Word: phoenician
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Last February, Congress Watch documented a typical outing. The Tobacco Institute flew 11 members, including Republican House leaders Tom DeLay and John Boehner, to the Phoenician, a Scottsdale, Arizona resort, for a "legislative conference," complete with morning seminars on the harmlessness of nicotine and afternoons free for golf and spa treatments at the Centre for Well-Being, at a cost of $62,890. There's no linkage, of course, but five months later the Republican leadership slipped a $50 billion tax break for tobacco into the budget bill. (By contrast, Espy's Agriculture Department actually tightened poultry regulation...
...buzz ricochets like a hot stock tip from table to table on the spectacular dining terrace of the $600 million Phoenician resort hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona. Charles H. Keating Jr., his head held high, his gangly 6 ft. 5 in. frame clad in rolled-up blue jeans and a Windbreaker, strides in, startling a middle-aged couple at lunch. The man, still in golf togs, drops a steak knife and says, "Edith, I can't believe he's out of prison; it's the guy who built this hotel...
...resold by the feds at fire-sale prices--are today worth a fortune. If Keating had been able to ride out the real estate crash that bankrupted operators just as smart as he was, bondholders might have got their money back. But that's a junk-bond if. The Phoenician, derided as a symbol of Keating's wretched excess, is a crown jewel for its new owner, ITT-Sheraton, and worth at least twice what Keating spent to build...
...lining a lot of other people's pockets. They gave S&Ls away from October to December 1988. They are causing fortunes to be made by these assets that they're confiscating, being given into other people's hands for nothing. They took a hotel away from me, the Phoenician resort, that's probably the best hotel ever built in the U.S., and they've turned it into a Holiday Inn. Why doesn't the media ask, Good God in heaven, what's happened here? What if I'm right? That's what you're going to find...
...Phoenician resort grossed $48 million in the first year of operation. Its occupancy rate was in the neighborhood of 76%. Hotels are a perfect hedge against inflation because you can raise the room rates every day. And what is critical is that its gross income, food, beverage, everything else, per room, was approximately...