It’s not easy out there for older workers

To the editor:

I felt compelled to comment on Michael Kinsley's Friday commentary, "Too old to get hired, too young to retire":

I'm experiencing a similar situation in the food and beverage industry. I'm a 58-year-old food and beverage professional with more than 30 years of experience, and I am finding it extremely difficult to move back into a management position. I've had quality interviews with a number of fine dining restaurants here in town, but I'm having interviews with GMs who in most cases are 30 years my junior.

I'm not sure if they feel threatened by me or if, in their opinion, I'm too old to bring anything worthwhile to the table. A pretty standard answer, when they even bother to contact me, is, "We're going in a different direction with that position." Yeah, like youth.

It's very frustrating for people in my age bracket who have a lifetime of experiences to bring to an establishment only to be passed over for someone younger with next to no experience or someone just out of hotel/restaurant school.

Larry G. Lucian

Las Vegas

Drill, baby

To the editor:

In response to Gerald A. Sanchez Sr.'s Friday letter on oil production:

More drilling will indeed bring down the price of gasoline in the United States. Mr. Sanchez's problem is that he listens to President Obama travel around the country lying all the time about oil production in the United States.

Yes, oil production is up -- on private lands. But since President Obama took office in 2009, the Congressional Research Service says that production from federal lands -- including offshore -- has decreased by more than 240,000 barrels a day. The president has denied drilling permits off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the Gulf of Mexico. The president has no power to stop drilling on state and private lands.

How can you not understand that drilling for oil off the California coast some 300 to 350 miles away from Las Vegas, and refining it in Los Angeles for delivery to Las Vegas via the pipeline, is better for the environment and the cost per gallon? Saudi Arabia is about 6,500 miles from the United States, and delivering the crude on super tankers is not cost-effective or good for the environment.

Extracting more oil will help supply the global thirst for oil, create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs and bring in more revenue in taxes and royalties to the U.S. government. Most importantly, the laws of supply and demand will reduce gasoline prices at the pump for Americans.

I don't understand why people insist high gasoline prices are here to stay. Three years ago, when President Obama took office, the average price per gallon was $1.64.

Get rid of President Obama, drill more in the United States and we will have lower prices.

Kevin Alexander

Logandale

Race tracks

To the editor:

In his March 27 letter, Brian Covey complained that the multi-jurisdictional policy of ticketing driving violations was a waste of resources and unfair. The truth is, law enforcement could do more.

The freeways are not racetracks. The speed limit is 65 mph on most freeways, except when there is road construction and it's reduced to 55 mph or lower. Somehow there are quite a few drivers who think the speed limit signs are decorations. Also, it seems that no one knows that you aren't suppose to cross a solid line -- drivers along Interstate 215 seem to think that those pavement markers don't mean anything. I've seen several smash-ups from someone cutting across the solid lines.

Per capita, Las Vegas has a disproportionate ratio of traffic fatalities to accidents compared to Los Angeles. People can't wait a few minutes to let someone cross the street. God forbid you get in front of one of the impatient drivers.

I'm all for multi-jurisdictional traffic policing. I hope they keep it up. The highway is only as safe as the people obeying the traffic laws and the posted speed limits.

B. Moos

Las Vegas

Hair splitting

To the editor:

In response to Steve Sebelius' March 27 column, in which he argues ObamaCare is not socialistic:

Maybe Mr. Sebelius is correct, but it is very European -- which is "Socialism Light." If I get my medical care from the government, my GM car from the government, my contraception and abortion from the government, and my welfare and unemployment check from the government, who does he think he is kidding that this is not socialism?

He is merely splitting hairs.

Mr. Sebelius mentions that some Republicans supported a health-care mandate in 1993 when they were fighting the Clinton health care plan. But what does Sen. John Chafee's 1993 bill have to do with anything? Sen. Chafee was a "Republican in name only" and the bill never passed. It was as wrong then as it is now.

In 2008, Sen. Barack Obama said we couldn't do the single-payer plan all at once; we'd have to do it over 10 or 15 years. So if it isn't socialism now, it will be because that is what the Democrats have planned.

Mr. Sebelius claims Mr. Obama's goal is to extend coverage to "people who don't have it." Well, why don't they have it? My dad was an independent painting contractor. He never had health insurance until Medicare at age 65. He had three kids, brought into the world without insurance. I had my tonsils out and my mom, who didn't work, had her gallbladder removed. He paid for it all, plus any doctor visits.

How could he do that? It is called saving. You earned money and saved some for emergencies. No one saves anymore. Why bother to save if the government will pay for it? But that's not socialism. Problem is, we all want free stuff from the government.

Mr. Sebelius may be right. It may not be socialism. I tell my kids that it is the bread and circuses mentality. But again, we may just be splitting hairs.

James Loeper

Henderson