Romney’s energy job numbers don’t add up

To the editor:

Once again, it seems that Mitt Romney’s fairy dust economics has cast a spell on the Review-Journal’s editorial page. On Aug. 26, the newspaper agreed that Mr. Romney’s “drill, baby, drill” energy strategy would add $500 billion to the economy and achieve North American energy independence in eight short years.

Americans should never equate energy independence with cheap energy. Furthermore, Mr. Romney also makes the wild claim that he will create an additional 3 million jobs. Isn’t this political pandering as usual? Let’s take a look at the numbers and the obstacles, then you can be the judge.

As of this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics states there are 796,600 people engaged in the production of gas, oil, coal and other all minerals here in America. There are some additional jobs to be found in the area of raw material delivery, and most of the support infrastructure is already in place. Adding more pipelines and nuclear power plants creates very few jobs, and President Obama already has the green energy market in tow.

Looking at the Romney fairy dust energy proposal, 60 percent of all production jobs, 796,600 workers, are already working. Should we ever achieve Mr. Romney’s utopian, 100 percent, continental energy self-sufficiency by 2020, then at best we could see another 318,640 jobs created. Even if this were to spin off an additional 50 percent more jobs along the way – a big if – then this only adds 557,000 more.

Mr. Romney falsely assumes that this can be done rapidly, if at all. This means gas and oil leases are in place, exploration is complete and additional mining construction and drilling supplies are now available, while trained personnel are just sitting around waiting for a call from an employer. Then, of course, there’s Congress, the ultimate decider.

It is not possible to achieve what Mr. Romney suggests, and certainly not in eight years. The massive labor and infrastructure shortage now being experienced in the natural gas fracking fields of North Dakota is a clear testament to the difficulties encountered, and on a much smaller scale than Mr. Romney proposes. I wonder if Mr. Romney was this naive at Bain Capital, or if he thinks voters are. Maybe it’s both.

Richard Rychtarik

Las Vegas

Awful cartoon

To the editor:

I think the Review-Journal has stooped to a new low. Whoever authorized the publication of the Ted Rall cartoon on Thursday’s commentary page – depicting Republicans as Ku Klux Klan members and Nazis – should be fired on the spot.

Not only have you insulted every person of the Jewish faith in the valley, but every Republican and every hardworking person who sees it.

Janet Doyle

Henderson

Union scale

To the editor:

In 1979, I made $9.50 an hour as a skilled blue-collar worker. At the same time, semi-skilled blue-collar United Auto Workers members made about $21 an hour, more than twice as much.

I knew then that such high wages were unsustainable and would eventually destroy the base of our manufacturing economy. The quality of American cars in the late 1970s was shameful; apparently traded by auto industry executives to maintain corporate profits despite the exorbitant cost of labor. Imported goods now dominate the market. The jobs are gone as well.

It is clear that labor unions have priced themselves out of their own job market and taken down the manufacturing economy with them. Strangely, teachers’ unions have learned nothing from this, sacrificing the quality of education and gutting their own job market rather than making wage and tenure concessions.

The future is not difficult to imagine: low-cost private schools owned and operated by enterprising residents of Beijing and Mumbai.

At least they will offer shop class.

Dennis Dinzeo

Las Vegas