Memo: Thu Jul 02 2026

I remember the first time I really began to understand the true nature of capitalism. I was sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room and, like every doctor’s office I’ve ever been in, they had TVs playing HGTV on a wall-mounted TV. It was one of those house hunter shows, the kind where the husband is a professional mosquito trainer and the wife teaches philately to underprivileged shelter animals, and their budget is somehow 1.2 million dollars. A youngish couple was looking specifically for a duplex or a house with a finished basement they could rent out, or something similar.They said their plan was to make enough money from rent to cover their monthly mortgage payments. They seemed oblivious to the ethical implications of this arrangement. I was struck by this display of entitlement, unaccompanied by any apparent sense of shame about the fact that they were basically expecting strangers to buy them a house. They wanted to find a renter, who probably couldn’t get a mortgage or…