The Economy on the Ground: Las Vegas Edition
ByA few days ago, Keyser saw a television show in which someone claimed to be a millionaire, and he said he was into real estate development. He mentioned in particular his involvement in Manhattan West. Turns out this was a big development in Las Vegas, but even though it’s 80% complete, its outlook is now said to be “grim.”
Things look rather different just a few years ago. Here’s a blurb from some realtor that Keyser came across from July 25 2006:
Las Vegas is heading skywards. With the cost of land and the dwindling supply, when you take away the BLM land there is no where to go but UP. In five years you will not be able to recognize the skyline of Las Vegas. There is every imaginable project going, condos, lofts, towers, and an Urban village which will be like brownstones. The Strip is not the only place that is seeing the towers, the Harmon Corridor is becoming the hippest place just off srtip as seen by the article below from the local paper.
Seems there actually was someplace to go but UP, which was PRECIPITOUSLY DOWN. Far as Keyser can figure, the big boom in LV was a spin-off from the housing bubble in neighboring California, with lots of people investing their home equity in LV and/or spending time and money gambling and doing other foolish things there. Once the housing market in California tanked, the secondary bubble in Nevada lost all its oxygen and if anything tanked much worse than elsewhere, since it’s fundamentally based on frivolousness that people can cut out of their lives without much trouble.
Except, of course, for the people actually stuck in a town suffering from a very sudden and severe downturn. Here’s a video about the effects of this local collapse on real people. The overall picture is in fact pretty grim, and some it’s pretty sad.
Truly a Field of (Bad) Dreams Come to a Bad End.
2 Comments
May 14th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Aw… you paint such a rosey picture. It is actually much worse than that. The other day Mr S. and I were watching the news and they were talking about the social security surplus falling 95% this year. To which I whip around and ask Mr S. – unemployment is only 10%ish. How could it be down 95%. It doesn’t add up. Sure enough though. From the WTimes. .
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that revenue from Social Security payroll taxes will decline in fiscal 2009. Next year, the Social Security surplus from all revenues except interest income will fall to $3 billion, $83 billion less than last year’s CBO projection for 2010. In 2008, that cash surplus was $72 billion, which the federal government borrowed and spent on other programs.
Now, I’ve been known to gamble. Not in vegas. The market is rsky enough for me. And I do stare at the sun.. but that sounds like a giant shit storm I was hoping wouldn’t hit quite yet.
May 14th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
When it rains shit, it pours. Or something like that.