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Obama’s been good to Wynn, Adelson
Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 | 2:02 a.m.
Neither Sheldon Adelson nor Steve Wynn has held back their criticism of President Barack Obama. Mr. Adelson, in particular has shown his intense desire to boot Obama out of office. Mr. Adelson’s most recent feelings were expressed through a $5 million contribution to Newt Gingrich, followed by an equal contribution from his wife.
I am not sure this is the proper gratitude that might be shown the president considering how his company’s stock has risen during Obama’s term. On Oct. 8, 2007, (Bush’s administration) Las Vegas Sands stock closed at $132. One month after Obama was sworn in, Feb. 23, 2009, the stock was at $2.50. As of Wednesday it was at $49.74 per share. Wynn Resorts stock went from $15.40 on March 6, 2009, to $157.49 on July 7, 2011. Wednesday it closed at $120.42 a share. Both companies grew substantially during Obama’s term. If profit is the bottom line, Mr. Adelson and his wife should be making those contributions to Obama.
Discussion: 29 comments so far…
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As we all know the stock is valued because of the Asian profits not because of the Las Vegas operations. So what role has Obama played that would make them what to support tha anti-business Obama.
Robert Blanner, excellent research and points made in your letter to the editor.
However, I do admit that President Obama is not the type of capitalist leader that I would prefer in the White House. But, he does have other redeeming qualities as our commander-in-chief. To go off topic for a second, !!!CONGRATULATIONS to President Obama for a gutsy approval for the Navy Seals operation to rescue those hostages in Somalia!!! There is no doubt America's fighting men and women of our armed forces are number one in the world again. Job well done!!!
Now, Mr. Blanner, the one hidden part that is omitted in your letter to the editor is, most likely the shares of both Wynn Resorts and the Sands Corporation have risen to their current levels due to profits from their Macau properties. I also believe it to be fact that if these properties did not exist in Macau, their current shares as you listed would be nowhere in the range of what they are now.
And, for me, in my personal opinion, this brings up another issue. Although I strongly believe in the globalization of free markets and development, I do not believe that corporations in the United States should be doing business with the Chinese government. They are our enemy. But, in the eyes of a businessman in the gaming industry, the Chinese are a rich and profitable partner. Is this all worth giving the Chinese government the capability, if not just a proportionate percentage of economic power to manipulate these same free markets? I don't personally believe it is worth it. However, Mr. Wynn and Mr. Adelson do not agree with this concept.
The bottom line is this: Government has no business in business. That includes the incestuous business and gov't relations between politicians and money moguls.
Romney is worth $250 Million. He earned it honestly and legally. He's not beholding to any money moguls, not even Donald Trump. And Romney has donated a sizable share to charity. Doing the math, Romney paid more in taxes and charity in 2010 than all the GOP candidates and the President combined. Wealth with conscience! Not tied to any oustide interests and lobbyists. Good combination for executive leadership if he can get passed Gingrich and Paul.
Carmine A. DiFazio
One good thing about living in America, we all can voice our opinion about our likes or dislikes about a sitting President. Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson don't owe President Obama anything. Both men have proved through the years that they have the vision to move forward on project's that are good for the growth of their company's, and Las Vegas as well.
So I guess this is evidence that the "rich are getting richer" under Obama? Hmm, isn't this something the Democrats consider "evil" when a Republican is sitting in the White House?
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Yes on the letter and yes on congratulations to Obama on his hostage rescue by the Navy Seals
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Another excellent move by our President, indeed
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Lets hope he continues to move us forward in America and not back to war like so called Republicons Mexico Mitt and Lobbyist Newt want to do in Iran, Syria and now they are saying they want to blow up Cuba
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Are these fools as nuts as their words ... well, I think so ... Archie Bunker and Meathead slinging all that hash on that hot grill of campaigning ... so many new lies and flip flops from these Red Neck Republicons - lets hope America is not stupid enough to put one of them back in the White House
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As to Wynn and Adelson well, if they hope for one of these Slick Tei Pottiers to win then are they hoping for war? Are they behind a man whose has off shore bank accounts and pays 15% tax or one who was kicked out of the Speakers job and lies about his lobbying jobs - I suppose they do ... but most Americans certainly do not think good of it, period
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Ola - Isn't it nice, tho, that these two super rich guys have the freedom to go to China and build their businesses and may one day endure a President who might have to authorize the Navy Seals to come and rescue them from some violent kidnappers and that President may end up being President Obama. Remember he also got Bin Laden, and look at the critism he got on that for not taking the mass murderer alive. Insane, indeed.
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Samspeaks is correct. Wynn & Adelson were extremely successful before anyone ever heard of Osama Obama. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and, yes, even Warren Buffett made it long before the incompetent Osama Obama came along. Only the ignorant, such as the Mexican-hating, latent anti-Semite, Simmons, would have us believe we need to punish those folks who are successful and have made our lives safer, better, more productive and more comfortable because, horror of horrors, they actually made a profit doing it. Ignorance for Simmons is truly bliss!
Enjoyed the letter. Very true.
Mister Adelson writes a check for five million to Mister Gingrich while he campaigns in South Carolina.
MISSES Adelson then writes another check for a cool five million more to Mister Gingrich and his efforts to campaign and try to win Florida.
I predict when the caucuses move to Nevada, Mr. and Mrs. Adelson's chauffeur or pet dog writes another check for five million.
As far as Romney goes, the recent release of his tax statements for only one year is pretty damning. The contrast is glaring.
President Obama cares for America. Romney cares only for himself and fellow filthy rich haves, have mores, and have mosts.
President Obama invests in America, while Romney invests in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
People need to remember these are casino owners. They care for nothing except themselves and their ability to get money out of your pockets and into their casinos. It's only logical they levitate over to the Tea/Republican Party. Because that stupid party only panders and kowtows to their interests. Interests that allow them to hold onto as much money as they legally can without paying one cent more. Paying a fair share of taxes is not their goal. They want to pay less. WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY less.
It's up to us to make sure these casino owners are spending their money for nothing on these nutball candidates.
Get registered to vote, people. Time to fix this thing called America. WE outnumber them. And we must remind them of this fact. By our votes. Bring on the elections in November 2012.
Time for the filthy rich to pay. They look at it like they are being picked on unfairly...oh, well...too bad. Step down, Mr. Adelson, and live like the rest of us and make do.
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And ... now we see Brewster, the lying Gov of Az .... in her book about a meeting in the White House with Obama ... was properly treated by Obama when he walked away from her in mid-sentence when she started to lie all over again
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There's something in the water in Arizona that when those Red Necks drink it they get nasty, tell lies and distort facts and think they can get away with it like silly fibber Brewster did.
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She had her chance and blew it. Way to Arizona, what a state with her and Keating Five McCain and that out dated old fool Kyl .... no wonder the state is such a total mess.
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Ola - Vote the Democrats in !
Interesting no mention in the letter that most of the money these casinos earned came from their casinos in Macau and Singapore, not the USA and that is what is reflected in the stock price. No wonder they don't like Obama, he told people not to come to Vegas. Twice! What has Obama really done for Vegas, look at Boyd gaming stock, a more local play. Was around $37 Oct 2007, $5.50 on Feb 23, 2009 and $9.16 yesterday making that $4.00 run up in the last couple months as republicans decide who to vote for.. Yea, great job Obama! Stations imploded so can't use them.
Communist China has also been very good to the casino barons. Steve and Sheldon love them some commies, that's for sure.
The market as measured by the DOW is up over 60% since Obama took office. One of the best runs for any president in history. In addition companies have put more earnings on the books than any time period in history.
Obama is anti business alright.
Apple is sitting on over $85billion in cash and the total corporate cash position is in the trillions. Also a record.
Excellent point made by Mr. Blanner.
RHG58 - "So I guess this is evidence that the "rich are getting richer" under Obama? Hmm, isn't this something the Democrats consider "evil" when a Republican is sitting in the White House?"
According to Securities Industry Financial Markets Assn. banking profits were $77.17 billion under the Bush administration, under Obama banks made $85.52 billion in two years.
LastThroes has a point. Cummunism is OK when handing American jobs to China, in opposition to every thing we were taught about the evils of communism since WWII. We no longer practice capitalism when our politicians are in the pockets of corporations outsourcing American jobs.
"Corporatocracy is an imprecise pejorative term describing a situation in which corporate bodies interact with sovereign power in an unhealthy alignment between business and political power. It describes an elite, sometimes termed the "1 percent", which maintains ties between business and government, sometimes by lobbying efforts or funding political advertising campaigns, or providing bailouts when corporations are seen as too big to fail, for the purpose of controlling government and dictating policy to serve its financial interests."
A note to Mr. Fink. How can anyone take you seriously when you continue using Osama Obama in your posts? As far as I'm concerned you are either xenophobic or a Birther, possibly both.
Another Republican argument destroyed by facts.
George W Bush. Created only 1.1 million jobs in 8 years
Barack Obama. Has created 3.4 million jobs in 3 years
"I feel sorry for you."
The feeling is mutual.
Thanks.
Carmine A. DiFazio
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The right radicals Republicons Archie Bunkers and Meatheads and Rachel Rays herein have no interest in facts whatsoever
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Ola - Like Ron Paul they even attack Obama because he didn't bring Bin Laden back alive .... isn't it just amazing?
Business investment is around 11.5% to GDP at 8.6% unemployment now versus 16% during the days when we had 5% unemployment. Nice try guys but Obama does not know how to create a stable federal tax and spend environment for businesses to feel comfortable investing in. He's too busy adding expensive entitlements we can't afford and pandering and rallying his socialist Occupy group at the expense of jobs, the economy and reducing our deficit spending.
I agree with foss is is great obama followed the direct orders of Pres Bush to kill/capture Bin landen. Thank you pres Bush!
Sux- You don't know the definition of "entitlement" do you.
Sux,
It's kind of a cra*py job trying to distract others from Obama's record. I feel for you. LOL Americans are concerned about jobs, the economy and deficit spending while Obama has his priorities set on adding entitlements, redistributing the wealth and rallying the socialist wing of the democratic party to vote for him next November. Kind of sux when you lose the independent vote.
It hurts to see Americans out there are disparately wanting a job for 4 years now while Obama's been adding entitlements and adding more debt per month than any other President in history. He's a disgrace Sux. Bin laden doesn't pay the mortgage Sux. 81% of Americans want our government to focus on domestic issues. We need a President that wants to get our economy moving again for hard-working Americans instead of kowtowing to socialists who want to s*ck away our capital for their socialist purposes.
Your hope Sux is that somehow the 14 million people currently out of work will feel warm about the 22 months of consecutive job growth. Unfortunately, at the Obama rate, the 14 million looking for work would finally all be back working by 2026. The pace is too slow Sux. Business investment creates jobs and right now that money is sitting on the sidelines due to uncertainty. The jobs that business expansion provides is what will get our unemployment rate down to 6% however, Obama has failed to create the stable tax & spend environment necessary for businesses to make long-term business investment plans. Our current business private investment spending is 11% of GDP and needs to be 16% to bring the unemployment rate down to below 6%. The bottom-line is that Obama is obstructing business by failing to provide a stable federal tax & spend policy necessary for long-term business investment. When he became President, Obama prioritized adding a new entitlement we couldn't afford and now he is holding up job growth with his wealth redistribution agenda.
Refnv
OK hypothetically you are elected president. What would you do to speed up job creation?
"@Carmine you have proven you don't have a sound argument."
No, you have proven you can't recognize one.
Carmine A. DiFazio
Mike,
Good question. I would focus on jobs and getting the economy going again. We are in a competitive global economy and our ability to compete is eroding in certain sectors such as manufacturing. In my view, we must get back to being competitive in the manufacturing sector. We had a novel post-World War II industrial and economic system up until 1970 but since that time nations who had to rebuild after WW II have now caught us and surpassed us. This trend also holds true with our domestic car sales now that the big three collectively share below 50% of the domestic car market for the first time ever last year. Why? Cost and quality. We really need to ask our leading entrepreneurs and most talented engineers, labor leaders and business people to devise a comprehensive plan to make manufacturing in the US attractive again. Then we need to ask companies to bring manufacturing back to the US. We also need to have companies like Walmart to report sales monthly by product and mfg origin(US, China, etc). This info needs to be visible to consumers. If sales last year at Walmart were comprised of 17% US made products and 83% foreign then we need to see those numbers improve the next year favorable to US made products. I've traveled quite a bit overseas and there is more loyalty to buying domestic made products compared to the US consumer. If Walmart won't post this information then one of our entrepreneurs should start a competing company that posts this information and sells more made in the US products. So I would focus my effort on bringing mfg back to the US AND entice the retailers to post sales figures by product origin. If current retailers fail then I want to see entrepreneurs start to compete against the Walmarts, etc by selling more US products. Back in WW II, we had unbelievable effort to get us through that war from the military and civilians. They actually sacrificed a lot. We need a similar call to arms to get certain job sectors growing again in the US and to create more loyalty buying our US made products.
REF...Rea your 0655 post. Put up some data to back up the bull. US business is investing massively outside the US. This does very little for domestic unemployment. I studied Econ and math at UCLA in the 70s. I have never seen what you have postulated above. I can't even find a business investment/GDP model anywhere. Much less a model that reflects 16% investment results in 6% unemployment.
Sorry Gerry, I don't respond to requests that include insults. I would rather be called a liar. LOL
Look up the data yourself.
Refnv
That was a well thought out and reasonable response. But how can wal-mart be forced into revealing the product data that we would need? And I am not saying it is impossible to compete with wal-mart but that would involve a high degree of difficulty. But still those are ideas that should be a part of the discussion.
Mike,
We would need enough caring folks to boycott Walmart on a given weekend in order to get their attention. When I lived in England we boycotted buying petrol due to tax increases. I believe Netflix and Bank of America customers were successful in rolling back price increases. It can be done. I would pay extra for an American made product but in order to get the product price to be competitive we would need the company to accept a lower profit margin, labor costs would need to be negotiated at a competitive rate and of course the quality would need to be equal to or greater than foreign brands. American consumers have the power to change the behavior of a company. Perhaps a Kmart would respond by placing an emphasis on stocking more American-made products.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/04/21/taxes...
Refnv
Of course your ideas have merit. And that link was a good example to prove your point. At this time I believe the public in our country is to divided along partisan lines for that to work. And Refnv according to the C.I.A. factbook we are still the biggest manufacturing country in the world. I think it would be of greater importance to provide incentives in the form of tax credits to the private sector in creating more jobs and the next light bulb. And quit giving tax breaks to corporations who downsize and outsource our jobs overseas. And how about simplifying the tax code to level the playing field for small business entrepreneurs? Capitalism works best when everyone can participate.
Ref...I'm sorry, now give me the model that correlates business investment/GDP and the relation to unemployment. I tried looking it up....nothing.....BLOODSIN!!! Look that up.
Robert Blanner....GREAT LETTER.
YES. President Obama has been good for the entire
country.
That's why he will easily be re-elected.
President Obama is like a new and up-dated
version of Abraham Lincoln.
President Obama is one of the greatest.
FOUR MORE YEARS!!!
Casinos, Las Vegas and Nevada had and are having very bad times now. The stock growth is due to the Macao and other location money and perspective of future earnings. Without the international locations both companies (Wynn and Anderson) could be in bankruptcy and under 1 cent on stock exchange (the results in US are very bad and compensate with the good international result). Without international results all the investors will sell the casino stock.
It is the main quilt of Wall Street and Mr.Obama is second on the line here as he kept the status quo of the system and persons that are responsible for this situation in the world (maybe he has some strong security reasons for his actions but he will pay with decreasing popularity and campaign funds limited to Wall Street, not Nevada)
From the model of freedom and innovation, USA become overnight a persona non grata, but things can be regained during many years to come
Good Luck and thank you for all you have done for the world before this years !
Dorin
For those two it's all about Israel. Pretty scary if you care about Americans first!
Gerry,
Here you go....
http://budget.house.gov/UploadedFiles/HB...
Thank you for the posting. I appreciate it. What is presented is an opinion by several economists. It contrasts the employment rate with government spending versus private investment. Your post refers to business investment. Private investment is a function of individual investment and business investment.
There is a big difference between expressing an opinion and having concrete data to back up that opinion. The chart only goes back to 1990. Economic data goes back several hundred years. In 1990 we were dead bang in the middle of the biggest bull market in stock market history. The biggest bull market in bond market history and a real estate bull market. You would expect private investment to be extremely high during a time when every asset class is experiencing a speculative bubble. The return on investment is very high during these periods of time.
I would argue that this is what caused the very high level of investment and historically low levels of unemployment. The bubbles. Nothing more.
I have argued for 40 years that the antidote for a bubble blowing up is a new bubble. At some point markets will again begin to take off, investment will increase in unemployment will come back down. It may be beginning now.
If you went back over a much longer time frame I'm sure you would find many periods in US history where the unemployment rate has been 6% or lower and private investment has been nowhere near 16%. This is probably why they only went back 20 years. When doing an analysis like this most economists would at least go back to the Great Depression to give the hypothesis more validity.