Nevada’s Rx of Recovery

Four years ago, the state of Nevada was the fastest growing state in the entire nation with some of the fastest growing counties in America, too. It had one of the healthiest economies, boasting a favorable, business-friendly tax climate, which enticed companies to relocate to the Silver State. There were also plenty of job opportunities for any and everyone who wanted to move here and work.
Well, as the old axioms go, “what goes up must come down,” and “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Within two years, Nevada’s economy went from first to worst in the nation. The impetus was the mortgage lending crisis and subsequent real estate collapse that cost Nevada thousands of construction-related jobs. Adding insult to injury, Nevada tourism and service industries dwindled because of the nationwide recession, which kept a lot of people close to home.
All of a sudden, the Silver State had one of the highest unemployment rates in the United States. It now leads the country in the percentage of people unemployed at more than 14 percent.
Making matters only worse, Nevada has also led the nation in foreclosure and loan default rates since the credit crisis began. Furthermore, no state in the union has a higher rate of bankruptcy filings than the state of Nevada.
The state government’s budget has faced a deficit each of the last two bienniums, and is expecting its largest budget deficit to date for the next biennium beginning next year.
For nearly eighty years Nevada has relied primarily upon gaming to (1) be the impetus of economic growth, and (2) supply the lion’s share of state government revenue.
But like the gold and silver booms that eventually played out in Nevada’s first century, the gaming boom is poised to play out in the state’s second century.
Several states now have legalized gambling, and most American Indian reservations across the country feature casinos and gaming.
There is also Internet gambling that can be accessed from just about anywhere.
Gaming is no longer distinct to Nevada. It is no longer unique from the rest of the country. As such, fewer people are visiting the Silver State for the gaming.
And thanks to the “Great Recession,” fewer still are traveling here for leisure and the sheer fun of it.
Tourism, another of Nevada’s primary industries, has suffered right along with gaming in the current recession, which has caused many people to batten down the hatches, reign in their spending and travel as little as possible.
It is little wonder that Nevada’s economy is struggling perhaps more than most other states.
Okay, so we know what Nevada’s problems are. What are the solutions? How do we fix the problems and get Nevada back into the black (and out of the red)?
I have some ideas.
They aren’t simple ones, mind you; but then again, there is no easy solution to a struggling economy.
Some tough decisions will have to be made; not just by our elected representatives, but also by the residents and people of Nevada.

When the going gets tough…
…the tough get going.
The first thing Nevadans must do is decide whether to admit defeat, retreat from or continue to fight this recession. If we surrender, then we are giving up, and I know of nothing positive that has or ever will come from giving up. It is one of the first lessons many of us learn when we are small children: Don’t give up.
It is also one of nature’s most profound lessons. An animal that gives up just makes it easier for the predators to kill it.
If Nevadans decide to retreat, then nothing good can come of this, either. No problems ever get solved by running away from them. This is also a fundamental law of nature: Fight or flight. If we flee, then all we’ve worked for over the years is lost. Do we really want to leave our children with the mess that we helped to create? By running away, we would be doing exactly that.
As a Nevada resident for the past seven years, I will say that my family and their future are worth fighting for. It is because of them that I don’t just pull up stakes and leave for greener pastures, more fertile ground elsewhere. Besides, if I give up and run, what message am I sending to my children? Is that really the lesson I want them to learn?
No, as a man and as a Nevadan, I feel it is incumbent upon me to fight for the livelihood of my family.
Our ways of thinking about this recession must change if we are to have any hope of changing our ways of doing.
We must stop all of this negative thinking, fed primarily from the messages of doom and gloom produced by the news and entertainment media, popular culture, and most especially politicians who generally like to capitalize on a good crisis, because it gives them opportunities to do things that they might otherwise avoid.
Nevadans are all Americans, after all, and “American” ends in “I can” the last time I checked, not “I can’t.”
So, a little bit of internal housecleaning and soul-searching is necessary before we set out to accomplish anything else.
Once each has his own house in order, then we can go about trying to right our state’s ship.
This now brings me to economic solutions for Nevada.
The key to any state economy is the infusion of cash, or capital. The more of it that is circulating within the state, the more investments there are and the more economic growth there is. When cash leaves the state, the less there is to infuse the marketplace with investment capital, to grow business and create jobs, and the less there is to fund the state coffers with tax revenue.
Nevada’s problem is a lack of cash flow within the state. Ours is anemic, to say the least.
So, what can we do to improve the flow of cash and capital in Nevada?
One is to establish new alternatives to gaming and mining, which have been Nevada’s two primary industries since the very beginning.

Reusable energy.
At this very moment, tons of nuclear waste sits underneath Yucca Mountain collecting dust and half-lives. The federal government doesn’t want it, and either do the states that are sending theirs here to our state.
There’s an old saying: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
Nevada has a golden opportunity to capitalize on somebody else’s garbage by turning it into economic treasure.
Other countries around the world have demonstrated that nuclear waste can be recycled and turned into reusable energy. The technology is available to break down the waste and turn it back into energy that can be used again.
Over the last few years, there has been a big national push toward developing alternative energy sources. Well, here’s one right in Nevada’s own backyard. All the state has to do is reach out and take it off federal hands. The current White House has made clear its intentions to close the Yucca Mountain facility and to stop sending waste to Nevada.
So, if Nevada is going to jump on this opportunity, she had better do it soon before the feds close the door for good.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of Nevadans who downright fear anything nuclear. You say the word and it’s like spreading an airborne plague by mouth. It’s akin to uttering blasphemy. People run when someone says “nuclear waste.”
If they only appreciated that most of the waste inside Yucca Mountain is not a by-product of the lethal weapons-grade plutonium, but rather comes from industrial grade uranium used to power nuclear reactors that produce electricity.
I’m not saying the stuff is safe to touch or be exposed to by any means. But it’s not going to explode and cause a deadly orange mushroom cloud, either. Using existing technology, we can harvest energy from this waste by breaking it down and recycling it.
You can’t get much greener by promoting recycled energy. Not only is it environmentally responsible, but it would be economically smart for Nevada. Imagine the revenue the state of Nevada could collect from the tons of waste shipped here by the feds and other states. Not to mention the jobs that would result.
What has to happen first, though, is to convince the nay-sayers that nuclear waste doesn’t mean the end of the world, or that anyone who works around it is going to grow an extra eyeball. Unless these pessimists and cynics can be persuaded, Nevada will likely miss the last boat of opportunity on this.

Waste management.
Fortunately, there are other opportunities for Nevada besides nuclear waste. At this time, waste management companies in Northern California are partnering with a Nevada firm to ship Bay Area garbage to landfills in Northeastern Nevada. This is going to help create jobs in Nevada, something our state desperately needs.
But once again, there are opponents to this effort who just don’t want somebody else’s trash in their backyard. They don’t want Nevada becoming known as the “Waste State.”
Well, remember the old saying about one man’s trash. Life is what you make of it. If you are handed lemons—as Nevada has been for the past three years—then make lemonade with them.
California has for years had a waste and space problem. Home to 37 million people, it’s no wonder. There is a lot of open space in Nevada, some of which could be used as landfills for California waste. Imagine the fees the state could collect from its western neighbor, and the jobs that could emerge from a new waste management industry here in Nevada.
Be it nuclear or human, waste presents an opportunity for Nevada. Either we turn up our noses at it, or we take advantage of the chance to rebuild our state’s economy. While nobody likes the idea of waste coming to our state, sometimes we must choose to do what we don’t want to do. The livelihood of Nevadans is more important than either appearance or reputation. If I had to choose between maintaining an image and getting a job, I’d choose the latter hands down any day of the week.

Clean energy.
Fortunately, waste storage isn’t the only new industry open to Nevada. Clean energy production through the harvest of solar and wind power is both practical and realistic in the Silver State. With an average of 300 days of sunshine year-round, sunlight and solar energy is abundant. Wind blows in bulk here, too. With a lot of open space and a bounty of sun and wind, Nevada is the ideal place to establish solar panel and wind turbine farms.
There are also subterranean geothermal pockets dotted all over Nevada’s high desert landscape, which are ripe for the harvest.
With the current national push toward alternative and clean energy sources, Nevada is poised to be at the forefront of production to fill this demand.
But again, though, doing so will require construction of big, ugly geothermal plants, thousands of acres of giant wind turbines and solar panels that will dot the natural landscape. With these spires, Nevada won’t look as pretty or pristine anymore.
So, we have to decide what’s more important: Aesthetics or economic livelihood.

Logistics.
Exploring new opportunities and introducing new industries is only one way to revive Nevada’s economy. Another way is to revitalize parts of the current economy.
For instance, Nevada is positioned strategically between the major markets in the East and the primary West Coast market of California. With Interstate 80 running right through Northern Nevada on its way to the San Francisco Bay, it is a main arterial for freight transportation by truck or rail.
Northern Nevada, in particular, has a solid foundation in the logistics industry with regional distribution centers and warehouses for some of America’s largest companies: Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, JCPenney, Federal Express, United Parcel Service, and even General Motors, among many others.
Nevada could continue to be at the forefront of the logistics industry. As more and more retailers transition to an electronic retail environment, companies will continue to need strategic regional distribution centers to provide products that are regionally accessible to consumers, and cheaper to transport and ship because of locality.
Both Reno and Las Vegas have international airports from which company distributors can fly products out to anywhere around the globe.
In fact, Las Vegas is as strategic to the logistics industry as Northern Nevada is. Just three to four hours east of Los Angeles, Southern Nevada is within easy trucking distance from the largest metropolitan area west of the Mississippi River, and the second largest in the entire country. With Interstate 15 running right through Las Vegas on its way to Salt Lake City, Southern Nevada is located along another major transportation arterial that links markets on the west coast to markets on the east coast.
The logistics industry in Nevada is a no-brainer to revitalize and refocus our economic energy on.
Nevada would do well to bill itself as an important business link between east and west coast markets by offering a plethora of warehousing space for huge regional distribution centers that can ship a product regionally much faster and cheaper than it would take to fly it coast to coast.

Tourism.
In addition, yet another economic solution is to reinvent parts of the current economy and change the way current industries do business.
The gaming industry is a prime example. Gambling is not unique to Nevada anymore. Casino gaming, in fact, is gradually losing its draw in Nevada and will soon no longer be the lure for state tourism that it once was. As such, the Silver State should consider rebranding itself.
For years, Las Vegas had been known as “America’s playground.” Why not make this a statewide motto? Or something similar to it, like “America’s Theme Park.”
Not only does Nevada have plenty of open space and public lands for outdoor recreation, but it also offers something unique for the urban tourist: Miles of theme park attractions. From the dozens of resorts along the Las Vegas Strip to Virginia City and the major casinos in Reno, Nevada north to south could become America’s foremost family friendly destination for fun and entertainment.
There’s also the vacant Ponderosa Ranch at Incline Village. Imagine an Old West themed destination hotel resort complete with shows, shopping and rides. Whoever owns that property, I sure hope they consider revitalizing it, because Nevada sure could use the Cartwrights one more time.
Some Northern Nevada casinos—such as Circus Circus, Boom Town, and the Grand Sierra Resort—are already appealing to families with venues that are as appropriate for children as they are for adults. The other casino resorts in Northern Nevada ought to consider following suit, because family resort destinations are far more popular—and lucrative—than adult destinations. They are also the wave of the future in tourism: One-stop destinations that offer everything on-site that a vacationing family could possibly want or need. They would never have to leave the property.
The Walt Disney Company proved this with Disneyland and Disney World. Six Flags and Busch Gardens also understand this business model very well.
But Nevada hotel resort destinations, by and large, have not tried to attract families. They have focused for decades primarily on adult entertainment. This has to change.
Las Vegas is getting the message. Most of the old “Rat-Pack” era casino resorts have been razed and new, deluxe themed resorts complete with outdoor rides and shows have been built in their place.
Could Nevada become the next best thing to Disney World? That’s very possible; but only if the casino industry changes the direction of its business and begins to focus more on family-friendly entertainment.
Nevada needs a tourism product that goes beyond casinos and gambling. There needs to be a unique draw to Nevada; something to lure the tourists that is very different from anything they may have at home.

Conclusion.
Whether we try to develop new industries or reinvent existing ones, the bottom line is that Nevada needs to think outside of the box if it is going to climb out of the hole caused by the recession, work toward long-term economic recovery, and return to prosperity.