{"id":4893,"date":"2010-10-19T14:46:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-19T22:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=4893"},"modified":"2010-10-19T14:46:51","modified_gmt":"2010-10-19T22:46:51","slug":"the-big-lie-rides-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/the-big-lie-rides-again\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Lie rides again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If I ever — God forbid! — run for office in Nevada<\/strong>, I’m going to just make stuff up and lie my head off. After all, candidates on both sides of this year’s marquee races have set the “truthiness” bar at subterranean level and, when called it on, just keep reiterating their mendacity. (The amount of money being wasted on political ads here is truly nauseating in a time of such widespread economic malaise.)<\/p>\n

Take the latest whopper about MGM Resorts International<\/strong>. An S&G<\/em> reader was listening to talk radio last week and “on the Mark Levin<\/strong> radio show<\/a> Sharron Angle<\/strong> disparaged CityCenter<\/strong> and MGM. She claimed not a single job was saved … and that 100% of the employees at City Center were transfers from other MGM resorts. Then she claimed only out of state people were used to fill the vacant positions left<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

It’s obvious<\/strong> that’s a bald-faced lie, the sort of anti-casino rant I’d expect from pediatrician-cum<\/em>-moralist James Dobson<\/strong>. But it never hurts to double-check. According to MGM spokesman Alan Feldman<\/strong>, CityCenter created 9,200 open positions — not counting jobs at Mandarin Oriental<\/strong>, and various and sundry retailers. He adds, “only 2,700 of those positions were transfers from our other properties. Those transfers created thousands more opportunities for transfers, promotions or new hires at other MGM properties<\/em>.” Feldman didn’t follow up on my query on the number of in-Nevada hires vs. out-of-state ones — but filling 6,500 CityCenter jobs entirely with non-Nevadans, as Angle claims, is an assertion that beggars credulity.<\/p>\n

Feldman goes on to note the economic-multiplier effect of any casino-resort opening. Their massive servicing requirements tend, in good times, to create three to five off-site jobs for every on-site one, “but we haven’t seen any analysis in the current economic environment<\/em>.” Lord knows why Angle has such a bee in her bonnet as regards Nevada’s signature industry and primary economic lifeline. But she might want to remember that that anybody holding a job at CityCenter — or one that opened up elsewhere on the Strip — isn’t just a voter, they’re also what’s known quaintly as “constituents.” They deserve something better than disdain from their prospective representative in the Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I ever — God forbid! — run for office in Nevada, I’m going to just make stuff up and lie my head off. After all, candidates on both sides of this year’s marquee races have set the “truthiness” bar … 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":[56,28,26,11,33,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4893"}],"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=4893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4894,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4893\/revisions\/4894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}