The Founder of Wynn Resorts and the chief architect in the resurgence and expansion of the Las Vegas strip in the 1990’s, Steve Wynn, was on local Las Vegas TV when he blew up the liberal narrative that America is recovering economically.
Jon Ralston: You have said that the notion of a great recovery is a complete dream here in Las Vegas.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Steve Wynn: Well, the idea that America is in the midst of a great recovery is pure fiction. It’s a lie.
It’s not true.
It’s a jobless recovery because recoveries are marked by the amount of real employment. And if you count the people who have left the workforce, real unemployment is 15- to 20-percent. If you take real inflation, and you’ve got to count energy and food and all that stuff, inflation is much higher than they say it is.
My employees’ take-home pay, in spite of the increases we give them, their paychecks are 90-cent paychecks on a 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.
It’s very difficult to explain to a normal working citizen the implications, because it’s not a soundbite subject, 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 in downtown Washington.
People think of that as some abstract conversation in Washington for pundits. In fact, it impacts everyone of my employees critically every day. They notice when they sit down at the kitchen table that after they’ve paid the necessities there just isn’t any money left.
Steve Wynn: “The Idea that America Is In the Grips Of A Great Recovery Is Pure Fiction.”
