Onion Eater
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2008
- Messages
- 65
Tempe Town Lake, it was surely a mistake,
A slice of Manhattan, financed with taxpayer pork,
Dollar signs in their eyes: “Real estate can only rise!”
Now we’ve got something out of Escape from New York.
Well-heeled prospective buyers, answering the shrill criers,
Came to see the view that the real estate agents did pump,
Now drunkards ignore the view; business they’ve come to do,
Hanging their butts off a 35-story ledge, they do take a dump.
A multi-million dollar penthouse! Now the owners grouse,
Beer bottles, cigarette butts and used condoms litter the floor,
Their condo is a playground for bums; for them, only crumbs.
Can’t the bank at least find the money to put a lock on the door?
Unable to pay the light bill, Scott Coles himself he did kill,
Most condos were only 600 square feet, but what a view!
300 thousand bones! Now the buildings are dark tombstones,
Monuments to the many investors the bankers did screw.
“It’s a steal!” the bankers holler, hoping for a sucker to collar,
Millions of dollars of cabinets were ruined by heat and erosion,
But it can still be salvaged; their investment is not yet ravaged,
Here’s a plan: the bankers can sell tickets to the implosion.
Author notes:
Tempe Town Lake is an artificial lake in Tempe, Arizona, surrounded by high-rise condos like the Centerpoint Towers – 90% and 75% completed! – and pricey restaurants. It certainly seemed like a good idea during the heady real-estate boom. Now, not so much. On 1 June 2008, Scott Coles, the founder’s son and CEO of Mortgages Ltd., dressed himself in a tuxedo, built a shrine to the wife who had left him, and tried an oxycodone/Ambien/alcohol cocktail. It went down about as well as his business plan; that is, it killed him.
Of course, Coles isn’t the only one to blame. More than one high-roller lost their shirt in such debacles as Chateaux on Central – aka Disney Does Brownstone in the Desert – but Coles in his tuxedo is the public face of the wastelands that downtown Phoenix and downtown Tempe have become. In fiscal year 2004, developers submitted 13,424 lots for preliminary review in Phoenix; in 2008, they submitted 382.
On the bright side, I finally hit on the perfect Halloween costume: I stagger around the party dressed in a tuxedo, brandishing a blender labeled oxycodone/Ambien/alcohol and hawking condos in the Centerpoint Towers. I tell prospective tenants that I’ve finally found an investor with deep pockets to pay for the completion of my project. His name is Lucifer and he’ll sell you a condominium for no money down. All he wants is to hold onto your soul until you’ve paid off the mortgage.
Not surprisingly, very few Halloween revelers want to seal that deal with a drink from my blender.
Economic theory in rhyme! Check out my website for more poetry about the dismal science.
A slice of Manhattan, financed with taxpayer pork,
Dollar signs in their eyes: “Real estate can only rise!”
Now we’ve got something out of Escape from New York.
Well-heeled prospective buyers, answering the shrill criers,
Came to see the view that the real estate agents did pump,
Now drunkards ignore the view; business they’ve come to do,
Hanging their butts off a 35-story ledge, they do take a dump.
A multi-million dollar penthouse! Now the owners grouse,
Beer bottles, cigarette butts and used condoms litter the floor,
Their condo is a playground for bums; for them, only crumbs.
Can’t the bank at least find the money to put a lock on the door?
Unable to pay the light bill, Scott Coles himself he did kill,
Most condos were only 600 square feet, but what a view!
300 thousand bones! Now the buildings are dark tombstones,
Monuments to the many investors the bankers did screw.
“It’s a steal!” the bankers holler, hoping for a sucker to collar,
Millions of dollars of cabinets were ruined by heat and erosion,
But it can still be salvaged; their investment is not yet ravaged,
Here’s a plan: the bankers can sell tickets to the implosion.
Author notes:
Tempe Town Lake is an artificial lake in Tempe, Arizona, surrounded by high-rise condos like the Centerpoint Towers – 90% and 75% completed! – and pricey restaurants. It certainly seemed like a good idea during the heady real-estate boom. Now, not so much. On 1 June 2008, Scott Coles, the founder’s son and CEO of Mortgages Ltd., dressed himself in a tuxedo, built a shrine to the wife who had left him, and tried an oxycodone/Ambien/alcohol cocktail. It went down about as well as his business plan; that is, it killed him.
Of course, Coles isn’t the only one to blame. More than one high-roller lost their shirt in such debacles as Chateaux on Central – aka Disney Does Brownstone in the Desert – but Coles in his tuxedo is the public face of the wastelands that downtown Phoenix and downtown Tempe have become. In fiscal year 2004, developers submitted 13,424 lots for preliminary review in Phoenix; in 2008, they submitted 382.
On the bright side, I finally hit on the perfect Halloween costume: I stagger around the party dressed in a tuxedo, brandishing a blender labeled oxycodone/Ambien/alcohol and hawking condos in the Centerpoint Towers. I tell prospective tenants that I’ve finally found an investor with deep pockets to pay for the completion of my project. His name is Lucifer and he’ll sell you a condominium for no money down. All he wants is to hold onto your soul until you’ve paid off the mortgage.
Not surprisingly, very few Halloween revelers want to seal that deal with a drink from my blender.
Economic theory in rhyme! Check out my website for more poetry about the dismal science.
