Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

I find this story hard to believe. The State of Illinois has told its lottery winners that they'll be getting IOUs, not actual cash, because Illinois is so poor. Really? Isn't that particular expense supposed to pay for itself? That is, the losers pay for the winners, and the state takes a cut like bookies from time before memory and casino managers from memories before time? How did that become so complicated? Heck of a recommendation for government as an institution: capable of screwing up even the numbers-running racket. And as cynical as I may be about governments, this story is still hard to believe. what is there we don't know yet?

Donald Trump can't even run a profitable casino. The itch to gamble may be the most powerful known addiction, and in cities where casinos are allowed, there is no such thing as the free entry of potential competitors: the established players have their safe niche. An inability to make a profit in this circumstances should be, well ... suspicious as to one's chief-executive cred. Yet Trump's Atlantic City casinos filed for bankruptcy protection twice. A very perceptive observer of the financial scene, Gary Weiss, has explained some of the background: He sold junk bonds to finance his casinos and, by 1991, was so overleveraged that he was seeing his empire stripped by the banks. "Already more than $3.8 billion in the hole and sliding perilously close to a mammoth personal bankruptcy, the brash New York developer had no choice but to accept the dismantling of his vast holdings," Time magazine reported. Leave it to Trump to fail in a business that became a m...

Last year at about this time I wrote about the prospect of disruptive repairs to a stretch of the highway I-91 as it passes through Springfield, MA, just a short ways north of the border of the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut. This is a vital piece of infrastructure in my neck of the woods, so I'd like to keep readers of this blog up to date on it. On June 25th, the Mass. Department of Transportation hosted a hearing on the project updating the community of those who drive there regularly, warning said community that preliminary construction work will begin any day now. J.F. White Contracting Co., of Framingham, won the bid and will serve as general contractor for the expected three year duration of the work. The MassDOT is funding 20% of this work, the Federal Highway Administration will pick up the rest of the tab. Finally, the project has become enmeshed over the last year with another timetable: that of casino construction. In the fullness of time, it has been d...

Indian tribes have a monopoly on running casinos in the State of Connecticut. The following comes from memory: I'm way too lazy to look it up. Anyway, the monopoly came about several years ago [;ate 1980s?], and almost accidentally. The state legislature passed a bill that was designed to give non-profit organizations the opportunity to use "Vegas nights" as a fund-raising ploy. The bill was universally understood as referring to transitory activities, not a permanent year-round activity. But after that bill became law, a federal judge interpreted it -- apparently in conjunction with a federal statute -- as giving the tribes a right to open year-round casinos, so long as the casinos didn't include slot machines (the one game of chance that hadn't been included in the original state law). The Mashantucket Pequots (whose tribal symbol is shown above) created their no-slots casino at once. It was Foxwoods, a reference to said tribal iconology: and a big hit:...