#441 Future Schmuck

One of the cool things about Mexico is how hard people work. Stereotypes aside, every single Mexican I saw on my trip was working his buttoxio off. And all for 8 dollars a day. One of the guys trying to sell us timeshares was from Canada. He bragged about how much labor they could get for how cheap. It’s cool he said, this is a number one resort. We have a 24 hour staff and look at what we’ve built. It’s amazing what you can achieve when the minimum wage is 8 dollars a day. He was right. It was an impressive resort. Incredible inlaid stone and tile work. The kind of touches that can’t be mass-produced. That require many man hours of hard labor. And you could see they took pride in their work too. “What do you think?” the guy asked, after about the fifth time he bragged about all the luxury acquired for so little money. “Umm,” I said, “If you want to, can’t you pay more than minimum?” He just gave me a blank look. The timeshare paradigm is interesting. And it’s no wonder they assault you from every corner the minute you get off the airplane. A timeshare makes you a co-owner of a hotel. In exchange for the equivalent of the same amount of money you would pay for a week’s stay in the hotel, at this year’s prices, times 20, you can stay at the timeshare one week a year for the rest of your life. The only catch is you have to pay it up front. Or arrange financing with them at 14% interest and pay it off in 5 years. The sooner you pay the cash the bigger the discount. If I buy today they’re willing to shave the $26000 price down to $20000. As a development tool for capital it’s amazing. If you were building a hotel wouldn’t you like a lot of capital up front from people who are guaranteed to stay at your place for the next 20 years? Hmm. A health club discounts its rates if you pay an annual fee up front. They can afford to because most people who join health clubs only go for the first two months. Same way with timeshares. In the long run people don’t come every year. Not that they’d want to, because there’s bigger issues, the quality of construction and the future building in the area. The resort where we stayed once had a great view. Then the same owners built a resort next door. Cutting off who knows how many views from the poor schmuck time-share owners they sold the old hotel to. The old hotel also showed some serious signs of wear. The grounds were kept up well, but the underlying construction was beginning to show signs of slapdash no hand-tiled gingerbread could hide. Peeling plaster, bubbles in the outside face. Areas where the building appeared to be splitting apart. Walls actually crumbling in the salty sea air. And this hotel had only been around 7 years. By the time the rest of my life is expired my timeshare will have decomposed like a dead cow in the Baja desert. Nothing decomposes a cash cow quicker than taking the cash up front.
America ya gotta love it.