Here is the CC excerpt exactly as stated:
William Lerner - Deutsche Bank Securities
Steve, just 2 development questions for you. One in Macau, one in Vegas. Does it -- maybe you're already contemplating this formally, but does it make sense to build residential or villas in Macau, #1? And then #2, in Vegas, especially as I hear Marilyn talk about, a month like October for example, that there's not an inch of meeting square footage left in Las Vegas and as we think about limited or no supply over the next several years, being added back to Las Vegas, does it not make sense to expand your meeting square footage? I know you can do it east of country club or in that area?
Stephen Wynn
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 soft peddling it, it's the truth. It is the truth. And that's true of Democratic businessmen and Republican businessmen, 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 country 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.
Well said, Steve Wynn.
Sorta reminds me of Charlie Munger's frankness on Obama's Cap-and-Tax nonsense when he was first elected. For those who may not know--Charles Munger is business partner of Warren Buffet, you know--Buffet who was (and still is) an advisor to Obama
To quote Mr Munger--during a CNBC interviewr:
"I think it would be monstrously stupid to do it right now.
It would be a huge shock to the economy and it wouldn't accomplish very much given the fact that the vast majority of the CO2 is coming from a place like China.
And so I think it would be almost demented if we rushed into cap-and-trade right now, in the middle of this economic crisis."