Kirk Kerkorian has been one of the major business
leaders and profit creators in the history of the entire United States.
He’s bought and sold companies that had net worths greater than many of
this planet’s countries. And yet, while
we’ve made efforts to get him to invest major sums in Nevada’s higher
education, we’ve failed. He hasn’t failed us, we have failed us.
I find Las Vegas to be a very transient place. People came during the boom and left during the bust. We've been here since 1996 and I can't remember all the people I knew that left.
ReplyDeleteThe major employers are tourist related. Few factories making stuff and all other jobs are mostly service related.
Not a good formula for creating permanence and loyalty.
Billionaires, not being stupid, I think understand this. Why donate big bucks when folks are coming and going all the time?
In response to Mr. Feher: one could argue that it takes capital to open manufacturing facilities - particularly high-tech facilities - so a thinking billionaire might consider that instead of (presumably) tut-tutting the impermanence of the population in the city in which said billionaire made many of his billions.
ReplyDeleteBut why use that capital to open high-tech manufacturing when the education system is poorly equipped to produce the workers needed for those facilities? Given that fact, a thinking billionaire might also consider the economic usefulness of supporting the education system.
Still, if the goal is to keep the tourist/gaming industry as the sole economic driver then there seems to be some benefit to not educating the work-force - so perhaps the billionaires who make their fortunes picking mining tourists' pockets have reasons for not supporting higher education in Nevada.