LETTERS: Let marketplace set minimum wage

To the editor:

State Sen. Tick Segerblom wants to legislate a minimum wage increase, making him another politician who ignores the economics of the free market (“Segerblom seeks measure to raise minimum wage,” Sept. 3 Review-Journal). I am not a businessman nor do I own a business. I have no skin in this game. However, Sen. Segerblom and other lawmakers feed off of us taxpayers for their paycheck.

These lawmakers couldn’t care less about the person who invests hundreds of thousands of dollars in a franchise such as McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, Wendy’s or any other national fast-food chain or business. Most of these businesses work on a small profit margin, they have to pay for health care and workers compensation, maintain a work staff, and pay taxes and fees that the employees don’t see. And in the food business, the cost and waste is over the top.

Yet the politicians want to tell any business what it has to pay its employees. I say that is un-American. Any business should have the right to set a wage scale for its establishment. No business should be told what it has to pay an employee.

I suggest that the marketplace should determine employee wages. This crazy idea put forth by employees that all businesses, especially fast-food franchises, are making millions of dollars a year is ludicrous.

Earlier this month, fast-food employees across the country decided to strike, seeking a $15 an hour minimum wage. If they don’t like working for the fast-food establishment earning the wage they’re paid, they can go find a job somewhere else that will make them happy. I predict there will be others standing in line to take their jobs.

Fast-food jobs were originally intended for kids getting out of high school to learn how to function in a work environment. The pay wasn’t meant to support a family of four.

The current minimum wage is sufficient, and politics should have no place in this disagreement between the employer and employees. The market will take care of itself, if only these headline-grabbing lawmakers would keep their noses out of it.

If I operated a fast-food franchise and the lawmakers forced me to pay a specific wage beyond the current minimum wage, I’d close up shop and move the business to another country. Then I’d tell all of these greedy employees who do not understand the free marketplace to take a hike and see how they survive without any job.

BRADLEY KUHNS

LAS VEGAS

Judge Jones questions

To the editor:

Reading the article on Steven Jones left me with a few questions I’m hoping the Review-Journal can answer (“Suspended judge agrees to plead guilty in scheme,” Sept. 9 Review-Journal). First, does Mr. Jones have to pay restitution for the investment fraud? Second, will he be refunding any of his $200,000 per year salary he’s been collecting since his indictment in October 2012? And third, will he still be able to collect a pension from the state of Nevada?

My uneducated guess is no to the first two questions, and yes to the question of his pension. I hope I’m wrong, but if not, it’s a total perversion of justice, considering that the taxpayers will pick up the tab for his incarceration due to his criminal conduct.

Also, since he’s agreeing to disbarment and pleading guilty, does anyone else think it was a total farce for the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline to continue letting him collect his salary?

STEVEN HIZA

LAS VEGAS

Middle East utopia

To the editor:

Ah, Sherman Frederick, you’ve hit the nail on the head with your Sept. 7 column (“Goodness, snakes alive! Appeasement failed!”).

I, too, remember those magic days when the Middle East was a field of golden daffodils rippling in the summer sun. The Sunni and Shia gathered in the village squares exchanging fruit baskets. Peace and love reigned. The prayers we heard begged for a return of American bombers to flatten all the other capital cities.

The popular songs carried glorious messages: Western democracy, Christian charity, love thy neighbor.

ROY GROSSER

LAS VEGAS