vegas vapor lock or you had it coming

The word out of Vegas is 5% . As in revenues are down 5% . this is causing quite a panic in the golden city. It seems that the moguls who run the dreamland in the desert are deeply concerned that the endless supply of suckers has dried up. mainly because those suckers were gambling with hallucinated wealth, and reality has come to call.

I find it most amusing that the same people who have been tricking people out of their money for decades. Are now being tricked by the Big Banks who bank rolled all the new hotels that only got bigger and more lavish. Now that the big bank boys have got their fees and commissions. the vegas casinos are holding the bag for hotels that look like holy monuments, that will never reach capacity.

The malls. All over America malls are reporting that stores are closing and pulling out. The stores in question are the ones that sold sunglass and purses . That had mark-ups so high you would have thought the mafia owned them. Oh by the way the cost of floor space at the malls is so high. that small stores like electronics boutique have moved into strip malls and Target builds out in the parking lot because it is cheaper.

Build it and they will come. That has been the creedo for decades, but that is proving now to be unsustainable. Reality is hitting the corporate world harder than it is the consumer. The business model since the 1970s has been sell volume, cost savings thru the economies of scale . it is a good theory but in practice it has a limit.

Which brings us to the big problem. Limits. we have reached the limit of how much profit can be made . Small business people, understand that sales go in cycles , you have good months and poor months . The big corporate retailers of anything from tacos to super wal-marts truly believe profit can go up each quarter, and costs can be cut. It looks like the over paid , pampered executives are in for humbling experinces as they find they are going to be the cost that is cut next. Not to worry they will wipe away their tears with silk handkerchiefs, so it will feel better.

Hang-on to your seats . When gas is four dollars a gallon it is going to change everything . When it hits five dollars a gallon we will be in a whole new reality . Perhaps it will be a reality . That is REAL and not an illusion that the advertisers made-up to sell more beer.