I have finally figured out when the Country’s financial crisis started. Sure you can say it started with Bush and then Obama escalated the problem. You can believe that is was the collapse of Lehman Brothers, overspending and certainly over borrowing. And I’m sure we will all agree that bad mortgages and the financial decline in the housing market were certainly a major factor in the “overpriced”- “undervalued” real estate collapse over the last decade. And whose fault is that? Well I’m going to tell you.
No, not you –not me and not even the banks. The fault lies solely with Parker Brothers. Yes, you heard me–Parker Brothers–the creators of Monopoly. Think about it, didn’t we all play Monopoly as children?
They started by tricking us with their little race cars, thimbles and even cute little “doggies”. But all too quickly our sweetness turned into a desire to WIN. We wanted EVERYTHING! We wanted lots of money, all the properties and most importantly we wanted our adversaries to land on our properties and go bankrupt.
We recognized quickly that the more properties we owned the better our chances would be to annihilate our competitors. We bought St. Charles Place without hesitation–then Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Avenue. We even wanted low rent properties like Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues. But it was the high rent district that we really desired. We yearned for Park Place and we lusted for the crème de la crème Boardwalk.
Once we achieved buying those properties, did we stop there? Oh no, we needed MORE. We wanted all the utility companies and the railroads. -We knew when we owned both that the consequences for our opponents were deadly. And finally we absolutely had to have houses and hotels on every property. Those little green and red devils placed strategically all over our properties across the board made us breathe orgasmically. Ahhhh, the joy of the winning and the agony of defeat. We wanted that joy and didn’t give a damn about defeating our enemy -which of course was our sister, our best friend or even or parents.
So, I figured it out. Where we are today is just not our fault. We are simply latent ‘Monopolizers”. As I see it we have every right to take legal action against Parker Brothers for a variety of reasons:
- Non-disclosure of the facts. They didn’t tell us that when you buy real estate you actually have interest rates and taxes etc. False Advertising.
- Misrepresentation –Their banker looked so warm, kind and friendly and had a great big smile on his face. Is that really the banker of today? Well actually when you have lots of money, the bankers are quite helpful. If you don’t have $$$$, then “not so much”!
- Dishonest Business Practices–Unlike the real world, the properties in Monopoly never lost their value. And as we all can attest that is not always the case.
And of course there was some reality in Monopoly -getting money for doing nothing. All you had to do was go around the board and you got paid.
Now I know you’ll agree. It’s about time someone else paid for our mistakes. I truly believe we should start a class action suit against Parker Brothers. Well it’s actually Hasbro Toys whose owner happens to be a friend of mine. But who cares, my vote is, “We SUE!”
And if that doesn’t work, so what? We can all. . . . . .
Go directly to jail
Do not pass Go
Do not collect $200!
PS While you may all think that this blog has way too much melodrama, for the last say 30 years, Monopoly has been banned in our home. Not that WJJ and I are competitive –poor Jamie growing up!
