Muere, Las Vegas?: Losing Las Vegas Shows How Americans Crap Out in Housing Casino

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:



Losing Las Vegas Shows How Americans Crap Out in Housing Casino

By Daniel Taub and Dan Levy

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Leigh Sogoloff, who spends her evenings lap-dancing at Rick's Cabaret Vegas on Procyon Street, says she's making half her income of a year ago.

``You don't shop, you don't buy stuff you can't afford,'' the 36-year-old Sogoloff said between dances at the Las Vegas club. She has postponed buying a house and is reading Deepak Chopra for advice on increasing her wealth. ``I know how to save money. I'm not a dumb stripper.''

The city that sold Americans on the dream they could lay down a small wager and walk away millionaires is reeling from speculation in the housing market that helped bring down Wall Street. The quick profits that so easily spread from Nevada to Florida, just as casino gambling has migrated to 37 states, are now proving what happens in Vegas rarely stays in Vegas.

Las Vegas leads the nation in falling home prices, foreclosures and stalled construction projects as economic fear and loathing becomes the city's biggest export. Rick's Cabaret International Inc., with 20 clubs in seven states and two in Buenos Aires, has lost 74 percent of its market value this year.

The ``main nerve'' of the American dream runs through this desert metropolis, Hunter S. Thompson concluded in his 1971 book, ``Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.'' Chopra, the spiritual teacher whose writings Sogoloff has turned to, said that less than 2 percent of the $3 trillion to $4 trillion that circulates in the world's markets daily is used for goods and services.

`Pure Speculation'

``The rest is trying to make money off money,'' said Chopra, adjunct professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois. ``Our financial structure which, of course, is an American system but is now global, is pure speculation. It's gambling.'' ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a5I2yxVie96I&refer=home