The spoils of oil in London: Russians and Saudis inflating real estate to obscene levels, and red Ferrari's on every corner

Thank you America for getting addicted to oil, and not flinching when gas hit $3 a gallon. Thank you for not building mass transit. Thank you for electing two oil men to the White House. Thank you for not having any kind of conservation effort. Thank you for building and driving huge SUV's and pick-up trucks to homes in the far-flung suburbs.

-Love, Keith's Russian and Saudi neighbors in London

Seriously, folks, it's sickening the amount of new wealth here. It's sickening to see bald doofy russian guys by the boatload driving their red Ferrari's all over my neighborhood. It's grotesque to walk over by Harrod's and see gangs of badly dressed 20-something arabs hounding every girl that walks by, with their Ferrari's parked on the curb.

Money can be a good thing, and I'm all for trying to get (and keep) some of it. But then there's class, then there's not being a show-off, and then there's doing something good with your money, versus the narcissistic consumeristic Ferrari orgy that is now underway in London.

Welcome to London - now the neuvo riche capital of the world.

LONDON - London's luxury homes are now the most expensive in the world, experts say, with foreign buyers, salary bonuses and steady interest rates driving prices up in the capital's overheated property market.

Prime residential property in London now costs around 1,200 pounds ($2,300) per square foot, compared to 1,000 pounds ($1,900) in New York, according to CB Richard Ellis Hamptons International.

Prices for central London homes worth more than 1.5 million pounds ($2.9 million) climbed 21 percent for the year ended Aug. 31, according to Knight Frank.

Foreign buyers own 51 percent of the 2 million-pound-plus ($3.8 million) market in London, Knight Frank research shows, compared to 34 percent of the equivalent market in New York and 27 percent in Paris.

Over the past five or 10 years, London has gained a larger share of international financial activity," he said. "And, unlike other European financial centers like Frankfurt, buyers are attracted by all the other things the city has to offer."

Russians, other Europeans and Americans already are a strong presence in the London market, and Asian buyers are taking an increasing slice: The volume of Asian purchasers has grown 60 percent over the past five years, Bailey said.