This whole exile thing doesn't seem such a good idea at this moment. Between the stress of working long hours for the clients I'm visiting, I've also been hit with a variety of urgent things I also have to do. It's too much work, too much stress, too much frustration.
Enough of that.
The last few days I've been at a casino. It's full of grey/white/blue-haired folks. There's a continental breakfast off the lobby that was so jammed with elders this morning I didn't get much and couldn't sit down to eat. Is that what retirees do these days? Go spend a weekend at some casino? That doesn't seem like much fun to me, but I guess the casinos love the old folks.
Between state lotteries and the spread of casinos across the country, I'm more than a little disgusted. I'm old enough to remember when gambling was considered a kind of lowbrow and sinful activity. Now everybody does it, and the government loves it.
Lotteries are taxes on poor and stupid people. I've met many folks during my lifetime who routinely buy their quota of lottery tickets in the sad belief that someday the numbers will come up and make them rich. Maybe it's not much to worry about for many of those people, but the really poor are getting poorer chasing that impossible dream.
The big secret about what happens to towns when casinos arrive isn't all the locals who get the low-paying jobs there. Is everybody really OK with the increase in crime that comes with the casinos? Is replacing the manufacturing jobs that went overseas with casino jobs at half the pay worth the side effects of drugs, theft, prostitution, etc.?
Yeah, I do a lot of consulting for casino companies. So it's true that I'm making part of my living in the same industry. It presents a bit of a dilemma for me, working for the very businesses I find distasteful.
Maybe I can fall into a pile of money so I don't have to work for the evil casinos. At least I, who never gamble, get about the same odds of coming into big money as those who spend money they don't have on lottery tickets and casino games.
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