Entitlement

I drink beer. While lately I've experimented with whiskey and tequila, beer dominates. Beer drinkers aren't in the top social flights as are those into wine, but hey, your author would never make it in those circles even if he were a teetotaler.

I brew my own from time to time. Perhaps 30% of my alcohol comes from homebrew. And just like mowing the lawn and the environment, I try to think about the impacts of shipping a beverage that's predominately water from large distances. I like both German and English brews, so to import them comes with certain social costs. I brew beer at home with domestic water, and (for the most part) they turn out OK. I do my part to support local homebrew shops. In full disclosure I'm buzzed as I blog at this moment. Not drunk, but feeling pretty good. A fine day's work is behind me and I'm at home with the wife and child napping. I feel I'm not neglecting anything or anyone...except you the reader.

But drinking alcohol is a vice, and I was thinking about a sister vice that I don't engage in: gambling. I understand that in a recession (which we apparently have now avoided), alcohol and gambling never suffer. This is verified by my own observations.

We are currently in an Indian Casino boom in the Sacramento region -- so much so that we've finally been able to pull gamblers in sufficient quantity away from Tahoe to warrant a paradigm shift in Tahoe recreational marketing. And they are BOOMING. Enterprise Rancheria, Foothill Oaks, Mechoopda; these are being built as I write. These are in addition to Cache Creek, Jackson Rancheria, Colusa, River Rock and Thunder Valley Indian Casinos already well established in this region.

Why gambling? I think it's the new American creed of unearned riches. I think of the family of six in the rental duplex, huddled around the foil-antenna TV perched on the three-legged dinette, watching the lottery call on a Wednesday night, desperately hoping for a miracle to pull them out of perpetual destitution. We are selling an entire generation on the idea of American Entitlement.

Unearned riches were evident during the dot com and housing booms. With the expectation that stock prices and home values would grow 25% per annum ad infinitum, techies bought Ferraris and retired at 30 and home flippers drove Mercedes to and from properties, assured that the good times were here to stay. They didn't have to produce anything; they only had to manage the production of goods produced elsewhere by others for other consumers. Times were indeed good. Even in (and before) our 'recession', witness the urban gangsta's creed of unearned riches, social security disability lawyers, Chapter 7 personal bankruptcies due to 'consumer debt', reparation payment discussions, IRS settlement attorneys, the requirement for animal protein at every meal, thumbing our noses at manual work, Bear Sterns bailouts, who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire, Vegas megacasinos, kids that must be chauffered to schools, tort litigation, homeownership for anyone with a pulse, corporate board grifting, looking for a job only when the EDD payments expire...

Do you think that in an era of global energy contraction we will tolerate such behaviors? We might not accept many of the things I list but you can bet (pun intended) we will collectively gamble more. And we will be drinking more...at least I will be.