Speech before the NH Gambling Committee

State sponsored gambling is Reverse Robin Hood, steal from the poor, and give to the rich.
Gamblers are our poorer, disadvantaged and less educated citizens. We call them losers, and upon entering a casino, they lose again. Dunno about you, but I am squeamish about fleecing losers.
The losers will be New Hampshire citizens. People won’t fly in from the west coast, or even drive up from Boston to play slots at Indian Head. Gambling takes money from the poor of New Hampshire. Gambling doesn’t create wealth, it merely redistributes it.
The casino management will be experienced out of state people, from Vegas and Atlantic City, mostly with Mob connections. The Mob started Vegas and still controls it, politely of course. Same goes for Atlantic City. You can’t find an experienced casino manager who isn’t tied to the Mob.
Jobs promised by the gambling “industry” are bottom level, waiting tables, making beds, sweeping floors, no health benefits, no career path. The only winners are casino operators. They get their cut before any taxes are paid. They also do the books. Want to bet they show humongous expenses, no profit and hence owe no taxes?
SB 490 sets up a gambling commission with juicy jobs. The commissioners get $50 million license fees with no obligation to put the money into the state treasury. They get the power to revoke casino licenses. The casinos will go out of their way to treat the commissioners right. Free meals, free drinks, free this and that, walking around money, a split on the take. What other under the table kickbacks can they invent?
The commissioners can do criminal record checks on casino employees but don’t have to divulge the results to anyone without a court order. Prevents the citizens from getting upset about the Mob connections of people in the gambling business.

Tourists contribute a lot to the New Hampshire economy. We get incredible numbers of tourists from out of state and over seas. They come to experience the New Hampshire advantage, natural beauty, mountains, woods, lakes, rivers. They climb, hike, camp, ride the tramway, hunt, fish, ski, leaf watch. Many of them love New Hampshire so much they build taxable vacation homes and ski chalets. Casinos are tacky, casino people are tacky, and casino customers (gamblers) are unattractive. Garish neon signs on the Indian Head on the way into Franconia Notch are a turn off. Let’s not drive off the paying tourists by turning upstate New Hampshire into Las Vegas with pine trees.

Bank regulation works in Canada

Canada avoided the 2006 housing bubble and avoided the 2008 housing crash. Could this be due to more conservative banking policies? Good article here.

Canadian hockey wins American Beer

First, congratulations to Team USA. They played a good game, made it to the finals and almost won. Better luck next time.
I heard on the radio that Obama had wagered a case of beer with the Canadians on the match. Bad choice. Canadians consider American beer to be weak and flavorless. They have a point there, personally I buy Canadian beer cause it tastes better. If Obama sends a case of Bud Light to Ottawa, the Canadians will get a good laugh out of it.
It would have been better to bet a case of whiskey, something both countries do well. A case of Jack Daniels is a fair wager against a case of Canadian Club.

Secondhand, the price is right

What can you buy second hand? Ans: Lots of stuff. Nice cars. Used Detroit up scale cars (Caddy, Buick, Lincoln, Ford) can be had for very good prices, far less than the cheapest new econobox. They are well built, parts are widely available, and gas mileage is very good. I'm getting 27 mpg highway out of a Caddy Deville. Used Japanese and German cars are not as good a deal as Detroit iron. The cars are fine but the price is higher.
Tools, hand and power. Old stationary power tools, the cast iron kind, are better than brand new Chiwanese sheet metal jobs. I've picked up hand saws, socket sets, chain saws, weed wackers, files, a Yankee screwdriver, a Fluke digital multimeter, and turning chisels. Exception, used battery powered tools most often have dead batteries and battery replacement is nearly as costly as buying a whole new tool.
Housewares, drinking glasses, decorative copper bowls, brass candle sticks, table lamps, electric pencil sharpeners, bowls and plates and mugs. All look as good as new after washing and polishing.
Clothes. A little looking on the racks at thrift stores turn up plenty of LL Bean, Arrow, Woolrich, and other top name shirts. Plus outerwear, children's clothing, chinos, and blue jeans.
Electronics, stereo receivers, speakers, VCR's, tape decks, computers.
Second hand stuff is a quarter of new pricing. If you are on a budget, and who isn't, you can stretch the dollars a long way. Plus, the stuff looks good and no one will know.

Greece, down the slippery slope

In case you haven't noticed, Greece is slowly going bankrupt. Greek government expenditures far exceed tax revenues. Greek politics will not allow spending cuts or tax hikes. The country is staying afloat by borrowing money.
Couple of questions. First off, who in their right mind would loan money to Greece, no matter how high the interest rate? The chances of Greek default, followed by social and political chaos are serious. The chances of getting your loan paid back are poor.
Well, the lenders are taking out bond insurance, "credit default swaps" is the Wall St code word. The insurers, in return for a juicy fee, guarantee to repay the Greek loans if the Greeks default. Question. Can the insurers pay off when the Greeks default? If not, are they expecting a bailout from Uncle Sam? Are the insurers of sound mind? The chances of default are high, the Wall St Journal financial page has talked of little else for weeks. The other Europeans have made it clear that they won't bail out Greece.
The Obama administration ought to make it perfectly clear to Wall St that any firm issuing, buying, or holding Greek "credit default swaps" will NOT get a bailout. It will be tough on Greece, but it is pretty clear that the Greeks won't clean up their act until they run out of money. It's a poor use of valuable capital to prop up a government that is living far beyond its means.

And the third winter storm warning fizzles

They forecast 8 to 12 inches for the White Mountains yesterday. We got zip for snow and a lot of rain. Then the wind picked up and howled around the house. The lights went out at 10PM and didn't come back on til 5 AM. House stayed warm enough with the furnace out. It didn't get cold enough to make me get up and start the fire.

The Health Care Circus

Fox, to its credit, carried most of Obama's circus live. Surprisingly, Cspan did not, or at least not on the two Cspan channels I can get. The pols put on a pretty good show. This was a public relations effort, both sides were talking to the TV audience, not to each other. No agreements on anything were reached, at least not in front of the TV cameras.
The PR effort was a Mexican standoff. The Republicans stuck with their position of malpractice reform, interstate sale of insurance, importation of drugs from Canada. The Democrats told endless tales of woe, and called for passage of Obamacare to relieve the woes, the spending and to save the Union.
Obama came out against interstate sale of insurance, saying that people would flock to cheaper insurance from states with fewer mandated coverages, and that was bad, we have to force everyone to buy expensive cover everything policies. He also implied that the democrats will try to jam Obamacare thru Congress using reconciliation.
Obama also came out against catastrophic only coverage, saying that full coverage was only a few pennies more that catastrophe only coverage. That's not true. I switched from a $12K full coverage policy to a $3K catastrophe only policy. The $9K in savings more than covered my office visits. Plus, since I was paying for it out of pocket, I bothered to get my prescription switched to low cost generic drugs.