The basis for the Biden Administration:
“Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” – William Pitt.
The blog that NOBODY reads... but everyone gets upset about. The stories we want to read the least... but the ones we need to read the most.
Thursday, April 20, 2017
If you think the Cowlitz Mafia Casino is going to do us any good... think again.
As I have been saying, the rip off of the Cowlitz casino scam is going to blow a huge hole in our local economy, not to mention a passel of other problems that come with it.
Here's an article from The Atlantic Magazine that gives the reader a snapshot of the damage yet to be inflicted on our local community because of the Cowlitz Scam.
Baltimore is a troubled city, as you know from The Wire. Like many troubled cities, Baltimore has turned to casino gambling as its solution. On August 26, a new Caesar’s casino will open on the site of an old chemical factory, a little more than 2 miles from the famous Inner Harbor and Camden Yards baseball stadium. Yet there’s already reason to expect the casino to disappoint everyone involved: the city looking for tax revenues, the workers hoping for jobs, the investors expecting hefty returns.
Outside of Las Vegas—now home to only 20 percent of the nation’s casino industry—casino gambling has evolved into a downscale business. Affluent and educated people visit casinos less often than poorer people do for the same reasons that they smoke less and drink less and weigh less.
Unfortunately for the casino industry’s growth hopes, downscale America has less money to spend today than it did before 2007. Nor is downscale America sharing much in the post-2009 recovery. From a news report on the troubles of a recently opened Ohio casino:
Ameet Patel, general manager of the property, says the softness in casino revenue that he and other operators have seen has been driven by a key demographic: women older than 50 who used to bet $50 to $75 per visit. The weak recovery has squeezed their gambling budgets, and their trips to casinos are fewer, he says.
What’s true in Ohio applies nationwide. Casino revenues had still not recovered their 2007 peaks as of the spring of 2014, when again they went into reverse in most jurisdictions. Moody’s now projects that casino revenues will drop through the rest of 2014 and all of 2015, slicing industry earnings by as much as 7.5 percent.
For those who see some sort of "boom" here in Clark County because the Cowlitz/Mohegan/Paskenta/Barnett successfully ran their scam, you have deluded yourself into believing this because you support the idea of a casino like this so you won't be troubled to go elsewhere for your gaming fix.
The impact of casinos on neighboring property values is “unambiguously negative,” according to the economists at the National Association of Realtors. Casinos don’t encourage non-gaming businesses to open nearby, because the people who most often visit casinos do not wander out to visit other shops and businesses. A casino is not like a movie theater or a sports stadium, offering a time-limited amusement. It is designed to be an all-absorbing environment that does not release its customers until they have exhausted their money.
Just a few weeks ago, I went to Las Vegas for the NASCAR race, which was a great experience.
But little else was, and I don't see myself ever going back.
Vegas is absurdly, outrageously expensive; homelessness is an obvious, quite visual problem; and I went into a 7-11 store that was, in effect, a slum.
This county will see a massive net loss in dollars. We will be forced to pay more for less in taxes and support services, not to mention infrastructure and the fall out of this monstrosity. Thanks to Sen. Ann "Gas Tax" Rivers, we're already on the hook for $700 million before the tribal scammers open their doors.
The tribe has already shown that they will buy local government like we buy a loaf of bread.
Our indefinite future is one of paying expenses caused directly or indirectly by the casino rip off.
And the irony?
The Mohegan Tribe, which financed most of this scam, is required to pay the state of Connecticut $400 million per year as a cost of doing business.
The Cowlitz Tribe is required to pay the State of Washington not one red cent.
Genius, isn't it?
Our indefinite future is one where local government, which already ignores us on so many issues, will now be PAID to ignore us individually as the tribe launders money to support candidates they see as pliable and willing to work for them... at OUR expense.
Hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Clark County and sent to the Mohegan Tribe in Connecticut, the Paskenta Apache Tribe in California and David Barnett.
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