Even Investigative-Birther Influx Can't Stem Aloha State's Tourism Decline

Reason ^ | 8/17/09 | Tim Cavanaugh

[pissant]

It's shaping up to be a grim 50th birthday for America's youngest (and undoubtedly fakest) state, as the local tourism industry gets a nice Hawaiian punch courtesy of the global recession. According to the Wall Street Journal:

As much as a third of Hawaii's economy is driven by tourism, say state finance experts, and a recent state report showed that from January to June, spending from visitors who arrived by air dropped 15% to $4.97 billion from a year earlier.

Even sunbathers this year easily claimed spots on the normally overcrowded Waikiki Beach, a distressing sign for an economy more dependent on tourism than any other state in the U.S.

To put things into perspective, the state's unemployment rate, even at a 31-year high, is only 7.4 percent -- lower than the national average and better than the structural unemployment rate for many tourism-dependent economies around the world. (Oh wait: Damn you, Monaco, for screwing up the average.) The story also conflates government budget concerns with actual economic performance. (Gov. Linda Lingle is aiming to cut 1,000 state jobs to close an $800 million deficit.) Finally, there's this attempt by to pathologize the healthy dynamics of the bazaar:

Two years ago, there seemed no end to Hawaii tourism, said Marcus Oshiro, finance chairman of the Hawaii House of Representatives. "And now we're begging and offering free meals and free lessons trying to get them to come here."

[Trailerpark Badass]

They could tour all the hospitals he was born in and sell replicas of all his social security cards, along with replicas of all his different passports and citizenship papers.

LOL, and tthe kids could trade them like baseball cards.

"I got the "barry Soetoro muslim rookie card!" I'll trade it for your Barack Obama jr. Kenyan all-star card!"

[lonewacko_dot_com]

While there are a lot of comments here, few if any have taken the more effective step of commenting at the link. You can see two from me (”24AheadDotCom”), and it would be great if others could leave comments on such posts *at other sites* towards my general goal.

My goal isn’t to prove that BHO was born in Kenya; I think the possibility of that is slight. My goal is to discredit the MSM, and doing that would have an impact well beyond this issue. But, in order to discredit the MSM you have to either get a lot of people to help you (despite hours of work I’ve gotten zero backup from others) or you have to get those in a position of relative authority to discuss this (which is the goal of my first comment at the link).

Seriously: no matter what you believe about this issue, if people would follow my lead on this we could have an impact on the MSM’s credibility, and that would help in many other areas.

[erman]

kiss my a## Hawaii. Lived in Kailua while my dad was stationed at Kaneohe and I know it's beautiful on Kauai but it's on my going Galt list. No visits, no trips to visit buddies In the 13th MEU nothing.

I'm advising all conservatives to go Galt. If you have to buy something over $100, try to get it used or just hold off for a couple of years.

No visits or vacations to any place that supported Obamalamadingdong... and let them know it...... no money and nothing to the libs. Starve the beast, no money = no tax revenues.

They don't need conservatives... they don't need money, cause money is evil and the people that earn money are evil. So just tell the tourist bureaus that they need to call ACORN, out of work union workers and the homeless parasites to come visit and spend money. While the rest of us earn more money to pay taxes.

[JimRed]

You can’t drive there in your RV, so why bother?