Casinos do not bring new money into communities

Casinos do not bring new money into communities
To the editor:re: 'Letter writer's argument paints misleading picture about casinos,' letter to the editor, Wed., April 24 edition
I appreciate Doug Kirk's response to my letter ('Stop drinking the Kool Aid, Mr. Rellinger,' Friday, April 19 edition).
It's worth repeating that casinos simply do not bring new money to the community or new jobs.
If it were otherwise they would never exist within our current social economic system.
In fact, they are a net drain of both community wealth and jobs (which go hand in hand) and the money that is returned to the community in the form of taxes, royalties and wages does not make up for the loss of community wealth.
All the money taken in by a casino comes from citizens in the area. Because most of the casino participants are poor, working poor and middle class, the money gambled is often typified as a tax on the poor and middle class and a transfer of wealth to governments, large corporations and the riches citizens in our society.
If you add in the drain on community wealth from the big oil, gas, and electric companies, the big banks, chain food stores, and big box retailers there is very little wealth left in our community to create new jobs and livelihoods and sustain a vibrant and resilient community.
Where does all that money go that you pay for gasoline? How much stays here? We better start using much less of it ... you think?
The tipping point caused by the accumulative drain of community wealth has taken a while to unfold in the Greater Peterborough Area since the recession of 2008/09.

This delay of the social economic realities of our times is largely because the community has been shored up by the government education and medical sectors, all supported by your taxes.
Those sectors are now struggling to make ends meet, much like the rest of the economy and many of the citizens in our community.

If you look around our area it doesn't take an economist or a genius to realize that business as usual has hollowed out our community destroyed many small businesses and the good meaningful jobs that went with them. The troubling thing is that we are on course to keep on doing it.
The Casino grab simply represents the latest in a long line of wrong moves to attempt to shore up our economy and create jobs for our citizens.
Our politicians have run out of ideas that will work and are grasping for anything that will demonstrate that they are doing something.
At the tipping point, where I believe the local economy is now at, there is only a marginal return from business as usual approaches for community wealth acquisition and retention needed for job creation.
The old economy doesn't work any more, the root cause is the price of energy and the huge sovereign and personal debt we continue to ring up by trying to make it work.
The casino grab is a short-term fix at the very best, coming at a time when we need a strategic approach to our local social economic contract with all of our people.
Many local citizens feel and see what is happening to our economy and social fabric and that’s why there is so much outrage at the thought of a casino in Peterborough.
It's easy to rationalize that people will always gamble and at least some of the money stays here, but that solves nothing and doesn't make the community a better place to live.
I am aware of the monies that Cavan Monaghan has received over the years from the Slots and
of the good, it seems, that Trillium does. I could comment on these but I'm certain that I'm running out of space.

So here is my question Mr. Kirk: wouldn't it be better to stop the casino drain of community wealth in the first place and start to build our community back with the wealth that already exists here?
For the record, I have a Millbrook mailing address but don't actually live in Cavan Monaghan Township.

Fred Irwin
Millbrook
                                    

http://www.mykawartha.com/opinion/letters/article/1612574--casinos-do-not-bring-new-money-into-communities

 

Apr 20, 2013

Stop drinking the Kool Aid, Mr. Rellinger

 

"At least the money stays here."
These are the last words in Paul Rellinger's column(re: 'Let's roll the dice') regarding a potential casino coming to Peterborough.
And that's the problem with his conventional business as usual logic.
Most of the money simply does not stay here.
In reality most of the money generated by casinos leaves in a heart beat, and does nothing for the community.
The little that stays in wages, taxes and royalties to host communities isn't sufficient to cover increased infrastructure costs of policing, transportation, roads and sewers, let alone long-term social costs.
Casinos are no different than big box retailers, big oil, chain food stores, chain restaurant and big banks.
They hollow out our community by moving 85 to 90 per cent of the money they take in from our citizens straight out with zero benefit to the community.
Further, the research shows that for every new job that a big box store (you can read casino) brings to the community, within 18 months they have destroyed from one-and-a-half to two higher-paying local jobs.
And in the end lots of small businesses, that do keep money in our community and create most of the local jobs, are forced out of business.
This is the current treadmill that we are on, and the casino idea is the latest wrong-headed idea in the guise of building our community.
If you remain unconvinced think of how our current social-political-economic-system elects local politicians and creates and supports a economic development organization to beg the provincial and federal governments and large corporations to invest some of that money that was taken from our citizens in the first place back into our community to create new jobs that will destroy the jobs we already have and remove more wealth from our community.
Peterborough is at the tipping point with this thinking ... its simply not getting us anywhere.
That’s the big picture. And that is why with unemployment at over 10 per cent here, many of our citizens understand that a casino won't solve anything.

It won't bring new quality jobs that you could raise a family on, and the little money that the city would receive in royalties would likely be spent to continue with the business as usual economic model that is clearly now broken, is unsustainable and the cause not the solution to most of our economic and social problems bearing down on us every day in so many ways.
When your job disappears you need to know the real cause.
You are drinking too much Kool Aid from the business-as-usual bucket.

 Fred Irwin
Millbrook
http://www.mykawartha.com/article/1607752--stop-drinking-the-kool-aid-mr-rellinger