They, Moody's, should change their name to Moody's Investors Disservice considering the fine job they did leading up to the collapse of the housing bubble. The question is, who pays them? In the case of bond sellers (those borrowing the money), e.g. MGM, the borrower does. Furthermore, Moodys, Standard and Poors, et. al relies on these same borrowers for repeat business, which at the very least creates the appearnce if not the fact of a serious conflict of interest.

Great. Mr. Loveman's all in with a pair of Deuces. Hope nobody calls him on them.

Ronster, no problem. I feel the same way, my Dad was a Teamster back in the day. No offense taken, I should have been clearer.

Jon, you have a point but you are obscuring the issue, the benefits of tax shelters went out in the 1980's with the enactment of the "at-risk" provisions and passive activity loss limitation provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. Now, I grant you, the wealthy still have a myriad of ways to evade and avoid taxes. The correct response to my friend Bakersfield would be to say, "Wynn Resorts, Inc. is a C Corporation and therefore taxable income in excess of $18,333,333 is taxed at a flat 35% rate. So if Steve Wynn gets a $1,000,000 raise, Wynn Resorts gets a $1,000,000 deduction and pays $350,000 less in taxes. Steve Wynn, who I am willing to bet you, is in the top individual bracket at 35%, will pay $350,000 in additional taxes on the raise." Another words the transaction is revenue neutral to the federal treasury. My point to Joe was that the rate structure should be more progressive for the higher earners, paying top rate at 39.6% as under Bill Clinton vs. 35% now is not going to cause someone like Steve Wynn to work, earn less, hire fewer people, etc. So as not to be accused of engaging in class warfare I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite billionaire capitalists, Warren Buffet: "There's class warfare alright, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Maybe one can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but I doubt it.

Ronster, Ronster--chill out, I was speaking as if I was Gov. Sandovall, I was showing scarcasm and my disdain for the proposed policy. My point was that it was hypocritical for him to propose a change in pension benefits for new hires when he and his family are allready well taken care of and would be unaffected, pension wise. I agree with you.

Yeah Michael, it ain't that bad because since Obama caved in to the Republicans and didn't raise the top marginal federal income tax rate back up to what it was under Clinton, 39.6% (from the 35% it is now), Mr. Wynn saved 4.6% times $1,000,000 or $46,000 in federal income taxes on this raise.

Regardless who is or is not correct concerning the correct formula used to calculate entitlement to comps, obviously Mr. Adelson's accountants and financial analysts have established to his satisfaction that the new comp policy will save money. Time will tell. Given the nature of the company-----most revenues and earnings coming from Macau, his Las Vegas properties getting a larger share of non-gambling conventioneers, etc., this may be a beneficial move. Can't say I approve of him reneging on Ms. Kane's comped room after it apparently had already been promised to her, if that is what happened.

"I've got mine folks, but you future hires, you're out of luck, we're gonna have to reduce your retirements, we don't have a revenue problem but we have a spending problem, so we're going to have to make some cuts."