The government will now set your pay

To the editor:

According to Bloomberg News, President Barack Obama has appointed Kenneth R. Feinberg to be "special pay master" to regulate executive compensation at companies receiving "exceptional" government help.

His job is to determine, in regard to their pay, what is "appropriate" and what is "excessive."

Apparently, we have completed our journey into sheer madness.

In a more honest world with free markets, such matters are determined naturally. Any executive working at a company that needs government aid to stay in business receives no pay whatsoever because his company no longer exists.

I hope those executives who find themselves in such a predicament will find gainful employment at a company that realizes a profit. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. After all, what kind of executive would believe he deserved to be paid when his company has failed?

Isn't that something they should have learned in Business 101?

Dan May

LAS VEGAS

Gas up

To the editor:

In the Business section of June 10, Michael Geeser, a spokesman for AAA, says the good news is that gasoline is $1.50 cheaper per gallon than it was a year ago. With the price of a barrel of oil being less than it was last year, does that mean $5 to $6 per gallon gasoline in the near future?

It was two months ago that the oil companies had a glut of oil that they wouldn't process because they bought it at a little more than $40 per barrel and they were paying rent for oil tankers that couldn't unload. Last year the oil companies had record net profits. Do they want to best that? What's going on here?

JACK SWEENEY

LAS VEGAS

Healthy lifestyle

To the editor:

Why is the president, who smokes like a fiend, telling us we need to change our unhealthy lifestyles? Isn't he, like, a hamburger junkie too?

It would be better for our commander in chief to just lead by example. Maybe he can get one of President Bush's old mountain bikes.

Doug Farmer

LAS VEGAS