{"id":706,"date":"2009-02-27T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T20:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blogs\/dmckee\/index.cfm\/2009\/2\/27\/Sin-City-Express"},"modified":"2012-10-18T13:05:54","modified_gmt":"2012-10-18T21:05:54","slug":"sin-city-express","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/sin-city-express\/","title":{"rendered":""Sin City Express""},"content":{"rendered":"

Expect to be hearing that catchy new canard<\/a> a lot, not to mention the “Las Vegas<\/strong> to Disneyland<\/strong>” little white lie that Gov. Opie Jindal<\/strong> (R-LA) trotted out in his Tuesday-night audition for the 2012 presidential nomination. “Vegas to Disneyland” is, of course, a linguistic formation sure to stoke the ire of the “family values” crowd far more than the fiscal-restraint one. A jab that might possess some heft were it coming from Vegas-friendly Sen. John McCain<\/strong> (R-AZ) rings hollow when spouted by politicians who are anti-gambling cranks opportunistically masquerading as fiscal conservatives.<\/p>\n

Then there was the Tennessee<\/strong> congresswoman whose official Web site informed constituents that the train would run from “Los [sic<\/em>] Vegas to Las [sic<\/em>] Angeles.” Your tax dollers [sic<\/em>] at work, folks. Perhaps federally funded literacy programs should start with remedial classes at the Capitol.<\/p>\n

As for “Sin City Express,”<\/strong> if<\/em> the feasibility study goes well and if<\/em> the Anaheim-to-LV route is approved and if<\/em> it can be financed (a whole lotta “ifs”), we ought to call the mag-lev train precisely that, just to make its detractors suck on it. For that matter, why is the need for high-speed rail of any sort<\/em> open to debate? Do we pride ourselves on taking a back seat to other industrialized nations?<\/p>\n

In the meantime, deficit hawks and pietists bicker amongst themselves<\/a>. And Howard Stutz<\/strong> makes a trenchant observation: The fortunes of Lousiana<\/strong> — where Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> and Boyd Gaming<\/strong> are major employers — are tied to those of Las Vegas<\/a>. Maybe Jindal would like to take a long, slow ride on Amtrak<\/strong> and think it over.<\/p>\n

“Singapore City Express”<\/strong>: No cost overruns<\/a> at Sands Marina Bay<\/strong>, quoth Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>. Unfortunately, his “no significant changes” comment begs the question of whether the $5.4 billion figure represents the actual budget or whether the tab is still in the neighborhood of $3.2 billion. If it’s the latter, perhaps Sands still can make this mega-gambit pencil out.<\/p>\n

No harm, no foul<\/strong>: At first blush, Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> has lined up strong arguments<\/a> for dismissal of a bondholder lawsuit. The only non-starter would be appear to be Argument #1 — the assertion that bondholders have suffered no harm — which, at minimum, “assumes facts not in evidence,” as the saying goes. When debt is being swapped out at a 40% writeoff, somebody’s taking an uncomfortably close shave, to say the least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expect to be hearing that catchy new canard a lot, not to mention the “Las Vegas to Disneyland” little white lie that Gov. Opie Jindal (R-LA) trotted out in his Tuesday-night audition for the 2012 presidential nomination. “Vegas to Disneyland” … 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":[60,7,84,33,12,108,8,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706"}],"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=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9895,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/9895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}