Economic Downturn Hitting Closer to Home
Posted on February 3, 2009
Filed Under Attitude | Leave a Comment
My wife works in the casino industry – she’s a poker and table games dealer. Many of her friends are also dealers. The casino industry has been hit pretty hard over the last year. Early in 2008, one of the casinos where many of my wife’s friends work informed their dealers that all full time employees who started employment in 2005 or later would be cut to part time.
Last weekend, one of her friends called to say they had rolled back the cutoff date to mid 2003. The first time around, it didn’t hurt many people in a really bad way. If you’re not familiar with the casino industry, many dealers work 2 or even 3 jobs. Most of the people who were affected the first time around were able to make up the hours at their second jobs, get by with fewer hours, or find a diffrent job outside of gaming.
This time it’s a little different. The ones who stayed on are those who actually depended on working full time for the casino. Many are married couples with kids at home, both working for the casino. I really feel for these people. I don’t know what the answer is, and I don’t know what I’d do if I were in their position. What I can do right now is pray for them and hope they get through all right.
I know one thing, I wish President Obama and the Democrats in Congress would stop trash-talking the economy. We’re not going to recover until consumers start spending, and consumers aren’t going to start spending until they have more confidence in the economy. Continually spouting off about how this is “the worst economy since the Great Depression” (it isn’t) doesn’t help anyone except the politicians playing on people’s fears for political gain. This is the change we’re supposed to believe in? It’s making me sick to my stomach.
Cheers,
Ken
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