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Las Vegas is easy to have fun with and this last week Joel Stein wrote another of his occasional articles on Vegas for Time Magazine. This one was more a temperance movement piece than his usual selling sex in the desert pieces.
Here's an article ending observation from 2004:
The entire article in all it's silliness is here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...4712-1,00.html
Here are a few of his observations from mid 2009:
That was my takeaway from my February trip to Vegas. They're giving it away to any taker.
He goes on to say that we're choosing between strip clubs and Cotton Mather Puritan thrift. Dumb stuff but I won't be surprised to see the MSM selling this idea that we have to choose between the ultra-materialism of FIRE and rank Puritan living.
This idea ties in well with EJ's idea of quality degredation. While this hasn't spread to Hawaii where we were last week, it makes sense that it would now be the rule in LV where dogs have been eating dogs for generations.
This is a throwaway line in the middle of the article. It never makes the connection between the headliner and the rest of the nation.
Nicely put. Las Vegas is not unlike Iraq. I suppose we can watch both unfold over the next 20 years and later judge which was the bigger waste of money.
He goes on to tell seveal stories including the story of a real estate agent who assists people in buying a new, lower priced home in their neighborhood and then instructs them to stop paying thier old mortgage, maybe rent their old house while they don't pay the mortgage to collect more income. The whole thing is so LV.
Stein is clearly a fan of the worst city in the US. But even he is beginning to recognize the beginning of the end.
Here's an article ending observation from 2004:
It's conceivable that in a few decades, Vegas will have completely shed its shame and its kitsch, that it will be a multidimensional one-industry town like Los Angeles, only more urban and with better food....[LV] showmanship are thought of around the globe as simply American. If New Vegas foretells something about America's future,then the culture wars are all but over, and culture lost.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...4712-1,00.html
Here are a few of his observations from mid 2009:
I will get a hotel room for less than the upkeep of the room, eat a meal for near what it costs to serve it...
[Vegas has] the highest foreclosure rate of any major metro area...
The hotels, led by Wynn Resorts boss Steve Wynn, slashed room prices to increase occupancy rates to 82%...On the right day in July, you could book the type of 750 sq. ft room that was $500 a year ago at the Wynn for $109 and get a $50 gift certificate.
The hotels, led by Wynn Resorts boss Steve Wynn, slashed room prices to increase occupancy rates to 82%...On the right day in July, you could book the type of 750 sq. ft room that was $500 a year ago at the Wynn for $109 and get a $50 gift certificate.
When I go to meet my friend by the pool at the Mandalay Bay, it's too crowded to find chairs. All the price-cutting has succeeded: the town is full.
Economists like Yale's Robert Shiller have warned that the next big wave of failures in the US recession will be in commercial real estate - and once again, Las Vegas is headlining.
[Observing all the half finished projects he says], I never realized an economic defeat could look so much like a military one.
He goes on to tell seveal stories including the story of a real estate agent who assists people in buying a new, lower priced home in their neighborhood and then instructs them to stop paying thier old mortgage, maybe rent their old house while they don't pay the mortgage to collect more income. The whole thing is so LV.
Stein is clearly a fan of the worst city in the US. But even he is beginning to recognize the beginning of the end.
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