Things That Make You Go Hmm: bin Laden Real Estate Edition
From the mailbag:
"I think I have a solution for the housing problem. All we need to do is hire the people who appraised Bin Laden's hideout at $1 million. Seriously, it's an odd shaped lot, with uneven fences, no phone lines or internet connection, crumbling walls, cheap plastic garden furniture, in a country with a per capita GDP of $2,700. Unless the place comes with a cone of silence or room of invisibility, I don't see how that could be worth $1 million.
And if it is, either the dollar is more worthless than I thought or my home might actually be worth more than I paid for it. I'm sure the mock-up the government built for training cost more than a million, but that's more a function of our government's great ability to overpay for anything they do. I find it hard to believe that hideout was worth that much, and don't really understand why every news report likes to focus on that largely meaningless number."
