Media Release - Gambling Epidemic

Every trend in society that concerns someone is now deemed an "epidemic". For instance we are told that there is a "gambling epidemic". Our think tank Me Thinks did some investigation into this (via a few quick searches of the Internet) and as far as they can tell nobody has yet managed to identify a gambling virus or bacteria. Nonetheless Me First! do share in the concern over gambling. In particular it concerns us that much gambling activity is fucking boring!

We have had a look at those poker machines rooms at pubs. At a glance they look interesting. Lots of lights and sounds. Lots of engaging themes emblazoned on the machines like The Riches Of The Ancient Nile or The Gold Of The Pirate King. Those rooms look a bit like games arcades but with nicer fixtures and decor. But on closer inspection they are nothing of the kind. Buttons get pressed - yes - but in a monotonous way. Press. Press. Press. Nobody is frantically smacking those controls. Nobody is commenting on the skill of another. Nobody is comparing scores. This shit is incredibly dull. What gambling venues need is to become games arcades!

Get past the level boss and the machine gives you a few dollars. Destroy the big boss of all the levels and you hit the jackpot. Suddenly the lost and lonely ghosts of suburbia will be competing to kill the mummy and take its sapphire amulet. They will be having a drink afterwards at the bar and comparing notes on who was best at owning the arse of the Pirate King.

The gaming industry and the hoteliers will object however. They will say that if gambling games become skills-based then profits will be affected and then they will have to take away the nice couches we have in pubs these days. The house must always win. And yet the computer games industry thrives. Consumers pay just to play games even if they never hit the jack-pot. However if these two concepts were combined we may suddenly find that poker machine venues become lively as the wits and whimsy of gamers is stimulated. Gamblers may get addicted to something more worthwhile than the futile hope of magically vanquishing financial debts. The epidemic could turn into a funidemic. As it is poker machines are only fun for those making a profit off the suffering of the desperate.

Okay we admit it - sometimes these "joke" policy statements are anything but funny. That last sentence is depressing and too much like the truth.

Policy - Exercise Energy Levy

Me First! has been undertaking the work of a consumer watchdog lately. We took a look at the food industry. They charge you for energy (in caloric form). They charge you per unit. You only pay for what you consume (thrown-away left-overs excepted). We then looked at the fitness industry. They charge you for taking energy away from you. They tend to charge you memberships of many months in which you may only use a fraction of the service they provide. So from your perspective there is a lot of wastage there if you find it difficult to get back to the gym regularly.

But what interested Me First! was what happens to the energy you do expend with them. Were they taking and storing that energy and then feeding it back into the electricity grid? Should they then have been giving that back to the consumer in the form of discounted membership rates? What we discovered shocked us more than the possibility that gyms were energy vampires leeching off the efforts of the image-concsious and charging them for the experience. The alarming truth is that all that energy expended on exercise machines is just evaporating into the ether! All this while we are a world with an energy crisis.

Now if the fitness industry was an energy vampire conning its costumers we would have been cool with that. Charging you money to take something from you that they can then use themselves? Brilliant! Such entrepreneurialism is to be admired. But to just let all that puffing and panting waft away while energy costs rise is a scandal and one that Me First! will respond to with an Exercise Energy Levy.

This levy will be set at a rate necessary to provide the fitness industry with the incentive it needs to implement technology improvements allowing them to convert every movement of every exercise machine into power to return to the electricity grid. If they do so they will make and even grow profits. If they continue as they are then they will suffer financially. Once this change takes effect it will be better for everyone. The industry will be taking from customers twice-over and those customers will be feeding our energy reserves as well as their own egos.