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"The casino company Las Vegas Sands, which is owned by right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has said it may default on debt and face bankruptcy, reports Bloomberg. In trading today, stocks in the company plunged.
The news wire adds:
Today's admission comes after Adelson, who holds a stake of more than 64 percent, invested an additional $475 million in September to avoid violating the terms of a loan, and hired an unidentified investment bank to raise more capital with his help.
But as recently as July, Adelson, who is said to still have considerable resources, had assured reporters on a conference call the company will not have liquidity problems."
Adelson, a Bush pioneer, last year worked with ex-Bush-administration officials to found the group Freedom's Watch, which advocates an open-ended commitment to the war in Iraq. As The New Yorker recently
reported, he's fiercely opposed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and is a close ally of hawkish Israeli politician and ex-PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He has been a major contributor to AIPAC, and over the years has funded numerous congressional trips to Israel."
moreThe Economic Crisis: Will Money Trump Ideology?<
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"Less than a half-year ago, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the deep pockets of groups like Birthright Israel and the neoconservative-led Freedom’s Watch, was seen as one of the most formidable funders of the hawkish Right. But the global financial crisis, legal entanglements, apparent political disagreements, and tension between Adelson’s business model and some of his erstwhile political allies have all combined to blunt the magnate’s political impact. The result could be that some of the groups that are dear to neoconservatives and other rightist factions in the United States could soon find themselves looking for a new benefactor.
“Organizations, such as Freedom's Watch, maintain their ability to influence public opinion through expensive purchases of commercials on television networks and in print media,” says Jim Lobe, a reporter for the Inter Press Service who has closely tracked Adelson’s influence in U.S. politics. “If the funding for these campaigns dries up, the relevance and influence of Freedom's Watch will be severely diminished.”
Adelson, CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., has seen his net worth plummet over the last year. As Forbes reported in September, “The biggest loser this year was casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, whose fortune has fallen $13 billion in the past 12 months—$1.5 million per hour—as shares of his Las Vegas Sands have dropped 75% from their all-time highs last October.” And from August 29 to October 1, Adelson’s worth dropped $4 billion—“the steepest drop among Americans who lost $1 billion or more during the credit crisis.” Those numbers, of course, came before the stock market crashed earlier this month. As Forbes.com quipped, “Rough year for Sin City’s richest man.”
With shares in his casino empire plunging 65 percent, Adelson could cut back on his charitable giving. In fact, he announced in September he would do just that. “On September 9, billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson announced that he was reducing his donations to Birthright Israel in 2009 and 2010, respectively, to $20 million and $10 million, after giving $70 million over the previous two years,” reported the Forward. Perhaps most noteworthy about the funding reduction is that it represents a turnabout in Adelson’s stated commitments; he had pledged in 2007 that “he and his wife would give at least $30M a year
for as long as is needed,” according to an article posted on the website of the Adelson Family Foundation. Birthright Israel pays for young Jewish people from around the world to visit Israel for 10 days. As the Forward noted, “Adelson’s reduction in his gift will have a direct impact on the 18-to-26-year-old Jews who are Birthright’s target audience. Trips cost roughly $3,000 per participant, meaning that unless the organization raises other funds, it will lose the ability to fund more than 3,300 trips in 2009, and nearly 6,700 trips in 2010.”
The diminished circumstances of the gambling mogul could well impact the fortunes of neoconservatives and other hawks reliant on his funding. Adelson is deeply connected to Israel’s Likud Party, a hawkish faction that generally opposes a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and has found much support in the neoconservative community. He has given considerable funding to the Zionist Organization of America and to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (though he cut off his funding for the group after it endorsed the Annapolis peace talks). Another of Adelson’s pet projects has been funding the Adelson Institute of Strategic Studies at Jerusalem’s Shalem Center. The institute, chaired by former Likud Party member Natan Sharansky, was founded in 2006 with Adelson’s financial backing. In January 2008, it co-organized the Herzliya Conference on Israel’s national security; influential and well-connected speakers and panelists included Dick Cheney’s former Middle East advisor David Wurmser; Ben Wattenberg of the American Enterprise Institute; Steve Emerson; former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton; and neoconservative figurehead Norman Podhoretz, among many others. And in 2007, the institute co-sponsored the Democracy and Security Conference in Prague, which the Adelsons attended. Participants included George W. Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Richard Perle, Bruce Jackson, Michael Novak, and others with neoconservative links. With Adelson’s own funds now seriously diminished, it would not be surprising if he were unable to fund the institute to the degree he had in the past. This could put a dent, however small, in the ability of like-minded neoconservatives and foreign policy hawks to gather and conduct their business."
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