Letters to the Editor for May 21

When volume drops, price drops

Phil Paten is entitled to his opinion regarding my advice on how to lower the price of gasoline, but the fact remains that when volume drops in the sales of any commodity, the price of that commodity drops. Lower-end gasoline retailers practically worship daily volume.

I know, I was in the business for years. Just keep buying less and it won't matter if the total volume purchased over, say, 10 years is the same. The marketer wants the volume today and the price will show it.

By the way, I did not see this idea in print in 2008 or any other time. I am not talking about boycott days or boycotting certain outlets. Just buy less per day and drive the daily volume down.

Charles Knapp

Carson City

Assembly Republicans jump ship to pass bill

If you voted for John Ellison of Elko, Pete Goicoechea of Eureka, Tom Grady of Yerington, Cresent Hardy of Mesquite, Pat Hickey of Reno, Kelly Kite of Minden, Pete Livermore of Carson City, or Mark Sherwood of Henderson, thinking they would vote like and with the Republicans, think again.

These are the Republican Assembly members who sided with the Democrats to vote for AB289, a horrible bill that will increase the nanny state and cost the taxpayers lots of money during a recession by adding a new bureaucracy, not to mention causing hardship to people just trying to make a living.

AB289 adds a whole new layer of regulations with 16 pages of new law, for dietitians, of all things. Now anyone giving healthy lifestyle nutrition advice at a fitness club, for example, may need to be licensed by the state of Nevada or face fines and/or imprisonment.

And the bill's authors point out that one of the major expected fiscal impacts will be the cost of more people in jail, for giving dietary advice without a license.

Is this insanity or what? The votes of these eight Republicans allowed this bill to pass the Assembly with the required 2/3 majority. Be sure to remember this come election time.

David Thomas

Gardnerville

Obama not doing his part to lower gas prices

Blaming oil companies for fuel prices, suggesting we are being gouged by big oil, even suggesting we take time out of our lives to stop by the local outlet four or five times each week to purchase a couple gallons at a time is not going to solve the problem.

Steps have been taken at the national level which impact the price we pay at the local gas outlet. From legislative actions, administration actions, bureaucrats and legal decisions, oil companies in this nation have had to deal with fewer sites being available to explore for oil and natural gas.

These require the use of more offshore oil to keep this nation's drivers on the roads. Each of these rounds of slowing the exploration, extraction, refining and selling of oil products is typically followed with bellyaches from those responsible for continuing the problem of not quite enough oil from our own reserves to maintain fuel prices at a reasonable level.

The Obama administration is not helping solve this problem. Loaning $2 billion to one of the wealthiest corporations in the western hemisphere, Petrobras of Brazil, while at the same time slowing exploration within our own regions where oil can be found, going out of the way to avoid building new refineries to process oil coming from American wells, imposing regulations on oil companies which impact their ability to compete against offshore oil companies which have no such regulations to deal with, means paying ever higher prices at the local gas station.

Bob Wallace

Dayton

Carson City's kindness brightens reader's day

(These are) tough times. Money is tight for many of us. Hate and vitriol spew from folks who cannot see a positive light. Yet, just that kind of light brightens Carson City on most days.

Our mayor is fully engaged: riding bikes, cutting ribbons, listening to his public. Volunteers teach our children violin and Celtic music on jolly, merry afternoons such as Saturday at Empire School. What a concert.

Many take the time to give to our community. It costs us so little. They share love, and hope, and a dream of leaving this bit of earth better than when they arrived.

I like the way I feel on a windy spring day when, although my wife's job disappears and illness occurs, we have energy in our town that buoys the soul.

I look forward to supporting education, family, community stewardship, and visions for our collective future.

Jim Carter

Carson City