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Things Get Curiouser and Curiouser

As if it were not strange enough! Microsoft bought a phone company with no phones for $8.5 billion. Then, the public bid up the price of another Internet company, LinkedIn, to the point where buyers were paying more than $20 for every dollar of revenue that came the company’s way. As for profits, they capitalized each one at more than 700 times. At this rate, an investor wouldn’t earn his money back until 2,711AD.

He will need luck. People don’t usually live that long; especially crazy people.

But oddities are so common now; it is as if every man you pass on the street had two heads. One out of every four American homeowners owes more on his house than it is worth. Even in desert cities, such as Las Vegas, more than 70% are underwater. Nationwide, house prices are down 33% from their peak and still falling at 1% per month. That is, the typical homeowner loses about as much on his house as he takes home from his job.

And last week, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested. Who can deny that we live in a remarkable era? Odder than the charge against him was the fact that he was locked up for it. Bankers are used to getting bonuses for that sort of thing. On DSK’s watch, the IMF’s loans outstanding increased 10 times. Poor Greece was stuck with another $42 billion it couldn’t possibly repay. But at least he took the Greeks to dinner!

Read more: Things Get Curiouser and Curiouser

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