In Arrecife there are about 23,000 registered homes, according to the National Institute of Statistics. The patrimonial value of all these homes, at most, is about 3,450 million euros (at 150,000 euros per home).
Now imagine that I am Amancio Ortega, and that I have about 150,000 million euros, recognized. Imagine that I fancy the whim of buying all the houses in Arrecife. Absolutely all of them, for whatever reason, just because I can. So I carry out a large-scale operation and little by little I acquire them one by one, paying double for them. To this end, I open real estate agencies, hire salespeople, and spend a good sum in the local media to promote my offers.
Suppose that in the end I spend about 7,000 million euros. Not much, considering that I have 150,000 million. After this huge operation I would still have 143,000 million, plus all the homes in a capital.
Let's go a little further. Once I have all the homes in my possession, I decide, purely on a whim, that I don't want anyone to live in them. I don't put them up for sale, or rent them, or anything. I can afford it, I have plenty of money. I let the current contracts expire and don't renew anyone. I am within my rights. It is my property. I have bought them legitimately, with the money I have legitimately earned. And it is well known that I can do whatever I want with my property. So I leave them empty.
What would happen in that case? Of course, the people of Arrecife who were able to sell their houses for twice their price would go somewhere else. They would probably buy something in another municipality on the Island. Or, considering that the municipalities would not be able to absorb so much demand all at once, many would go to other places, taking advantage of the money to start somewhere else.
But what about the rest? What would happen to businesses, schools, parks, hospitals...? What would happen to a capital depopulated overnight, not by a virus or a natural disaster, but simply by a stroke of the checkbook?
Of course, you will tell me that it is taking things too far. If something like that were to happen, people would rebel. There would be demonstrations. The scandal would be enormous and the governments, both the autonomous and the central, would be forced to do something about it. New laws would be created and others that were always overlooked would be enforced, such as the constitutional rule that says that everyone has the right to decent housing.
That's why I, if I were Amancio Ortega, would never do such a stupid thing. Instead of buying the 23,000 homes in Arrecife, I would buy 23,000 homes throughout the Spanish territory. 500 here, 200 there, 300 further on. In addition, I would do it through different shell companies, to avoid scandals and circumvent antitrust laws, which nobody pays too much attention to anyway.
But what I'm getting at is that, as of today, if I wanted to and had enough money, I could do it. I could buy all the houses in any town or city. In fact, with 150,000 million euros, I could buy practically a million homes... enough to house the people of an entire country, or to leave them without a roof over their heads. And if I get together with four or five as rich as me, I won't even tell you. Just as we buy the houses, we can buy the processes of elaboration and distribution of the food they consume, the water and energy they use, the clothes they wear, the media that inform them. We would have millions literally eating out of our hand, absolutely dependent on what we decide to do with our properties, whether they are real estate, factories, food, energy, water...
Would we have?
In short, I just wanted to invite you to reflect on this. Maybe one day we will have to put some kind of limit on what someone can accumulate. Just maybe.
