This is about as cold and calculating as an analysis can get:
Indiana's casinos are to blame for about $1 million in crime each week, but the 10 riverboats raised $763 million in net revenue for the state during the fiscal year that ended in June.
Lawmakers on Tuesday were expected to officially release those findings, part of a seven-month assessment of Indiana's gambling industry by Indianapolis-based consultant Policy Analytics LLC, The Indianapolis Star reported Monday.
The study, designed to present a neutral view of gambling in the state, supported what many industry officials have been saying for years - that casinos' costs, including bankruptcies and poor mental health, are significant but overshadowed by the revenue they bring.
Sorry about that bankruptcy and, you know, getting to the brink of suicide and stuff, but the state is making out like a bandit here, so just shut up and take it, OK? Yeah, yeah, I know -- we're all responsible for our own actions. But shouldn't the state at least be "neutral" about our vices instead of actively encouraging them?
Comments
Seems it ALWAYS about the "Bottom Line", isn't it?
And I'm sure that the "one million dollars" in crime is but the tip of a much larger iceberg.
Considering all ancillary repercussions born from the initial crime(s), that $1 mil HAS to be significantly higher...so maybe they're not telling us the "rest of the story", hmm?
Bob G.
indiana is #4 in legalized gambling as an industry, and activity.
that doesnt include all the returned cherrymasters, illegal sprots book gambling, and illegal interstate and off shore internet gambling.
If you look at the economy of las vegas, they have an almost entirely service based economy- no signifigant, or well paying manufacturing to speak of.
and they are the fastest growing metropolitan area in America.
then look at fort Wayne. we also have no manufacturing to speak of, because all our jobs have been off shored, or outsourced.
so we too have a essentially service based economy- retail, fast food, and financial services- and no well paying jobs to speak of, and economic stagnation. compare the per-capita growth rates. click on nationmaster.com for further comparisons.
the per capita crime rqates across the usa are fairly consistent. However the per-capita and average incomes of Fort wayne MSA, and Lasvegas MSA , are widely disparate. by 10,000 dollars, with Fort wayne lagging behind.
crime gravitates towards where the money is, so if we kill the local economy, will we have no crime? i dont think so.
also, using rush limbaughs "swing door concept" - the door swings where the money is, you will find the door is swinging away from us and to other locales, thus the logic of brain drain.. only the most dedicated, and hopeful, and persistent por-growth citizens will stay in our "beloved " home town, and the rest will split to where the money is..
also, notice the lack of " creative class"- Fort wayne culture strangles off any creativity, and forces conformity through political/social /police pressure...
thus look at gambling meccas- look at fort wayne( whichused to be a libertarian mecca, back when we had passenger rail service.
people go to las vegas and other locales to vacation. Fort wayne is dying on the vine.
we need a similar set of state and local laws, and taxes as in NV to draw in the money to prime the pump, to fuel any future growth.
other wise, we have the alternative of selling off all our assets faster than a crack addict in a pawn shop to make ends meet, anda growing tax rate to support all the poor, starving, unemployed homeleess citizens who are left behind in the titanic economic crash, while the rich bailk with their lifeboats, and "golden paraschutes...
think about it. am i right or wrong? any better ideas?
please! we need the creative input, or else we will all be selling pencils,competing with illegals, and our teens wont have jobs, to earn money for school, except for joining the military to die overseas.
hey- theres an idea- hopsitals, funeral homes, and cemetaries as a growth industry? god i hope not...
and welfare for all....
not!