2005-05-06

On the sacrament of property appreciation

Maybe by now you already know the story: young Benjamin Halbe buys a used 1999 VW Golf for, let's say, the price you might expect. Then he discovers that the former owner was one Joseph Ratzinger, more lately known by the name Pope Benedict XVI. What would any reasonable person do? Of course, he put it up for auction on an internet auction site, where it was sold to a Texan collector for €189,000.

All of this would be merely gossip, except I also have a VW Golf, which is a couple years newer and has fewer miles on it. I'm not selling it, of course, but it seems that it would have to be worth more than the six year old one that Mr Halbe sold. You might object that I have never been and will never be Pope, but I have met lots of people named Popović.

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