Speak, furious memory!

Another article featured in the New York Times, roughly nine months ago.

A total fucking retard called Jon Gertner wrote a cringe-inducing lead article in the Sunday magazine, Chasing Ground.

This is such a "me-give-you-blowjob-you-give-me-advertising-revenue" article that I'm going to have to stick to the "highlights".

Indeed , Toll seemed certain that firms like his—with an expertise at finding and developing land would become increasingly successful. The company expects to grow by 20 percent for the next two years and 15 percent annually after that.

Let me point out to readers that these are the same Toll brothers that have sold a 500+ million in stock over the last year. See for yourself at Yahoo! Finance.

Secondly, they have issued a stock buyback progam so that the company spends its excess cash buying back the shares while the insiders cash out. Yes, this is the closest that modern finance comes to legal piracy.

Did the journalist follow up on either? This is publicly available information.

I asked Toll what our children - my kids are both under 8, I told him - would be paying when they're ready to buy. "They're going to live with us until they're 40," Toll said matter-of-factly. "And when they have their second kid, then we'll finally kick them out and make them pay for the house that we paid for. And that house will cost them 45 to 50 percent of their income."

Does this journalist know how much land the US possesses in relation to its population? Hell, forget the US! Does he realize how much land Texas possesses in comparison to the entire US population?

(Answer: 295 million (US pop.) v/s 171 million acres (in Texas))

Yessirree bob! There's them half+ acre for each an' every man, woman, an' child there be in this fine country.

Obviously, not all of it is habitable, and we need land for other stuff (agriculture, industries) but I think my point should be absurdly obvious.

Further ass-wipery from one of the world's leading newspapers.

I grew alarmed. Was he kidding? He assured me he was not. "It's all just logic," Toll said. "In Britain you pay seven times your annual income for a home; in the U.S. you pay three and a half." The British get 330 square feet, per person, in their homes; in the U.S., we get 750 square feet. Not only does Toll say he believes the next generation of buyers will be paying twice as much of their annual incomes; in terms of space, he also seems to think they're going to get only half as much. "And that average, million-dollar insane home in the burbs? It's going to be $4 million."

Uhhhh, yes! The average will be 4 million dollar homes. And who exactly can afford that given that the median income is roughly $50K?

Let's see: 50K * 30 (most-common loan length) = 1.5 million.

That barely pays a third of that principal never mind the debt service.

How do these journalists get a paycheck?