A ship with no captain, no rudder
To the editor:
Is anyone running our government?
Congress is outraged that financial institutions are still giving bonuses to their employees even though the businesses are screwed up. However, the same members of Congress eagerly accept their annual pay raises and perks despite being unable to balance a budget, control spending, limit taxes, have a decent code of ethics or develop an energy plan.
The same Congress is angered by the way businesses are spending federal bailout money even though the same Congress placed no constraints on the use of the money and essentially threw a trillion dollars out of an airplane to just "be spent."
The same Congress that has all kinds of financial and business oversight committees staffed by long-term, experienced blow-hards who claim the businesses should not pay the bonuses and should violate the terms of the contracts that the companies have with these employees. Congress apparently does not even understand the very basics of contract law.
Is anyone in charge? The answer is painfully quite clear.
Gerry Lock
LAS VEGAS
Out-of-line analogy
To the editor:
A letter published in the March 12 Review-Journal ostensibly compared the highly qualified scientists and engineers working on the Yucca Mountain Project to "drug producing poppy farmers."
As a Nevadan and a nuclear industry professional, I find this comparison to be completely out of line. The scientists and engineers have dedicated much of their professional careers to the implementation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. These hard-working individuals are participating in a scientific process that has had more scientific peer review and oversight than any program in the Department of Energy's history. They are now involved in a detailed and transparent safety review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to determine whether or not the site meets strict federal safety requirements.
This NRC is the regulatory agency that ensures strict adherence to safety requirements, resulting in the nuclear energy industry having achieved an impeccable safety record while generating 20 percent of the electricity in the United States -- 76 percent of our emission-free electricity -- at a very efficient production cost of under 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour.
Comparing a worker at Yucca Mountain to a player in illicit drug production is somewhat akin to blaming each and every employee of the gaming industry for the adverse consequences of compulsive gambling.
PAUL SEIDLER
HENDERSON
THE WRITER IS SENIOR DIRECTOR OF THE NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE.
Bailout madness
To the editor:
A broker friend once cautioned me against buying Chinese stocks because they were not "transparent." This was erroneous advice because there is no transparency in U.S. companies, either.
In fact, the worst crooks are in the United States. Take a look at Enron, WorldCom, Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., etc.
Now we have AIG giving out big bonuses to executives after receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money from taxpayers.
One senator suggested that these executives should commit suicide. I would go one step further and say they should face the firing squad.
Stop the bailout money. Bad businesses should be allowed to go broke and let the good businesses prosper. This is how a free enterprise system should be.
Alfonso L. Tiu
HENDERSON
We re-elected them
To the editor:
I'm getting tired of congressmen and senators feigning outrage.
Sen. Chris Dodd himself put into law a clause protecting the AIG bonuses, which were disclosed more than a year ago. The wizards in Washington knew about this. Their outrage is all a show.
I don't like the AIG bonuses, but they're legal, they were known and they were tacitly approved by the very people screaming for their return.
When are we going to hold these congressmen and senators responsible for their roles in the damage to the economy?
Charlie Whittenton
LAS VEGAS
Higher education
To the editor:
It is becoming quite tiresome to see college students complaining and rallying to preserve their cheap education. Perhaps they should drop all their other courses in favor of Economics 101.
The state is short billions of dollars in revenue to keep growing government at a rate similar to previous years. The students don't care.
"I'm entitled. I deserve. I want. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Cut everything else, but not what I care about. Don't fix any roads. Save the students' gravy train. Raise all taxes through the roof. The heck with everyone else."
Ever hear of working through college and supporting yourself? I know I just committed blasphemy. Nobody does for themselves any more. That's what the government is for.
And how many of these students are going to use Nevada taxpayer money to school themselves and then leave the state? Many, many more than will stay.
Harry Kirchoff
HENDERSON
