Vegas recession stories: Easy come …

One of the harder recession stories to put a firm finger on is the financial decline (and in some cases obliteration) of Las Vegas families who made fortunes in the go-go years, only to see that wealth slip through the hands of the sons and daughters of the pioneers.

No one wants to talk about it. It is embarrassing for those going through it. Hundreds of millions locked up in real estate that can't be sold, unwise investments now worthless, loans than can't be repaid and businesses that can no longer find a bottom line.

Some of these old line families have seen hundreds of millions turned into a few scant million that must now be split up between angry heirs with an appetite for the finer things they can no longer afford. There is great fear that if the recession does a "double-dip", as some economists predict, what little family wealth remains could be wiped away.

In the last year I've spoken to two well-known Las Vegans struggling to keep financially afloat. One made some bad decisions on over-extended debt acquisition and had to make some fast sacrifices to avoid financial ruin. Another sold the traditional family business and bought into more risky ego ventures, only to have the risks drift south. "I'm still well off," he confided, "but I used to be wealthy."

Don't know if there's a moral to all this. Perhaps it's just another iteration of a very old story that ends like this: Easy come, easy go.