Economists on the left and right have cited the recent housing bust as proof that homes are not great investments, suggesting people would be better off leaving their money to the tender mercies of Wall Street speculators.
There's just 512MB of RAM, but that's plenty for handling the existing app selection on Windows Phone -- we didn't have any issues using Skype or other apps, although we can't vouch for how future-proof this phone will be compared to Windows Phone devices housing 1GB of RAM.
Curiously, the previous-generation product wasn't rain-proof, but that's been resolved now -- a new water- and dust-resistant housing is designed to let water flow through the eyepieces without accumulation.