Steve Wynn - For the Win!
Steve Wynn was part of a panel discussion on Fox News Sunday, hosted by Chris Wallace. Also on the panel were Democratic Governor Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan and economist Mark Zandi.
The full transcript is here. Hat’s off to Lexonex for the similar batch of quotes.
Steve had some scalding insights into what is really going wrong with the U.S. economy, and why we’re not seeing a strong recovery. You’ll find it refreshing to hear someone who has actually created jobs go against the tide of neo-Keynesian macroecono-babble pouring through the news shows and opinion pages.
In other words, if you want to know what’s going wrong in a free market capitalist economy, ask a capitalist:
On whether we are beginning to see a turnaround (Nevada and nationwide):
No, in the sense that I think that the priorities of the administration should have been more directly focused on job creation from the day of the inauguration forward. That’s the thing that changes America.
People will buy cars in Governor Granholm’s state. They’ll buy homes they can afford. They’ll shop and they’ll have a positive attitude towards tomorrow when they’ve got a job.
Health care and all of — and all that other stimulus should have been held back, and the priority should have been job creation. And the most powerful weapon and the tool that the government has for that is its tax policy.
They seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction. And if the government had used its power to restrain its tax collection, they would have given everybody who runs small businesses, large businesses, a chance to hire more people, and that could have been done in an entirely different way.
With eight or $900 billion, we could have created 4 or 500 — 4 or 5 million jobs, which would have made a big difference.
On whether we need another stimulus:
Chris, Chris, the economists have had their moment. Really, everybody who has absolutely no experience in insuring people, creating jobs, have had their moment.
And again:
The housing market — the housing market will improve when people have a job so that they can buy a home that they can afford or a car that they can afford.
The stimulus package, which is antithetical and counterintuitive to Washington, is to restrain, restrain government power. You can — the most powerful tool is tax policy.
Had the president stood up the day after he got inaugurated and said, “We’re going to pass a bill that says if you can prove to the IRS that you’ve increased your permanent employees, with health insurance, we will subsidize 30 or $40,000 of that in the form of a tax credit,” there would have been jobs created in this economy within 60 days in every corner of the economy, not just in civil construction, no, no, no, not at all.
There would have been jobs created everywhere, because businesses — you pointed out — have cut back out of fear. They’re suffering from a lack of consumer confidence. The day that that unemployment figure goes from 9.6 and climbing to 8.9 is the day that consumer confidence will return, and this country will be on its way out of the recession.
On the proper roles of government and the private sector:
Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization’s history. For some reason, that simple truth has evaded everybody.
The only thing that creates an increased standard of living is giving someone a job, the demand for their labor, whether it’s you and I, Chris, or anybody else.
The people that are paying the price for this juggernaut of federal spending are the middle class and the working class of America. And soaring rhetoric and great speeches, with or without a Teleprompter, aren’t going to change the truth. And the truth is the biggest enemy, the biggest obstacle, that working middle class America has is government spending.
Steve was challenged by the Democrat Governor, who accused him of implying that “government is all evil,” and being simplistic and unbalanced.
I didn’t say that at all. I’m saying that the source of government revenue, the source of well-being in this country, is employment. That allows companies to pay taxes, employees to pay taxes. That’s the source here. And it’s gotten out of focus….
…believe me, ma’am, I’ve got 20,000 employees. I’ve had as many as 150,000 families that I’ve been self-insuring. There’s nothing simplistic about my approach to this problem.
On health care, and developing in China:
Well, health care, something I know about, is a complicated technical issue for which practically everybody in this administration has absolutely zero experience. It was not a priority.
Job creation was the priority from the day that this president was inaugurated. It has been eclipsed by a technical, confusing conversation in which hardly anybody has read the small print on a thing called health care.
That’s a proper subject, along with infrastructure, for a healthy economy. But infrastructure and health care are things that come later. Right now our concentration should be on job creation…
I’m grateful that I’m in China generating foreign currency. But my decision — I hired — I’m the only one in Nevada so far — I hired 5,000 people this year. My return on investment is not exactly handsome. I’ve never laid off anybody in 40 years.
But if this president and this administration and Nancy Pelosi get their way, I and all other employees — employers like myself will be hit, with my employees, with a barrage of taxes that will result in more layoffs, that will not be helpful, and will be counterproductive to the very goal that we should have as a nation.
Final Thoughts, including the money quote of the show, in my opinion (emphasis added):
[It is a] Punishing attitude — take it to the government, we know what’s best. I don’t think they do. I think these are complicated subjects. Job creation, the chance to build more cars, comes from people having a job. Focus on that simple truth. Simple truths hold institutions together. We’ve lost our focus, and that’s my opinion.
Amazing thoughts by an amazing guy. The next time you hear a pundit or economist, macro or otherwise, give you his or her insight into creating jobs, think of whether or not you can truly call it “insight” if the person has never actually created a job.
Read more about Steve Wynn on Wikipedia.
