[david_b]

Corn Laws - what do they have to do with selling real estate internationally?

> Taking away citizens' right to sell to whomever they wish is not a moral solution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_R...

We do regulate to whom we sell specific things (real estate is obviouly not exactly the same) but allowing international kleptocrats to launder / hide their money in western cities is hardly the most moral choice one could propose.

edit: I'm not opposed to such legislation on moral terms but I don't think I can trust the state with enforcing legislation like that - finding a good way of treating real estate investment funds or long chains of shell companies seems extraordinarily difficult (it already is pretty hard to trace who owns what internationally).

[paganel]

It's about imposing tariffs on across-the-border transactions.

> but allowing international kleptocrats to launder / hide their money in western cities is hardly the most moral choice one could propose.

This would be a political decision which should be treated as such.

[pjc50]

Corn can be transported across the border. Real estate cannot.

The real estate market needs slightly different analysis from normal free market dogma because it's subject to the constraints of physical space: you can't just make more of it. If high prices increased the availability of plots in downtown Portland then the problem could solve itself.

[paganel]

They were saying the same thing about corn and other agricultural products, even more so, as people lives' literally depended on them. This was of course before the "green revolution" when, as you said, they couldn't just "make more land" to grow extra corn. It turned out things were better for both consumers and producers once cross-border transactions of corn were liberalized.