This Housing Bubble Could Be Worse Than 2008

This bubble?

It’s all the one same bubble, bubble, toil & trouble. Witchcraft. Well, (t)witchcraft.

Costanza says the mortgage paper spells the one, true, correct answer: “moops.”

Bubbleboy says “moor, moor, moor!” (how do you like it – how do you like it? ~ Andrea True Connection … is that *the* name for this disco/nnection, or what? I couldn’t make it up better if I tried.)

(((“Andrea Marie Truden[3] (July 26, 1943 – November 7, 2011),[3] better known by her pseudonym Andrea True, was an American pornographic actress and singer from the disco era.[4]“)))

So, which of those cardsharps was in the bubble? Hint: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” (Or if it’s written. Words are true … magic.)

“Truth? You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson goes on an under oath rant about the “truth in lending laws.” Well, the truthiness of (b)lending LAWs. Light anti-armor weapons.

Just a little ink, a little paper – _-_-_- & boom! Why paint in that hot third rail when it’s “invisible” anyway? Or, as highest social credit scoring chicoms might say it, “in-risible” (“so lacking in quality or usefulness that it deserves to be laughed at”).

“We gonna lend you a pile o’ “money”, boy, so’s you can borrow that 1700 sq.ft. dopamineum American dream. *AND* everybody involved is willing to say “with this transaction, I thee wed, er, you may kiss the bridal path, er you own real estate!” Such a deal, right?”

Ownership porn. Well, consumption porn. Is that like porn porn? What’s corn pone like? If *temperature* makes the porridge, as Goldilocks says, is that the critical for pone-age, too? Room temperature, am I right?

Look into this here mirror, tell me what you see:

Back cover: “I’m a professional liar. I fool people, that’s what I do. I know all the tricks. But you don’t just have professional liars like me around you; amateur liars are everywhere. You yourself are a goddamn liar & have been since before you could speak. Lying is indispensable for civilization, progress in general, & for you personally, if you want to have friends, get a job, & get laid. *The Truth About Lies* covers the sociology, the psychology, the techniques, & even the wicked fun of lying. It’s important & fun to lie & be lied to, but it’s also important to know the truth. Read this book. You can trust me. I’m a Vegas magician. ~ Penn Jillette”

“When a magician does this trick (or any other kind of disappearing act or false transfer where where a small object seems to vanish or reappear), they first prime your expectations, direct or misdirect your attention, & finally exploit that one-tenth-of-a-second lag in the brain’s perception (in this case, of motion) to cause you to see something that isn’t there.

A more elaborate demonstration of the same principle is best exemplified by Cups & Balls, a magic trick so old & universal that, just like its less charming brother the Shell Game, it dates back to antiquity, & some version of it is practiced in nearly every country in the world. The trick involves three overturned cups & three identical balls (that you can see; the magician no doubt has more hidden up sleeves & in pockets); one ball sits on top of each overturned cup.

The magician begins by moving each ball under its respective cup, & then lifting the first cup to show that the first ball has disappeared. After setting the first cup back down, next the magician lifts the third cup to show the audience that the missing ball from the first cup has materialized under the third cup, alongside the third ball. After setting the third cup back down over the two balls, the lift the second cup. When they lift the second cup, all three balls have somehow appeared under it, & when they lift it a second time, all three balls are gone. The vanishes & transpositions become faster & more complicated as the magician makes the balls disappear & reappear in increasingly impressive, surprising, & confusing ways.

Though there are three balls, not one, & the point is to *show* them to you, not hide them from you; in the end, it’s just a variation on a basic Shell Game. The three balls seem to appear & disappear & move magically from one cup to another because there were actually *more* than the three balls in play the whole time. The magician is practicing elaborate sleight of hand – no different from palming the pea in a Shell Game, just more complex, because it’s not adequate to make the ball vanish. It has to reappear somewhere, & there are three of them being manipulated simultaneously. A skilled hand & a significant amount of distraction & misdirection are required, but when done successfully, the effect is, well … magical.

Sitting with his partner in a diner in 1975, a young, then unknown magician was practicing Cups & Balls. Because he was in a diner, not a theater, he made do with balled-up paper & overturned water glasses. Because the glasses were clear it was possible to see the “balls” as they were palmed, moved & replaced. Even just in practice, at a table with his partner, it should have spoiled the illusion. Instead he discovered something remarkable: because our attention can only really focus on one thing at a time & because our perception of reality lags behind reality enough that our brains take constant shortcuts to create a coherent representation of reality, even with clear cups, *the illusion still held.*

Persistence of vision was still in effect, even as the whole trick was laid bare. In fact, it actually made the trick more surprising, confusing, & remarkable, because while his partner was able to see everything happening beneath & behind the clear cups, he *still* saw the balls mysteriously disappearing & reappearing in different places. According to the magician, “The eye could see the moves, but the mind could not comprehend them. Giving the trick away gave nothing away, because you still couldn’t grasp it.”

Though exposing to the audience how a trick worked won them no fans among professional magicians, the clear glasses reinvented the age-old Cups & Balls. It made the trick better, & the trick made the magician & his partner famous. Very famous. He & his partner would eventually perform that trick, along with many others, under the names Penn & Teller. That unusual approach became the hallmark of their shows; rather than pretending to perform actual feats of magic, they create & deconstruct illusions for the audience in such a way as to expose what Teller refers to as the “everyday fraud of perception.”

“Every time you perform a magic trick, you’re engaging in experimental psychology,” according to Teller. “If the audience asks, ‘How the hell did he do that?’ then the experiment was successful. I’ve exploted the efficiencies of your mind.” Ultimately, what they revealed to the audience using clear glasses for Cups & Balls wasn’t how an old magic trick worked, but rather, how our brains do, & sometimes don’t. Our hardwired inability to process information in real time or to deal with perceptual ambiguity results in our brain presenting us with a sort of representative reality – one that we absolutely require to function – but one that often does not accurately represent reality.”

So homo ners, who be cuppin yer balls, firmly & insistently, makin em disappear a la ’08, reappear a la the reflate, & movin em from here, to there?