Sunday Open Thread [1.29.12]

So what is going on today? Commenter TT reminded me of just how wonderful House of Cards is, and that I haven’t seen it for awhile. Time to fix that. TT notes that it is streaming on Netflix AND it is streaming on Amazon. So pick your preferred delivery method and go.

Another great political series is State of Play, starring the ever fantastic Bill Nighy, and centers its story around the cat and mouse game played between reporters and politicians. This doesn’t look available for streaming on Amazon, but don’t know about Netflix. TT has first dibs on borrowing my DVD copy. There was a movie-length remake of this starring Russell Crowe which is nowhere near as good as as the British series. So what about you? What movies or TV series (that is not the beloved West Wing) would you tell political junkies are a Must See?

In today’s NJ, there is a great article Maureen Milford and Jeff Montgomery that tries to take a hard look at the numbers and assumptions that have gone into the application (withdrawn) by BPG for money from a state fund. They are also looking for a $1M loan guarantee from the city of Wilmington. This seems to be the key bit:

Within three years, or 2015, the Westin would have an occupancy rate of 72 percent, according to the application. By comparison, the average hotel occupancy rate in Delaware during 2011 was 53.8 percent. Among the top 25 markets last year, only Miami, New York City, San Francisco and Oahu Island, Hawaii had an average occupancy rate above 72 percent, according to a hotel review by STR, a hotel performance data company.

A projected occupancy rate of 72 percent for a conference hotel should mean that they have a good idea of the conferences that they can book pretty immediately. They should make that list available — because conferences take time to plan and put on. Large ones in large venues start their planning years in advance because you have to book your venue that far in advance. Mid- to smaller size ones take 8 to 24 months to plan for (in my experience), and the shorter time frame is works if your location has plenty of capacity. So they should be able to tell you what they plan to bring in. Otherwise, this just looks like an optimistic model designed to sucker politicians in to one more roll of the dice with taxpayer funds. And while I’m at it — somebody please ask BPG why they can’t get all of this fabulousness done with funds solely from the capital markets. It is probably because the capital markets see right through the consultant spin. And any government agency that guarantees loans for these folks or provides them with money from state coffers needs to be certain that they have provided a way for subcontractors to BPG have a way to get the state or city involved in ensuring that these subcontractors get paid. The Feds have a decent model for this.