Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Casinos will solve all problems

By Dave Anderson:

Pennsylvania politicians are scared to raise broad based taxes even when everyone acknowledges that the state needs more long term and recurring revenue.  Gambling and other sin taxes provides for politically "cheap" money as those activities are voluntary activities that can be taxed at a very high rate without too many complaints.  That is the logic that encouraged the state to pass slots-parlor legislation in 2004, and that is part of the logic that has table games legalization in the sausage factory right now.  Gambling revenue will solve all state, county, city and regional fiscal problems at an acceptable political cost. 

Right now the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County are counting on gambling revenue to bail out their general budget.  The problem is that the Pittsburgh Rivers Casino is massively underperforming expectations so there will be a significant revenue shortfall for the bankrupt city and functionally bankrupt county governments.  Both entities also want to apply any local share of future table game revenue to maintain the city library system at its current size instead of recognizing that the city has half the population it had at its peak and the library system has never shut down a neighborhood branch despite mass population lost and high service costs.  

Casinos will solve all problems....

Ohio has come to that conclusion as well.  Ohio voters approved Issue 3 last night.  Issue 3 authorizes the construction of a full-service casino in each of the four largest cities in Ohio; Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinati and Toledo.  

I am assuming that these casinos will be similar to all the other casinos in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions ---fairly generic with no 99% nude girls serving free drinks at the craps table -- and thus these casinos will mainly be serving a local audience.  I do not anticipate too many non-regional gamblers saying "Well, I could go to Vegas but guess what Cleveland or Pittsburgh sounds better, let's go to Cleveland..."

This is a major problem for the Pennsylvania casinos, especially the Pittsburgh and Erie casinos.  Previously, they had the proximity advantage to a decent chunk of Ohio --- they were the closest generic casinos where someone could drop fifty bucks into the slots.  Within two or three years, they will not be the closest generic casino.  Long term revenue projections will have to be adjusted significantly downwards as Ohio provided a decent chunk of the out of state gamblers to the Western PA. locations. 

So the casinos will not solve all problems as gambling is looking more and more like a mature industry with normal cyclical flows and declining net profit margins. 

Someone, someday soon will have to make tough choices instead of electing to expand gambling. 



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1 comment:

  1. Ol'FrothNovember 4, 2009 at 2:48 PM

    Back in the late 80's, when "riverboat gambling" was first proposed in this area, I thought it would be a good idea. Then, the only two gambling areas in the country were Las VEgas and Atlantic City. Even the Indian Reservation casions were few and far between.
    Of course, Harrisburg dithered. When the latest push came, I opposed it, simply because it no longer was somewhat unique. But we went ahead anyway, and all that will happen is disposable (hopefully) income that might have gone towards other local entertainment options will now go to the casino.

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