The investing website Seeking Alpha has published a transcript of CEO Steve Wynn’s remarks during the Q&A portion of Wynn Resorts’s Q2 conference call yesterday. A notable excerpt:
Well, here’s our problem. There are a host of opportunities for expansion in Las Vegas, a host of opportunities to create tens of thousands of jobs in Las Vegas. I know that I could do 10,000 more myself and according to the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Convention Bureau, if we hired 10,000 employees, it would create another 20,000 additional jobs for a grand total of 30,000. I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I’m afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States. You watch television and see what’s going on, on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing’s going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress. But everybody is so political, so focused on holding their job for the next year that the discussion in Washington is nauseating. 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, “Oh 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 or 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 to soft peddling it [sic], 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.
Yeah, yeah, I know: who cares what Steve Wynn thinks, etc. (after all, what does he know about running a business?).
Good rant, though.
3 Comments
Obama, as well as Batshit-Crazy Pelosi, are great public servants, don’t you know?
Mind TBH, I’ve pretty much stopped watching any of our Congress Critters. I do wish there were more Senators like Coburn of Oklahoma. The ‘hell-bent for leather’ Tea Party folk seem a bit in over their heads and were they to find themselves trying to organize something resembling a ‘team’ couldn’t agree on the number or spots where the goals ought to be located.
The Democrats might – just might – put together a team but their “goal” would be not scoring.
I’ve no idea what’s gonna happen when the ballots finally get tallied but it’s guaranteed to be surprising, perplexing, and dismaying.
JK,
Perplexing, and dismaying, no doubt. Surprising, not so much.
Let’s face it, doing the right thing would mean swallowing some very bitter pills for most people. And politicians will not do anything that might jeopardize their reelection for another term.