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Tuesday, April 6, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Sun Coverage
Sun Archives
- Economic woe can’t spare even Boise (12-15-09)
- Mobility bust bad for Vegas (12-12-09)
- Washington think tank with ideas for the West starts UNLV partnership (9-8-09)
- Six Questions: A vision for a new economy (4-5-10)
The auditorium at UNLV was filled about to capacity, some 150 business leaders, scholars and government people, gathered to discuss Nevada’s future and how to pull it out of the Great Recession.
They were mostly quiet and attentive on this Monday afternoon, called to order by the vice president of the Brookings Institution, which established the Mountain West Initiative at UNLV.
Among its purposes: Divine Las Vegas’ role in the region and what the Sun Belt needs to do to transform its economies.
Like attentive students glued to their mentor’s words, everyone wanted to hear the answers and how to achieve them.
A lot of attention paid to the executive of the company with 53,000 employees — the largest private employer in Clark County and a company that barely clung to the safe side of bankruptcy last year — when he stood to speak.
Jim Murren
There will be some improvement in the economy this year, MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren told the audience, and 2011 will be better. He looked stern, somber. This didn’t amount to much of a pep rally and he got no applause, just gentle nods.
The first order of business, he said, is to improve education. He described the level of state funding for schools as sinful.
Beyond schools, Nevada needs to improve its sustainability, health care and its technological and physical infrastructure, Murren said.
And he wondered why Nevada has missed opportunities.
“2007 was a pretty damn good year, and we did nothing to address these issues,” Murren said. “Shame on us.”
Bruce Katz, the Brookings executive who convened the gathering, suggested three areas the state and community could tackle to reposition itself for the “next economy” — increasing exports, innovating and developing industry and services based on low-carbon energy use.
Katz encouraged people to look at the United States not just as a union of 50 states but more of an “economic network” — a way to improve the vision of how locales and regions should position themselves to develop new business.
He said it’s important for political leaders locally to view themselves as working together in competing for business, instead of competing against one another.
Calling for more dollars on research and development, in part toward the goal of creating energy and innovation hubs across the country, including in Nevada, should be the mantra of local and federal political leaders from the area, he said.
“The key is open innovation embedded in the market,” Katz added.
A man in the audience stood. He said he was an inventor and had just come up with another device having to do with efficient energy.
This is good, Katz said. This is just what we need: entrepreneurs.
And people in the room gently nodded their heads.
Jim Murren discussing improvement of education??? What's he running for governor??? Now that the economy tanked he's saying "Shame on Us" for not doing anything back in '07 WHAT A FARCE!!! I wouldn't allow Jim Murren to run my lawnmower.. By the way Sun isn't the word your looking to use at the head of this article supposed to be define? not divine..
"The first order of business, he said, is to improve education. He described the level of state funding for schools as sinful."
Just don't ask THEM for another DIME!!!
And yes, enviro, I hope they meant define; we have enough deviners around here, and they have not been accurate!
Babbling academics! This is the reason UNLV deserves NO MORE money from us. Not one penny of this money flushed away to the Brookings Institution is doing a THING to help us get out of recession. And the nodding heads know that and continue to steak our TAX dollars!!!!
Sadly enough, until new businesses are developed and providing work for our CITIZENS we are dependent on tourism as a mainstay. We have to wait for the tourists to get their mojo back.
Let's innovate by cutting taxes. So our workforce is even less educated. Afraid we won't have enough doctors or nurses? Let's cut taxes and close the in-state medical and nursing programs in our universities. A large number of unemployed were in construction and casino work. Hint hint: they are not going to become rocket scientists as their next work experience. Lack of education in this state has caused a race to the bottom, and more-educated Americans aren't going to move here knowing what their children will be subjected to.
It is difficult to imagine Las Vegas being successful in diversifying its economy. Las Vegas is almost totally tourism and related services. One impediment to attracting new industry, in my opinion, is the availabilty of gambling. Caring company owners would probably think twice about moving their employees to Nevada, which is a great place to visit, but a dangerous place to live unless one (and one's family) has the willpower to control gambling.
California has a relatively good system of both public and private higher education. The UC system, USC, Stanford, the state university system, Cal-Tech. They spend billions of dollars educating people in that state. I hear the cries from those on the left telling us how we have to provide similar institutions in Nevada if we are going to be prosperous.
In yesterday's S.F. Chronicle I read a lengthy article about equipment movers. These are the people who move used but valuable machinery out of business that have closed and their assets sold. This can be voluntary or through bankruptcy. The gist of the story is that their business is booming because of the many business' closing and the assets are being sold out of the country because the operting costs are too high in California. Taxes are very high, there are too many government agencies constantly harassing business managers and they waste too much of their time dealing with worthless bureaucrats who frequently have never held a real job.
If I was younger, just graduating from college and looking for a job where would I rather go? I could choose a state like California with very high taxes, expensive real estate, long commutes, but it has a great higher education system, but I would be paid more. I could also choose a state like Nevada, Texas or Idaho which has no income tax, lower overall taxation, relatively inexpensive real estate and a lesser higher education system, but I would be paid less. I know which I would choose. I would chose a state like Nevada. That is why I live here now. I think given a choice many would pick the same option. There are also a number of fine private schools in Nevada if I had children. What I would save in taxes would for a large part pay for them a fine education.
Why the constant negativity? If you read enough of the comments you would think that we should all pack up our bags and leave town. The "academics" might not have all the answers, but at least they are talking about making our state a better place in the future! We need to make changes now, so that we are not in this same bad place 20 years from now.
Agreed silveradoblue,
People are always bashing on any funds brought to education or even healthcare - when many experts are saying right now that we need to think well ahead to the future if we want to have a chance at being a sustainable city.
Listen, when the gold rush happened, and we all relied on the gold rush, these "towns" flourished. When the gold is gone, so were the towns.
You do not want something new or dare I say, "nationalized" that leaves Las Vegas, Nevada competing with 35 other states who legalize gambling as well (could happen, who knows?!). Where does that leave us?
What I'm saying is, if we want to continue to be a leading tourist destination, with affordable living for seniors, we need to match that with state of the art health centers to "tend" to these individuals. You will only get state of the art doctors with educated professionals. I'm not saying UNLV needs to be UC Berkeley, but I'm saying that we are on the right track with Nevada State College specializing in Nursing, and more programs for Medicine coming to UNLV, UNR, and private institutions like Touro and USN. We need to pay more attention to our universities. I'm all for cutting programs that don't help our city if it results in new programs that will.
Also, With a ton of BLM land, who's to say we can't at least contract for alternative energies in barren areas of Nevada, with states PAYING US to use our energy?
These are all ideas floating around, and like it or not this will have to be the discussion for the next decade, or else your crime ridden areas will only get worse. Your homes will only decay into more value.
Look at cities like Pittsburg who are making a choice to try to evolve into new areas of industry and prosperity, as opposed to those who continue to live in the past, like Detroit.
We need to stay positive and optimistic about our future community. That's just my opinion, feel free to throw out some alternatives. =)
The auditorium at UNLV was filled about to capacity with ONLY 150 participants?
That school must have one dinky auditorium. (Or, maybe Mr. Schoenmann was substituting flowery writing for facts?)
@ enviroprotector: I think the writer intended to use the word divine, as in "to guess."
If the business leaders saw a way out of the mess, then they would be in the definition mode, that is to say they would be formulating actual plans. But when the leaders talk about innovation, they are saying we have no idea what to do, but we're praying that some miracle happens.
Despite my cynical attitude, I give these guys credit for putting their heads together, and at least TRYING.