Dumb. Just dumb. And funny.

Tobi got me all worked up with her awesome post about the housing market.

I try to avoid thinking about this stuff because I like to keep my faith in humanity and the spectacular brain-power demonstrated when we pull all of our collective neurons together to create the phenomenon we call Economics. Um, not really. I´m a cynical bitch and a sociologist that can´t fucking figure society out. For instance, I´m slightly puzzled by the fact that when we all put our heads together the only thing we can manage to do is take a steaming dump of stupidity on ourselves.

Then, we expect the President Of Whatever Freaking Country You Live In to solve the problem we ourselves created in our own greed and imbecility. That´s like going to see your general practitioner and expecting him to cure AIDS while you´re sitting in the waiting room about to get your colon fingered.

Enough of my rant. I´m in a bad mood and need someone to make me laugh. Or to buy me a house.

I leave you with a funny anecdote that I found originally here (specific to Spain but is applicable everywhere I think) that I posted before, but in Spanish, and maybe some of my readers would be able to laugh at it a little if I translated it (it´s probably a sucky translation but whatever). It made me laugh. I promise, those are tears of laughter. Maybe.


“Well, no, housing prices never drop. Here is what a time traveller from the future explains:

I decided to take a ride in my time machine and explain to all of you how things are going in the future:

Fortunately, the predictions of so many Bubble Theorists have never come to pass regarding the housing market in Spain and housing prices have continued to rise annually at 17% for the last 50 years. As such, we have become the richest country in the world, because for example, an Attic on the Castellana in Madrid costs more than the state of California and the Tokyo Imperial Palace together. Sure, no one lives on the Castellana anymore or in any other place in Madrid, because those houses are for investing, not for living.

Although I, for example, work in Madrid, I bought an awesome 430 square foot flat, just 150 miles away, that with the highway is just a quick trip. In order to pay the mortgage we have brought together three families; a notary public married to a university professor, an IRS inspector married to a public attorney and a federal judge married to an architect. So, we put five of the salaries toward the mortgage and one to live on. We´re so happy with the purchase because although in the beginning it was difficult to make ends meet, I´m sure that further down the line we won´t even notice it. Besides, since the purchase a year ago, the flat has gone up in value 17%, and if that weren´t enough, the notary public´s wife is hot as shit.

Although professionally things are going well (I´m the CEO of a multinational corporation), the truth is that the inflation we are suffering in this country due to the fact that we are the richest in the world is making it so we have to tighten our belts a little. But it´s just a matter of getting used to being frugal. When we first started having to eat Spam made out of lizards, we complained a bit, but now it´s just two quick flips on the grill and it´s tasty as can be. In any case, we´ll take advantage of the fact that labor laws have changed and now children that are 10 years old can work, so I think I´ll pull the little one out of school and put him to work. The extra income will help to go towards the mortgage.

My salary is 2.000 net Tochos. The Tocho is the currency that substituted the Euro when they drop-kicked us out of the EU (envy can be so ugly), and it is equivalent to one euro cent. In the safety deposit boxes of the Central Bank of Spain, they don´t keep gold slabs anymore, they keep bricks. Because bricks have shown themselves to be a much safer and more profitable investment than gold.

After the Atomic Wars brought on by the owners of the government funded housing projects in Southern Spain, the population has been reduced to 5 million Spanish people and 50 million Ecuadorians working their asses off, constructing 800.000 houses annually (Construction is 98% of the GDP). So it looks as though there are 20 houses per inhabitant (they are almost all empty because as I said before, houses are meant for investing, not for living in).
90% of the land has been developed and now we are thinking of developing under the sea (you can´t live under the sea, so these housing developments will be just for investment).

This is what is known in the world and admired as the “Spanish miracle” and it is the subject of numerous studies and doctoral theses in the field of Psychiatry. Every year thousands of scholars of the human mind visit from all over the world. I wouldn´t be surprised if many of those scholars stayed here to live, because you can´t live anywhere in the world like you live in Spain.

Well, that´s all I can tell you about what is awaiting you in the future. I´ve got to run so I can hunt some lizards for dinner.”

-Time Traveler."


Hope you laughed a little.

-Bluestreak