Monday  8 December  2014  / Hour 1, Block D:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: China Arrests Former Security Czar in Major Political Purge China's former Politburo Standing Committee Member Zhou Yongkang . . .  Chou Yong-kang has been arrested; rumors that the Chinese PM will not get a second term at the XIX Party Congress  all this suggests that China is partially going off the rails. Two opinions: it’s going to crash; or, nah it'll recover. Chinese gamblers are not spending much – they're no longer allowed to use real estate to borrow against for gambling.  The narrative is that Xi quickly consolidated power when he arrived; I think there are factions in the Party and they’re slugging it out.  Because Xi has broken the rule of not prosecuting former members of the Standing Committee. "You can use the state police power against the people but not against the elite." Xi returns to the Maoist era of doing in your enemies. This could rip the Party apart.  Formerly, "If you lose, you can go away quietly" – which restored tranquility to the Party.

The Sony hack.  North Korea denies 'righteous' hack attack on Sony

In October, gamin revenue in Nevada was down 4.3% year-on-year, according to the State Gaming Control Board. The Las Vegas Strip saw a decline of 5.6%. Without baccarat, the casinos would have been in good shape. The state as a whole would have been up 1.2%. The Strip? Up 5.6% without the card game. On the Vegas Strip, baccarat revenue plunged, down a stunning 35.5% during October. What happened? Brent Pirosch, a CBRE analyst in Las Vegas, has the answer: Chinese gamblers stayed away. There are empty baccarat tables in Singapore too, but nowhere are the problems more evident than in Macau, a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. In October, gaming revenue there was off 23.2%. China's economic difficulties are now hitting Las Vegas