I spent a couple of days in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, and, to my delight and amazement, left the tables with more money in my pocket than I started with. Quite a change from my earlier visits several decades ago, when scantily-clad girls plied me with drink and — no, just drink — I lost all my money.
Of course, things were different this time — I’m quite a bit older and (I guess) less foolish, and, importantly, my wife was with me. And for the first time, I played craps, guided, aided and abetted by maro mota bhai and his wife, who screeched and hollered each time anybody rolled the dice, “Hey, Leftie”, “Big Country, shake them up”, “Hey Blondie” and the like. And each of them rolled and rolled and rolled, most of the time hitting numbers we had odds on, and making the point from time to time. What was remarkable was that in over a couple of hours of play, we hardly ever — maybe six times — hit the wipeout seven. We left around 3 am after a lot of laughs and with several hundred additional dollars each.
Not enough to clear the hotel bills, but plenty to play big spender, which is what you do in Vegas — ride around in limousines, light cigars with ten-dollar bills, call everybody darling. And, boy, there were a lot of darlings around.
But, y’know, it was different than I remembered — used-to-be Vegas was all about gambling and sleaze; now, despite hundreds of beautiful women of different shapes and sizes strutting about in slightly tight dresses and teetering on unbelievable stilettos, the place felt almost clean cut — a mecca for Middle America.
And recession or no recession, they were flying in from all over the US to celebrate, party, gamble some and even get married again. We met a group of three couples who had 111 years of marriage between them, who had come to Vegas to renew their vows — they found an Elvis look-alike preacher who sang Love me tender during the service and it was all wow!
We saw the incredible Cirque de Soleil at the Bellagio, and, the piece de resistance — Bette Midler at the Coliseum at Caesar’s. Nearly 5,000 seats packed at over $200 a pop — didn’t look like America was hurting.
But, then, like a young lad at the gaming tables told me, “This ain’t America, this is Vegas.” Which, in good times or bad, reflects the essence of America — excess.
Now, many people in the world find this American excess — terrifying restaurant servings; stuff, stuff, stuff everywhere; and a super-hyped marketing machine — unnerving, and, in some cases, immoral. And while I sometimes intellectually identify with these sentiments, I am glad that I have a history with America that wakes me up to realise that America is not just about excess, but also about joy. The joy of whooping it up at the tables, the joy of making a silly video of all four of us on a motorcycle, the joy of, well, America.
And, for the more serious of us, we need to remember that it is this American excess that has kept the world’s cash registers ticking for at least the past couple of decades. I mean, while it is certainly true that most Americans could easily eliminate at least 60 per cent of what they own and not even notice in terms of their day-to-day life, such a fearful scenario would trash every one of the world’s economies. We need America to keep buying stuff, we need America to keep on being America. And not just till the Chinese catch up — they won’t. While they have a billion-plus people, they have a near 30 per cent savings rate. Macao ain’t Vegas, and never will be.
A peoples’ ethos is what it is. Asians will save, Americans will spend and economists and intellectuals will piss and moan. That’s the way of the world. Sure there will be compromises, but the truth is that nobody really wants it any different.
This means that the dollar will not collapse into some wishful dark place, although volatility will remain high. It also means that the global financial system will continue to limp along for the next few years, with patchwork reforms, despite the arrogant crowing of Luddite reformers who — it’s hard to believe — seem to believe that a group (or groups) of individuals, no doubt including themselves, can better the market in asset allocation.
Clearly, the market ain’t always right, but, like they say about capitalism or democracy, it’s the best system we got.
And, in any case, there’s always Vegas.
