A young Swedish woman, who described herself as having extraordinary beauty and extremely seductive charms
posted an anonymous ad on Craigslist stating that she was looking for a wealthy man to marry with an annual income of over $500,000, plus several conditions.
She received a response from a commenter, as follows:
– My dear beautiful lady…
I read your post with interest, and I think many beautiful girls have questions similar to yours. Allow me to analyze your questions as a professional investor. My total annual income is over $500,000, which perfectly matches your requirements.
From my perspective as a businessman, it would be a bad decision to marry you. Here’s my short answer, and let me explain why:
“Regardless of the details, what you’re doing now is a pure transaction. An exchange of your “beauty” for “my money.”
Person A has the beauty, and Person B will pay money for that beauty. A perfectly fair and straightforward transaction. However, there’s a fatal problem here: your beauty will inevitably diminish over the years, while my money isn’t expected to diminish without a strong reason. The truth is, my income will likely increase from year to year, while you won’t be any more beautiful in a few years.
So, from an economic perspective, I represent an “asset” whose value increases over time, while you represent a “consumer” asset whose value decreases. If your beauty is all you own, things will get worse because you won’t be a normal consumer product, but rather a product with a very high depreciation rate that will completely expire within 10 years.