Closing this loophole ought to be popular, since it benefits only the rich (see chart; most family homes, the main middle-class assets, are not subject to capital-gains tax).
Another angry investor – who claimed to have lost most of his savings – posted a complaint that quickly went viral: "This was a stock wipeout that thoroughly damaged middle-classed assets from a decade of striving," he wrote.
In a preview of the political risk that the government would face if the market continued to drop, an essay circulated on Chinese sites, credited to an unnamed investor, who lamented that the falling prices had "thoroughly damaged middle-class assets from a decade of striving".
The cost varies, but David G. Dietze, president of Point View Financial Services, a fee-only money manager based in Summit, N.J., said a typical fee is one-quarter of 1percentt, or $2,500, for a $1 million winner with no more than the usual other middle-class assets.
A volatile stock market and a major housing bust pummeled middle-class assets, decreasing their net worth by almost 30percentt and "erasing two decades of growth," according to the report.
And it gave the new middle class an asset base that would soar in value until, that is, the deflation of China's property bubble last year and the onset of the current crisis.Restless citizens, dangerous studentsNow the party faces broader discontent.
Mr. Davison divided the firm's clients into three groups: those with assets of more than $2 million, whom he termed first class; those with assets of $300,000 to $2 million, the middle class; and those with assets of less than $300,000, the "poor".
During the late 1990s and then again in the middle of this decade, increasing asset values and rising wealth, in large part due to higher home values, allowed Americans to eat out more, economists Steve Meyer and Len Steiner write in a recent research note.
ReprintsThe significance of this change is that people tend to save most, and to accumulate financial assets, during middle age.
It is a new law on property rights which is mainly intended to reassure the country's fast growing middle class that their assets are secure.
