Sunday, December 15, 2024

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Are Finances Too Scary For You?

By Al Campbell

Revel Casino in Atlantic City is tossing in the towel Sept 10. That will mean 3,100 presently employed will have the unfortunate distinction of putting an “un” before their status. Who is to blame? Can we point fingers at someone? Isn’t that what we do when things go belly-up, play the blame game?
It boggles my mind someone actually had the chutzpah to think they could make a buck in a casino city that hasn’t had a winning year in quite a spell, where more doors are closing than opening. Couldn’t they look around up to New York and Connecticut to see casinos giving gamblers food and booze to toss away their coins? How about nearby casinos in Philly and down in Delaware? Didn’t the planners of Revel know that crowds that used to rub their rabbits’ feet as they went through the Atlantic City Expressway’s last tollbooth were staying closer to home?
Who remembers the economic boom that was supposedly coming to the area when the Cape May-Lewes Ferry finally starting plying the Delaware Bay’s waters? We were going to be rolling in dough, so the picture was painted, when those cars started going north and south from here. Somehow the picture is still being painted.
Who remembers the big bucks spent convincing Garden State voters to pull the lever to allow gaming in Atlantic City only? Those with stars in their eyes had us believing roads would virtually be paved in gold as soon as the one-armed bandits starting stealing widows’ mites and orphans’ pennies. We were on the road to riches, and nothing, I repeat, nothing was going to stand in the way.
There is no denying casinos bolstered employment in Cape May County. It was, like high tide, good while it lasted. Then the gaming tide receded and never fully returned. We could not believe that the goose that laid those golden eggs was taking flight to another nest. It was only money, but it was local money too. There was loot and jobs to be had building gaming halls, and then running them ’round the clock. (Ever look for a clock on the casino floor? Kind of hard to find wasn’t it?) Maybe there was a reason for that non-placement, so the unknowing would keep playing all day and all night.
To add one more slug to Atlantic City’s gaming gut, came on-line gambling. No need to dress up, put grease in your hair, a shot of cologne and head to A.C. for a big night on the town. Just sit in your easy chair, fire up the laptop and open the checkbook (or credit card). Before you know it, you’ll be a zillionaire, or broke. But cheer up, you won’t have to fret about how you’ll get home, even if you spent your last buck, you’re already home. Who could ask for more?
Atlantic City casino gurus aren’t the only ones who lost track how to count. There are others close to home, as evidenced by a quick glance in the Sheriff Sales in our publication.
It’s a well-known fact that many among us are just a paycheck or two from hard times. Similarly, many businesses are on ice thinner than they’d like to admit. It’s no surprise to see some of the hefty amounts Sheriff Gary Schaffer is seeking on behalf of creditors. Many are six figures, more than a couple years’ wages for most of us, that’s for sure.
One such sale, slated to take place today, seeks a tad over $12 million for a group of empty buildings on the Middle Township side of the 96th Street Bridge. They look nice from the outside, but like Revel’s timing in A.C. it seems the timing of those structures was out of sync with the real estate market. So, a bank is on the hook for some heavy bread, and it hopes that someone with a big checkbook and/or deep pockets will see potential in that development “close to” “The Seashore at its Best.”
A financial adviser who oft crosses my path said he believes there are far too many who are financially ignorant. Pride, it seems, keeps us from asking questions that could spare us big losses. We choose not to dabble in the stock market because we fear it will lead to our financial downfall. So we never seek to learn what it might offer.
How many of those employed participate in a 401(k) retirement plan. If so, have you any idea where your money is invested, or why it’s there? Too many simply shun their fiduciary responsibility to themselves and figure a mutual fund or two will take care of what Social Security will not when you reach that silvery milestone. Do they realize what other alternatives may await them if they would ask?
Does reading financial news give you the heebie-jeebies’? Is it because you can’t tell a company’s P.E. ratio from a calorie count on a cereal box? Do you believe Wall Street is where evil lives, or where opportunity awaits? Have you bought into the notion that wealth is just plain wrong, and there’s nothing quite like poverty?
Would your family and friends still love and speak to you if you accumulated a half million bucks by being shrewd in the stock market? Wouldn’t you like to be one of those cotton-picking “one percenters” who all the poor people love to hate?
A quote attributed to a Hollywood star stated, “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich, and rich is better.” That honest soul would probably be banished from today’s society for thinking then uttering such blasphemy.
Given side-by-side choice of items that are 25 cents each or two for 75 cents, how many would lunge at the “two for” option?
When Revel’s last worker leaves Sept. 10, turns out the lights and locks the door, it would be a good time for all of us to ask just how firm are our finances? Do we know how we got there? Unlike Revel, for many there is still time to turn things around, learn about money and how to make it work for us. Rich or poor what’ll it be?

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