Author: Kim du Toit

Breaking Down The “Decline”

Business

Here’s an interesting take:

We’ve all seen the nonstop headlines claiming “Las Vegas is in Freefall” “Vegas is Dying” and “Vegas is Finished and Will Never Recover.”

All of which is a gross exaggeration.

First of all, Vegas is plenty busy- just like always. Just a little less busy than last year. Revenues are down single digits from last year- which was one of greatest years in the history of Vegas.

Well, to accountant types, all growth must continue and in fact increase, regardless of circumstance.  Which is a decent reason to beat accountants to death with clubs.

But compared to last year (the best year in history) business is down this year, and Vegas casinos are laying off employees. That part is true.

So, what exactly is happening? Why is business down this year? The mainstream media would never understand this, but this is another classic case of Republican success versus Democrat failure.

Not all of Vegas is down. Only the Vegas Strip is down. The off-Strip and suburban casinos and hotels in Vegas are booming. Why? What’s the difference?

The reason why is simple. All the major resorts on the world-famous Vegas Strip are owned and operated by Democrats — mostly Ivy League-educated Democrats from Wall Street, who know nothing about gambling or tourism.

And here’s the good part:

MGM is run by Democrats. Caesars is run by Democrats. Harrahs is run by Democrats. Wynn is run by Democrats (since they ran brilliant Republican billionaire Steve Wynn out of town). Even Venetian sold out to Apollo Global Management based in New York, since the death of brilliant Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Not only are the Strip casinos run by dumb, clueless Ivy League Democrats, but most of them sold the land under their casino-resorts to Blackstone- Wall Street firm that now charges them obscene annual $100 million to $300 million land lease charges.

But the off-Strip casinos and resorts are almost all owned and operated by Republicans.

Station Casinos is booming- the Republican Fertitta family owns them.  The downtown Golden Nugget is booming- it is owned and operated by Tillman Fertitta- a Trump Republican who is now President Trump’s Ambassador to Italy.  Boyd Casinos are booming. They are run by the Boyd family- who gives mostly to Republican candidates and PACS.  South Point Casino is booming- it is run by the Republican Trump supporter Michael Gaughan.

And the details:

The Vegas Strip resorts run by dumb, clueless Democrats from New York are all charging rip-off rates.  Parking your car is now $50 at any Strip hotel.  Two martinis cost $80.  A nice meal costs $500.  Resort fees will run you up to $100 extra a day on top of room charges.  At MGM properties a bottle of water in your minibar might cost you $25.  And here’s the craziest rip-off of all:  MGM (run by a bunch of dumb Democrats) now charges $25 extra for room service if you want knives, forks and napkins.

Putting Manhattan cost structures into a Western desert town.

On the other hand, at any of these off-Strip and suburban resorts owned and run by Republicans, the parking is free, the meals are reasonable, the room rates are inexpensive, and they have movie theatres, bowling alleys, food courts and babysitting. Anyone can afford a fun night out on the town! It’s still like “old Vegas.”

I have to stipulate at this point that I cannot stand Las Vegas:  Strip, off-Strip, suburban, whatever.  Every time I go there — once because I’d never been there before, the other times on business or to attend a conference — I couldn’t wait to leave, couldn’t wait to get on the plane, get in the car, whatever.  Nothing about the place attracts me, and just about everything in the place repels me.  In my own parlance:  I’d rather watch an F1 Grand Prix race at Spa Francorchamps, in the chilly rain, than the one in Las Vegas.

But as a case study in how to screw up a good thing, modern-day Vegas is surely an excellent example.  As Wayne Root memorably puts it:

Personally, I preferred the Mafia. They knew how to treat customers.

Stolen This, Taken That, Expropriated Another

Geography, History, Lies and Untruths

I’m getting heartily sick of all the bullshit surrounding this whole “stolen land” concept.  I was reminded of this while watching some Australian TV show (out of the corner of my eye:  New Wife was doing the actual watching) where the opening credits revealed that the show’s cast and producers were aware that the show was being filmed on lands that were originally the home of some unpronounceably-named tribe of Aborigines, and wanted everyone to know how they respected that “heritage”.

Given that Australia’s aborigines are amongst the most “unsettled” populations on the planet — they are nomadic to an extent almost impossible to describe — that struck me as a little rich.  Most of all, what got my goat was the tone of the statement:  semi-apologetic, cringing and guilty are the words that come to mind.

We have the same bollocks much in evidence Over Here.  The history of this entire world is a story of migration, settlement, wars over territory and Tribe A taking land from Tribe B — bloody hell, they’re still fighting the same wars in the Balkans — but it’s only recently that the arguments over who owns what have become a third-party issue rather than something that the involved parties settle between themselves.  Or, to put it in a more scholarly fashion:

Every person alive on this planet today has ancestors who were displaced by force somewhere in their lineage. Every person alive on this planet today has ancestors who displaced other people by force somewhere in their lineage. It’s an inevitable fact of human history. American natives fought with each other over land and resources, and some tribes, like the Dakota (Sioux), were notorious for attacking their neighbors. Europe’s history is rife with such, from the Vikings to the Norman invasion of Britain. In fact, few if any of the people of Europe today are the original inhabitants of the land they reside on now; the one exception may be the Basque of the Pyrenees Mountains, but even they, at some point, came there from somewhere else. The French people we know now derive their name from the Franks, a Germanic tribe, and as for the British Isles, that motley group of islands has seen so many invasions, from Picts to Celts to Romans, Saxons, Anglians, Jutes, and Normans, that it would be difficult to keep track as they go by.

Here’s the simple response to all the handwringing and aggrievement over the “stolen land” claims:  get over it, because you’re never going to get it back.  End of story.

And to a lesser extent, the same is true of “cultural appropriation”:  where White kids are somehow forbidden to wear their hair in those disgusting dreadlocks because Africans somehow have “ownership” of a hairstyle.  What bullshit.  It’s like saying that Black people can’t drink Scotch whisky because whisky is traditionally a product of the northern provinces of (lily-white) Britain, or that the Irish can’t eat chips because potatoes originally came from America.

Everyone borrows cultural artifacts and customs from everyone else.  That’s been the habit of mankind for millennia, and no cries of outrage can overturn it.

When it comes to land, the stronger group has taken it from its “original” (and sometimes not-so original) weaker inhabitants.  That this activity has become somewhat less egregious and bloody in recent times does not gainsay its basic premise — and where it has become more bloody, the weaker continue to learn its hard history — as the “Palestinians” are (re-)learning in their efforts to eradicate the state of Israel.  (They’re unlikely ever to give up, which simply means that Israel will be forced to teach them the same lesson again and again, ad infinitum.  As I’ve said many times before, the Arabs are lucky that the Jews have an inexplicable aversion to genocide, or else “from the river to the sea” could easily have changed to “from the Golan to the Suez”.  Vae victis  — a Latin expression — has particular currency here.)

So enough with the kowtowing (a Chinese expression) to the Perpetually Aggrieved.  Fuck off, all of you, and make the best of what you’ve got.  Heaven knows, most of what you can achieve comes courtesy of Western civilization.

You’re welcome.

Theft In Pursuit Of An Agenda

Taxes and Theft, UN and other scum

The redoubtable Stephen Moore brings to light this little bit of internationalist skulduggery,:

Later this week the United Nations will hold a vote on a multibillion-dollar climate change tax targeted squarely at American industry.

This resolution before the International Maritime Organization will impose a carbon tax on cargo and cruise ships that carry $20 trillion of merchandise over international waters.

The resolution is intended to advance the very “net zero” carbon emissions standard that has knee-capped European economies for years and that American voters have rejected.

This international tax that would be applied to American vessels and as such is a dangerous precedent-setting assault on U.S. sovereignty.

As with all great crimes, the first question is “cui bono” ?  And to nobody’s surprise, the answer is:

Worst of all, if the resolution passes, it will require the retirement of older ships and enable a multibillion-dollar wealth transfer to China — which has come to dominate ship building in recent years.

China strongly supports the tax scheme — even though, ironically, no nation has emitted more pollutants into the atmosphere than it has. Yet WE are getting socked with a tax that indirectly pays for their pollution.

Needless to say, the U.S. will have no truck with this nonsense — at least, the current generation of U.S. leaders won’t:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy have jointly stated that America “will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or our businesses.”

They call the financial impact on the U.S. of this global carbon tax “disastrous, with some estimates forecasting global shipping costs increasing as much as 10% or more.”

So fine.  But given that in the United Nations, there are seventeen likely “yes” votes to our single “no” vote, how are we to combat this nonsense?  As usual, Moore has the answer:

To prevent this sinister tax, the White House should announce a set of retaliation measures.

This could include a dollar-for-dollar reduction in U.S. payments to NATO, the U.N., IMF and World Bank. No foreign money should be directed to any nation that votes for this assault on American ships.

And as the old (paraphrased) saying goes:  “They may have passed this law;  now let them enforce it.”

My additional solution would be for the United States to leave the U.N. altogether, cease its funding thereof, and kick these assholes out of Manhattan for good.  Let them play their little reindeer games all they want, just in someone else’s backyard and with their own money.  See how long that little internationalist dream lasts.

Asking The Important Questions, Part 17

Food & Drink

My suggestions:

  • some kind of fried potato dish — hash browns, home fries, french fries, whatever*
  • mushrooms — fried in the bacon fat, of course
  • a proper pork sausage, or boerewors
  • a lamb chop
  • Heinz baked beans
  • French bread, toasted / croissant alternatively
  • HP sauce or Heinz 57 sauce (if some spiciness is needed)

I might want to substitute back bacon (English bacon) instead of the American streaky kind, but it’s not mandatory, of course.  Bacon, as they say, is bacon.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the kitchen.

*Some time ago, I spotted potato skins on a breakfast offering somewhere.

This may well be a groundbreaking innovation.