Monday, July 18, 2011

Steve Wynn Blasts Obama

Steve Wynn has created tens of thousands of jobs in his lifetime. He owns casinos and he has invested his own money in large projects in Las Vegas and he also likes to spend money and living in luxury. He knows money and he knows business. He knows how to create jobs and he is not stupid.
Today, via the Business Insider, Wynn says this about the Obama administration:
And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems, that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration.And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America.
You bet and until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it's not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, God, don't be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama's deal and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America.
The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest, their holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government and there's no need soft peddling it, it's the truth. It is the truth. And that's true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/wynn-ceo-steve-wynn-conference-call-transcript-obama-2011-7#ixzz1SVESJERa

A Democratic businessman ripping on Obama. This doesn't bode well for Obama but this is what people have been saying about Obama since Day 1. People just didn't listen and they were angry at the GOP at election time, which was understandable at the time. But now, we have an incompetent administration who has no clue what they are doing. They are doing things by the liberal text book and it has failed and now they are clueless because they didn't have a back up plan. Typical academic types. They have no clue what works in the real world because they don't live in the real world, they live in fantasy land where everything works magically and how it was written in the text book.
Shoot, even the liberal blogs are not supporting Obama. All they do is rip on the GOP but they don't defend Obama. How pathetic is that? And yes, the liberals own Obama- he is not a moderate- he is an incompetent liberal.

Worst president ever and will be a 1 termer. And he could very well bring down the Democratic Party with him.

5 comments:

  1. obama will win because the republicans can't field a credible opponent.

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  2. Actually, what you said it mostly wrong. There's no subtler way to put it.

    The liberal playbook would have entailed a stimulus roughly three times larger than the one we had. With a roughly 1.5 multiplier we needed some $2.4 trillion to fill the hole in our economy. We went with $800 billion instead.

    As for uncertainty determining the fate of the recovery, the economic data thus far shows that businesses need customers rather than certainty about future tax rates. Find me a business that says they would be hiring right now if only they had a better sense of the corporate tax rate in 2014 or 2020. Nope, I didn't think so. What works in the real world is having customers. I hope I'm not getting too academic for you here.

    Now lets look for real problems in the economy. People aren't spending money because they are paying off the debt they accrued during the real estate bubble (2003-2007). They also feel poor because their houses aren't worth as much. If you split U.S. counties into ones with low household debt v. high household debt you see the recovery quite clearly. The counties with low household debt have higher spending and lower unemployment. Household debt is primarily driven by mortgages.

    So, you want a recovery, fix household debt. That means coercing or forcing banks to write off a bunch of no-longer-secured debt. A home owner has a $200,000 mortgage on a $100,000 house? Ok, write off $70,000 (making up a number here) of that. Now we have $130K on a $100K house. That can be recovered. Now short sales and foreclosures slow. Now people start spending a bit more.

    Notice the problem though? Banks lose money. The GOP will fight that tooth and nail (c.f. Elizabeth Warren). Obama had a reasonably balanced economic team, but the only ones left (Geithner, etc) are on the side of Wall Street. And then a subset of the Dems (Shumer, etc) will fight for the banks.

    Never you mind that we had a giant bailout that saved the banks' (Bush & Obama).

    So that's a liberal plan.

    Now, you're talking about redistribution. Ok, fine. So far the recovery has gone roughly 88% to corporate profits and 12% to salaries. That 88% goes almost exclusively to the top 2% of the country. So lets fight that redistribution, shall we? And then the Bush tax cuts enormously favor the wealthy while merely throwing a bone to the working and middle class. How 'bout we fight that redistribution too? There are in point of fact scores of small wins that the wealthy have had at the expense of the bottom 90% of the country.

    That adds up to some 30 years of watching the bottom 90% of the country fall behind while the top 10% gets a disproportionate slice of the pie, with most of that going to the top 0.5%. There's your redistribution.

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  3. To anon, you are probably right
    To Scott, let's not be so condesending, ok, you will look more intelligent if you do.
    I will take Steve Wynn's word over yours any day. He has created 10's of thousands of jobs. How many have you created.
    Your analysis is from a text book, which is what Obama has been trying and it doesn't work.
    I am also not defending Bush, he also screwed up as well.
    The stimulus didn't work because it was not sustainable and a larger stimulus would have the same problem.
    If you bailout homeowners like you said, that will take even more money out of the economy by reducing the amount of money available for loans and investment. Bailing out homeowners only benefits the homeowner, it doesn't create jobs or businesses.
    Finally, I don't Wynn think is worried about the taxes- he is more concerned about all the regulation Obama and his lackeys has laid on the businesses and the costs associated with the regulations, like for instance, the coal industry.
    Thanks for stopping by, though.

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  4. Household debt is slowing job creation according to our best economic data.

    http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-02.html

    The stimulus is not meant to be sustainable, but rather temporary. Best estimates are that it saved some 1.5% unemployment, and could have saved 2% if it were better focused. But Washington horse trading prevented that.

    Because there is record "cash on hand" right now the crowding out you reference would likely be quite small. Businesses aren't borrowing money to expand because they don't have customers.

    And the additional mining oversight follows intentional deception and the resulting death of 29 miners.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster

    I fail to see how that slows Wynn's hiring.

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  5. I do understand what you are saying about most households are not spending. That's very true and that is another reason why small business is failing and even some large business as well.
    But one reason people are not spending are higher prices brought on by the Obama administration- the dollar is weaker because they are printing so much money. With higher food and energy prices, there are fewer dollars available for other businesses.
    It's just a bunch of dominoes that causing our recession/depression and I don't think government can do much, unless they do some long term projects like an Interstate to Phoenix. That will benefit both workers and people who travel between the two cities. I would be in favor of that.

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