Toronto casino would be bad for our health, report finds

Toronto Public Health has released its highly anticipated report on the health impacts of bringing a new casino to Toronto.

Unsurprisingly, the review determined that increased access to gambling is probably not good for your health. Medical officer of health Dr. David McKeown reported that “hosting a new casino in Toronto is anticipated to increase the frequency and severity of problem gambling in the city, and the associated negative health impacts on individuals, families and communities.”

Email from Mayor Rob Ford signals support for downtown casino

An email from Mayor Rob Ford’s office to his city council allies shows, for the first time, his explicit endorsement for a downtown casino.

Ford’s office sent the email, which includes talking points, to his allies Monday ahead of a report released by city manager Joe Pennachetti on the viability of a downtown casino.

The email suggests Toronto’s interests would be best served if the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation “simply” expanded Woodbine Racetrack and built a new casino downtown.

Rob Ford supports $3B casino project, sort of

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says he is willing to entertain a privately-built casino resort like the massive complex proposed by a developer on Front Street on Friday, but would prefer it built on city-owned land.

Oxford Properties Group on Friday announced plans for the $3-billion project, which would potentially include a hotel, an urban park, and retail space in addition to a casino on land it owns on the south side of Front Street between Simcoe Street and Blue Jays Way.

Casino plans slammed at community meeting

Anyone who wants to see a casino built in downtown Toronto has a lot of convincing to do, if a packed public meeting at City Hall Wednesday night is any indication.

Roughly 200 people turned out for the meeting of the Toronto and East York Community Council, the local body made up of downtown and East York councillors that usually deals with minor local matters. Although the item up for debate was an otherwise inconsequential report about how zoning bylaws might affect a future casino, dozens of residents took the opportunity to sign up and decry the negative social and economic impacts they claim would accompany any gambling facility.

The rise of the casino economy

I was on a road trip recently, driving through the American south, and ended up coming face to face with the economics of gambling. The friend I was travelling with is a professional poker player, making his living at casinos all across the U.S. He used to work as an IT consultant in Toronto, helping companies with their computer systems before he decided to quit and earn his keep in a more unorthodox fashion.

At one point, as we drove along the highway from New Orleans towards Texas (we were heading for Austin) I noticed that just about every gas station had a casino attached to it, albeit small ones. They were big enough to contain some slot machines and crap tables. In New Orleans itself, I visited the Harrah's casino, a huge building in the downtown core, hermetically sealed to keep the sunlight out in order not to distract the visitors from the task of valiantly trying not to lose their money. My friend spent a few hours there to make some quick cash.

Casinos have been springing up in cities across North America in recent years. They are seen by governments as an economic elixir -- a one-stop job creator and tourist attraction designed to replace employment lost because of de-industrialization in America and Canada. By now it's as much as a (US) $20-billion industry combined between the two countries. In cities like Windsor, which used to employ huge numbers of people in the auto industry, when those jobs vanished, the Ontario government built casinos in the hopes of taking up the slack.

Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street Asylum?: William D. Cohan

It took a relatively obscure former British academic to propagate a theory of the financial crisis that would confirm what many people suspected all along: The “corporate psychopaths” at the helm of our financial institutions are to blame.

Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of “people who, perhaps due to physical factors to do with abnormal brain connectivity and chemistry” lack a “conscience, have few emotions and display an inability to have any feelings, sympathy or empathy for other people.”

As a result, Boddy argues in a recent issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, such people are “extraordinarily cold, much more calculating and ruthless towards others than most people are and therefore a menace to the companies they work for and to society.”

How do people with such obvious personality flaws make it to the top of seemingly successful corporations? Boddy says psychopaths take advantage of the “relative chaotic nature of the modern corporation,” including “rapid change, constant renewal” and high turnover of “key personnel.” Such circumstances allow them to ascend through a combination of “charm” and “charisma,” which makes “their behaviour invisible” and “makes them appear normal and even to be ideal leaders.”

The Treasury's Smart Plan to Get the Government Out of Home Financing

Once upon a time, when the housing market was thriving, investors loved mortgages. They didn't care if they were prime, subprime, privately financed, or government-backed -- their love seemed unconditional. Investors threw so much money at housing that a gigantic bubble inflated. But then, it popped. Investors got burned: the mortgages they trusted turned out to be poisonous. Billions of dollars in losses from toxic securities nearly killed the investors. So the relationship ended on very bad terms. Even now, most investors will only look at mortgage securities if they're disguised as Treasuries. But the Treasury reportedly has a pretty slick idea to get these estranged lovers together again.

How Do You Jumpstart a Dead Market

Right now, the government backs something like 90% of new mortgages. Back when the housing market was thriving, private label mortgage-backed securities -- those not backed by the government -- were responsible for funding roughly 40% of mortgage originations. Three years after the crisis, the private label market remains virtually dead.