Saturday, July 14, 2007

A Modest Proposal

I've never supported genocide. Like the bleary-eyed law student who on the first day discussing Brown V. Board raises his hand and prefaces his comment with "I'd just like everyone to know that I'm against slavery," I would like to put on record that I am, in a general sense, against the systematic murder of a group of people. Especially since they outlawed it in the Geneva Convention. Or some convention. I don't remember, but I'm sure someone made it illegal at sometime. Nevertheless, I've concocted a judicious proposal to address one of the most crippling plagues ever to afflict New York City.

Let's kill all the real estate brokers. Think about it. These people are completely useless. Why keep them alive? They're just dragging the rest of us hard-working Americans down. Rents would drop immediately-no one would ever have to pay that stupid 15% broker's fee anymore. Craigslist adds would be pruned of deceitful advertisements. There would be less foot-traffic in the cities most desirable locations, as there'd no longer be anyone to meet you at a random street corner and take you to the apartment that you could have just gone to yourself if the brokers did not deliberately keep the location of their apartments from you. Instead of meeting that goofy-looking twenty something who could have learned a valuable trade but for some reason went into being slimy for a living, you could just go straight to the apartment, talk to the owner, and strike an honest deal between respectable people. I see no reason not to run the streets red with the blood of real estate brokers.

And another thing: these people have apartments themselves. Did you think of that? If we killed all the brokers, there would be a massive jump in supply. Now, they probably don't live anyplace that you or I would want to rent. But any supply shift will effect the entire market. Brutally maiming all real estate brokers in New York and leaving their bloodied, mutilated corpses in the streets for ravens to scour would be the best thing to happen to rental prices since the stock market crash of 1929.

I know there will be some resistance to my proposal. You can't just kill tens of thousands of people because they are useless and annoying and it would be great for the rental market and the morale of the city and pretty much what everyone wants to do anyways. It would be expensive. To that I say "Come on- live a little. You've gotta spend money to make money. Lets forget about the budget just once and do what we know is in the best interest of the city. Lets just get out there and start killing brokers. Expenses, and obnoxious people, be hanged."

Plus, think about the job creation, people. Someone would have to actually butcher the brokers- hey, that's a catchy slogan: Butcher the Brokers, a 2007 initiative for the city. Anyway, genocide doesn't happen by itself. Someone would be collecting a pay check after this thing, and that's what we call economic stimulus.

But of course, its a slippery slope. Today we're killing real estate brokers, tomorrow we could be killing stock brokers. Before you know it, there's not a single over-paid middle-man left in New York and there's perfect information and transparency in every transaction. Wait, maybe I've been narrow-minded about this. I'd like to amend the proposal. Kill ALL brokers. Now we're talking.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i am really touched with your emotions. Go ahead i am with u.