Tuesday, November 22, 2011

On The Road in Indiana

As I write this post I am sipping coffee in a coffee shop in Michigan City Indiana. The coffee is fine, but the surroundings are strange. I feel a whole lot more like I am sitting in Paradise, Nevada at one of the hotels on the famous Las Vegas Strip. You see casino gambling came to Indiana a few years ago and since then some things have changed. Apparently, what started as the idea of riverboat gambling gave way to full blown casinos along the shores of Lake Michigan.

Al Capone would be frowning. The very vices he sold have now been embraced and gone mainstream. No need for the wise guys, its all about politics and jobs now.

Weird.

Now, I am not complaining. The hotel is very nice and convenient to our friends who live here along the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan. I am just confused. I see a nice casino-hotel-spa worthy of Las Vegas plopped down in the midst of a shipyard, low income houses and docks. As far as I can tell there is no economic prosperity springing up around the casino, just a noticeable increase in pawn shops and check cashing joints.

Such is progress in modern America. We seem able to find so many ways to take money from the middle class and poor and redistribute it to the wealthy. The American Dream?

Some day, there will be no more money for the rich to gather and then they will move on to another more luxurious place. I hear Dubai is lovely this time of year.

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