Economic rebound must include good jobs

To the editor:

Is this latest economic downturn a death spiral for Nevada? Nevada has always been a one-trick pony when it comes to economic diversity. With a full-to-capacity stable of stalls -- I mean hotels -- why worry about diversity? With tourists coming in droves and most workers needing only enough skills to know when a tip is offered, why worry about the future?

Now the future has arrived. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign and Gov. Jim Gibbons have run off many of those working in high-skill, high-paying jobs here, including those at Yucca Mountain. It now appears that the Nevada Test Site might be next to get the ax (Saturday letter to the editor), and those sought-after jobs will also be vacated.

Construction at the MGM Mirage City Center and other high-rise expansions also supported many workers with high skills and higher educations. But alas, those jobs are on the wane, too. Highly skilled, highly educated workers are not going to hang around Las Vegas drawing unemployment as long as they can move on to where they are in demand. It could be Mississippi or Dubai; they don't care, because with their skills and education, they will have a job.

With 30,000 properties foreclosed last year and even more this year, investors flush with cash are snapping up 42 percent of the available resale homes in Las Vegas. The trend is clear. Investors with money and vision see a Las Vegas rebound on the horizon. But the majority of the jobs generated in their vision will not be high-paying ones.

Soon we can look forward to a city where renters will outnumber owner-occupied houses. Clearly, neither Sen. Reid nor Sen. Ensign nor Gov. Gibbons know any real tricks. Let's all hope that someone here in Nevada, someone capable of teaching our aging, one-trick pony some new tricks, will come forward -- and soon.

Richard Rychtarik

LAS VEGAS

Bush deserved bashing

To the editor:

In response to Larry Berardi's Saturday letter to the editor, "Real thugs": There is a reason why ex-President Bush was the most vilified president in the history of this country. Simply put, he was inane, unintelligent and an embarrassment to this country every time he opened his mouth.

He and his sidekick, Vice President Dick Cheney, made bad decisions from the Iraq war to the economy that will take years to recovery from, not months.

Kathy Kelley

HENDERSON