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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Friday, January 29, 2010

Gambling is a mature industry

By Dave Anderson:


Gambling was supposed to save Pittsburgh and Allegheny County finances while also giving the state a shot of politically cheap revenue.  Statewide, it has not been a horrendous mess(yet), but locally, casino gambling was supposed to keep the county of bankruptcy, float the city's books, reinvigorate the airport by assuming a portion of the terminal debt service, build the Penguins a new arena and otherwise distribute a wide variety of public goodies with minimal political cost as broad based taxes had not been raised. 


The Pittsburgh casino is stuck operating with an identical competitor 20 miles to its south, and two slightly better casinos in West Virginia's Panhandle.  The revenue picture is ugly because casino gambling is a mature industry that has no new virgin territory to easily exploit.  Any new additions that can act as differentiators for a casino are quickly countered by other states and other casinos. 


The same problem is playing out in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  The Philadelphia casinos are competing against Atlantic City and Delaware.  Pennsylvania recently approved expanding table games to the casinos so the border casinos can more easily compete and draw crowds from New Jersey and West Virginia.  Delaware has responded in kind:



Table games, such as blackjack, poker, craps and roulette, could be operating in Delaware in a matter of months, following the passage of legislation on Thursday that was signed into law by Gov. Jack Markell the same day.


Gambling is engaged in a race to the bottom as every state is still seeking politically cheap cash, but the market is saturated and there is not a whole lot of cash to be split every which way. 



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