Pappy wrong again!

With Las Vegas in the grips of its worst economy since the early 1980s, the snowstorm that dumped four inches on top of the desert metropolis in mid-December felt like piling on. The city's cocksure swagger is gone.

Gaming revenue in Clark County, which includes downtown Las Vegas and the Strip, is down 8.5% for the year, to $8.3 billion. But the revenue for October, the last month for which figures are available, is off an ominous 24.3% versus the same month in 2007. Visitor volume is down 3% over last year, though the city's convention business is holding steady.

The Strip's restaurants have seen a proportional decrease along with overall visitor traffic. David McIntyre, vice president of food and beverage at MGM Grand — which counts among its stable of high-end eateries such restaurants as Shibuya, Nobhill and a pair from French maestro Joel Robuchon — notes that visitors have become more careful with their dollars. "They're still going out to eat; they're just not spending as much money," McIntyre says. "They might not have that second glass of wine." (See 10 things to do in Las Vegas.)

The recession is hitting Las Vegas on all fronts. Nevada legislators have struggled to close a deficit of more than $1 billion in the 2009 budget. Budget projectsions for 2010 and 2011 also look grim. Construction on Boyd Gaming's $4.8 billion Echelon resort was stopped last August just as three of its towers reached the 12th floor (the tallest would have risen to 55 stories). Echelon won't resume until 2010, though its construction cranes will remain towering above the site (it's cheaper to leave them in place — and these days no one else in town needs them).

A mile or two down the Strip, MGM Mirage just sold off Treasure Island for $775 million to billionaire casino operator Phil Ruffin. The cash infusion should help the corporation finish construction on its $9.1 billion CityCenter, the largest private construction job in the U.S. Yet even in the best case scenario, Vegas — and the rest of the country — won't begin to drive out of the ditch until the end of next year, as consumer spending improves, new hiring resumes and the city's battered construction industry gets back on its feet. The worse case? The recession deepens, and the ditch turns into a cliff.

From any vantage point now, the situation is grim. Construction in the area dropped 92% this past October, compared with the same month a year earlier. In November the county issued 80 new home permits, down from an average of almost 500 permits a month in 2007. Housing prices have deflated with a deafening groan. Keith Schwer, who runs the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, estimates 50% of homeowners owe more than what their home is worth. Perhaps the only positive is that housing prices have returned to more reasonable levels. "We're getting back into the affordability range," Schwer says. "The only problem is we don't have credit to buy them and we're losing jobs."

Nevada's unemployment rate just jumped 0.4% to 8% in November, the highest rate since 1984, and Schwer says it could rise to 10% next year. The figure translates to more than 111,700 unemployed Nevadans, according to the state's Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. (The national rate is 6.7%.) Meanwhile, the city's largest food bank, Three Square, which supplies food to nonprofits throughout the city, budgeted $250,000 for purchasing food in 2008. The total food need for destitute families throughout the Las Vegas Valley is closer to $1.3 million.

Las Vegas, however, is nothing if not optimistic. Its history gives it good reason to be. Boosters point to the coming 2009 debuts of CityCenter, the Fountainebleau and the M Resort, which add up to $20 billion of construction, as proof that the Vegas brand is fundamentally strong. "There's a resilience to Las Vegas that's unlike anything else you see in the country," says Dick Rizzo, the vice chairman of Perini Building Company, the largest construction firm in town.

And then, as if on cue, here comes Steve Wynn. Three days before Christmas he opened the new addition to his swanky Wynn Las Vegas resort, a $2.3 billion, 2,034-room playground called Encore. The new property is easily the most decorative and jubilant in the city; it lets in an abundance of natural light while somehow managing to keep the view of a struggling city at bay.

A new casino opening always pumps some energy into Las Vegas. But Vegas shares with the rest of the country the feeling that things will get worse before they get better. Whether Encore signals a new beginning for Las Vegas, the way Wynn's Mirage did in 1989, is not a bet to take lightly. "We're still in a fairly early phase in the downturn," says Schwer. "I don't see Steve Wynn sticking his finger in the dike and holding it back."

...and lake meade will be dry by 2021.

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@audioidkid

unless the expansion halts, it's gonna happen.

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@audioidkid

Not many happy faces in Pappyland!!
I really hope the loud mouth is underwater in his mortgages. He bought them as investments to shelter his income, which went from over a mil a year to damn close to ZERO. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
I hear he's working on a new website---don'tlistentome.com

went out there this past summer and you can see the water lines from only 2 years ago. Over a 10 foot drop in water.

Can also go to the Marina, which is just a bunch of floating piers and so how much they had to move them in, because the boat landing asphalt is almost 50 feet from the water.

The only thing I can say is, did the water supply shrink or did the demand rise drastically over the past 5-10 years?

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“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”