Why Sheldon Adelson is Bad for America

Even though he is vehemently against President Obama, the Democrats and American labor unions, in a recent interview for the Wall Street Journal the infamous Las Vegas casino king-pin Sheldon Adelson claimed he was a "Social Liberal" --- and that he was pro-stem cell research, pro-choice, pro-Dream Act, and pro-socialized health care --- but yet he still gave $30 million to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign to squash a federal investigation against him and to lower his personal income taxes (revenues that are needed to fund "Social Liberal" programs). 

(Pictured below) Soon to be 80-year-old Sheldon Adelson with his 66-year-old Israeli physician wife Miriam Ochshorn......the top .0000000000001%


Good news for Sheldon Adelson: Growth in China's factory output and retail sales jumped to an eight-month high in November 2012 as Chinese wages have been rising (on average) at least 10 percent every year. (Source: Reuters)

This year, among the best-performing companies in China has been China Coal and Sheldon Adelson's Sands China.

In China, Singapore is poised to be the second largest gaming destination in the world after Macao. Strong gaming revenues from the two local integrated resorts might soon over-take Las Vegas by the end of this year. Singapore's two casinos grossed about 5.7 billion U.S. dollars. This is just shy of the total gaming revenues of 6.1 billion U.S. dollars collected from the more than 20 major casinos along the famous Las Vegas Strip.

Sheldon Adelson is the chairman and chief executive officer (and largest shareholder) of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation (parent to the Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino and the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada).

Adelson has waged some bitter anti-union battles in Las Vegas. I vividly remember the days when Sheldon Adelson clashed with labor unions at his Las Vegas properties (I had worked for Steve Wynn at that time, whose properties were all union).

Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democratic Party congresswoman, said Adelson told her that "old Democrats were with the union and he wanted to break the back of the unions", so consequently "he had to break the back of the Democrats".

Congresswoman Berkley also claimed that Adelson "seeks to dominate politics and public policy through the raw power of money", a claim that was proven true in 2012 with Sheldon Adelson's donations to Mitt Romney's miserably failed presidential campaign. Adelson once told Forbes magazine that "I don't want to go through ten different corporations to hide my name. I'm proud of what I do."

On average, over the years, it's been mostly large corporations and Wall Street that has primarily funded the GOP's campaign efforts, whereas labor unions and mostly individual donations had funded the Democrat's political efforts.

Sheldon Adelson, sounding every bit as loony and moronic as a typical member of the far-right Tea Party, whined about Obama, saying "What scares me is the continuation of the socialist-style economy we've been experiencing for almost four years", even though Adelson has made BILLIONS of dollars during Obama's time in office.

Joseph Stalin or Chairman Mao would not have allowed Adelson's casinos to even exist. And on March 6, 2009 Las Vegas Sands stock was trading at a mere $1.77 a share.  Last Friday on December 7, 2012 Las Vegas Sands stock closed at $43.50 a share. (Source: Google Finance) Under President Obama's realm, Sheldon Adelson's stock is UP a whopping 1700% !!!

Today Sheldon Adelson pays much more in gaming taxes to the Chinese government than he does to the U.S. government -- Las Vegas has one of the lowest (if not lowest) gaming tax rates than anywhere else in the world. Adelson also pays a lower federal income tax rate on his capital gains than does an average American teacher earning $50,000 a year in regular wages. That's a FACT that the Tea Party and GOP constantly ignores, and who also refuses to tell the American public: corporate and capital gains taxes are currently at historical lows.

So what in the hell has Sheldon Adelson been bitching and whining about? Can't the American peons do ANYTHING to make an American multi- billionaire happy?

When Sheldon Adelson sells his shares of Las Vegas Sands stock, under the current tax law, he's only obligated to pay a 15% capital gains tax - the same tax rate as Mitt Romney and Warren Buffet pays. The difference is, Patriotic Millionaires and Warren Buffett proposed a 30% millionaire's tax (The Buffett Rule), whereas Mitt Romney wanted to cut all marginal tax rates another 20% --- and maybe even eliminating the capital gains tax entirely so that people like himself and Sheldon Adelson would not have to pay any federal income taxes at all....Holy tax rates Batman!!!!

President Obama "scares" Sheldon Adelson because, in Adelson's own words, "the redistribution of wealth is the path to more socialism". What Sheldon Adelson really meant was, his taxes would go up a little bit to help pay for the food stamps that poor people in America need to eat, and that "scares him". His under-paid employees, the masses, the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the Veterans, the ""47%" --- they scare him. An old billionaire scaredy cat...poor, poor thing.

Sheldon Adelson gave a total of $30 million to Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign's Super PAC --- with $10 million of that being donated in the waning weeks just prior to the election, in a last minute and desperate attempt to over-ride the will of the majority of the American people. But Sheldon Adelson's $30 million investment is poultry compared to how much money he would have saved under Mitt Romney's tax plan.

Besides for the huge benefit of lower taxes, the top reason why Sheldon Adelson backed Mitt Romney was the investigation into Adelson's casinos by the U.S. Justice Department under Obama for bribery and money laundering. Sheldon's company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits the bribing of foreign officials. (I never thought that most billionaires could ever earn so much money legally. I often wonder how many lives people like Sheldon Adelson destroyed just to have their own way.)

Sheldon Adelson owns the one million-square-foot Sands Macao in Macau China and the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore China, which opened in 2010 at a rumored cost of $5.5 billion. Chinese casinos have long had ties to China's organized crime and the criminal societies known as The Triads, and have been implicated in everything from drug smuggling to murder.

Sheldon Adelson also owns Israel HaYom ("Israel Today") an Israeli national Hebrew-language free daily newspaper first published on July 30, 2007. He has a very sharp disagreement with the Obama administration's position on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, most probably due to the influence of his Israeli wife.

As of October 2012, Sheldon Adelson was listed as the 24th richest person in the entire world --- with a population of over 7 billion human beings) --- with an estimated net worth of 21.8 billion. How much money and power in the hands of one man is too dangerous, especially for a greedy and radical ideologue? Especially when they are anti-democracy, anti-worker, and anti-tax fairness.

I also suspect that Sheldon Adelson's loyalties are more with Israel and not with America, and that he (like Mitt Romney) believes that anyone beneath his financial station in life (e.g. the "47%") are all low-life bugs that should be squashed...like labor unions.

People with the most money always think they are entitled to rule the world.

Sheldon Adelson is bad for America. His gambling empire does more harm than good for a society as a whole. His casinos don't manufacture or produce anything, but only generate gambling revues for himself, at the expense of those who gamble with their money and lose.

The economic activity of the jobs that his casinos create (especially the jobs in China) doesn't justify the existence for someone as rich as Sheldon Adelson (as opposed to someone like Bill Gates, who changed the World).

The more money that people like Sheldon Adelson makes (and hoards), the more they extract from the economies of nations around the world. Tax Sheldon Adelson more, so that more good can come from his gambling revenues, such as helping the homeless, the hungry, those without healthcare, and the unemployed in Las Vegas...the town that made him so damn rich.

That way, someone such as myself, can continue to receive food stamps, because Sheldon Adelson's casinos in Las Vegas refused to hire me. I've been unemployed since late 2008 with 20 years of experience in bartending; but evidently I was too old to qualify for a bartending job at any of Sheldon Adelson's casinos. Just like at MGM's CityCenter (where I was also denied employment), younger people from out-of-state were hired instead. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "Bona fide occupational qualifications" is a loophole that the casinos (and other corporations) use for age discrimination.

RELATED ARTICLE: Macau Police Raid Casinos After Deadly Attacks - (Don't cheat a casino owner. Instead of going to jail, you might just get yourself killed instead.)