Can Vegas diversify and rebound? (Las Vegas, Reno: crime, new home, buying)

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As long as middle class America remains under siege a recovery of any magnitude is not likely in the forseeable future.

Corporate profits are almost at pre-recession levels, why? Because they're reducing overhead by cutting payrolls. Then they ship the job overseas or replace it with computer software. Those lost jobs are not coming back...

As a nation we need 350,000 jobs a month for the next 3-4 years to get us back to a reasonable (6%) unemployment rate.

We presently have some of the worst income inequality in the world (we fall between Uganda and the Ivory Coast!). Without a middle class who is going to buy the consumer goods???

Who has a plan to fix the economy? For years Ron Paul has been trying to convince people that we need to abolish the Federal Reserve, maybe people will begin to listen as the system starts to fail, that is, if it's not already too late...

This is what is hard for a lot of people to understand. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of different type of jobs that are gone forever, never coming back, gone overseas, dissappeared, extinct...etc. If the job is still around, companies are learning that more work can be done with less people. Even the military(Air Force) is being affected by this change. We get notifications all the time about budget problems and downsizing. "Get used to doing more with less" is what we keep hearing. Im doing a job now that I used to share with about 20-30 other technicians. Now there are about 2-3 people that share my position.

More with less.

I still disagree.....if you go to 50 differant Casinos you see 50 totally differant businesses that simply ise the same pieces....like other busiesses use desks...that doesnt make them the same business.

And yet the parking lot at the 24-hr Wal-Mart is packed 24 hrs/day.

True. But there are new types of jobs as well. For example, it is a very good time to be a tech nerd. I'm retired but get called a dozen times/week asking me for introductions to skilled people or if I want to come back to work or do a part-time gig.

See http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_18357227

I lived in an area that had Indian casinos. I think if the Paiutes open one it will be a good thing. They will hire people. I was always surprised how few Indians actually worked st the casinos even though they were in areas that didn't have a lot of other jobs available.

The Indian casinos in Minnesota had awful payouts so if the Paiutes do the same, it won't be any real competition.

BNL from the movie, WALL-E. The Unabomber was right all along...technology will be the death of society.

A microcosm of Las Vegas' economy can be seen at any craps table...with the ebb and flow of the hot table/cold table life cycle. In the 1990's- 2006 every point was being made and chips were flying all over the proverbial Las Vegas table. Now, that table has run cold. Stick around long enough...it will get hot again. But given this microcosm, what is normally measured in hours, may now be measure in decades.

The whole thing is borderline silly.

There are three large cities out in the southwest desert...roughly 250 miles apart.

Riverside/San Bernadino, Phoenix and Las Vegas. All have been hurt by the financial collapse.

Las Vegas of course has its undiversified economy. So the two diversified neighbors must have done much better right?

Well no. At the moment the unemployment rate in Riverside/San Bernadino is worse. And on measures of GDP lost and such they are all virtually the same.

So you think it might have been fast growing cities in the Sun Belt that got nailed? That actually Las Vegas was nailed harder only to the degree it was growing faster?

I would also note in some of the recovery numbers LV is doing quite well compared to the neighbors...maybe their diversification is screwing them up?