Markus Hofmann
Appearances
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
Wait, this is perfect? His bag is two stakes lighter. Friedrich is happy.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
Just before he walked away, he said, you can tell it's a schlumpf. Schlumpf is Franconian, and we'll let Markus explain what it means. Schlumpf is Franconian slang for it's shitty.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
If you have already a good starting point, then it's easier. But if your areas are distributed everywhere in the osing, then you need to negotiate more and you have to trade more often.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
Not really. Normal human rules. Don't punch each other into the face.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
So Jürgen said to Heiko, okay, I reserve it for you, I keep that for you, but we cannot close the deal because I have to do something in advance. And Heiko replied, no, no, no, no, that's not a fair deal. I want it for sure and I want it here.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
So they had some fight or some trouble with each other because they said, okay, you get better farmland than we and so on.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
It was not a war. It was just a fight, a verbal fight. They don't kill each other.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
And maybe they punch each other. But it was not a war. It was not a war, but some punching.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
They said, OK, we have to do it in a fair way for all the people from all four villages.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
And this is the reason why we have the raffle every 10 years. So in one year you are lucky, you get better land, or next time you are not so lucky, you get more worse. The O-Sync doesn't belong to anybody.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
All the people are moving at the same time. Yeah, so it's a traffic jam. Yeah, it's a traffic jam.
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
Fortuna is sleeping. What's going on? Are you sure your name is in the bag?
Planet Money
The great German land lottery
It's still the main reason why we do this lottery stuff. If we do it only from the commercial point of view, I'm pretty sure they would stop it and would say, okay, one time we sell all the land and who have the most money, he can buy the best areas. But the main purpose of the lottery is fairness for everybody.