Translated material
How much is St. Peter's Cathedral today?
The Chamber of Commerce of Monza and Brianza decided to promote itself on the eve of the September race. And she produced one of the most pointless economic studies in my memory. Based on various statistical calculations, an estimate of the value of the most famous architectural monuments in cash was given. We are talking about monuments that no one is going to sell or buy, so the very concept of their “price” is quite virtual. The most expensive in this strange ranking was the Eiffel Tower, valued by Italian auditors at 434 billion euros. In second place is the Roman Colosseum, the price of which was set at 91 billion euros. Barcelona's La Sagrada Familia is next with a minimal gap of a billion. In fourth place is the Milanese Duomo, worth $82 billion, and the European top five is completed by the Tower of London, whose price, according to Monza and Brianza merchants, does not exceed 70.5 billion euros. If we did not limit the rating to the Old World, then fifth place would go to the White House: the US President’s home was valued at 81 billion.
The description of the study states that the calculations are based on data from Eurostat, as well as Anholt Brand Index, Istituto Tagliacarne, Urban Audit, MIBAC, Isnart, Touring Club Italiano and Istat. At the same time, it is quite obvious that one could just as easily take numbers out of thin air. Their entertainment value would not be diminished at all. Go ahead and argue that Prague Castle is worth 100 billion, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa - 90... In general, it has long been noticed by us that quite a significant part of the news stories are sucked out of thin air with the sole purpose of drawing attention to what was sucked out. And the press participates in this game because it needs to fill the pages with something, and in this sense there is no fundamental difference between real news (Apple's capitalization is $621 billion) and fictitious news (the Eiffel Tower is worth 434 billion euros). The main thing is that the title is catchy. And here, the more expensive the Eiffel Tower, the better :)