Two for the Road

Part One: What, Me Worry?

The New York Times was kind enough to publish a little item called “A Question Recurs: How Safe Is Las Vegas?”

Please remember, I am one of the 1.5 million people who live in the Las Vegas Valley, and that Las Vegas itself is one of the 50 largest cities in the United States, and 5000 people move here every month. This is before you account for the fact that 16 of the 20 largest hotels in the world are in Las Vegas and that 38.9 million people visited town last year.

Reading the article, I could not decide whether the NYT was saying “eek beware stay away” or “hey, they have things under control.” You wouldn’t know it to watch reruns of CSI on Spike, but there have really only been two recent incidents that have broken into the national news seen: a lone nutcase who opened fire before being taken down by off-duty military tourists, and a hit that happened to involve a bomb on the victim’s car. A former sheriff, who now runs security for one of the casino groups, says:

“We have not had an event here in Las Vegas the equivalent of the events of 9/11 or anything close to that, and that hasn’t been by accident…. With all that said, it’s going to be very, very, very difficult to prevent lone criminals who have the intentions of harming themselves and others.”

Translation: it’s really hard to stop one nut.

Look, folks, I am not worried about terraists attacking here. First, every casino has cameras everywhere (remember? “part of me knows what you’re thinking”?) — and there’s even casinos in grocery stores. There’s also security everywhere, and they have been trained to make sure that the city’s guests have a good and safe time. There are other factors I won’t trouble you about, let me just say that the only coordinated attack that I think has any chance of success is if some truly fringe religious group is involved.

Part Two: Even Steve Liesman doesn’t like the numbers

CNBC was talking about the job creation figures for July, which were released today. CNN nicely summarizes job growth as “weaker” and points out that average hourly wages grew a whole six cents! So much for how raising the minimum wage was going to put employers in a bind. Those who would like to blame the minimum wage hike for these numbers would do well to remember that this is merely the latest in a trend of bad numbers, and that we have actually had a month with worse job creation earlier this year. TheStreet.com has some more details, but if you want the overall picture check out this chart from The Mess That Greenspan Made.

Let’s set aside the fact that 92,000 jobs were created, when we need at least 150,000 to absorb new people in the labor pool. Let’s not get bogged down in the fact that none of those people count as “unemployed” because they were never employed in the first place. And let’s only give a passing nod CNBC’s mentioning “All the July job growth came in service industries, which added 104,000 jobs while goods-producing industries cut 12,000 positions. The government shed 28,000 jobs in July, the first time in more than a year and half that the government has cut hiring.” That’s the second month in a row that “service industries” created more jobs than the headline job creation number! How long until every job requires phrases like “how can I help you”? How can we continue to call ourselves a “superpower” when each month we make less stuff, we build fewer things, and we spend more time giving one another “service” using products made somewhere else?

An hour after the figures were released, CNBC’s Chief Economist Steve Liesman asked whether the job creation numbers in the financial services industry accounted for the 7000 employees of American Home Mortgage for whom today is the last day of work. Frankly, he sounded skeptical of the numbers overall. Could it be that he’s beginning to suspect that the employment and job creation numbers are just as rigged as the inflation figures?

In closing: the things dads can teach their kids include financial literacy and lockpicking; remember me mentioning that the Canadians had sent an expedition to claim the North Pole? Well Russia sent a submarine to claim the land under the ice cap, so the Stalemate for Santa is on!; and finally, beating your wife is not a Christian value! Submitting to “authority” and having the crap beaten out of you are different things, and any man who can’t see that does not deserve to have a wife. Or, to paraphrase Karl Cullinane, “You do not say ‘my wife’ or ‘my child’ in the same way you would say ‘my shovel.'”