The first winners in the Genting plan include one of the real and true Miami speculators, Jorge Perez, who somehow wrestled partial control with partners of the Omni disaster debt, flipping it in less than four months for a tidy $60 million profit. In other words, there is plenty money to go around. Call is seed capital.
I'm not begrudging Perez' startling grab of a few tens of millions. Who knew the Omni would be the first step in Genting's footprint? Anyhow, it is small change compared to what he lost in the Great Recession launched by condo and housing commandos whose strapped Miami's speculative ethos onto Florida politics. "What the market wants". On the other hand, 'what has Perez done for Miami?' is the same question that one might start asking of gambling in the Magic City. Look to Atlantic City for insight. But who needs facts when we have the real and true?
Perez' billion dollar real estate empire, created through the housing bubble, is now owned by the banks (whose balance sheets still do not reflect the real and true value of those assets). What did Miami get in return for the speculative bubble that made Perez a centimillionaire before it went south? A footprint of gargantuan condo developments valuable primarily to real estate scavengers and speculators in bank debt.
What will Genting's footprint add to Miami's quality of life? And what about taxpayer burden? Shouldn't one of the questions be asked, before gambling is permitted: how much did the speculative real estate bubble add to the city of Miami deficit in terms of unabsorbed infrastructure costs? If our esteemed budget predictions were off by a country mile, and they were, it would be prudent to base future results on past performance.
These are rationale points that appear nowhere in the mostly glossy Miami Herald report on the Genting plan today. Don't expect reality to intrude on the Miami Herald's coverage of the Genting issue now or in the near future, when the Florida legislature and Rick Scott take up the issue of licensing full scale gambling in Florida.
But I have another question. And this question is for the right wing conservatives who mobilize churches and God's soldiers to convert the Florida legislature into impregnable GOP fortress: in consideration of full scale gambling, what would Jesus do? I suppose all those passages in the bible are just filler material and not to be taken at His Word.
The only event I would enjoy more than watching the Christian right-wing throw cold water on the GOP's gambling aspirations for downtown Miami is a wholesale invasion of the city by giant snails, Burmese pythons, and monitor lizards. We'll see how much weight Jesus carries with Florida's real and true, right-wing Christians in the near future. It won't take long. Anyhow, here is a humor alert from a friend in Texas. Have a great weekend filled with Christian values of compassion.
3 comments:
I don't hate gambling. Don't care one way or the other. What I hate is Erik Fresen and David Rivera -- who are suppose to be legislating for our good -- getting rich off of shoving gambling down our throats. As I said, this is going to happen because there is too much money behind it, but can you at least spare me the stories of grandma's rapture while gambling? (see comments in my blog on this subject yesterday). That is not part of what is going on. This will be a manipulation of epic proportion of the people of South Florida (the sinners) to benefit the people in North Florida who will happily share proceeds from what they see as our evil vice. And that a foreign company will spend millions of dollars manipulating us makes it worse.
Atlantic City is a dump. Donald Trump has gone bankrupt there three times.
Los Vegas saw it's property values decline 30% to 90% when the low income customers couldn't get new mortgage loans. No more free money to lose to casinos. Jeff Sofer lost $1 BILLION of his family's money. Think family gatherings are tense?
Jesus, take the wheel.
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