Five years ago the government of Florida gave the Seminole Indians a license to operate blackjack games at their gambling casinos. The “price” of the license is reportedly $1 billion annually to the state. The license has now expired, but the Seminoles continue the blackjack games, and the state government is suing them. The state now wants to “renegotiate” the license contract for $2 billion according to news reports.
Question: How is this different from a Mafia-style extortion racket? (“You wanna do business in my neighborhood, you gotta give me a taste”).
Answer: It’s not.
UPDATE: An emailer writes to remind me that the Mafia is “more honorable” than government since it at least doesn’t claim to be “legitimate.” Another emailer writes to point out that the Seminoles were also given a state-sanctioned monopoly on table games, hence the monopoly profits that can be “taxed” at a billion bucks a year. This of course is the story of “natural monopoly” in America: State and local governments grant monopolies, then share in the monopoly loot. This emailer also pointed out that “evil rich bastard Sheldon Adelson” is behind the Florida government’s dealings with the Seminoles. Sheldon is planning on building a casino in Miami. The state government has graciously offered its assistance by subsidizing a sure-to-be-gargantuan-money-losing passenger train from Orlando to Miami, 32 times a day. While mom and the kids are at Disney, the theory apparently goes, the dads can take the train to Sheldon’s casino. The official lame excuse designed to fool Boobus Americanus is that the train will cut down on traffic in I-95, thereby “fighting global warming.”
8:30 am on November 2, 2015
