Y 500k pounds, conveniently hurting the rich not too much, and the bottom 50% of households even in london not at all. Even just the message that there's political will to do something about this would likely deflate the bubble a little.