I'm pretty sure (without checking) that the heads of CET and MGM still made lots of money in the years that their companies "lost money" or even "went bankrupt".

It's silly to talk about suing anyone, etc., as that's just the way the corrupt corporate system works, for both private and publicly traded company. Stockholders may lose money, but the people who really run the company never do. If the businesses were what I would consider truly "losing money", they certainly wouldn't pull in a big salary for more than a year.

Wrong. Tom Brady collects his big salary whether they win the Super Bowl or go 0-16. CEO's are just employees like anyone else and even sometimes have contracts for a specific time like football players.

If you want to reduce salary in years when a company loses money, good luck finding anyone competent to take that job in the future. They essentially do that anyway by paying them a base salary and then giving them stock or stock options. They make more in good years, but they're always going to make their base salary no matter what.

Football teams still make tons of money even in a losing season, and quarterbacks are not management personnel, so that analogy fails on two fronts. Football coaches do often lose their jobs after a losing season, and they still have lots of people who want the jobs.

Not to derail but so true. Few weeks back a local company decided it wasn't working out with the new ceo after only 18 months and he got a nice 32 Million Dollar going away present. He got 20ish mill in stock when he started and his salary was 1 mill/year with 8-10 more in stock bonuses per year for a 4 year contract. So basically parted ways and got paid out the remainder of salary plus expected bonus for the rest of his contract.

I wouldn't mind showing up for work and being told it wasn't working out, here's 3 years salary as a parting gift.

Whatever. Coaches still get paid no matter what. Pick any freakin pro sport. American soccer, girls basketball, whatever. Doesn't matter how much money they lose, everyone still gets paid according to their contract.

Millions of people want their jobs. But COMPETENT people will be hard to hire if you don't live up to your contracts.

Actually, it does. They took on that debt with the expectation it would make them money. If I own a rent house and the renters are paying a crap load of money every single month that sounds great for me but it actually doesn't mean **** if it doesn't cover my mortgage. I'm still losing money on the deal.

You can't just ignore the fact that they took out a lot of debt or just pass it off as a stupid decision. It's really easy to say that after the fact knowing that the country was about to go into a recession after a near collapse of the financial systems. The fact is, taking risks by leveraging your properties with debt is how you make money in this business. Sometimes it bites them in the ass and they lose money in a big way as they have in recent years.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect system for executive compensation. This is a perfect example of why executive compensation shouldn't be strictly tied to company performance. If I'm an executive at one of these companies, why should I be getting compensated less because some bozos in the mid 2000s decided to burden the company with a lot of debt? If I take a company that should be losing $500 million/year and cause it to only lose $100 million/year should I not be compensated more than the guy that takes a company that should be making $500 million/year and turns it into a company making $100 million/year? There are terrible decisions in the US auto industry regarding employee retirement plans that haunted those companies for decades. What are you going to do, dig up the graves of those executives and demand that they repay their performance bonuses?

And per my previous paragraph, I disagree. It would be extremely difficult to bring in good talent (or keep good talent) to turn your company around if you don't compensate them...and when your company is not doing well it tends to be the time when you really need talented people. As a shareholder, I would prefer they would have top talent up top.

Just as lots of competent footbal coaches still want NFL jobs, I'm sure lots of competent managers would love a crack at running CET for a year at $5 million or more, even if they knew they would lose their job the next year if the company lost money.

Anyway, if these companies really were losing money, they simply wouldn't have the funds to pay huge salaries year after year, and their stocks would lose pretty much all their value (even property on the strip isn't worth much if you can't make money there with a casino). The "losses" are just a way to take advantage of tax laws.

There was an article in the Dallas Morning News just yesterday where Jerry Jones said the Cowboys were losing $1million in cash every month when he first bought them. He borrowed at 11% interest and was paying close to $100k a day just on interest.

You are wayyyyy off on this. They didn't burden themselves with the intention of taking a bunch of tax writeoffs on losses. They burdened themselves with debt because they planned to make a LOT of money but then **** happened and the companies ended up losing their asses. Like $20 billion got knocked off Sheldon Adelson's net worth during the financial crisis (it's back up now thank goodness).

Of course companies take advantage of tax laws but a loss is a loss and they are taking advantage of them to lose less money, not make money. Those interest payments are real. What do you think, the lenders are just going to say "Things didn't work out like you thought, so you don't need to pay us back. It's ok"

I was under the impression that the money for the overinvestment was made by overseas companies taking partial ownership, not regular bank loans.

If they are bank loans, where did they get the money to make the loan payments? If I can't pay my mortgage (because I am losing money, like in the earlier example), I will lose my house.
...Or at least I should, there have been plenty of shenanigans in the banking industry as well.

How struggling companies survive: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16831126/n.../#.WW0_POmQxzo

That's an interesting article, but it kind of makes my point when it says that some of what big companies call "losses" aren't really losses to regular people.

It doesn't really matter, I don't even care much that they get some tax breaks. The only thing that bothers me is people saying things like CET had to start charging for parking because they were losing so much money, when by most people's definitions, they weren't losing at all.

If you have an asset that was worth $1 billion and is now only worth $900 million, that is a $100 million dollar loss. If that isn't a loss by most people's definition then most people are pretty clueless. If a businesses revenues are less than its expenses, then the business is losing money. A business can continue to stay in business while losing money for some time.

CET was definitely losing money. As for parking, I think they should charge for it because people will pay for it and that's regardless of whether CET is losing money or not.

And as a result half of Aria's profits go to the middle east thanks to a bailout from Dubai World.

How does the paid parking at the Bellagio work? I have an M-Life Gold card.

If you have Gold, self or valet are free, just scan your card on the way in.

^
thanks

I think you have a really weird concept of what a corporation is. And from some of your other posts it seems like that comes from extrapolating your personal situation.

That is, if YOU skipped your mortgage payment something bad happens so why is it different if a corporation does it? Or that YOU wouldn't raise a parking fee unless you needed the money so why does a corporation do it?

A corporation is like this: imagine if you wanted to play a game you aren't rolled for, so you get staked. The stakers are the corporation and you are the CEO. You are in charge but you must answer to your stakers. They will likely place certain conditions up front (e.g., you can only play X stakes or higher or Y stakes or lower) and your hand history will be reviewed (e.g., you will have to answer why you raised 76s from MP). Your salary is entirely negotiable - if they really trust you they will offer you better terms than if they're skeptical. You may be offered performance bonuses. You may be offered a floor (a minimum amount you would get paid).

Now the way you'd play staked is likely different from if you were alone. Depending on your incentives, you may end up locking a win to ensure you get a hefty bonus, even if it were EV+ to keep playing. You may avoid some marginal spots knowing that it would get scrutinized.

Most notably, the corporation's goal is to make money. It is not to make you a better player, although becoming a better player may be a welcome side effect. Your stakers may insist you 3bet KQo even if you're not super comfortable or cap your tipping even if you'd like to tip more. You may even disagree with the stakers on occasion but end up having to execute their wishes even if you think it makes you a worse player.

Smart stakers would tinker with your terms to keep you properly incentivized. If they punish you very harshly for mistakes, you'd end up too risk averse. If they punish you too lightly, you end up being reckless. They will recognize that sometime you hit downswings and will of course make sure you're making the right plays, but ultimately if you play well and have a losing month it would be ridiculous to "fire" you. On the other hand if you report too many losing months, they may "fire" you even if they can't figure out what you're doing wrong. Good stakers would probably hire you based on a track record of success, but also coach you.

Of course, if you're rich enough to just stake yourself or willing to play lower, you'd be like a private corporation or an individual. You have nobody to answer to - if you're sick of dealing with stakers, for good reasons or bad, nobody forces you to be staked. That's why the distinction between a large public company and a small private company should be made. If you want to play 3/6 for fun and/or become the world's best player and/or overtip the busty waitress so you can nail her, ain't nobody going to stop you as a closely-held / private corporation. But once you enter into that arrangement where you answer to stakers, money is paramount, even if you're not having fun, even if you're not becoming a better player, even if you're not getting laid.

And to finally circle back to the point that kind of started this all, if you have a complaint about the way a staked player is playing, you can always become a staker and fix the problem.

Well, all that is irrelevant to my original point, but I think you are wrong with your stakee analogies as well, if you meant that the shareholders were like stakers. I think most corporations are run not in the best interests of the individual stockholders, but in the interests of the few bigwigs who really run the place.
They usually have incentives to get quick profits over what would be in the best long-term interests of the stockholders. They get big bonuses at the time if there is a short-term improvement, but don't pay penalties if performance goes down later. Either they're out of power by then, or they get a golden parachute.

My buying a very small portion of the stock available would not allow me to change either the corrupt system, or the behavior of the individual corporation.

Who gives the incentives? Who gives the bonuses?

Most MGM casinos didn't offer 3:2 BJ under 50 dollars a hand fwiw.

I just got my Total Rewards Visa, I will be at least Platinum until January 31st 2019 with Free parking, unless they decide to take that away later. lol

i'd assume they'd keep them in the high roller areas that aren't on the main floor, yah?

side note, it's amazing how many tables bellagio has removed from the floor over the years. there use to be a whole role of tables on the north side of the property years ago that's long gone. (by snacks and the nightclub)

Last trip a couple weeks ago was the first trip in a long time where I didn't rent a car, which I always did so I could quickly move between the different poker rooms. This was solely due to places charging for parking. Even though I am an Mlife gold member, I didn't want to deal with the hassle or end up paying if I wanted to go to a Ceasers property.

I solely used lyft and Uber this trip even though I don't like the way they exploit drivers (I tried to make up for that in tipping) and guess what? I was able to move around town quicker, felt more freedom to have a drink if I wanted it, and the total cost including tips for the trip was less than what I would have paid for the car.

Pearl card with Mlife gets you free self parking at all MGM properties in Las Vegas right?
How many hours of poker will get you that? Is it different for 1/2 and 1/3 vs 2/5?
Can you combine Mirage and others or is each room separate?

Are they still doing Free parking at MGM properties with local ID?