Expecting others to pay for your own folly

The subject of corporate greed has received considerable attention in the media recently. I don’t dispute the fact that many CEOs receive extremely large salaries. However, I do not feel that greed is restricted to the corporate arena.

Professional athletes and entertainment celebrities demand outrageous salaries that must be paid for by higher prices at the box office. Many sports fans are prohibited from viewing live events due to high admission prices driven by player salaries that average in the millions. Meanwhile, a night at the movies has risen in price considerably to pay for the lavish salaries of superstars, who average at least $10 million per movie.

I haven’t, however, read one single complaint in the press.

Greed is evident in unions that drive up salaries beyond free-market demand. It was recently estimated that the cost of a U.S.-made automobile is increased by $3,000 due to union health care benefits. Imagine getting furloughed due to reduced car sales but receiving nearly full pay. Longshoremen average $120,000 per year handling cargo, and Clark County firefighters get $150,000 to $200,000 in annual compensation because of overtime abuse.

Greed is evident in the public sector, where it is not unusual for upper management salaries to reach $500,000 and above in state and local governments. Football coaches at public universities demand $1 million salaries. Greed is evident in the political arena, where politicians trade their votes for campaign contributions from special interests.

Corporate greed is not our biggest problem. A bigger problem may be an entitlement mentality, where people who are irresponsible or who have made poor decisions expect responsible people to pay for their mistakes. Entitlements are the largest expense in the federal budget, and one only has to look at the nation of Greece to see the results of the entitlement mentality.

Brian Aiken

Las Vegas

Road woes

To the editor:

In the Thursday editorial “Road closed,” the Review-Journal criticized what it termed “heavy handed” decisions by Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest managers that were not coordinated with local citizens and elected officials.

If you look at the facts of the situation, how the editors came to this conclusion is baffling.

The public input period extended from January 2009 to September 2011. There have been eight public meetings and six field trips in addition to meetings with a variety of groups interested in the plan, including off-highway motorized recreation groups, environmental groups, ranchers, service organizations, and tribal and local elected officials.

The final plan is consistent with Elko County Code Title 12, the Elko County Land Use and Natural Resource Management Plan and the Elko County Open Space Plan.

To the detriment of the environment, the plan doubles the mileage of roads and trails currently open to motorized use. A total of 2,042 miles — the equivalent of the distance between Las Vegas and Atlanta — are open under the plan. In fact, fewer than 130 miles of roads and trails are closed to the public to protect natural resources. More than 230 motorized routes are authorized to be open to motorized travel in inventoried “roadless” areas.

The impacts from this plan to soil, water and quiet recreational uses will be significant, and impacts to bighorn sheep, sage grouse, pygmy rabbit and the redband trout will be devastating. It is a certainty that the Center for Biological Diversity will oppose the plan and file an appeal of the decision once it is formalized.

The editors of the Review-Journal have failed to notice that the Sagebrush Rebellion is dead — killed in the courts of public opinion and the legal system a decade ago. It only lives in the hearts and minds of a few remaining dinosaurs blind to its problems.

Rob Mrowka

North Las Vegas

The author is an ecologist who represents the Center for Biological Diversity in Nevada as a conservation advocate.

Race baiters

To the editor:

Why is it that just because conservatives (and two-thirds of independents, for that matter) who happen to disagree with President Obama’s economic policies are labeled “racist” by some (Thursday letter to the editor)? Why do liberals always, always have to bring race into the equation?

Even the Review-Journal’s Steve Sebelius had to do it last week in his piece about state Sen. Steven Horsford.

In case the race baiters haven’t noticed, Gallup has Mr. Obama’s approval rating at 38 percent. Does that make the other 62 percent racist? Mr. Obama overwhelmingly won the independent vote in 2008. Are two-thirds of them now racist all of a sudden?

Many conservatives and independents oppose another handout to state and local governments because we see it as a payoff to public-sector unions who use member dues to funnel dollars back to Democratic campaigns. We also see this as a one-year “fix” just when some hard decisions are being made about out-of-control local budgets, which include unsustainable health and retirement packages for local public union members. So our fiscally conservative ideas make us racist? What happens next year when the money runs out?

I suppose the huge numbers of conservatives, including myself, who are backing Herman Cain for president are closet racists, too.

Give me a break.

Why don’t you liberals, just once, leave race out of this next election. That dog just don’t hunt anymore.

Mark D. Traeger

Las Vegas