{"id":283,"date":"2009-10-12T17:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T21:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blogs\/dmckee\/index.cfm\/2009\/10\/12\/Good-times-ahead"},"modified":"2009-10-12T17:58:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-12T21:58:00","slug":"good-times-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/good-times-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Good times ahead?"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Yorker<\/em> economic columnist James Surowiecki<\/strong> puts current consumer-spending strends in perspective — and what he finds should gladden the hearts of casino owners. Basically, he finds historical evidence the current tendency toward thriftiness will soon pass.<\/a> Of course, when Americans' savings rate (now 6%) dipped below 0%, that should have been a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment for heedlessly expansionist gaming moguls. But they'd probably laid off the canary in order to "maximize shareholder value."<\/p>\n

If wishing made it so …<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

… Chicago<\/strong> would have had a casino a long time ago. Some city parents think they've found the perfect site, but it's still a long shot. Just keep it out of the Loop<\/strong>, OK? Seriously, downtown Chicago is looking livelier than it has in a while and doesn't need a big-ass casino plunked in its midst. The likelihood that it would be Windy City version of, say, a classy anomaly like MGM Grand Detroit<\/strong> is pretty remote.<\/p>\n

So much for speculation<\/strong> that Australian casino magnate James Packer<\/strong> would get into the running for Fontainebleau<\/strong>. Seems that Packer is buying up<\/a> Crown Ltd<\/strong>. stock instead. (Indeed, why would Packer write off his F'bleau investment<\/a>, then double down on the failing development<\/a>?) Packer has raised at least $772 million by disposing of non-gaming assets and appears on course to make a takeover bid for Crown, of which he owns 40% at present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Yorker economic columnist James Surowiecki puts current consumer-spending strends in perspective — and what he finds should gladden the hearts of casino owners. Basically, he finds historical evidence the current tendency toward thriftiness will soon pass. Of course, when … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,44,14,59,58,22,96],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}