The Casino Syndrome

October 15, 2007
     The current mania to expand legalized gambling around the country is a clear symptom of how desperate and crazy this society has become. In a culture where anything goes and nothing matters, it is perhaps hard for the public to understand what's wrong with it. The gambling "industry" itself has very successfully masked its pernicious nature by putting across the idea that it is just another form of innocent "entertainment," on a par with pro sports, theme parkery, and Hollywood. In fact, gambling, or "gaming," as it cynically calls itself, has hijacked elements of all these other activities to conceal its main business, which is the systematic hosing of those who can least afford to be hosed.

      What's wrong with state-sponsored gambling is simple: it promotes the idea -- inconsistent with the realities of the universe -- that it's possible to get something for nothing. It is unhealthy to an extreme for a society to make this idea normal because it defeats another idea that a society absolutely depends on for survival -- namely that earnest effort matters. It conditions the public to magical thinking -- a characteristic of children-- and disables their ability to function as adults. The expansion of gambling is especially tragic at a time when this society faces epochal economic problems that threaten its existence, and by this I mean the permanent global energy crisis that will require us to reorganize virtually all the crucial activities of daily life. This is a time when the nation can least afford to disable adult thinking and earnest effort.

     I was out in Iowa last week, in the vicinity of Waterloo, where the John Deere corporation has laid off hundreds of workers in recent years. The town's solution to this problem was to invite a casino to town, and it now stands out above the cornfields like a grinning Moloch, mocking the aspirations of those who remain in the area -- and reinforcing the other foolish and destructive activity going on there, which is the corn-to-ethanol racket aimed at propping up American car dependency. Of course the idea that the backwaters of Iowa might compete with Las Vegas or even the ghastly Atlantic City for gambling tourism is laughable, so who exactly did the local officials imagine would be patronizing the blackjack tables of Waterloo at eleven o'clock in the morning?

     Plans are on the table all over the US for ever more casinos. In New York, campaigns are underway to put a big new one in the depressed Catskills, and another on the site of what is currently the squalid Aqueduct racetrack in the borough of Queens. We have a video-slot-machine operation here in Saratoga in what used to be a harness racing track, and every day it is filled with retirees pissing away their grandchildren's college tuition (in exchange for "excitement"). Next door in Massachusetts, new governor Deval Patrick is working tirelessly to set up casinos in the de-industrialized cities of Springfield and Brockton (and Boston, too) -- as a painless substitute for productive work. The Illinois state senate just passed a bill that would put casinos in downtown Chicago and allow additional "riverboats" along the Mississippi River -- really just barges moored in fixed locations.

     Of course, practically every state has some kind if lottery. I have not been in a so-called convenience store (i.e. gas station with snacks) the past year without standing in a long line of grubby, pathetic people spending their scant dollars on lotto tickets (and cigarettes) -- instead of paying the utility bill that would perhaps allow them to bathe and apply for a job.

      I don't entertain fantasies that gambling can be eliminated from any society, but inviting it to operate in the mainstream under state sponsorship is just tragically stupid. There is a rightful place for gambling: on the margins of society -- and the crippling ideas that go hand-in-hand with it belong on the margins, too, like the belief that it's possible to get something for nothing. Real political leadership would take stand on this, even if it was unpopular.

     Anyway, I predict the time is not far off when an even-more-desperate public itself recognizes that we can't afford either the systematic hosing or the suicidal thinking that comes with gambling. They are going to shut it down. When they do, they will do it harshly and violently. They will turn on those behind it and blame them for promoting the idea that anything goes and nothing matters.

Comments

[bud4wiser]

JK, a comparison/contrast essay using the Lobbying industry and Federal tax-breaks and [earmarks] as the analogy would have bee appropriate.

Your journalistic effort comes off as preachy and detached from the real problems of this society. Namely that our government has been bought-off by who ever has the money to [put-up.] {ethanol anyone?}

Curiously, you restate my premise and comments of last week - namely that governments - in the face of mounting multiple dilemmas - continue to act and govern in ways father and father detached from reality and any sense of providing for the common welfare.

Gambling and gas-a-hol - two symptoms of the same disease.

[American]

Getting Something-for-Nothing is indeed an illusion. Truth be told, however, taking money from suckers who don't understand S-f-K's illusory nature can be a pretty low-effort endeavor.

[Tangurena]

In the past, I've called lotteries/casinos a "tax on stupidity." This tax on stupidity is born by the folks who can least afford to be burdened with it. Yet with the ossification of the US economy, this magical thinking is, for many people, literally their only hope. "Something for nothing" about describes the real estate bubble as well.

Many politicians pretend that regulations and restrictions on gambling will keep it in check. However, the fallout from some recent WTO rulings are going to turn all of those regulations and restrictions on their head. Especially since the court ruled that Antigua doesn't have to comply with US intellectual property laws and may lawfully pirate any movie or music track.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/26/antigua_bush/

[Dave]

In the Wilkes-Barre Scranton area we have had a casino for about year. In the meantime I have witnessed several small businesses shutter and the number of stories about gruessome sucicides increase accordingly.

[Laura Louzader]

Let me tell you something.

There will not, repeat NOT, be casino gambling in the City of Chicago.

At least, not if Da Mare listens to his contituents, which probably he will not since he doesn't listen to us in our pleas for tax relief, or for more and equitable funding for the CTA, or any other pressing city need, preferring as he does to engage in monument-building on the pharoanic scale.

Nobody in Chicago wants casinos in this city. We figure it is your constitutional right to lose your kid's food money in a blackjack game but you can damn well go out to Aurora or Joliet or some other exurban sump to do it.

The population of the city does not want it- if you put it on a referendum it would lose resoundingly.

The Friends of the Chicago River does not want it.

The downtown business community, headed by rich and influential men, does definately not want it, as these boats tend to drain trade from surrounding restaurants and other businesses.

The alderman of wards populated by poor minorities do not want it, and neither do the clergymen who minister to these populations.

Only Da Mare and the state legislature wants it.

Our political leaders now operate in a world of their own that has no reference to the people that vote and pay taxes. They don't give a care what we want.

I agree with your stance on gambling, and differ only in that I don't want it to be made illegal, as we have a lot of history to draw on to prove that prohibition causes more problems than it solves.

However, the state should not be promoting gambling, and this is where we need to draw the line, and get it across to our political leaders that state sponsored gambling is not only morally below the line but is causing economic destruction that offsets many times over whatever "development" it fosters, which, as far as I can see, is none so far.

Most of all, we have to find ways to put an end to state-subsidized gambling. The State of Illinois is now subsidizing gambling in various ways. It's not bad enough I have to subsidize my business competition through corporate welfare programs that have enriched Walmart and Target and the rest and insulated them from normal business risk through corporate gimmes of various types that shower hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies upon them.

We taxpayers of Illinois now have to subsidize the megarich shareholders of racetracks and casinos, and the destruction of our weaker neighbors to enrich the old money families that own the racetracks and pol's cronies who are the major shareholders of the casinos.

[steve duncan]

Some human behaviors can be traced all the way back to the discovery of fire. I posit one would be preying upon the weak, the lame and the slow witted. A lion takes the easy way out when looking for a meal by killing an old, feeble zebra. Early humans certainly did the same. And now the gambling industry preys upon the same pool of quarry. It's problematic faulting those practicing behaviors imprinted over eons. Especially when their traps are baited lures the intended victims can voluntarily choose to ignore.

[Uncle Remus]

Yawn. Anyone who has been around Indian gaming, especially in rural areas, knows it is economic genocide. They compete for the same pool of losers.

The smart Tribes have parlayed their early casino windfalls "legitimate" businesses. The others continue with with "per capita" hand-outs and the ever-attendant corruption.

From one perspective, you'd think the BIA is running the whole damn country and a few of the states as well.

Somethin' fur nothin'. American - non-negotiable - economic suicide pact. And it is definitely desperate.

And Jim, I understand your PC to Mac pain. But to quote soemone we all know and love - "It's all good".

[John Robb]

JK, the rot will continue to spread due to the inability of states (of all types) to generate income from other means. This dependency will only increase as revenues from other sources deplete.

However, I'm as optimistic as you are on our ability to rectify the situation. It won't be shut down since there isn't a societal consensus anymore, nor will there be from here on out. Consensus for action, in the rare instances where it does occur, will be local.

[Steady Stater]

JHK does a marvelous job of examining the end-effect of a society that believes in alchemy (i.e., that lead can be turned to gold with a strategically-place bet here, or a cleverly-picked lotto number there). What is missed is the part where he explains how so many of us became disillusioned with the idea that we can actually get something for something. As wages for the lowest 80% of wage earners have gone down (in terms of 1990 dollars) and cost-of-living has gone up, is it any wonder that people have been dropping out of the serf-vassal economic model when they finally realize that it is a zero-sum game and the playing field is nearly vertical; and they know who is on the bottom of that tilt. There are apparently only two ways to level that playing field: (1) all-out peasant revolution, and (2) cheating.

The current regime in the USA has its citizens paralyzed by fear of an amormphous and evanescent enemy (the "terrorists"). With so many of our civil liberties denied in the name of "National Security," who in their right mind would attempt to organize an all-out peasant revolution? Who wants to end up like MLK, Che, Torrijos, Roldos, Arendt, Allende, or be villified like Castro, Chavez, or Morales? Or simply disappear in Guantanamo or Florence Colorado?

There are many ways to "cheat" the fate that an unjust system has imposed: tax-evasion, black-market drug dealing, crime, etc. Gambling just seems like the best alternative for many because it is state-sanctioned and thus not illegal.

Something is dreadfully wrong with our system that values "creative content" writers in Hollywood and Madison Avenue ad executives who use psychological trickery to get people to separate from the money that is better spent on insuring a sustainable future for themselves, their progeny, and there fellow citizens. Simultaneously, the system devalues those who provide the most basic survival services, such as agricultural production, education, and local manufacturing of essential items.

Sorry Jim, but while we start working at herding people back into the barn, we've got to concentrate efforts on stopping those who continually open barn doors across this once-great nation.

[asoka]

It's almost as if they are fiddling as Rome burns.

But instead of shutting it down, gambling will be expanded. The trend is toward privatization.

When our Social Security in privatized and invested in the stock market, we will all be gambling.

Wall Street is the biggest casino in the country.

[asoka]

Criticizing gambling while holding stocks in the stock market (which according to this blog is subject to collapse at any time when TSHTF) is hypocritical.

P.S. For purposes of full self-disclosure, I own no stocks or bonds.

[bud4wiser]

"It's almost as if they are fiddling as Rome burns." says ASOKA

They are fiddling! {government at nearly all levels) Hence the howling and knashing of one's figurative teeth ... Here and in any of many reality-based BLOGs throughout the Internet.......

Ignorance - not hard choices will continue until the pain invites action..... and indeed things will be much tougher by [that] time...

[Thad Beier]

heard the same kind of magical thinking from my Governorator last week. See, California is planning to "lease" its lottery to private interests, and the Governor hopes to garner 37 billion dollars from this, as part of his plan to fund health insurance in the state (because we all know that money belonging to the state is unique in that it's not fungible. grr) To hear the Governor on the radio pinning his hopes on this lottery ticket, betting it all on 22 in one last desperate hope that it will make up for all the previous decisions was unbelievably sad.

A tiny bit of sense was shown by the education lobby, who realized that the money promised to them by the lottery when it was initially approved actually was a very poor source of income, and (I hope you're all sitting down) they found that the state just decreased the funding to education by the amount of income the lottery generated, in direct contravention of the law.

In other comments on the article -- I think you're incredibly optimistic if you think people are ever going to rise up against the state and state-approved gambling syndicate. Gambling is something that a substantial amount of people will do until they are flat busted and then some -- it's a part of the human condition that at one time perhaps had some use but has been exploited perfectly by people with endless time and inventive energy. No, the posters are right that the country will be a single giant casino before that happens.

Finally, I am not completely sure that this gambling mentality is not a result of the increasing separation of the work people do from the providing of sustenance to their families. When you work the fields or soldier for the state or care for the ill, it's pretty clear that where your next bit of income will be coming from (or, in the case of farming, at least you are at the caprice of nature, omething at least real.) But if you're working in some cubicle somewhere as part of some Excel bucket-brigade carrying numbers from one place to the next then you really have already suspended disbelief -- use a phrase from my movie industry. You have to believe in magic, as it's quite unclear otherwise how those numbers representing money actually show up in your bank account every two weeks. You know, until they stop.

[umass82]

Jim in addition now the Democrat candidate in next months election for ky governor is running on a promise to open casinos in ole kentucky.

As we turn from an economy that produces for the world to one that consumes from the world we have become an economy that is based upon taking in each others wash.

Ever more folks are aiming to get their money for nothing and their (Poker) chips for free.

We are in the second year of the Peak oil era. The government is doing nothing except expecting the oil industry to drill us out of this mess that is the real gamble.

Time to start stocking up on rice and canned goods and a good supply of brewers yeast,

[Frankie]

Testify, Brother James!

I absolutely love your blend of righteousness (not a bad word in my book) and humor!

[RJG]

Well-written as usual Jim..

re: cigarettes and lottery tickets..

Yes it's so sad..
it's like they're killing themselves slowly, and just hoping they get LUCKY before the end comes.. etc..
The "convenience" store is a depressing experience..

re: Criticizing gambling while holding stocks in the stock market is hypocritical.

I do agree with this..
The whole game is a something-for-nothing proposition..
Indeed..

[Jaxx]

I disagree with Mr. Kunstler on this issue.

Experience is one of the best educators of reality. Casinos teach people that they CAN NOT receive something for nothing.

While many people may initially believe they can get something for nothing in a casino, it does not take most people very long to realize that either you learn how to correctly play the three games that are winniable if played correctly (blackjack, poker, and sports betting arbitrage, which all require effort) or you best play for entertainment purposes only.

Most people realize this and most people playing in casinos are there for entertainment. (You may think that is a waste of money, I think golfing, video games and boating are a waste of money, but I am not going to call for their prohibition)

Mr Kunslter should focus on credit cards where people really can believe they can get something for nothing. There are far more people that are in financial ruin from gross amounts of unsecured credit card debt.

One big difference between gambling and credit card is you have to have money (somehting) to gamble, thus you have to give something to get something. On the other hand, purchasing items with a credit card does not require anything to get something.

Of course some will argue you can get a cash advance from your credit card to gamble, but that again is a credit card issue.

[Loveandlight]

{Yes, I know you can't do HTML in typekey comments, but I'll just use the tags and let people figure it out.}

[i]Of course, practically every state has some kind if lottery. I have not been in a so-called convenience store (i.e. gas station with snacks) the past year without standing in a long line of grubby, pathetic people spending their scant dollars on lotto tickets (and cigarettes) -- instead of paying the utility bill that would perhaps allow them to bathe and apply for a job.[/i]

I hear ya. I work in a grocery store in a white working-class neighborhood, and I see the same thing. Sometimes people blow huge chunks (huhuhuhuh, I said, "Blow chunks!") of their paychecks on those damn lottery tickets.

[i]I don't entertain fantasies that gambling can be eliminated from any society, but inviting it to operate in the mainstream under state sponsorship is just tragically stupid.[/i]

The thing is, these casinos do provide jobs that otherwise might not be there, and in this age of energy-budget shrinkage, the things that provide jobs will probably be the things that result from and exacerbate the collapse of the old way of doing things.

Considering how much you've been writing lately about the excesses of high finance, I'm surprised you didn't draw any connection between the casinos and the hedge-fund managers.

[scott]

Bet on a sure thing:
http://www.ajpm.com/htbin/gold.cgi

I believe central bankers in Asia are buying gold in an effort to loosen the bonds of dollar hegemony and the something for nothing subsidies to the American consumer.

The path of least resistance for globalization to continue the growth model in the face of declining energy is for there to be declining consumption in America to offset relentless depletion.

The steady dollar decline and ascention of gold and oil are evidence of this trend. We can also point to American corporations quickly reorganizing to capitalize on this trend.

Globalization thus far has been beneficial for Americans in that it has allowed them(us) to consume more than it produces. Moving forward we will see that something for nothing is really somehing for someting and that something is the future which is upon us.

[msjanket]

Living in Connecticut, I can only chuckle at the desperate governor of Massachusetts seeking the way to allow 3 casinos to be built and operated. "They'll only go to Vegas or Atlantic City, so why not Massachusetts"? is the battle cry. No, they won't all go to Vegas or Atlantic City.
It does not bother Gov. Deval Patrick one iota to postulate and see lots of losers ditch their money in his casinos. It's state sponsored, even sanctioned and favored. Hey, it's all money and we need the money so why not go along?
The idea of having states OK gambling to fatten their coffers is patently absurd and obscene. It's a zero sum game at best, and it's been said that a casino costs states more than they return to the state in peace offerings.
If they say it's not about the money, it's about the money.
Hey, let's all go gaming this evening...

[msjanket]

Living in Connecticut, I can only chuckle at the desperate governor of Massachusetts seeking the way to allow 3 casinos to be built and operated. "They'll only go to Vegas or Atlantic City, so why not Massachusetts"? is the battle cry. No, they won't all go to Vegas or Atlantic City.
It does not bother Gov. Deval Patrick one iota to postulate and see lots of losers ditch their money in his casinos. It's state sponsored, even sanctioned and favored. Hey, it's all money and we need the money so why not go along?
The idea of having states OK gambling to fatten their coffers is patently absurd and obscene. It's a zero sum game at best, and it's been said that a casino costs states more than they return to the state in peace offerings.
If they say it's not about the money, it's about the money.
Hey, let's all go gaming this evening...

[wombatmissile]

Looks like bud4wiser, just like baileyalexander, claims he/she is the mack daddy of them all! Everyone and their dog is Napolean. These people write da killah comments. That influence the fate of nations (or blog posts, if you believe what they say...) People rest on their every word. Brandon, bud4wiser and baileyalexander, watch out for these posters--they will slay you with their impenetrable criticism. No really, watch out for these people's comments--they will blow your mind. I'm just warning the newbies.

John Robb is in da houz too! w00t w00t.

A dream, the comment section is destroyed and replaced with something far far better... Sometimes I wish everyone was gone except JR and Nurse Nudge--and when you clicked "comments" one could just watch them over a web cam both playing strip blackjack in front of a vat, with a red curtain background setting the scene. First one completely naked must jump into the jello vat and continue playing from there until the coo-coo-clock strikes 12 at which point blackjack victor must now join his or her soul mate in the jello vat and prepare for wrestling action, after downing a handle of Johnny Walker Blue.

The only difference between Wall St. and blue-collar bingoesque crap is that with one you can make a shit load of money, the other the house takes your blue-collar future and goes and invests it in white-collar Vegas (yeah, yeah, Wall St., got it yet? Okay, we understand) to go make, yes, a shitload of money... Or lose it, 'ya know, depending on your monkey, I mean money skillz.

bud4wiser already took the moral high ground, so I'm fucking stuck down here twiddling my thumbs. Let's see, not allowed to invest in stock market if... This is more complicate than Kant, and less intelligible too. Don't worry, there is some good shit coming up, I can sense it... Hell, if you think the stock market is going to crash, then it isn't "hypocrisy" if one isn't shorting the market. Get your shit straight you rocket scientists! You guys, with the semiotics and ethical posing, I try my best. I suspect buying bling bling and waiting for no. 2 pencils to replace the dollar is the prudent move.

As for blowing chunks?

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/67947

I think this is god speaking metaphorically about this comment section. What would Steven Pinker do? I think Miss Calesco is MOU.

[scott]

"I suspect buying bling bling and waiting for no. 2 pencils to replace the dollar is the prudent move."-wombat

You can always go where the "smart money" is headed, corporations that are able to profit outside of the dollar.

The fact that America is rich in resources creates the false assumption that these resources will be allocated to Americans first then whatever(if anything) is left can be exported. Most of America's resources(a list of commodities with energy at the top followed by agriculture, etc.) are either owned by globalized corporations or the government which in turn is owned by globalized corporations.

These globalized entities will act in their own best interest. If what we believe about plateauing resources is correct then how these entities respond will be predictable. I see no deviation from the script.

[Dave]

i think that people are exactly meant to get something for nothing, or even better. everytime i catch a fish, i have fun and get something to eat. see, better than something for nothing.

it's the assholes who want to "build" shit, do things, make improvements, in other words, fuck everything up, that need to be stopped. and oh yes, they will be( to assume my own moralizeing stance).

fuck it, who cares if thier stupid grandkids get to go to a crappy colledge to to get trained as the shepards for the carnivorous sheep. let the geezers have thier fun, then kick them into a ditch after they blow all thier money. maybe they think thier grandkids are going to be able to keep provideing SS.

eh, time to go cash in my bonus wampum card at the mohegan sun casino, then go fishing.

[Dave]

acctually, it's too late to try to stop anything. we can't even all go fishing, cause most decent fishin' holes are already fucked up.

oh well.