patrick.net

"California does not give up easily on its dreams, so yet another ambitious development is poised to rise beside this vanishing sea... This might be among the most unlikely places in the county to contemplate a superdevelopment, but officials are unabashed in their enthusiasm.... Developers acknowledge that it will be decades before the plans are completed and say they do not intend to break ground for at least three years, when they hope the housing market and the local economy are showing signs of improvement. But they say they need approvals as soon as they can get them so the land’s value will increase."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/us/housing-project-planned-near-shrinking-salton-sea.html?hpw&pagewanted=all

Formula for (financial) success:
(1) borrow $$$ at 0% from Uncle Ben Bernanke
(2) use it to buy worthless land and maybe build some worthless houses
(3) over-appraise houses and sell them with 100% mortgages, at 4%, to rubes
(4) sell the mortgages back to Uncle Ben Bernanke ("Operation Twist")
Tip out to politicians at every step, so it's all "legal." Repeat until the economy collapses into a black hole.

#housing