Leo Hohmann:
One of America’s most astute businessmen, known for having expanded the Las Vegas strip of resort hotels and casinos in the 1990s, says the U.S. remains mired in an economic funk and any talk of a broad recovery is “pure fiction. A lie.”
Steve Wynn, the 73-year-old founder and CEO of Wynn Resorts, made the comments in a televised interview with Jon Ralston of PBS’ “Ralston Live.” He opened the Wynn Hotel and casino in Macao, China, in 2006, and is known as an international gaming and casino magnate.
Wynn’s Macao operation recently reported a 28 percent quarterly loss in revenue, and a 70 percent downturn in earnings. He is now building the Wynn Palace in China, which he calls “the nicest, most extravagant hotel in the world,” with 1,700 rooms and a $4 billion price tag.
He cited corruption as his primary concern in China, but in the U.S. he said the economy has never really bounced back from the 2008 financial meltdown.
“You’re not sanguine about Las Vegas, though. You’ve said the notion of a great recovery is a complete dream here in Las Vegas,” said Ralston of KNPB, a Public Broadcasting affiliate in Las Vegas.
“Well, the idea that America is in the midst of a great recovery is pure fiction. It’s a lie. It’s a jobless recovery,” Wynn said. “Because recoveries are marked by the level of real employment. And if you count the people who have left the work force, real unemployment is 15 to 20 percent.”
Not only is unemployment much higher than the “official” rate of 5.5 percent, but Wynn said the Consumer Price Index, used to measure inflation, is also rigged in such a way that it doesn’t accurately reflect what real Americans experience on a daily basis. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. had -0.1 percent inflation for the 12 months ended in March 2015. Inflation doesn’t exist.
Wynn says that’s a sham.
“If you take real inflation, and you’ve got to count energy and food and all that stuff, real inflation is much higher than they say it is,” Wynn said. “My employees’ take home pay, in spite of the increases we give them, their paychecks are 90-cent paychecks, 90 cents on the dollar. It’s very difficult for the middle class in America to keep up because of the inflationary pressure and the devaluation of the dollar.”
Wynn gave Ralston a quickie lesson in economics 101 so he could understand the dilemma faced by the average American. It starts with the overwhelming national debt.
“It’s very difficult to explain to a normal working citizen the implications of what $18 trillion in debt means, and what it means when the Federal Reserve buys the U.S. Treasury bonds to finance our loss every month,” Wynn said. “People think that is some abstract conversation in Washington, uh, for pundits.
“In fact it impacts every one of my employees, critically, every day,” he said. “They notice when they sit down at the kitchen table, that after they pay the necessities, there just isn’t any money left.”
