Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts, had this to say recently about President Obama during a conference call.
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.
and
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.
Fairly typical of what we hear every day now from the president's critics. It's the "uncertainty" and the "socialism" that is holding back the private sector. What makes these statements so unusual, though, is what was said earlier in the call.
We had a great first quarter, the best in our history. And we went through it -- we were just around $400 million in the first quarter. We are $447 million this time, and that quarter was about 59% better than a year ago. And in fact, for the 6 months, we're 62% better than a year ago. We are all, in this organization, heartened by the results.
On January 3, -- excuse me, on July 3, I got a phone call. I was in a different city from my colleague, Marc Schorr, and he told me that on the third day of July, we equaled in Las Vegas, our cash flow, our profits of the entire year of 2010. That was a very supercharged thing to hear, but we did $271 million last year and we hit $271 million on the third of July. So for the balance of the year, everything from here on in, in Las Vegas is improvement. And we benefited from a very favorable whole percentage.
So let me see if I have this line of thinking down here...President Obama is a "giant wet blanket" to business...there are examples that "prove" this...and he is a (snore) socialist. All of this has led to the best quarter they have ever had? And it only took six months this year to make what they made last year? Uh.....what?
There is no logic or reason to the irrational feelings these people have. They make statements simply based on personal preference, not reality. They are making record profits and they still hate him. It's no different than someone like me saying that the Dave Matthews Band sucks. It's an opinion with no basis in fact.
Why can't they simply admit that it's the same thing with the president?