"Kompromise", again

This isn't the first time I've used that spelling, and chances are that it won't be the last.

What Krugman Said:

The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn’t work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.

Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse. On one side, interest rates on federal borrowing are currently very low, so spending cuts now will do little to reduce future interest costs. On the other side, making the economy weaker now will also hurt its long-run prospects, which will in turn reduce future revenue. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and thereby made them even sicker.

But not to worry, folks: the states are marching in line to the abattoir as well.

Have fun with your refurbished Victorian class distinctions, guys. I know I will.

WI: "Just move along...nothing to see here..."

Wa*kerstan continues to be a very, very suspicious place indeed, unless you think that potential issues of voter suppression (also brought up Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel), weirdly timed fires and a choke-happy state Supreme Court justice allied with Der Burgher himself are now signs of The New Normal up there.  

I have to hand it to the Dairy State: these days, you're making politics here in Illinois seem downright boring.

Hotel new math follies

You'll have to pardon me for bitching about a subject that never fails to irritate me, but consider the following numbers very carefully when you compare the following Chicago-area fannish conventions:

Capricon 31 (from memory): $107/night, single through quad; $119/night for a party suite

Duckon: the rate for Duckon 20 was taken off the web site, but IIRC it was either was $99 or $109/night for a standard single or double. 

Windycon 38 (upcoming): $103/night for a regular room, $153/night for a party suite. 

Chicon 7 in 2012: the rates aren't posted, but I seem to remember them being locked in at $145/night for a standard room.  

Anime Central (2012): $175/night single through quad and suites "half off of the Hyatt's rack rate per night." 

Does that last one seem just a bit...pricy to anyone? Especially in relation to the other con's room rates that I just quoted?

A bit of a gedankenexperiment, here: If you go directly to the Hyatt corporate web site and try to make a reservation for the weekend previous to Acen 2012 (unsurprisingly, online reservations aren't available the weekend of the con), you get rates ranging anywhere from $189/night to $229/night depending on what level of extra doodads you want with the package. In other words, if you choose to register through the convention room block, your savings for a standard room amounts to a whole $14 worth of savings a day. Big Whoop. Especially when you consider that other anime cons such as Kollision Con got rates from $99 to $119/night and Anime Midwest ended up getting $99 to $109/night. To be fair, both are booked at the Pheasant Run in St. Charles, but Anime World Chicago isn't, and they succeeded in getting a rate of only $89/night for a first-time anime con, for crying out loud! 

At one time, I was under the impression that Acen got taken to the cleaners by Hyatt Regency O'Hare staff on their room rates because - unlike mainsteam, fan-run SF conventions - their hotel liasions were either inexperienced in dealing with special events staff at hotels or were just brow-beaten into lousy contracts by high-pressure sales tactics. For example, their basic contract at the now defunct Sheraton Chicago Northwest was $99/night the last year they were there. I don't believe any of that anymore, as the results I posted above fully indicate. And this from a convention that has always insisted that moving to a different location (such as McCormick Place, which is their default position on this question on their web site's forums) would be prohibitively expensive. 

Which leads to this question: expensive to who, exactly?