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Here, Chicken Little

Texan

Well-known member
Seeing past the Chicken Littles

By David Harsanyi


The term "economic slowdown" just doesn't hold the same impact as "recession." Nor does it create the same dread.

A self-perpetuating orgy of negativity regarding the economy begins with the media, which collect every morsel of daunting economic news and jump to a logical conclusion — which is to say, Armageddon.

Oil prices will sink the Republic. No, the stock market will. That mortgage crisis will put you in a shantytown. This is all terrible news.

And when a pollster calls and asks: Hey, how do you think things are going? Like unholy hell, you answer. That's how things are going. Don't you watch the news? Polls say that consumer confidence is plummeting. Forget recession, this is a depression.

There is so much recession talk, in fact, that according to a Gallup poll back in March, 75 percent of Americans already believed the U.S. economy was in a recession. A recession, defined by most economists as economic contraction for two or more successive quarters, has not happened.

It's true that in Utopia there are no economic downturns. In the real world, we have them all the time. This one, in historical context, is at this point rather mild. There is no denying that the poor suffer when prices rise. Failing to provide perspective on our situation, however, creates false panic and invariably leads to flawed public policy.

The last true recession, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, began during the Clinton administration in November 2000. Remember those glory years of unheralded economic growth? Before that, Elder Bush had his. Nearly every decade — whether Democrats, Republicans, Whigs or Jedis are in charge — the economy experienced some form of correction.

Many economists — most of them still arguing over why we have recessions at all — believe that with a credit crunch, the housing market falling and high oil prices, the economy growing (as it did slightly last quarter) is a sign of resilience.

As market strategist Ed Yardeni (hat tip to U.S. World and News Report) claimed, "this profits recession is very much limited to the Financials sector and the Homebuilding industry . . . . Removing these two reveals that profits rose 15.9 percent in Q4 and around 12.0 percent during Q1. The resilience of 'core' profits and of the economy in the face of the worst credit crisis since the 1930s is impressive indeed."

That kind of perspective is, typically, lacking in economic coverage. Take, for instance, the housing crisis. It is real. It is painful. Yet more Americans own their own homes now than ever before. Those evil corporate warlords who had the audacity to offer low-interest mortgages put millions of families that otherwise would never have been able to afford it into homes. Only a fraction risk losing their investment.

Many of those borrowers made bad decisions. Many lenders made bad decisions, as well. A lesson could have been learned. Instead, government has reinforced irresponsible behavior with massive bailouts.

The real danger, if history is any lesson, comes from officious regulations that aim to "fix" the economy. In her masterful book, "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," historian Amity Shlaes details how Herbert Hoover's regulatory meddling took a serious problem and transformed it into a national tragedy. Recent presidents from Richard Nixon to Jimmy Carter have exacerbated economic stress with poorly chosen policies.

Let's not forget that overstating our troubles is also part of the political season. Isn't it curious how often we're on the precipice of economic ruin during a presidential election? The candidates, naturally, have all the answers — tax holidays, tax hikes, increased regulations ... until, that is, the next downturn comes around and we start it all over again.



http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_9124774
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Texan said:
Take, for instance, the housing crisis. It is real. It is painful. Yet more Americans own their own homes now than ever before. Those evil corporate warlords who had the audacity to offer low-interest mortgages put millions of families that otherwise would never have been able to afford it into homes. Only a fraction risk losing their investment.

Many of those borrowers made bad decisions. Many lenders made bad decisions, as well. A lesson could have been learned. Instead, government has reinforced irresponsible behavior with massive bailouts.

This is an important part of this housing problem that people seem to never talk about. How many people that rented and maybe never would have owned a home now do? Sure some tried it and failed, but home owning is the first step and most important part of building financially for the future. And many now have this step towards some sort of future security due to relaxed loaning practices.

Then you have those that got stupid and over extended themselves and bought to big of homes, that is their fault they have to take responsibility for that themselves.
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
It totally amazes me on here how some have lived the perfect life and never made a bad decision or choice.

People make mistakes and it's not lack of personal responsibility that led them there it's the fact things change and life happens.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
CattleArmy said:
It totally amazes me on here how some have lived the perfect life and never made a bad decision or choice.

People make mistakes and it's not lack of personal responsibility that led them there it's the fact things change and life happens.

If I make a mistake I am responsible for it, not you. Sure illness happens at times but all in all the highest percentage of problems face are due to their choices made.

And none of us have lived the perfect life, we just don't blame others for the mistakes we made, we own them. Like I have said before, I did not have health insurance and paid the price for it, but it was my fault not yours or anyone else's. I dealt with it and I suffered for it, but I corrected it.

I have also had mortgage problems when I was 18 I bought my first house, and then when I got married at 22 I decided I needed a better house for the wife. I thought I could rent out the old house and found myself in a pickle a few times because it did not work out. But it was my fault I should have stayed in the old house until I could afford a nicer one and planned for it instead of living outside my means.

Personal Responsibility takes care of 90% of problems we have.
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
Ok so I'll give ya the fact that we are all responsible for the choices we make. The problem lies in the fact that none of us know what unforseen may happen after that choice is made.

I think there is a level of responsibility but there is also a much bigger picture many times in situations.

I think there is a difference in responsibility and accountability. Accountablity being that a persons owns up to thier mistake. I think accoutability is the lacking factor. I think that a person can be acting responsible and have things happen out of their control.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
CattleArmy said:
I think that a person can be acting responsible and have things happen out of their control.

This is true, it can happen that way. But just because on a rarer occurrence things may be out of some peoples control does not mean that all the other thousands of times it was not just plain old lack of proper planning.

Kind of like using the rape excuse to make abortion legal, the odds someone gets pregnant due to rape are so rare in comparison to all the times it was just poor planning or sexual misconduct.
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
Sexual misconduct? Is it better to raise unwanted babies or hand out the morning after pill? To me bringing innocent children that parents would not give away to better homes into a world they are not wanted in is a much graver issue then a small pill.

I think that in the cases of rape it should be a woman's choice. The way that baby got there was a violation. I also think that people need to take in to account the emotional distress that would be placed on a woman carrying a baby that was conceived in that manner. My opinion is it should be a woman's choice.
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
CattleArmy said:
Ok so I'll give ya the fact that we are all responsible for the choices we make. The problem lies in the fact that none of us know what unforseen may happen after that choice is made.

I used wooden posts and they all burned. I lost three barns to that fire. It started miles away from my house. Insurance re-imbursed 10% for "outbuildings". Heirloom items within the buildings were lost right along with all of my contents.

I didn't sit around and say life wasn't fair, woe is me. But I have never used a wood post since then.

There was no other choice that caused this for me. But I do have a long list of items with 20/20 hindsight.

I've picked myself up by my bootstraps several times.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
CattleArmy said:
Sexual misconduct? Is it better to raise unwanted babies or hand out the morning after pill? To me bringing innocent children that parents would not give away to better homes into a world they are not wanted in is a much graver issue then a small pill.

I think that in the cases of rape it should be a woman's choice. The way that baby got there was a violation. I also think that people need to take in to account the emotional distress that would be placed on a woman carrying a baby that was conceived in that manner. My opinion is it should be a woman's choice.

Sorry I used abortion as an example. I should have known you libs would go off on abortion instead of letting example stand as it was intended.

The point was yes unforeseen financial catastrophe's hit some people if not all of us in our lives. But that is not the reason most people are getting their homes reposes, the biggest problem is that people did not plan for hard times and over extended themselves past their means, just like most abortion cases are not due rapes.
 

Texan

Well-known member
Here, Chicken Little.

============================================


From The Times
May 5, 2008
Credit crunch fails to produce the feared economic catastrophe
Anatole Kaletsky: Economic View

So the sky did not fall in. While the Chicken Littles of the world economy, led by Gordon Brown, George Soros and Warren Buffett, may still repeat mechanically the IMF’s surprising judgment that the world - especially America - faces its worst financial crisis since the 1930s, their hearts are no longer in it. Mr Brown, after last week’s election woe, can no longer blame the world economy for his political failure. Mr Buffett, having speculated against the dollar for years and declared that credit derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, has finally begun to find attractive opportunities to invest his money and told his shareholders last week that the worst of the credit crisis was probably over. Mr Soros, in his forthcoming book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, states unequivocally: “We are in the midst of a financial crisis the likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression.” But after making $3 billion for Quantum Endowment Fund by anticipating last year’s bear markets, he is now hedging his bets, as is only to be expected from the world’s most successful hedge fund manager. “I may well be proven wrong,” he told The New York Times last week, adding that he might yet again turn out to be “the boy who cried wolf”.

The main explanation for all this revisionism is simply the change in facts. The near-unanimity of a few weeks ago that the US was sinking into a deep, prolonged recession has been dispelled by recent data on jobs, GDP, business confidence, industrial orders and consumer spending – all telling a consistent story that although the US economy weakened abruptly last autumn, it is not nearly as weak as at the start of previous recessions, and that there have been no signs of further deterioration since February in the key economic variables apart from house prices.

Moreover, the time of greatest risk of a US recession is almost past, since tax rebates worth more than 1 per cent of disposable income will start landing in US taxpayers’ bank accounts from this week, almost guaranteeing that consumer spending will pick up, at least temporarily, in the year’s second half. And just as the stimulus to consumption from tax cuts runs out, benefits of the Fed’s big cuts in interest rates should start to be felt fully in the first few months of 2009. So, it is increasingly likely that the US economy will not experience even a minor recession, at least as defined in the official statistics, as a result of the credit crunch last year.

Even more important than the relatively benign statistics is the news from the financial markets. Signs that the worst of the banking crisis may be over appeared to be confirmed by rallies in financial markets worldwide last week. Financial markets’ better mood is partly related to stabilisation in US economic statistics. But mainly it is a consequence of radical steps by governments and central banks all over the world since it became clear that private financial markets would not resolve the credit crunch.

As a result of these government interventions, culminating in the Bear Stearns rescue and nationalisation of Northern Rock, one financial market after another has started to return to something nearing normality. Straight after the Bear rescue, there was a narrowing of credit spreads on top-quality securities such as government-backed mortgages in the US. Next, two weeks after liquidity returned to credit markets following the Bear rescue, the yield on US Treasury bonds stopped collapsing and reversed, implying that markets no longer saw need for panic cuts in US interest. In turn, the steepening of the US yield curve that followed the return of more normal conditions to the bond market helped to put a floor under the dollar two weeks ago. Finally – though this is still a more tentative conclusion - dwindling fears of a freefall in the dollar seemed to take some of the wind out of speculation in commodities and oil.

Of course, it is impossible to be sure of the sustainability of improvement in the four markets that have been causing all the trouble - credit, bonds, currencies and commodities. But what seems fairly clear is that the real economy of jobs, profits, investment and consumer spending in America has so far suffered almost entirely as a direct result of weaker housebuilding and construction employment – and not in response to the negative wealth effects and bank-credit contractions in the nightmare scenarios of Wall Street analysts.

To pessimists, this means that the worst is still to come, since the real consumer reaction to falling housing wealth and bank deleveraging has not even started. An alternative view more consistent with economic theory and historic experience was suggested by the Bank of England’s Stability Report last week: “Credit markets are likely to overstate significantly the losses that will ultimately be felt by the financial system and the economy as a whole . . . They will exaggerate to an even greater extent the potential damage to the real economy.”

As noted in that report, the pricing of many bonds and credit derivatives in financial markets already assumes bigger losses from US sub-prime mortgages and other dubious assets than anything implied by plausible worst-case scenarios. This is true of highest-quality credits, with AAA and AA ratings, whose unexpected collapse has done the greatest damage to bank balance sheets. The Bank’s sums suggest that the highest-quality mortgage-backed bonds are now undervalued by 25 per cent (see chart). It now seems that, contrary to the Chicken Little rantings of many analysts in the City and Wall Street, these bonds face almost no risk of serious defaults even in the event of far bigger falls in US housing prices than any that have happened so far.

Indeed, the Bank’s calculations suggest that present pricing of mortgage-related bonds in financial markets has probably overstated the future losses on US sub-prime lending by about double.

None of this means that the credit crunch has been a storm in a teacup, as I originally thought. Changing attitudes to borrowing and lending will have a dramatic impact on the world economy, reducing long-term growth in consumption in economies that have been driven by powerful housing and mortgage cycles, including Britain, Spain and France. As Mr Soros says in his book, global growth can no longer rely on these economies and must depend on consumption and infrastructure investment in China, India and other emerging markets. These are momentous changes, and while they are quite far advanced in America, they have hardly started in Britain and Europe. But if economic news continues to deteriorate for a while - as it almost certainly will in the UK – investors and business should realise that the really important story in the world economy today is not the threat of a sudden collapse in the financial system, but a gradual long-term adjustment in the world economy in favour of emerging markets. This may at times be an uncomfortable process – but the sky will not fall in.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article3872659.ece


chicken.gif
 

Texan

Well-known member
Here, Chicken Little.
chicken.gif



========================================


From The Times
May 6, 2008
Steinbeck’s grapes lack wrath this time around
Gerard Baker: American View

Whatever happened to the Great Depression? Not the real one from 70 years ago, the lost decade of unimagined misery and Steinbeckian angst, the worst period in the history of modern capitalism. I mean the replay we were promised this year. The one we were told was the inevitable counterpart to the greatest financial crisis since a couple of medieval Italians first sat down on a Florentine bench and invented the word “bank”.

I don’t know about you but I feel a bit cheated. There we all were, led to believe by so many commentators that the sub-prime crisis was going to force the United States into a new era of dust bowls and breadlines, a slump that would call into question the very functioning of the capitalist system in the world’s largest economy. Carried away on the surging wave of their own economically dubious verbosity, the pundits even speculated that this unavoidable calamity might presage some 1930s-style global political cataclysm to match.

Well, it’s early days, to be fair, but so far the Great Depression 2008 is shaping up to be a Great Disappointment. Not so much The Grapes of Wrath as Raisins of Mild Inconvenience. Last week the Commerce Department reported that the US economy – battered by the credit crunch, pummelled by a housing market collapse and generally devastated by the wild stampede of animal spirits – actually grew in the first three months of the year.

The rate of expansion – 0.6 per cent – was weak for sure, and it followed a previous quarter of identically weak growth at the end of 2007, but as Depressions go it was singularly unGreat. In the 1930s, you’ll recall, GDP fell by more than 25 per cent. Even the periodic mild recessions we’ve had in the past 20 years at least resulted in some declines in economic activity.

Lest you object – perhaps fairly – that the GDP data are way too backward-looking to be of any use, last week we also got the news that the labour market, the canary in the coalmine of economic data, is actually improving. The US economy lost 20,000 jobs in April, while the unemployment rate ticked down a little to 5 per cent. You don’t have to compare this performance to the Great Depression to think it looks, as downturns go, really quite uplifting. It is, in fact, the gentlest start to a period of labour market weakness since the 1960s.

For comparison, in the first four months of the 2001 recession (which was, by the way, the mildest one in postwar history) employment fell at an average monthly rate of 105,000. In the first four months of this current downturn, the average monthly job losses have been 62,000.

You won’t need me to remind you that in the other Great Depression unemployment rose to an estimated 30 per cent. Worse still for today’s Steinbeck wannabes, as my colleague Anatole Kaletsky noted yesterday, it is starting to look as though world financial markets might be past the worst of the crisis that started all this.

Financial conditions are cautiously returning to something approaching normal. Barometers of distress have shown a distinct turn for the better. Take, for example, the so-called TED spread, a pretty good proxy for the state of financial anxiety. It represents the difference between three-month Libor interest rates and the yield on three-month US Treasury bills. In other words, it measures how risky banks think lending to each other for relatively short periods is compared with the riskless alternative of lending to the Government.

Last Friday the spread fell to its lowest level since the end of February, shortly before the collapse of Bear Stearns. Now, at about 125 basis points, it is still elevated relative to periods of clear normality: the historic norm is between 25 and 50 points. But it’s way down from where it was in March, December and August, when it exceeded 200 points.

So should we be putting out the bunting, declaring victory over the Depression, offering prayers of thanks that we have avoided another Munich or Dunkirk? Not quite. The depression scenario was always overdone, of course, but it is still not clear that the US will actually escape as lightly as this. The principal challenge remains the health of the American consumer.

House prices are still falling and there is plenty of evidence that many Americans, suddenly scared about the value of their house as a nest egg, are retrenching. Even with the Government’s tax rebate cheques dropping on to doormats, caution seems to be the watchword. That also raises the troubling possibility that a period now of shrinking demand could feed back into renewed weakness in the financial system, just as it is starting to heal.

Still, the picture is starting to look quite encouraging. Even if the US has a recession this year, the chances that it will turn into a full-blown slump are not high. Another disappointment for the hyperactive scribbling masses. But rather welcome news for everybody else.

[email protected]



http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article3876863.ece
 

Texan

Well-known member
This would really be bad news for all of you whiners, wouldn't it?

=========================================

OPINION

The Housing Crisis Is Over

By CYRIL MOULLE-BERTEAUX

The dire headlines coming fast and furious in the financial and popular press suggest that the housing crisis is intensifying. Yet it is very likely that April 2008 will mark the bottom of the U.S. housing market. Yes, the housing market is bottoming right now.

How can this be? For starters, a bottom does not mean that prices are about to return to the heady days of 2005. That probably won't happen for another 15 years. It just means that the trend is no longer getting worse, which is the critical factor.

Most people forget that the current housing bust is nearly three years old. Home sales peaked in July 2005. New home sales are down a staggering 63% from peak levels of 1.4 million. Housing starts have fallen more than 50% and, adjusted for population growth, are back to the trough levels of 1982.

Furthermore, residential construction is close to 15-year lows at 3.8% of GDP; by the fourth quarter of this year, it will probably hit the lowest level ever. So what's going to stop the housing decline? Very simply, the same thing that caused the bust: affordability.

The boom made housing unaffordable for many American families, especially first-time home buyers. During the 1990s and early 2000s, it took 19% of average monthly income to service a conforming mortgage on the average home purchased. By 2005 and 2006, it was absorbing 25% of monthly income. For first time buyers, it went from 29% of income to 37%. That just proved to be too much.

Prices got so high that people who intended to actually live in the houses they purchased (as opposed to speculators) stopped buying. This caused the bubble to burst.

Since then, house prices have fallen 10%-15%, while incomes have kept growing (albeit more slowly recently) and mortgage rates have come down 70 basis points from their highs. As a result, it now takes 19% of monthly income for the average home buyer, and 31% of monthly income for the first-time home buyer, to purchase a house. In other words, homes on average are back to being as affordable as during the best of times in the 1990s. Numerous households that had been priced out of the market can now afford to get in.

The next question is: Even if home sales pick up, how can home prices stop falling with so many houses vacant and unsold? The flip but true answer: because they always do.

In the past five major housing market corrections (and there were some big ones, such as in the early 1980s when home sales also fell by 50%-60% and prices fell 12%-15% in real terms), every time home sales bottomed, the pace of house-price declines halved within one or two months.

The explanation is that by the time home sales stop declining, inventories of unsold homes have usually already started falling in absolute terms and begin to peak out in "months of supply" terms. That's the case right now: New home inventories peaked at 598,000 homes in July 2006, and stand at 482,000 homes as of the end of March. This inventory is equivalent to 11 months of supply, a 25-year high – but it is similar to 1974, 1982 and 1991 levels, which saw a subsequent slowing in home-price declines within the next six months.

Inventories are declining because construction activity has been falling for such a long time that home completions are now just about undershooting new home sales. In a few months, completions of new homes for sale could be undershooting new home sales by 50,000-100,000 annually.

Inventories will drop even faster to 400,000 – or seven months of supply – by the end of 2008. This shift in inventories will have a significant impact on prices, although house prices won't stop falling entirely until inventories reach five months of supply sometime in 2009. A five-month supply has historically signaled tightness in the housing market.

Many pundits claim that house prices need to fall another 30% to bring them back in line with where they've been historically. This is usually based on an analysis of house prices adjusted for inflation: Real house prices are 30% above their 40-year, inflation-adjusted average, so they must fall 30%. This simplistic analysis is appealing on the surface, but is flawed for a variety of reasons.

Most importantly, it neglects the fact that a great majority of Americans buy their houses with mortgages. And if one buys a house with a mortgage, the most important factor in deciding what to pay for the house is how much of one's income is required to be able to make the mortgage payments on the house. Today the rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is 5.7%. Back in 1981, the rate hit 18.5%. Comparing today's house prices to the 1970s or 1980s, when mortgage rates were stratospheric, is misguided and misleading.

This is all good news for the broader economy. The housing bust has been subtracting a full percentage point from GDP for almost two years now, which is very large for a sector that represents less than 5% of economic activity.

When the rate of house-price declines halves, there will be a wholesale shift in markets' perceptions. All of a sudden, the expected value of the collateral (i.e. houses) for much of the lending that went on for the past decade will change. Right now, when valuing the collateral, market participants including banks are extrapolating the current pace of house price declines for another two to three years; this has a significant impact on the amount of delinquencies, foreclosures and credit losses that lenders are expected to face.

More home sales and smaller price declines means fewer homeowners will be underwater on their mortgages. They will thus have less incentive to walk away and opt for foreclosure.

A milder house-price decline scenario could lead to increases in the market value of a lot of the securitized mortgages that have been responsible for $300 billion of write-downs in the past year. Even if write-backs do not occur, stabilizing collateral values will have a huge impact on the markets' perception of risk related to housing, the financial system, and the economy.

We are of course experiencing a serious housing bust, with serious economic consequences that are still unfolding. The odds are that the reverberations will lead to subtrend growth for a couple of years. Nonetheless, housing led us into this credit crisis and this recession. It is likely to lead us out. And that process is underway, right now.


Mr. Moulle-Berteaux is managing partner of Traxis Partners LP, a hedge fund firm based in New York.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121003604494869449.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
Texan have you been listening to the radio? There's yet another huge job fair being put on in Fort Worth on May 31. XTO is beggin for employees. There are going to be all the Barnett Shale companies there along with all the equipment contractors trying to hire employees.

Also needed are mechanics of any type. Welders, equipent operators etc etc.

Real life is nothing like the misery loves company crowd here on this forum. Companies are spending mega bucks advertising these job fairs.

There are two huge Hotels and 4 Motels going in right now out here in the little bedroom communities.

edit: Just google "XTO job fair" and you'll get the details for all the barnett shale needs.
 

Texan

Well-known member
backhoeboogie said:
Texan have you been listening to the radio? There's yet another huge job fair being put on in Fort Worth on May 31. XTO is beggin for employees. There are going to be all the Barnett Shale companies there along with all the equipment contractors trying to hire employees.

Also needed are mechanics of any type. Welders, equipent operators etc etc.

Real life is nothing like the misery loves company crowd here on this forum. Companies are spending mega bucks advertising these job fairs.

There are two huge Hotels and 4 Motels going in right now out here in the little bedroom communities.

edit: Just google "XTO job fair" and you'll get the details for all the barnett shale needs.
I catch WBAP every once in a while when I'm in the tractor, but I haven't heard about that job fair. But your point is well taken - at least by me. There are plenty of GOOD jobs out there.

And it's not just in that area. The oilpatch is booming everywhere. Not just the Barnett Shale, but now the Haynesville Shale, too. There are still some big plays in South Texas and that kind of activity extends all the way into Alberta.

The oil companies - and related service businesses - are begging for workers and are paying a lot of money for them. That's one thing these liberal whiners hate to admit - when the oil and gas business is good, those companies don't mind spreading that money around. They've always been that way.

It's not just the guys in Houston wearing three-piece suits that cash in on it, either. The roughnecks in Alberta, the pipeliners in North Dakota, the water haulers in East Texas - there are a lot of opportunities everywhere these days.

And the huge trickle down impact is almost unbelievable. Those people spend money at convenience stores, cafes, motels - you name it. It's nothing for a crew of Halliburton hands - those no-good sorry bastards that work for evil, greedy Halliburton - to leave a waitress a $100 tip on Friday because she put up with their greasy asses all week while they were on a location close to the cafe where she works.

That money just goes around and around and around. All across this country - even some of the old fields in places like Pennsylvania are seeing activity again. There's good jobs all over the country for everybody nowadays - thanks to the price of energy. But you'd sure never know it from listening to the whiners on here.
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Texan said:
That money just goes around and around and around. All across this country - even some of the old fields in places like Pennsylvania are seeing activity again. There's good jobs all over the country for everybody nowadays - thanks to the price of energy. But you'd sure never know it from listening to the whiners on here.

Activity has really picked up on Oil wells just 40 miles north west of us here in Kansas. Lots of them small wells (not sure if all oil or natural gas) are starting back up, and oil company workers are all over the place.

I was talking to a lady that owns a convenient store in Iola KS and there was oil and grease all over the floors. She said it was the oil company workers. She said they really make a mess in their store but they spend so much money on a daily basis stopping in for breakfast and lunch.

She also said they are all real nice, they will have a couple guys come in and get stuff for the rest of them waiting at doors so as not to make to big of a mess.
 

Cal

Well-known member
Texan wrote:
And the huge trickle down impact is almost unbelievable. Those people spend money at convenience stores, cafes, motels - you name it. It's nothing for a crew of Halliburton hands - those no-good sorry bastards that work for evil, greedy Halliburton - to leave a waitress a $100 tip on Friday because she put up with their greasy asses all week while they were on a location close to the cafe where she works.

Naw, that can't be right. Either the waitress is really a callgirl, or the money is counterfeit, or both.
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
Cal said:
Texan wrote:
And the huge trickle down impact is almost unbelievable. Those people spend money at convenience stores, cafes, motels - you name it. It's nothing for a crew of Halliburton hands - those no-good sorry bastards that work for evil, greedy Halliburton - to leave a waitress a $100 tip on Friday because she put up with their greasy asses all week while they were on a location close to the cafe where she works.

Naw, that can't be right. Either the waitress is really a callgirl, or the money is counterfeit, or both.

Cal, DC Cook is desperate for I & C Techs. Sun Tech is offering $35 an hour and $480 a week per diem. That aint half bad for a blue collar job. I know nothig of the Michigan cost of living. It sounds decent.
 

Cal

Well-known member
backhoeboogie said:
Cal said:
Texan wrote:
And the huge trickle down impact is almost unbelievable. Those people spend money at convenience stores, cafes, motels - you name it. It's nothing for a crew of Halliburton hands - those no-good sorry bastards that work for evil, greedy Halliburton - to leave a waitress a $100 tip on Friday because she put up with their greasy asses all week while they were on a location close to the cafe where she works.

Naw, that can't be right. Either the waitress is really a callgirl, or the money is counterfeit, or both.

Cal, DC Cook is desperate for I & C Techs. Sun Tech is offering $35 an hour and $480 a week per diem. That aint half bad for a blue collar job. I know nothig of the Michigan cost of living. It sounds decent.
I think it sounds pretty decent as well. I also couldn't help but hijack one of Oldtimer's recent posts to throw in here, am a little surprised he's trying to sell pictures of his seester:
Oldtimer said:
But the new neocon semislave labor policy/unenforcement of laws doesn't promote an individual making enough earnings for a family , one family, one salary/job- so that parents/mother can stay home and be the "Leave it to Beaver" Mrs. Cleaver- instead promoting bringing in cheap foreign nonEnglish speaking labor that in cases have no "moral values" at all past just doing anything you don't get caught for survival values- that have forced many families to have 2-3-4 jobs to survive......

PICTURES OF MY SEESTER FOR $2.00 :roll: :shock: :wink: :( :( :(
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Cal said:
backhoeboogie said:
Cal said:
Texan wrote:

Naw, that can't be right. Either the waitress is really a callgirl, or the money is counterfeit, or both.

Cal, DC Cook is desperate for I & C Techs. Sun Tech is offering $35 an hour and $480 a week per diem. That aint half bad for a blue collar job. I know nothig of the Michigan cost of living. It sounds decent.
I think it sounds pretty decent as well. I also couldn't help but hijack one of Oldtimer's recent posts to throw in here, am a little surprised he's trying to sell pictures of his seester:
Oldtimer said:
But the new neocon semislave labor policy/unenforcement of laws doesn't promote an individual making enough earnings for a family , one family, one salary/job- so that parents/mother can stay home and be the "Leave it to Beaver" Mrs. Cleaver- instead promoting bringing in cheap foreign nonEnglish speaking labor that in cases have no "moral values" at all past just doing anything you don't get caught for survival values- that have forced many families to have 2-3-4 jobs to survive......

PICTURES OF MY SEESTER FOR $2.00 :roll: :shock: :wink: :( :( :(

You been in one of these "Oil Towns"?????-I have- no housing- schools can't keep up with the influx-jails/courts/social systems can't keep up/ workers/families live like migrant workers, or else are split by 100's-1000's of miles-- makes many more single family (maybe see Dad once every month or two, families) and you wonder why morals, ethics and family values have gone to hell.... :???:

We'll see it again soon with the new TransCanada Pipeline that is going in-- good dollars for the county/economy for a few months but hell on the morals/culture of the area with everything they bring in to do the work....

Drug enforcement officers dream- but GW decided to cancel most all funding for that this year :shock: :roll: :( :( :mad:
 

Cal

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Cal said:
backhoeboogie said:
Cal, DC Cook is desperate for I & C Techs. Sun Tech is offering $35 an hour and $480 a week per diem. That aint half bad for a blue collar job. I know nothig of the Michigan cost of living. It sounds decent.
I think it sounds pretty decent as well. I also couldn't help but hijack one of Oldtimer's recent posts to throw in here, am a little surprised he's trying to sell pictures of his seester:
Oldtimer said:
But the new neocon semislave labor policy/unenforcement of laws doesn't promote an individual making enough earnings for a family , one family, one salary/job- so that parents/mother can stay home and be the "Leave it to Beaver" Mrs. Cleaver- instead promoting bringing in cheap foreign nonEnglish speaking labor that in cases have no "moral values" at all past just doing anything you don't get caught for survival values- that have forced many families to have 2-3-4 jobs to survive......

PICTURES OF MY SEESTER FOR $2.00 :roll: :shock: :wink: :( :( :(

You been in one of these "Oil Towns"?????-I have- no housing- schools can't keep up with the influx-jails/courts/social systems can't keep up/ workers/families live like migrant workers, or else are split by 100's-1000's of miles-- makes many more single family (maybe see Dad once every month or two, families) and you wonder why morals, ethics and family values have gone to hell.... :???:

We'll see it again soon with the new TransCanada Pipeline that is going in-- good dollars for the county/economy for a few months but hell on the morals/culture of the area with everything they bring in to do the work....

Drug enforcement officers dream- but GW decided to cancel most all funding for that this year :shock: :roll: :( :( :mad:
Now you don't want oil development domestically because suddenly you're worried about morals....at least your consistent about bitching and inconsistency.
 
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