One coffee a day separates you from being a big fork

If yesterday we were talking about the secrets of the fair...The Spanish To live to 132—whether it's two yogurts or three glasses of wine—today we turn to another journalistic subgenre: the kind that proclaims that with a little adjustment you can become a wealthy tycoon. Take a look at the headline: "Mago More (54), entrepreneur, on saving in Spain: 'A girl went two years without a coffee and now owns fifteen apartments.'" Even if he used to drink them in those strangely named "specialty coffee" establishments—where the pompous name translates into exorbitant prices for a cup of brewed water—it's clear the numbers don't add up. The 730 coffees he drank over those two years would have to cost €6,164 each to buy a €300,000 property (and I'm being conservative). Then you read on, and what it actually says is that the girl in question, who cleaned houses, managed to save enough for a down payment on an apartment, and that the property cost €50,000. Come on, she managed to save a measly 1,000 euros in two years by mopping the floors in a semi-drowsy state due to caffeine withdrawal. From there, the young woman became an entrepreneur and, following the fairy tale of the milkmaid from the magician More—who pulls a rabbit out of a top hat one minute and fifteen apartments the next—she's probably already buying half the city. Bezos and Musk are trembling.

The aim of articles like this, of course, is to prevent anyone from complaining that perhaps we should pay this professional 500 euros more per year if that's what allows her not just to live in her own home, but to own a small real estate empire. It's like when, in the wake of the crisis, articles appeared making things like the double manningThe foolproof tactic for saving on heating, and other similar journalistic miseries to give precariousness a veneer Cool. We don't want to stir up trouble.