What percentage do you want Bricker? 5%, 2%?
is this one good
is that good?Bricker? http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050803/NEWS05/508030317/1064
You let me know what type of cite you’ll accept.
[QUOTE=holmes]
What percentage do you want Bricker? 5%, 2%?
That refers to The incidence of problem and pathological gambling among regular gamblers. Are we talking about that, now, instead of “among the general population”?
You let ME know what you’re talking about. That second cite also discussed the percentage of problems among regular gamblers. Is that now what we’re talking about?
Pretty much the same things could be said of credit cards. The average American carries $8,562 in credit card debt, and only 36% of credit card holders pay off the entire balance every month. So not even the majority of credit card holders pay off their cards every month. The average American probably has more credit card debt than gambling debt.
The credit card companies rely on people not being able or willing to pay off their entire balances every month- otherwise, they aren’t profitable, just like casinos wouldn’t be profitable if people didn’t lose money there.
Does that make credit cards a social ill? If not, why does it make gambling a social ill?
I think it is, I think part of this country’s problem is that we spend more than we can afford not just individually, but as a people and are wasting a lot resources on treading water…again I’m not talking about banning anything, but I’m not going to say they’re harmless either; if the goal is to encourage people to get in as much debt as possible.
Sounds to me like more of a problem of how gambling as an industry is managed in AC then a problem with gambling itself. Take away the casinos and what do you have? Same crappy AC, just with no casinos.
I think it is safe to say that **anything **, carried to excess, is a bad thing - a societal ill, if you will.
So what?
Gambling differs from standard forms of entertainment in a couple of important ways: (1) the vastly greater unpredictability, unto bottomlessness, of the amount one might spend on one’s entertainment in an evening, (2) with standard entertainment, you never think you are going to come out ahead, and so (3) with standard entertainment, you’re never tempted to plow in more money on the supposition that you might somehow wind up spending less.
My wife and I just got back from Montana, where we had a great time. We spent a few thousand upfront on plane fare, lodging, and a rental car. Beyond that, it was (1) fairly predictable that we’d drop something in the upper three figures on meals, souvenirs, maybe a whitewater rafting trip, and similar stuff. (2) There was no way we were going to break even on the trip, let alone come out ahead, so we had no motivation to, say, (3) buy an extra ten souvenir T-shirts in the hope that we’d recoup the money we spent on the first five we bought.
Accordingly, there’s a satiety factor with such entertainment: you certainly can spend more than you should, but you can eat only so many meals, and few are going to buy more souvenirs at one time than they can carry. Probably the worst financial calamity is that one might be suckered into a presentation for vacation timeshares, and make the mistake of buying one. But with gambling, there’s no particular ‘enough’ point: you can keep losing money until you can’t borrow any more on your Mastercard, plunging deeper in the demented hope that your luck will change.
In these ways, gambling differs from standard entertainment. Most who gamble do manage to exercise the self-control necessary for it to be pretty much the same, for them. But you’re going to have a much more significant minority of gamblers who can’t stop gambling when they’ve reached a reasonable limit, than Barry Manilow fans who can’t stop buying Barry Manilow tickets and souvenirs, or travelers who go way over their heads by taking trips they can’t afford.
*That doesn’t, by itself, imply that gambling is a social ill. * But it distinguishes the risks of gambling from those of spending money on most other forms of entertainment.
No, I’m claiming that it hurts, because if politicians weren’t able to take credit for helping their constituents by facilitating casinos or a lottery, they might be forced to do something that actually does help their constituents.
No one here is arguing utter harmlessness, either for credit cards or gambling. But in each case, there is enough value outweighing the negative that I would not classify either credit cards OR gambling a social ill.
Anne Neville makes an excellent point. Are credit cards a social ill, in your view?
All that money already had to exist in order for it to be spent at the casino and taxed; same goes for the mall and hotels. The money may have come from another area, but there was no net increase in the amount of money.
The only way to create wealth is to add value (i.e. labor) to raw materials. Service industries can increase the efficiency of this process, but they cannot create wealth in and of themselves. This is why manufacturing is so vital to any economy.
See what holmesquoted. I note that the low population states - Utah, Idaho, and Oregon – surrounding Nevada have much lower crime rates. Even border states with several major cities – California and Arizona – don’t match up. I think a natural question is, why is Nevada different? The first thing that leaps off the page would be gambling. Now, that line of argument isn’t going to hold up in court, granted, but it seems reasonable to me.
Funny, I tend to find that these places proliferate in high crime neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods. If these types of places don’t gravitate to places where people are desperate for money, I’ll eat my hat. Are you honestly suggesting it’s just coincidence?
Well, I would find it hard to argue that no job is better than any job. If I were faced with choosing between being destitute and finding employment shoveling human feces into burlap bags, I suppose I’d take the job, as I suspect most people would. That still doesn’t mean that it’s a good job. Waitress and croupier are certainly a few rungs above dung hauler, but it still does not make them particularly good jobs.
You’re right. I was careless and forgot whom I was dealing with.
To your first question, I miswrote addiction for problem, that was my fault. Second the 10% “problem” gamblers is vague term, with limited sources; accept it or not your choice. I can’t find the original source.
However:
aafp
A far cry from 10 percent, but…2 million addicted, 3 million problems and another 15 million maybes is a lot of people.
So it looks like your position is, that gambling is worth the problems it causes, because…it what generates revenue, it allows people to have harmless fun. What’s the benefit that legalized gambling provides? From what I’ve seen, it looks like at best only a small percentage of people receive any real “profits” and the rest pretty much break even or lose…I’m not just talking about the players.
So, what’s the upside?
Do we make stores illegal because some people are compulsive shoppers? No, we as a society have decided that shopping, on the whole, benefits society, even if some people might have a problem with it. We don’t ban other non-productive forms of entertainment, such as TV, movies, theater, books, computer games, and message boards, merely for not providing a benefit to society.
Some people like to gamble, and I think they should be allowed to do it until they demonstrate that they can’t gamble responsibly.
I think we need to seperate and clarify the two debates that are going on here. The first is “Is Gambling a Social Ill” and the second one is “Should Gambling be illegal”. Just becuase someone answers yes to the first does not mean one necessarily answers yes.
As to the OP, I believe you have previously stated that Marijuana should be illegal and is a social Ill, Bricker. People have provided cites showing that there is a significant cost to society and a large number of people that gambling has had a significant detrimental effect on their life. Why is it that Marijuana is a social ill and should be illegal while gambling is not a social ill and should remain legal?
I don’t expect this to be generally persuasive; it is founded in some presuppositions that I think Bricker and I share but others do not. It’s long; I hope it makes sense.
I disagree.
A visit to the opera, or any other artistic activity, is not merely “enjoyable;” it contains the possibility of education, enlightenment and indeed transcendance. Of course, it may also lead one into ignorance and brutishness; the possibility of either will, of course, vary with each artistic work and with the individual. Nonetheless, I think it may be said that some forms of entertainment can be social ills.
To avoid wrangling over specifics, I’ll pick a film most (including me) have not seen: Chaos,“an exercise in heartless cruelty [that] ends with careless brutality. The movie denies not only the value of life, but the possibility of hope.” Whether or not that film fits that description is irrelevant; my point, one that I hope we can agree on, is rather that some films have no redeeming moral virtues, and that those films are positive social ills. The common retort that people are unlikely to go out and replicate the behavior they see on screen misses the point; films like this coarsen and debase their viewers, even if – perhaps especially if – those viewers do nothing more than “enjoy” watching them.
Of course, in contrast to films like this, we have films that are in fact art, and do all the things art is supposed to do. As it stands, there are clearly a large number of films that qauaify as art and serve some purpose; thus I would not say that movies are a clear social ill. But were the majority of Hollywood’s product similar to Chaos, I would.* Even if one person were to say that they saw Chaos and it didn’t effect them, the fact would remain that it is a clear social ill – the negative effect on the rest of the populace is decisive.
Now, I think it is beyond argument that for some people (those who become addicted) gambling is a source of great evil. What is far less apparent, but no less real are the psychological and spiritual hazards it presents to some people. Gambling, like the worst of Hollywood, can serve to cause and/or reinforce destructive attitudes and ideas. It may serve to dampen the work ethic, it may serve as a emotional fantasy that removes the incentive to deal with real problems; it unquestionably encourages greed and an inordinate focus on material wealth in many people.
None of that may apply to you; you may well gamble and experience “nothing more than enjoyment.” But it is indeed “nothing more.” I will not say categorically that gambling per se has never been good for anyone. Perhaps someone, somewhere has expereinced some sort of enlightenment or transcendance from gambling; but as someone who grew up in Atlantic City, hung out in more than a few casinos but also worked at the Rescue Mission, I would argue vigorously that the numbers are very, very small. When I looked at into the eyes of the guys who had blown it all, or hell, just at the eyes of the glazed-over retirees who were pumping quarter after quarter into the cheap slots, the emptiness was deep and real. In contrast, when I looked at the winners, I often saw nothing more than a cheap and short-lived thrill, destined to last only as long as the money did … likely to replaced with the same feeling the losers had.
I think we can safely say that for some people, gambling can be a catastrophically bad thing. For many more people, it can be less visibly harmful, but nonetheless be destructive to their emotional, psychological and spiritual health, just as the worst of Hollywood is. But unlike Hollywood, or the opera you refer to, there is no upside. Nobody (or very few) ever walked out of a Casino enlightened in any deeper sense than a hot stove can “enlighten” a child. Gambling per se never put anyone into closer, healthier relationship with God or their fellow man; it has put quite a few into into worse relationship.
Again, you may well be able to gamble with no ill effect. But that wasn’t the question. Since the gambler will, at best, get “nothing more than enjoyment” while many others suffer significant harm, it’s hard to see how the net social effect is a positive one.
None of which, of course addresses the advisability of making all gambling (or all lousy horror movies) illegal, which I would oppose. As others have said, the social cost of making gambling illegal would be even greater than the cost of allowing it to continue. That doesn’t change the fact that that gambling itself is a social ill.
*Actually, I’m not sure I’d defend the idea that Hollywood doesn’t do more harm than good, either; I suspect you’d agree with me that many other films that are quite “mainstream” are, to varying degrees, quite inimical to the proper growth and development of the human heart, mind and soul. But I digress.
That is absolutely incorrect. Intellectual capital, branding, goodwill are all non-material forms of wealth.
Money is not the same thing as wealth. Yes the money came from somewhere else. Money comes into places like Las Vegas and in exchange entertainment is produced. A non-material want of society is met. It’s not any different than Six Flags or Disney World.
I was just in Vegas a few weeks ago. I have some extra disposable income so why not drop a couple thousand on food, drink and blackjack (and travel & lodging)? Would that money have been better spent investing in a business or real estate? Probably. But life is not just about making widgets.
You’re completely wrong and are confusing the potential to create wealth (and the exchange value of such) with its actual creation. Just because you pay money for something does not make it wealth. Intellectual capital, branding and goodwill are not wealth. You cannot eat, live in, or wear those things. Intellectual capital may carry the potential to create wealth if it helps you produce or consume things more efficiently. Branding and goodwill may help you capture a bigger piece of an existing market. But none of those things creates wealth. You can’t eat a patent. If you have a patent on how to make widgets, you can sell your patent for something to eat, but only as long as there are widget factories. No widget factories means your patent is worthless.
I never said life was all about making widgets, just that manufacturing (which covers everything from making widgets to growing food) is the only way to create wealth. What you’re describing with your Vegas trip is consumption, not production.
Hyperelastic - There are a variety of definitions for “wealth”, but a thing does not need to be tangible to have economic utility (which is really what we are talking about). My widget patent may be worthless without the widget factory, but the factory is equally worthless without someone to invent and design widgets to be produced. I think you are equating production with wealth and I’m not sure that’s accurate. I can have two nations. One with a huge manufacturing ability, another with huge amounts of intellectual capital. Do these two countries not have something to trade with the other? That potential to increase production has value.
Anyhow, I think we are starting to get into more complex issues of accounting value vs market value vs economic value, consumption and the capturing of value in a service economy. Bottom line is entertainment industries have an economic utility, provided that people are not spending income that should be going to paying the rent or feeding the family. At that point, the casino is still creating wealth, however it is wealth concentrated with a limited number of people at the expense of other communities.
It’s hard to say. I certainly think that most of the harm associated with marijuana use comes from its being illegal. I don’t remember if I’ve come out and said that it SHOULD be illegal, because it has enough harmful effects apart from the law, but I do, so if I haven’t said it, I will now.
So what’s the principled distinction between marijuana and gambling?
So far, it’s only my gut feeling that marijuana use is more harmful to more more people than gambling is. That is, if both were legal, marijuana would cause more problems than gambling.
I admit that this opinion is not buttressed by research or solid inquiry – it is, as I say, a gut feeling. As such, I’m willing to be convinced that I’m off base concerning marijuana; perhaps it is not as harmful as I thought.
Translataion: Bricker likes to gamble but not smoke pot. I’m the opposite. I think pot has far more positive aspects than gambling and far less downside. I think both should be legal. Freedom and all that rot, you know.