{"id":4082,"date":"2010-07-16T12:35:58","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T20:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=4082"},"modified":"2010-07-16T12:35:58","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T20:35:58","slug":"citycenter-stop-the-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/citycenter-stop-the-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"CityCenter: Stop the madness!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when I thought I was out of the Sharron Angle vs. CityCenter<\/strong> insanity, they pull me back in. As I feared, the mythical “CityCenter bailout” has become a meme in that echo chamber of misinformation and urban mythology, cable news. On a previous occasion, Neil Cavuto<\/strong> got schooled by Anthony Curtis<\/strong> when he tried to make a bunch of half-assed gambling analogies involving the economy. This time, he’s done his homework … although the result is more like Dr. Cavuto, Therapist, trying to “talk down” a delusional patient for whom a “bailout” is whatever she chooses it to mean at any given moment.
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The tragic irony<\/strong> (for Angle, anyway) is that she could marshal some serious arguments — if she actually knew what she was talking about. For instance, why does one intervene on behalf of CityCenter but not Fontainebleau<\/strong> or Cosmopolitan<\/strong>?* Nor has CityCenter produced the promised degree of lift in visitation or spending. (Angle flails at that fat pitch, but can’t connect.) She could say Nevada<\/strong> is too reliant on one industry and its senior senator is its water-carrier. Geez, give me a few minutes brush-up time with visitation and gambling data, and I could take Sen. Harry Reid<\/strong> (D-NV) apart on this one, just to show it can be done.If you’re going to employ CityCenter as a baseball bat, at least figure out which end hits the ball.<\/p>\n

* — One possible argument for CityCenter and against Cosmo or F’bleau is that the former was on schedule and budget, and the latter were out of control, not to mention that MGM Mirage<\/strong> was getting more end-product for its billions and was at risk of default solely due to Dubai World<\/strong>‘s treachery. Whether such considerations should go into cold-calling on behalf of the home-town crowd are a question for better minds than mine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(I, for instance, can chastise Reid for rewarding excessive borrowing by MGM, Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong>, Station Casinos<\/strong>, Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>, etc., with tax deferments — but Angle would be ideologically hamstrung if she attempted it, since there is no such thing as a “bad” tax cut where she lives.)<\/p>\n

With all manner of facts<\/strong> lying about the ground, Angle can’t muster so much as one. Not a single iota of specificity. Instead she reiterates sweeping generalities and promulgates her purely fanciful notion that adding X number of jobs at one resort subtracts an equal number from another. To contend, as she does, that because Nevada’s unemployment is higher now, CityCenter<\/strong> is somehow to blame (ignoring myriad other economic factors) shows the application of one-dimensional thinking to a multi-dimensional problem.<\/p>\n

Throw in previous remarks<\/strong> about CityCenter not generating “real” jobs and this sounds like sloppily veiled casino-bashing to me, but others may differ. I don’t know if Angle believes in the Theory of Evolution or not but her economic views are ruthlessly Darwinian. Future casino execs need not pick up the phone to a Sen. Angle if they’ve need a sympathetic ear in Washington, D.C.<\/strong>, as she continues to make it clear she’ll be deaf to their pleas.<\/p>\n

This is too abtruse an issue<\/strong> to account even partially for Angle’s swift meltdown in the polls, where a lead is turning into a deficit<\/a>. My candidate, “None of These<\/strong>,” is polling at 5%; if Sharron Angle could go from single digits to a primary victory, surely “None of These” has got a fighting chance, no? (S&G<\/em> doesn’t endorse people for office but there’s no rule against endorsing “nobody.”)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when I thought I was out of the Sharron Angle vs. CityCenter insanity, they pull me back in. As I feared, the mythical “CityCenter bailout” has become a meme in that echo chamber of misinformation and urban mythology, cable … 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":[56,66,28,26,59,52,11,31,9,17,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082"}],"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=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4083,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions\/4083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}