It looks like US President Donald Trump is backing off his trial-baloon stance to open up the United States over the objections of governors who want their states locked down for longer. The blaring headlines are now that Trump has voiced support spefically for Nevada’s statewide closure for who knows how long. He said – get this – that he was “OK” with it. Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman disagrees, slghtly. She says that, rather than being “OK” with it, she thinks the shutdown is “total insanity”. Maybe Trump is OK with total insanity, generally speaking. That would actually be completely normal, and these times beg for a semblance of normalcy.

Why Trump has changed his mind on Las Vegas specifically is probably just because he doesn’t want to be seen as itching for the reopening of his Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. That wouldn’t look too great, as far as great things look. It could also have to do with the fact that the Las Vegas Strip is typically filled with people from all over the world, the prospect of which doesn’t seem too appetizing in a post COVID-19-apocalypse world. Not to mention public sentiment towards Nevada workers isn’t so great, associated with brothels and such. It just isn’t the same as sentiment towards Mom’n’Pop small business Middle America that sells…I don’t know…miniature American flags made in China for both pro and anti Trump rallies or something. All of middle America’s brothels are strictly off the books anyway. (I’d really like to see an in-depth feature piece on the plight of sex workers, and customers, during the COVID-19 epidemic.)

Anyway, the case of the Las Vegas shutdown may be largely irrelevant, at least for casinos. For all I can see, a mandated shutdown may actually be saving companies like MGM significant amounts of money. Remember, MGM was shutting down voluntarily before a Nevada-wide shutdown was mandated. There isn’t much reason for these casinos to be open now anyway, since operating costs would go up and nobody wants to fly to Las Vegas now anyway. Even the California neighbors probably have more urgent things to do than gamble. A mandated statewide shutdown could also end up giving MGM tax breaks it wouldn’t otherwise get. Think of it: governments are demanding taxes while at the same time forbidding us from leaving our homes to make any money to pay them. This doesn’t seem all that equitable. At least with a mandated shutdown, MGM might be able to get out of paying some taxes.

There are other issues. Take real estate. The whole market is about to seriously crash. Again. This time for decades. The baby boomers are starting to pass away, and the replacement generation is much smaller and has a lot less money. Boomers that are still in their 50’s and 60’s probably had a lot of savings back in February, and now many of them are panicking. If the rich ones have big houses or more than one, they’ll sell them and restock their retirement portfolios with ultra-safe holdings, hopefully with gold and not US Treasuries or Netflix. It’ll take a few months for prices to start coming down, but they will, and hard, just like oil is now. The only prices that will rise are consumer prices, as the global economy shifts from capital production to consumption in a big way. The coming real estate collapse is going to blow even bigger holes in the banking system and bring down the value of the Fed’s increasingly junk-infested balance sheet, which will seriously bring down the dollar’s purchasing power.