Press Release Newswire is reporting The Third Annual Las Vegas Symposium on Constructing, Financing, Developing and Operating Condo-Hotels and Branded residences is being held December 3-4, 2007, at The MGM GRAND Hotel and Casino.

Organized by The Information Management Network (IMN) to better equip finance and commerce investors---over 600 builders, owners, developers, analysts and financial lenders both nationwide and internationally will exchange knowledge on today's condo-hotel market.

Las Vegas real estate expert, Paul Murad, will lead a Round table Session answering this and other relevant questions. Plus, Paul will chair the panel on the Las Vegas Market, which will include speakers Mark Birtha, Vice President of Marriot International Lodging Development, and Anthony Pearl, Vice Presient and Associate General Counsel of Harrah's Entertainment, among others. The panel will address the changing market, how to launch a successful condo-hotel project, the benefits of buying a condo-hotel unit, demographics and projected Las Vegas market trends.

Strangely, I have a thought or two on the downturn of condominium sales which aren't related to the obvious credit crunch that seemed to take the "experts" by surprise. Maybe some people--like me--refuse to buy an albatross--I mean condo--where they are stuck living next door to other people without adequate insulation to block obnoxious smells, loud music, while enjoying poor construction with the added pleasure of being forever beholden to an association run by people lower on the evolutionary scale than school board members.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A citywide survey was conducted in Oct. of 2006 at a cost $16,000 and while the results were released internally they were never made public until posted on LasVegasNow.

Among some of the anonymous comments from Las Vegas Fire & Rescue employees are:

"The promotional process is definitely biased."

"Management bases decisions upon 'who is a friend."

"Equal opportunity applies only if you are black, Mormon or female."

Zounds to me as if the fire department is run just like every other business or government office in the valley. There has never been a climate of fair play in southern Nevada from the days of mob run casinos and corrupt politicians to today's corporate run casinos and corrupt politicians. Period!

And speaking of corruption...

LasVegasNow is also reporting new developments in the public corruption investigation of former University Medical Center chief Lacy Thomas.

Bank records from out-of-state may be the final piece of evidence needed in the case.

At the center of the probe are the relationships between Thomas and his cronies from his tenure at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

High point in the global warming terror campaign is Al Gore receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his loosely based on fact film, An Inconvenient Truth.

The low point would be for those alarmists who keep hoping for major catastrophes with high loss of life as the 2007 hurricane season ended quietly on Friday without a tropical storm, disturbance, or hurricane in sight.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums dropped by 1.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.97 million units.

The median price of a home sold last month declined to $207,800, a drop of 5.1 percent from a year ago, the biggest year-over-year price decline on record.

Bear Stearns Cos., the nation's fifth-largest investment bank and one of the hardest hit by bad loans, announced it will cut 4 percent of its staff in further fallout from the summer's mortgage debacle.

Locally, Nevada continues to lead the the nation in home foreclosure rate

Amid all this is it surprising that the New York-based Conference Board said this week that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 87.3, marking a four-month slide and continuing down almost 8 points from the revised 95.2 in October?

And the job picture in Clark County is...
Hot Jobs from LasVegasNow:
Front Desk Clerk (Palms Place)
Bell Person (Palms Place)
Beverage Manager (Palms Place)
Bartender (Palms Place)
Food Server (Palms Place)
Retail Manager (Palms Place)
Retail Clerk (Palms Place)
Housekeeping Manager (Palms Place)
Condo Housekeeper (Palms Place)

If these are the top jobs in Las Vegas and Clark County then there is no need for colleges in Nevada and we can eliminate the Nevada System of Higher education, formerly the University and Community College System of Nevada before the name change in 2004,--hmmm...when something is failing, like CCSN (Community College of Southern Nevada), a name change seems to be the answer--completely as part of Governor Gibbons's budget cuts.

Plus, if these are the top picks, what is left at the bottom? ...cigarette butt picker-upper and crazed, obsessive, alien news reporter--oh wait, one has already been filled.
Are UFOs Coming to Nevada? by George Knapp
Cattle Mutilations by George Knapp

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Research 2000 poll, conducted for the Reno Gazette-Journal, found 68 percent of voters were in favor of the initiative filed by the Nevada State Education Association, which would raise the gaming tax from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent at casinos with a total revenue of more than $1 million a month.
"That's pretty consistent with our findings as well," said Lynn Warne, president of the 28,000-member NSEA. "The (Las Vegas Review-Journal) did a poll that came in with over three-fourths in favor."

The NSEA has until May 20 to submit to the secretary of state the nearly 60,000 signatures required to put it on the November 2008 ballot. If approved by voters, the ballot question would require a second vote in favor in 2010 before it could go into effect.

"This is really bad news for gaming," said Erik Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. "They've been running their feel-good ads about 'look how much we contribute,' and nobody's buying it."

Other suspects using feel good ads to hide their questionable positions:
British Petroleum
Exxon-Mobile
Wal-Mart
Archer Daniels Midland
banks
pharmaceutical companies
insurance companies
hospitals
Mormons

Those running hate ads to make you feel bad or angry:
politicians and political action groups

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After all the hype, all Harry Reid's strutting, and even a Democratic debate at UNLV, only 33 percent of Nevada's voters said they would definitely or probably attend their party's Jan. 19 presidential caucuses, according to a statewide poll conducted for the Reno Gazette-Journal and published Sunday.

Add in the long campaign season, lackluster candidates, caucus complexities, and just fighting traffic and seasonal affective disorder--it's dark too early--and the actual turnout should be quite a bit lower, about the 20 percent who come out to give Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman his "mandate."

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Research 2000 Nevada Poll was conducted from November 16 through November
19, 2007 and shows Governor Gibbons's numbers have risen from 30 percent in April 2007 to 40 percent while Senator Reid's went from 48 percent in May 2006 to 39 percent

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons is now telling many state agencies to plan for budget cuts of up to 8 percent. This is up from Gibbon's initial request for agencies to make 5 percent cuts. These cuts could reduce spending by as much as $282 million.

Budget Director Andrew Clinger sent a memo saying the increase in reduction plans is needed because of revenue shortfalls.

Any chance the shortfall is about the same amount the "green tax" mistake is costing the state of Nevada? At least Little California--oops, Nevada--isn't facing the ten percent that California Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has asked for in his state.

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Texas-based developer Christopher Milam's plan to build the tallest building west of the Mississippi River on the old Wet 'n Wild site on the Strip took a big hit Monday after federal officials lopped nearly 500 feet off the project's proposed height.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Crown Las Vegas's planned hotel tower could be 1,064 feet high, the agency said in a letter to the developer.

Milam had originally hoped to build a 1,888-foot-high tower but lowered his sights to 1,550 feet in a letter to the FAA dated Sept. 14.

The Stratosphere, less than a mile north of the Wet 'n Wild site and the tallest structure in the West, is 1,149 feet tall.

But just like for Regent Sisolak, perhaps the Nevada Supreme Court could find a taking by authorities and award millions of dollars to Milan.

For more go to Rolling Good Times.

Posted by Zounds Off at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nevada's largest teachers' union has launched its initiative targeting the state's gaming industry in an effort to get more funding for public schools.

The Nevada State Education Association submitted its petition to the secretary of state Monday. The proposal would raise the gaming tax on Nevada's largest casinos to 9.75 percent, from 6.75 percent. The union estimates that an additional $250 million per year, although others contend $400 million is more accurate, could be used for public schools and teacher raises.

The higher tax would apply only to casinos that make more than $1 million a month in gaming revenue.
...
The union's next step is to gather 58,628 signatures by May. 20.

How much would you like to bet that the initiative will be rejected just hours before the deadline to place on a ballot leaving no time for a re-write?

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think this article in the Las Vegas Sun sums up some of the problems:

Churchill County High School Principal John Riley says he's retiring partly because the school was labeled as being "in need of improvement" for three straight years.

And now to the last line of the article:

Last week, the school board added 18 months to Riley's tenure in the district so he would be fully vested in retirement benefits because he is not yet 65.

Obviously, this school board has taken a page from our corpoate practice; when someone can't do the job, you reward them with a nice package or retirement. That money has to come from somewhere and he certainly didn't earn it. Maybe it was part of an incentive to get him to leave early, thereby releasing the school from its contract with him. All I know is that the more I consider the role of school boards, the more amazed I am at their ability to have little clue over the consequences of their decisions. Bottom line--school boards seem to be made up of some of the least competent and poorly educated people known to be making educational decisions.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since 2000, according to published reports noted by Newsweek, the former veep has transformed himself from a public servant with around $1 million in the bank to a sparkling private consultant with a net worth estimated to be north of $100 million. He's a senior adviser to Google, a board member at Apple and now a newly minted general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm that made billions investing early in Netscape, Amazon and Google.
...
Gore's relationship with KP is perhaps the strongest signal yet that his days in politics are over. The firm is notoriously secretive about its finances, and it's unlikely that KP would strike a deal with Gore if the association could subject the firm to public scrutiny.

And you thought Al was just a concerned humanitarian. Being green today is about as tough as John Edwards suing the tobacco industry. Some things the public is ready for and politicians and attorneys are always ready to capitalize on them.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the wake of the subprime loan debacle, with the value of the U.S. dollar plummeting as against the euro, OPEC members are talking about converting their cash reserves to the euro and away from the U.S. dollar.

Comments about the U.S. currency came during a weekend summit where the heads of state of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sought to find ways to mitigate the adverse effects of a weak dollar on revenues.

Oil is priced in U.S. dollars and the currency's depreciation has contributed to rising crude prices and eroded the value of national dollar reserves. Cartel officials have resisted pressure to increase oil production to ease prices.

The fallout from the "financial wizardry" of our lending institutions is now seen throughout the economy with layoffs in the construction industry, loss of revenue from lack of sales of construction materials, a devalued dollar, soaring inflation--if you put the "volitiles" like energy and food back into the equation, and a perfect opportunity for the rest of the world to pile on and crash our economy. OPEC can convert dollars to euros; the Chinese can also with the huge trade imbalance we have with them, further devalueing the dollar as countries compete to unload dollars for a finite number of euros--again basic economics.

My last comment is for the ordinary citizen: you voted the bozos into office--both Republican and Democrats--you spent more time thinking about which SUV to buy than which candidate to vote for, and apparently are more interested in O.J. Simpson and Brittney Spears meltdowns than how your Congress is working. Enjoy the recession...you've earned it!

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes I know...Las Vegas hosted a Democratic debate hoping to bring some attention to the Nevada caucus which is suffering from a complete lack of interest.

Hillary used it to expand the vast right wing conspiracy to now include Democrats who question her moveable stance on the issues...John Edwards is promising that third place is where he strategically wants to be for his big finish...and UNLV student Maria Parra Sandoval ended the evening with the question: "Do you prefer diamonds or pearls?"

It's time to raise the voting age to 30 and designate UNLV as simply a large, four year day care center.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Review Journal MGM Mirage Chairman and CEO Terry Lanni used the Nevada Development Authority's annual luncheon Thursday to say the free meal is over.

Lanni said Nevada's economy is in disarray because the tax structure, which relies heavily on gaming and sales taxes, is broken.

Lanni used his speech to reject a proposal by the state's teachers union that would increase Nevada's gaming tax by 45 percent. MGM Mirage, which operates 10 Strip resorts and is building the $7.8 billion CityCenter development, would be heavily affected by the increase.

Development authority President and CEO Summer Hollingsworth said after the speech the organization welcomed being part of the discussion. While he did not come out and support a broad-based business tax, Hollingsworth said that option might be one of several proposed solutions to solve the state's budgetary problems.

Lanni supports a one industry state where all other businesses service the casino industry and now wants them to carry the tax load. He points out that Nevada could become another Illinois, a tax heavy state, but fails to mention that for Nevadans, their tax free day comes after Illinois. What he meant to say is that Illinois taxes gaming at a 90 percent rate, yet surprisingly, the gaming industry stays there. I guess he feels that teachers are guilty of piling on the gaming industry by wanting to raise the Nevada tax to about a 9 percent rate. If I didn't know better, I would think that Lanni is afraid of the teachers, but since Nevada legislators and judges are "owned" by, I mean friendly toward, casino interests, the ballot issue is already dead. If so, I hope that Nevadans get angry enough to start throwing out all incumbent politicians in the state who have allowed casinos to gorge on the buffet while education, roads, wages and more have suffered.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Las Vegas has been named the "debauchery capital" of the world, according to the Euromonitor report.

According to the report, the youth is flocking to the gambling mecca for wild parties and strip tours.

The report has also revealed that hotels of the city are catering for the trend with raunchy parties costing up to 2,500 pounds a day.

According to the report, other wild spots include The Caribbean, Cape Town, Dubai, Buenos Aires and Macau in China.

And to further spotlight the debauchery image of Las Vegas, Steve Miller reports our sterling city councilpersons are valiantly paving the way for more through secret manueverings benefitting convicted felon Rick Rizzolo and the now closed Crazy Horse Two:

"Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian is the wife of legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian. The churchgoing grandmother does not fit the description of a mob moll, but her action at last Wednesday's Las Vegas City Council meeting made some observers think otherwise when she quietly sponsored a bill to extend the time from six months to one year that the Crazy Horse Too could remain closed and still retain its "Adult Use" zoning.
...
It's now more obvious than ever that Rizzolo and his cronies have at least two, possibly three, lackeys on the City Council ready to grant anyone -- no matter their criminal background -- a new liquor license to reopen the mobbed-up strip club.
...
Abstaining on Wednesday's vote to approve Tarkanian's ordinance was Rizzolo's loyal friend; former defense attorney; and former corporate resident agent Mayor Oscar Goodman. The rest of the council, including Councilman Steve Wolfson, lined up like sheep to help Rizzolo sell his club for top dollar.

Wolfson's wife, District Court Judge Jackie Glass, recently denied attorneys for beating victim Kirk Henry the ability to examine Rick Rizzolo's personal assets. The judge's husband the councilman soon thereafter voted to grant a liquor license to a straw man who was not qualified to operate the Crazy Horse too in Rizzolo's absence."

... and the beat goes on....

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

photos by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

Las Vegas Sands Corp. has announced that The Palazzo Las Vegas will soft-open on December 20 followed by a series of spectacular grand opening celebratory events from January 17 to 19, 2008.

According to President of The Palazzo Las Vegas Rob Goldstein, the property will become a new resort-hotel-casino of unparalleled luxury, sophistication, and contemporary chic on the Las Vegas Strip.

That's code for Z. O. can't afford it.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U.S. safety officials recalled about 4.2 million Aqua Dots toys this week for possibly containing a "date rape" drug. Australia too announced a ban on the popular toy, sold there in a version called "Bindeez," and Spain also announced a recall.

All the consumer has to do is look at the label. If it says "Made in China," maybe it shouldn't be bought. I stopped shopping in Wal-Marts years ago because of their move to seemingly "Chinese only" products and their exploitive business practices. As poor as I am I can afford to pay $3.99 at another store instead of $3.97 at Wal-Mart. I also take a moment to see where products are made, but in our disposable society, I suppose that doesn't matter anymore. Buy it cheap, watch it break, throw it away, buy another....Is there something wrong with this picture? Oh well, as perhaps one of the most poorly educated countries on the planet, we are ripe for exploitation by a world that does not have our best interests in mind and our citizens have little on their minds except the next American Idol, who is bumped from Dancing With the Stars, or if the camera catches a shot of The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight star, O.J. Simpson..

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Harrah's Entertainment has announced third quarter income from operations was $577.2 million, compared with $441.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income was $244.4 million, up 37.9 percent from $177.2 million in the 2006 third quarter.

Harrah's has also announced a $1 billion expansion and renovation of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas that will include construction of a 665-room hotel tower and a 263,000-square-foot meeting and convention center, to be completed in 2009.

Plus they and AEG, developer of entertainment venues such as Staples Center in Los Angeles, unveiled plans for a privately financed, 20,000-seat, state-of-the-art sports and entertainment arena.

In comparison, Las Vegas Sands Corp. had an operating loss of $48.5 million and a net loss of 14 cents a share in the third quarter that ended Sept. 30. The losses are attributed to preopening expenses related to the $2.4 billion resort, along with development costs at other properties.

At the same time MGM Mirage announced Wednesday it would build a $3 billion non-gaming hotel and entertainment complex on Abu Dhabi Island in the Persian Gulf in conjunction with the Mubadala Development Co., the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, expected to open in 2012.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Las Vegas Sun:

Several chief executives of the state's largest casino companies called on Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons to drop his no-new-taxes pledge and balance the budget as they faced a ballot initiative that would raise the taxes on gambling revenues.

MGM Mirage Inc. chief executive Terry Lanni said casino companies have been targeted unjustly. The company operates 10 resorts on the Strip and is building the massive $7.8 billion CityCenter development.

"Any economist will tell you that it's bad government to rely on one industry," Lanni said. "My view is simple; all businesses that we have here -- bankers, retailers, auto dealers -- have to participate. Whether we're ranked 47th in education, 48th or 49th, whatever the number is, that's not a good rate and something needs to be done about it."

The Nevada State Education Association has put forth a ballot initiative that would add another 3 percentage points to the tax on gambling revenues collected by Nevada's biggest casinos, those that gross more than $1 million a month.

It would raise the taxes for such companies to 9.75 percent, and generate more than $200 million a year to fund the state's schools.

The 6.75 percent rate is the lowest rate in the world and a rise of 3 percent would still be the lowest tax rate in the world. Higher rates haven't deterred these casino corporations from flocking to Macau where the tax rate on gaming is 50 percent. Rather, casinos want others to take a hit, and while casinos blame a reliance on a one industry economy for them being a target of taxes, they are the ones who have bought the goverenors and legislators who have promoted their one industry economy. As long as they make obscene profit on "taking money for nothing" in a service industry, casinos actually have no interest in the fact that Nevada has managed to fall behind perennial education "powerhouses" such as Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Citigroup, which announced Prince's resignation on Sunday, had said it may write off $11 billion of subprime mortgage losses, on top of a $6.5 billion write-down already reported last month.

Robert Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs partner and U.S. Treasury secretary who chaired Citigroup's executive committee, was named chairman, after Chairman and Chief Executive Charles "Chuck" Prince quit.

The L.A. Times reports that the write-off underscores the fact that, almost a year into the sub-prime crisis, the brightest minds on Wall Street still are unable to get a handle on their companies' financial exposure.

Earlier, Merrill Lynch & Co ousted Chief Executive Stanley O'Neal following a $8.4 billion write-down that was more than 50 percent higher than the investment bank had forecast.

So the "brightest" minds are unable to get a handle on this? This just proves what I saw some years ago on college campuses; the two easiest disciplines for receiving a degree were in education and business. I remember dozens of business majors as frat boys who measured success by the number of kegs consumed and the ensuing vomiting. So, perhaps these are the "brightest" minds now in charge. No wonder we have problems; they missed the classes on responsible lending. Of course, I am just whining because I didn't take those easy courses and go into a business where I could run a company into billion dollar losses and "retire" with hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. Luckily, I am not one of the Nevadans facing foreclosure in the foreclosure capital of the U.S. who "benefitted" from those "brightest" minds.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sun has reported that Regents are joining Chancellor Jim Rogers in rejecting budget cuts.

"A week after Gov. Jim Gibbons got a letter from higher education Chancellor Jim Rogers rejecting Gibbons' request to plan for 5 percent budget cuts, some regents got into the act.

Regents Bret Whipple and Stavros Anthony sent a message Oct. 29 telling Gibbons they "were unaware of -- and disappointed by -- the tone and content" of Rogers' letter.

...

Anthony, who's planning to run for Las Vegas City Council, said he didn't have enough information to give an opinion on Gibbons' suggestion. He said the point of his and Whipple's letter "wasn't to slam anybody," but to ensure state and higher education leaders continued communicating.

Regent Steve Sisolak said although Anthony and Whipple are entitled to an opinion, 'I disagree with them very strongly. I think the chancellor presented a well-thought-out, pointed, direct letter to the governor.''

As I pointed out in an earlier posting, complete with excerpts, Rogers' letter was a rambling, often confused, and grammatically deficient letter. One would have hoped that someone in Rogers' position would have reviewed his letter before sending it to the Governor, but apparently he is so convinced of his intellect that he doesn't need to proofread. Therefore, I also have to wonder if Sisolek actually read the letter before praising it. It would also be nice if newspaper headlines actually reflected the content of the stories within, since the headline from the Sun suggests the Regents support Rogers, but the article has two Regents separating themselves from Rogers' letter. But of course, I am simply asking too much of publicly educated Regents, educators, politicians, reporters, and other Nevada citizens to write what they mean, when they barely teach writing and critical thinking in Nevada schools.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)