The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own.
January 5, 2006 2:08 PM   Subscribe

The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own
posted by Lanark (60 comments total)
 
The cult-versus-religion angle is totally escaping me.
posted by alumshubby at 2:15 PM on January 5, 2006


As Scooby Doo would say: "Errrr?"
posted by blahblahblah at 2:17 PM on January 5, 2006


Yeah, the links are fine, but relate to religion how... ?
posted by GuyZero at 2:18 PM on January 5, 2006


Okay, a cult of home buying. Awsome, you're so clever.
posted by delmoi at 2:18 PM on January 5, 2006


Oh wait, it's an existing quote about a different topic, but all the links are about how the US housing bubble is about to burst. Is that it?
posted by GuyZero at 2:19 PM on January 5, 2006


This is a bunch of articles saying that housing in the US, UK, and elswhere is expensive, but that prices are expected to flatten or decline in 2006, or maybe not. There is also a GIF and a discussion site about real estate.
posted by brain_drain at 2:19 PM on January 5, 2006


(For those of you who don't want to click through all these links to determine what the post is about.)
posted by brain_drain at 2:20 PM on January 5, 2006


My cult lives in a bubble house.
posted by moonbird at 2:22 PM on January 5, 2006


A cult's a religion you're not in.
posted by telstar at 2:23 PM on January 5, 2006


If I can find a cult that lives in a Dymaxion Home, I'm joining. Man, are those cool.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:29 PM on January 5, 2006


I actually thought this FPP was going to be about scientology real estate acquisitions, and how the amount of influence they have on a given region's politics varies in proportion to the size of recent real estate investments they made in that region.

Still, interesting to see what's happening overseas. When my wife and I purchased our first home three years ago, I assumed this was going to happen -- so we purchased at a price where we could pretty much take a 40% drop in prices now and still come out ahead, but I'm glad I did it then and not, say, a year ago.
posted by davejay at 2:31 PM on January 5, 2006


Astro Zombie, that excellent link deserves its own FPP!
posted by Rothko at 2:32 PM on January 5, 2006


I'm with Rothko- an excellent link on a day when we've been a tad link challenged. Bravo!
posted by moonbird at 2:38 PM on January 5, 2006


The only difference between a cult and a religion is time.
posted by spock at 2:39 PM on January 5, 2006


Also, what is cool about a house that looks like an oversized kitchen timer (with windows)?
posted by spock at 2:40 PM on January 5, 2006


Thank you, brain_drain, I moused over a few of them and decided the Moonies must be in the news again, or something.
posted by Gator at 2:40 PM on January 5, 2006


Ian Astbury > Pat Robertson.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:45 PM on January 5, 2006


Is this newsfilter? Is it the best of the web? I can't help but feel it would have been better e-mailed to housingbubble2. Perhaps include links to previous MeFi discussions on the (alledged) housing bubble?

At any rate, if it's a quote, it should read: "The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own." And then give us an attribution at the end, which links to a page explaining the context of the original quote.

Or so say I, the impromptu Chairman of the MetaFilter Ad Hoc Committee for Brighter Tomorrows, Better FPPs, Recursive and Nested Acronyms, and Air Drum Solos.

The preceding has been a paid advertisement for MAHCBTBFRNAADS.
posted by Eideteker at 2:50 PM on January 5, 2006


I actually thought this FPP was going to be about scientology real estate acquisitions

Agreed. Flagrant false advertising.
posted by pieisexactlythree at 2:50 PM on January 5, 2006


What a bad link.

What were you thinking when you framed this?
posted by dios at 2:52 PM on January 5, 2006


Oh, and preemptive double post callouts.
posted by Eideteker at 2:53 PM on January 5, 2006


A bubble bursts. It doesn't just deflate a little bit then inflate itself again. I posted a link six months ago demonstrating how there was no bubble in the real estate market in the US (no claims about other countries) and was jumped all over by 85% of commenters.

I'm still waiting.....
posted by DirtyCreature at 2:56 PM on January 5, 2006


A cult does damage to its members; a religion does damage to its non-members.
posted by John Shaft at 3:06 PM on January 5, 2006


Buckminster Fullerene C60
posted by pieisexactlythree at 3:06 PM on January 5, 2006


Actually there is a fairly objective standard you can apply to a group to tell if it deserves the "cult" label: Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Eight Criteria of Mind Control.

Here are the 8 criteria (see the link for explanations):

1) milieu control
2) mystical manipulation
3) the demand for purity
4) the cult of confession
5) the "sacred science"
6) loading the language
7) doctrine over person
8) the dispensing of existence

The only ones I can see even remotely applying to the housing bubble would be 5 & 6. Craze, yes. Cult, no. These things happen from time to time, witness the famous Tulip Bulb Craze of 1634-1637.
posted by scalefree at 3:10 PM on January 5, 2006


I always thought size made the difference.
(Add dirty thought here.)
posted by indifferent at 3:36 PM on January 5, 2006


Tulip Bulb Craze! Great link.
posted by unknowncommand at 3:38 PM on January 5, 2006


It appears that the American real estate market is finally getting close to reaching a new permanently high plateau. Right on schedule, as the UK market appears to be somewhere around "a great time to buy".
posted by sfenders at 3:43 PM on January 5, 2006


The Moonies actually own an enormous amount of real estate in Manhattan and across the world, and the Scientologists are no slouches in this department, so I don't think that statement is true.

Also, here's one way to tell the difference: Cults start front groups that conceal their ties to the mother church, like the Scientology "Citizen's Commission on Human Rights." Religions are typically more up-front about being Baptist or whatnot.
posted by johngoren at 3:45 PM on January 5, 2006


There are some significant differences between the way the bubble grew in Japan and what has happened in America, it must be said, sfenders.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:50 PM on January 5, 2006


Also, what is cool about a house that looks like an oversized kitchen timer (with windows)?

Oh, man, what isn't?
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:54 PM on January 5, 2006


Yeah, stavros. The shape of that chart seems about right, but not its magnitude. And the forces at work here are a little more fundamental and slow-moving, I think, than your average tulip bulb mania. Most likely it will just end up being more like the previous real estate down-turn in the US than anything else.

Another difference compared to Japan is the distribution of the crazy prices. In the US, the price rises have been highly concentrated in a few places. Now as they decline, the money will spread to the less-expensive surrounding areas as people cash out. So that could make for a "softer" landing in real estate. It's only if you add in all the other problems we'll be facing that it looks a little worse than what's happened before.

But mainly I just couldn't help thinking of the phrase "a permanently high plateau" on reading a couple of those articles.
posted by sfenders at 4:25 PM on January 5, 2006


What I find hilariously ironic is the bubble of doom that bubble-doomsayers create by all jumping on the "beware of the bubble!" bandwagon. They are just as stricken by emotional factors as the bubble buyers.

If you had bought Ebay at any time during the internet "bubble" , you would still have been 50% ahead in under 3 years. Yet it was hammered by the doomsayers just as much as the truly silly stocks were.

Beware the doom bubble.
posted by DirtyCreature at 4:27 PM on January 5, 2006


DirtyCreature, did you consider the possibility that this might simply mean that Ebay (along with so many other things) is still ridiculously over-valued? I've no idea if it actually is, but that forward P/E of 45 sort of suggests the possibility.
posted by sfenders at 4:41 PM on January 5, 2006


Wow scalefree, according to those criteria, the evangelical Christianity I was raised with qualifies as a cult. Also: The Bush Adminstration qualifies.






Neither of which surprises me in the least.
posted by eustacescrubb at 5:10 PM on January 5, 2006


The Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints is one of the world's largest private landowners, and I suspect that they and their various holding companies own far more land than the Scientologists.
posted by cmonkey at 5:11 PM on January 5, 2006


did you consider the possibility that this might simply mean that Ebay (along with so many other things) is still ridiculously over-valued? I've no idea if it actually is, but that forward P/E of 45 sort of suggests the possibility.

I'm not going to argue valuation models with you again. But I can imagine your faithful descendants after terrorist invaders have torn down all our buildings, murdered millions and blown up all the stock markets and Ebay finally drops below 30, saying "See? He told them it was overvalued!"
posted by DirtyCreature at 5:14 PM on January 5, 2006


Wow scalefree, according to those criteria, the evangelical Christianity I was raised with qualifies as a cult.

I have a friend who became an evangelical Christian back in the early 70's. He worked for a time with the Billy Graham Organization, before becoming a Pentacostalist Minister.

When he got out, at some point in the early 80's, he trained as an exit counsellor and spent most of the next ten years voluntarily manning the phone lines for other escapees.

FWIW, he claims that during his time with the Billy Graham Organization, it was all about one thing, and I quote:

"Men's dicks up boys' arses."
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:36 PM on January 5, 2006


Umm, all religions are cults. There is no "God." That is WHY there are cults.
posted by longsleeves at 6:24 PM on January 5, 2006


The existence or nonexistence of God has nothing to do with what is or isn't a cult.

The word "cult" is simply a pejorative term that means the same thing as "religious group."

And I fail to see how the nonexistence of God could be the reason for cults, longsleeves. Please explain that causal chain. Does it go something like this?

1. No God
2. ?
3. Cults
posted by JekPorkins at 6:31 PM on January 5, 2006


i'd say DirtyCreature most likely has significant vested interest and so probably really doesn't want the idea of a property bubble even to be real. hence the stauch contrarian view being posted here.

cult thinking also transpires as misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing : i.e. a cult of personality surrounding a leader.

the leader in this case is probably greenspan. the unfortunate cultists being those who in the last few years bought into the greenspan concept and thereby widely exposed themselves to the adverse financial consequences associated with an over-inflated housing market. tough times sure to come in 2006.
posted by rodney stewart at 6:40 PM on January 5, 2006


No, no, you're making the very common mistake of thinking the word "cult" is a determination of whether the group's holy book is for real or not.

Like "hardcore pornography," "cult" is a word that describes a series of traits commonly found in a specific kind of mid-20th century and later religious movement. Fr'instance, tactics like deprivation of food and sleep, cutting off contact with the outside world, and constant exposure to propaganda, in a bid to put the young recruit into a new state of mind.

Certainly there are more traditional denominations that have traces of this stuff.

If you can't use the word "cult" to describe the group your kid is driving around L.A. in a van with, selling flowers on street corners after dropping out of school for the sake of world peace...or to explain why Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are behaving in their peculiar manner..well, that's silly, it's a really descriptive word for a model that has been emulated by many modern groups.
posted by johngoren at 6:42 PM on January 5, 2006


the leader in this case is probably greenspan.

Ah, well. Having observed some of the careful study and analysis that's applied to every utterance of the mighty Greenspan by his devoted students, it is sort of tempting to think that he must be at the center of some sort of bizarre monetary cult. It's going to be a hard act to follow.
posted by sfenders at 6:55 PM on January 5, 2006


Could he be comparing the real estate market to a cargo cult?
posted by Afroblanco at 6:57 PM on January 5, 2006


i thought we were just talking 'cult-like' mentality here. no one's seriously implying there's a 'real' cult thing going on.
posted by rodney stewart at 6:58 PM on January 5, 2006


Is this one of those "cult" threads I've heard so much about?
posted by sfenders at 7:03 PM on January 5, 2006


Sure, a misleading post. But...I learned today from one of my students as we researched background info for Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man that Father Divine (he said he was God; that would make him a cult leader pretty clearly) was one of the biggest real estate owners in Harlem in the 30's/40's Harlem. His followers, sex-segregated and well-dressed lived in his housing. Father Divine deserves a seperate FPP, but it's late and I'm lazy and I'm itching to try out our new DVD drive...
posted by kozad at 7:16 PM on January 5, 2006


Fresh from today's rss feed, Mish has found another rant on the subject of housing. I liked this bit:

i have to talk another young couple out of refi'ing their existing condo with a pay-option arm cash out based on a supremly inflated appraisal so that they can rent it out at a loss PLUS THE NEG AM!!! just so they can buy another $650k house that they would need to rent each room out just to make ends meet, i am going to puke.

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds like some kind of cult jargon.
posted by sfenders at 7:22 PM on January 5, 2006


I have no idea what that means

Then you should probably stay out of the real estate market for a while.
posted by JekPorkins at 7:25 PM on January 5, 2006


Probably, yeah. I found it amusing that he calls it "NEG AM" like that. The implication that it's now common enough to deserve such abbreviation lends rhetorical weight to the already overwhelming sense of desperation in the text. I know what the words mean, but it's hard to imagine someone actually feeling that way.
posted by sfenders at 7:39 PM on January 5, 2006


Religion = Cult (New religious movement, to be precise) that has had more time to develop. That is all, please move along now.
posted by killdevil at 8:17 PM on January 5, 2006


Still more housing market stuff in the news today. If the first few days are representative, it'll be this year's hottest topic. I guess it must be well on the way to being an established religion by now.
posted by sfenders at 8:22 PM on January 5, 2006


* The debt burden on households has also soared in recent years. The household debt to disposable income ratio, still below 95% at the end of the 1990s, has recently jumped above 120%--a record high.

i'd love to know how Levy Economics Institute derived that 120% debt ratio figure. that's just got to be beyond the realms of possibility. anyone running a 120% debt ratio must be planning for a rapture as an exit strategy.
posted by rodney stewart at 8:56 PM on January 5, 2006


I thought "cult" was used for any religion the speaker doesn't like.
posted by beth at 9:15 PM on January 5, 2006


The only difference between a scientist and a madman trying to control the world is the degree of intensity of his 'study'.

Hey, this is FUN!
posted by HTuttle at 9:23 PM on January 5, 2006


i'd love to know how Levy Economics Institute derived that 120% debt ratio figure.

Well, it isn't difficult to find that data. Anyway, it's available at economagic. Divide "household credit market debt outstanding" by "disposable personal income" there and you get 122% for 2005 Q3. Up from 114% last year.
posted by sfenders at 6:32 AM on January 6, 2006


anyone running a 120% debt ratio must be planning for a rapture as an exit strategy.

I'm not denying this is the case, but household debt/income ratios over 100% just mean that it would take more than one year of doing nothing but paying off debt to pay it off. Income is annual, but household debt is not.

(Anyone running a debt to income ratio of 2000%, however, is very clearly wanting to be saved by the bell.)

Does anyone know of available statistics on the quality of household debt? i.e., of that 120% of total disposable income, how much do the creditors actually expect to see?
posted by Vetinari at 7:12 AM on January 6, 2006


My debt-to-income was something like 175% after I bought my first house. I managed to survive.

how much do the creditors actually expect to see?

Well, that's the question everyone's asking. Most of it is mortgage debt. To judge from the current prices these things are selling at, they do expect to be paid back. It's traditionally been pretty safe, you know, because the worst that can happen is a foreclosure sale which these days probably covers at least 75-90% of the unpaid balance. But the performance of some of these new "innovative" loan options is somewhat untested. Those "option ARMs" in which you have the option of paying, if you like. Or not. Whatever. It seems that a whole lot of people, given the choice, are choosing not to pay off the mortgage. It's almost like one of those "You don't pay a cent until 2007!" deals for housing. We'll see in a year or two how many people are ready to pay when that time comes.
posted by sfenders at 8:23 AM on January 6, 2006


Sorry the original link wasnt a bit clearer, I didn't think people would take the religious reference literally. Note to self: avoid using smart arse Frank Zappa quotations when posting to Mefi.
posted by Lanark at 10:26 AM on January 6, 2006


And I fail to see how the nonexistence of God could be the reason for cults, longsleeves. Please explain that causal chain. Does it go something like this?

Sorry to have sounded so bitter. {Bad! Bad!}. All I was trying to imply is that people make up elaborate belief systems because ......... oh, whatever. never mind!
posted by longsleeves at 6:37 PM on January 6, 2006


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