What if no jobs ever come back to any meaningful numbers? This is a very real possibility. Are we going to have a permanent welfare class with no expiration on benefits? How can we afford this?

Truth is, LV Valley needs to de-populate and one way or the other nature will take care of this. There needs to be more people living in the midwest where land, water, and food are more plentiful. This insanity of having a valley of 2 million in the mojave desert is not realistic.

We need to encourage more growth in other parts of the country...not the mojave desert.

I don't know about police and fire but I do know the cities have to pay a certain premium in order to attract people with certain skill sets to live here. Las Vegas, and Nevada in general has one of the lowest rates of people with college degrees in the country. Alot of these people with degrees work for the local governments. Why would someone with an engineering degree come work here for same or less pay that they could make where they are from?

Point being, if your going to have the center piece of your economy be gambling and "sin" your going to have to pay people to live here.

I live about 5 minutes from GRV and have all but stopped "gaming" there for about 6 months now. I probably made 50 trips there and maybe walked out ahead 1 time with like 75 bucks. I say good riddance to bad rubbish. That Stations has too many middle managers pulling 6 figure salaries that do nothing.

So after swearing off all casinos I'm now doing the same for video poker bars. United coin recently made adjustments to their pay tables which in effect makes it not worth to play. I've never felt better. It used to be fun in this town but now its just how much money they can screw the small guy out of.

"Tent cities are popping up incities across the country. Remnants of the Bush administration."

Obama and Bush are cut from the same cloth. There is no difference, no change, just empty rhetoric. The same ruling elite control both parties. You have been lied to. Can you name me one thing that Barry has done different than Bush? I can't.

Obama is nothing more than a paid wall street shill put in place to assuage and placate the anger of the masses in thinking they are actually getting something different.

Puleezz

And what about when this bs "stimulus" money dries up? What about when all the potholes are filled? What then? What about when the Chinese say no more to buying our junk bonds?

LV Valley will de-populate and dwindle in size.

Too many people in las vegas valley. Most need to go back to the midwest or wherever they are from. This valley cannot sustain the levels of growth that have been forced on it. Game over LV.

Reid will be voted out in 2010 after the country is spiraled further into the Greater Depression.

Then he can go back and clean money in searchlight.

Pathetic is the only word I can think of about this whole affair?

Why should we be subsidizing some losers mortgage. F@ck that. They should go under and lead the dead bodies rise.

This system will not get better until the government stops meddling with the markets natural way of working though bad debt(i.e. bankruptcies).

Until that time, all so-called programs will fail miserably. The day the government puts up its hands and says no more bailouts it the day that the bottom will be in.

Home prices are still unaffordable in many parts of the country and need to drop more. Government intervention to prop up homes prices will end up doing precisely the opposite. Expect home prices to fall even further as the government further undermines responsible buyers efforts to establish a bottom.

Harry Reid, complicit in the looting of taxpayer monies over the past few months, needs to be removed from office. He is a traitor to the American people and beholden only to his corporate and mob masters. Him and Pelosi, coupled with the idiot in the white house, have been nothing short of a disaster for the country.

Real change is not voting for either democrats or republicans but third party candidates.

I'm amazed every time I read these articles on the current and ongoing train wreck that is our economy both locally and nationally. I'm no economist but I could see this disaster coming from a 1000 miles away four or five years aog all the while idiots posing as authorities telling me home prices don't fall. I dated a realtor who was pardon me dumb as a box of rocks who had been making 150K+. Right then I knew something was amiss.

Now we get to hear about all these crybabies who had it wrong and are in deep water. Eat crow I say.

I'm not hear just to deride the sheeple. Part of the problem in this country is too many MBA's and useless Lawyers. Parasites who provide no real productivity other than sponging off working class. If the country really wants to even compete in the 21st century we need to start replacing our excessive numbers of lawyers and mba's with engineers and scientists. This comes through education and those that don't wanna put in the hard work, well I got a trailer for you to rent out on Boulder.